Cane and Able

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House episode
"Cane and Able"

Episode no.	HOU-302
Airdate	September 12, 2006
Writer(s)	Russel Friend (teleplay and story) Garrett Lerner (teleplay and story) Lawrence Kaplow (story) David Shore (story)
Director(s)	Daniel Sackheim
Guest star(s)	Edward Edwards as Richard Skyler Gisondo as Clancy Sheryl Lee as Stephanie Johnny Sneed as Todd Stephanie Venditto as Nurse Brenda Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse
House Season 3 September 2006 - May 2007
Meaning Cane and Able Informed Consent Lines in the Sand Fools for Love Que Sera Sera Son of Coma Guy Whac-A-Mole Finding Judas Merry Little Christmas Words and Deeds One Day, One Room Needle in a Haystack Insensitive Half-Wit Top Secret Fetal Position
All House episodes

Cane and Able is the second episode of the third season of House and the forty-eighth episode overall.

1 Plot overview
- 1.1 Diagnosis
- 1.2 Clinic Patients
2 Arc advancement
- 2.1 Happenings
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot overview

House's ego has taken quite a blow because he failed to diagnose his last case, and it's affecting him physically. He is obviously in pain again, although he continues to deny it. House's new case is 7-year-old Clancy, a product of in-vitro fertilization, who's been admitted to the hospital with rectal bleeding and proclamations of being tortured by aliens. As the team runs tests on him, they discover the same test is giving conflicting results. When Clancy claims to have a tracking device in the back of his neck and the team discovers an unknown metal object exactly in that spot, they aren't quite sure what to think.

Amidst all this weirdness, Cuddy and Wilson decide it would be best not to tell House the truth about his last case, thinking that perhaps he will learn some humility if he believes he's not always right. Cameron discovers the lie and is outraged, but Cuddy convinces her to hold off telling House. When House and the team discover cells with a different type of DNA in Clancy's body, they are forced to give Clancy's alien claims a little more credence, but a frustrated House gives up on his young patient, forcing Cuddy to re-think her desire to hold back the truth she's hiding. In order to remove the "dead" cells in his brain, they have perform brain surgery by inducing electrical shocks to the brain to find the part of the brain that was creating hallucinations. Once they find the hallucinations, House orders a higher and higher voltage of shocks to create a hallucination. He finally induces a hallucination in Clancy by telling him that the aliens are coming through the walls, they're going to torture him and he'll never see his parents again.

House thinks the kid is having nightmares with the one symptom of having a bleeding disorder. But the tests on the bleeding disorder are first negative and then positive and both Chase and Foreman think the other screwed up. But the tests keep going back and forth. Clancy is eventually diagnosed with chimerism. The metal in the back of his neck was likely the remnants of a surgical pin that had not been completely removed several years prior and had migrated via the circulatory system.

The episode's title is a double pun referencing the biblical siblings Cain and Abel.

[edit] Diagnosis

chimerism

[edit] Clinic Patients

Richard: the main case from the previous episode (who was injected with cortisol by Dr. Cuddy) appears at the clinic for a Viagra prescription.

[edit] Arc advancement

[edit] Happenings

House: House's pain returns and he starts taking Vicodin again. At the end of the episode, House takes out the cane.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] The Show

Patient Reappears: This is the second time a patient (Richard) appears more than one episode. The first one is Mark Warner.

[edit] Allusions and References

Cain and Abel: The title of this episode refers to the biblical story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1 through 4:16). They are two brothers, each of whom offers a sacrifice to God. Abel's sacrifice is favored because he gave the best part of what he had and Cain only gave what he had left. Subsequently Cain murders Abel, presumably out of jealousy. Cain is then cursed by God to wander the Earth. Cain beseeches God's help, because he is afraid of his fellow people's vengeance. God then puts the Mark of Cain upon him, so that he shall not be killed, for "whomsoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be upon him sevenfold."

Jaws: When looking for a TV screen big enough to analyse the details of the echo image, House says "We're gonna need a bigger boat", which is one of the most famous lines from the film Jaws.

Blackadder: A line of dialogue referencing "a cunning plan" is likely a reference to Blackadder, a work Hugh Laurie is well known for outside of the US.

Icarus: Wilson tells House near the end of the episode that "you'd think you were God...and that your wings would melt". This is a reference to the Greek folk tale of Icarus, whose father put feathers on his back with wax. However, in his euphoria, he flew too close to the sun so that the wax melted. Icarus then fell and died. House replies to Wilson, "God doesn't limp," and walks out.

Kursk: Chase and House argue about the origin of a small piece of titanium found in Clancy's neck. When Chase says that pieces of titanium don't simply break off, House says, "tell that to the guys on the Kursk".

Star Wars: When Chase informs House that Clancy has gone missing, he tells him to check Tatooine, a desert planet in the Star Wars series of films. He also hopes the boy hasn't gone into hyperdrive, the primary faster than light method of travel in the Star Wars universe.

The Rock: When Cameron talks about what the patient might have, House says, "I don't get the metaphor, but I can smell what the Rock is cooking" which is a well known catchphrase of The Rock.

Prince: When a nurse calls House "The Artist Formerly Known As Gimp", this is a reference to Prince, who called himself for a period "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince"

Hooked on Phonics: After rejecting claims that he is hooked on drugs, House claims "but I am hooked on phonics", a famous junior literacy programme.

[edit] Memorable Moments

Von Willebrand’s disease, which was one of the original diagnoses for Clancy, is a disorder stemming from the lack of a specific and vital protein that is needed for blood clotting. If Clancy's bone marrow was producing a different protein or not producing the protein at all, then the disorder would present. However, with the small amount of bone marrow that the doctors said would be affected, the change in proteins would not cause as drastic a change as shown on the episode. ^[1]
The doctors never offer the correct explanation for why Clancy was found outside of his house with rectal bleeding near the start of the episode.

[edit] Quotes

Is this an intervention? You're a little late, since I'm not using drugs anymore. I am, however, still hooked on phonics.

—House, being interrogated by Cuddy and Wilson about arriving sooner than usual at the hospital

The kid is having nightmares. Only happen at night. It's right there in the name.

—House, diagnosing Clancy

Please, tell me he is a mutant human hybrid!

—House, when meeting with his staff to figure out the different clotting test results

She was being metaphorical. She was trying to sound like me. *whispering Cameron* I have no idea what you meant, but I could smell what the Rock was cooking.

—House, when Cameron suggested that Clancy's body was «cheating» the blood clotting speed tests due to associated hypertension

Why don't I have high-def in my office? I'm a department head.

—House, frustrated by the poor screen resolution of his office's monitor during an echocardiogram analysis

[edit] Production goof

At the beginning when the TV is flipping channels, you see on "The Weather Station" the town of Milwaukee is listed at the bottom when the show takes place in Princeton, NJ.