Son of Coma Guy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

House episode
"Son of Coma Guy"

Episode no.	HOU-307
Airdate	November 14, 2006
Writer(s)	Doris Egan
Director(s)	Dan Attias
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

Son of Coma Guy is the seventh episode of the third season of House and the fifty-third episode overall.

1 Plot Overview
2 Arc Advancement
3 Trivia
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot Overview

The episode begins with House eating his lunch in the vegetative state ward and watching a TV show. Wilson walks in and confronts House over the fact that House has stolen a prescription pad from his office and faked his name in order to get more Vicodin, and tells House he's been questioned by Detective Tritter. As they argue, the son of the patient that House is sitting next to walks in the room. He makes a comment about House's eating next to his father, and proceeds to walk to the bed. House begins flashing the lightswitch and throwing chips at the boy, but the boy suddenly seizes and is admitted to the hospital, much to House's predictation and excitement.

The team learns that the boy's name is Kyle, but they can't tell what caused his seizure. They find multiple wine bottles in Kyle's backpack, so the team suspects liver failure. However, House shoots down all of their theories, claiming that "it is genetic". Kyle has no living relatives, except one: Gabe (John Larroquette), who is Kyle's father. Gabe is in a vegetative state, however, so he can't be questioned. House proceeds to wake him up using a large dose of L-Dopa. Cuddy is there to stop him, along with the rest of his team, but he proceeds nonetheless. He cites a South African study that shows that comatose patients may be woken up for hours at a time, but Cuddy does not believe him. However, Gabe wakes up, looks around, and asks for a steak.

When Gabe is informed that he only has one day until he lapses back into his coma, he decides that he wants to drive to Atlantic City to get a hoagie from a specific deli. House agrees to go along with him, and asks Wilson if he can use his car. Wilson agrees, but he has to come on the trip. House asks Gabe questions the entire way about his medical and family histories. When Cameron is walking through the hall, Detective Tritter stops her and proceeds to ask her questions about how much Vicodin House has been taking lately. Cameron says six, which is an extreme understatement, and Tritter is about to ask her more questions when she gets paged by the rest of the team. Chase and Foreman ask what Cameron said to Tritter, and they all agree to tell the same story.

Meanwhile, House uncovers that Gabe used to make boats finished with mildew-resistant paint. House concludes that Kyle was painting a boat, forgot to use a facemask, and got mercury poisoning from the paint. House calls the team, and they begin the test. Gabe, annoyed that House's questions are becoming more personal, establishes a quid pro quo style of questioning that forces House to answer a question every time he asks one. House reluctantly agrees. His team calls him shortly thereafter to tell him that the mercury test was negative and that Kyle is having severe heart problems.

House, Gabe, and Wilson arrive at Atlantic City, only to find that the hoagie store Gabe was looking for was gone. Gabe wants to go to a casino instead, so House and Wilson get a nearby hotel for the night. House continues the questioning at the hotel, ordering Gabe to give a total recap of how his family members died. During Gabe's explanation, House notices a common theme with the deaths: all of Gabe's family members on his wife's side died during the night. House diagnoses this as MERRF syndrome and calls Cuddy to get a heart transplant for Kyle. Cuddy denies it, because Kyle is an alchoholic and ragged-red fiber is not curable.

House orders Wilson to leave the room, saying, "You have lied to the police enough for me." House then lays out ways to kill oneself that would keep the heart intact to Gabe, who has expressed interest in this option. While Wilson creates an alibi for himself and House in the casino, Gabe kills himself. House and Wilson return to Princeton with Gabe's dead body, where Kyle successfully undergoes heart transplant surgery. Cuddy suspects that House had something to do with Gabe's death, but soon drops it after House nonchalantly shrugs it off, not wanting to get involved any further.

In the final scene, while House and Wilson talk, Wilson tries to withdraw money from his ATM and learns that his account has been frozen as a part of the ongoing investigation into House's drug use.

[edit] Diagnosis

MERRF syndrome

[edit] Medical Terms

[edit] Clinic Patients

[edit] Arc Advancement

[edit] Happenings

Tritter, speaking with each of House's staff individually, claims House doesn't control his pain medication, and will eventually kill someone or spiral out of control. This position obviously matches the one he maintains with the district attorney in pursuing the case. In claiming privately he started the investigation as punishment for House's disrespect, however, Tritter himself provides a dark image of House's tactics; deceiving the legal system and obfuscating his real motives for conducting a plausible investigation, just as House constantly deceives medical boards and hoodwinks patients in pursuing plausible treatments and experiments. The deceit and the personal vendetta Tritter employs in stalking House mirrors those same traits as House uses them against medical conundrums, obsessing over solved problems, and shows they're capable of serious damage. This theme in Tritter's work expands as this episode ends and the next begins, when Tritter freezes Wilson's bank accounts and then impounds his car, hoping to coerce Wilson's cooperation in the case.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Self References

Son of Coma Guy: The name of the episode makes an indirect reference to "Coma Guy," whom Wilson mentions at the beginning of the episode. Coma Guy is an elderly man in a deep coma who has a room in the hospital. House usually had lunch in Coma Guy's room while watching his TV. Coma Guy was first introduced in episode "TB or Not TB".

[edit] Trivia

[edit] The Show

Son of Coma Guy: Despite the name of this episode, each time someone refers to Gabe as "Coma Guy" House is quick to remind them that he is or was in a vegetative state instead.

[edit] Behind the Scenes

[edit] Allusions and References

The character Michael Tritter uses House's catchphrase, "Everybody lies", while interviewing Foreman.

The Silence of the Lambs: While riding in the car with Gabe, the awakened coma patient, Gabe says that when he answers a question, he must be allowed to ask House a question. House replies with "Quid pro quo, Clarice". This is a line spoken by Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 movie The Silence of the Lambs.
Terri Schiavo: When contemplating waking up Gabe, House claims that "he is no Terri Schiavo". Terri Schiavo was a severely brain damaged woman who was the subject of an infamous legal battle over her feeding tube.
Burakumin: House claims he was inspired to become a physician by a "buraku" hospital janitor who was consulted on medical problems by the Japanese hospital's medical staff. It is implied that House believes his asocial behaviour makes him an "untouchable" who must nevertheless be respected for his skills.
Sleeper and various other movies: Shortly after House wakes up Gabe, he says that he must "get back to our sleeper before he goes looking for the Orgasmatron." This is a reference to a couple different movies that feature a contraption called the Orgasmatron that is used by people in the future to have sex. Variations of this contraption have been featured in the movies Sleeper, Barbarella, Flesh Gordon, Coneheads, Demolition Man, and Orgazmo.

[edit] Memorable Moments

[edit] Quotes

Tritter: "If you had my job as long as I have, you will know one thing: Everybody lies."

House: (answering telephone) "House's House of Whining, state your complaint!"

House: (to Wilson) "You don't have to come with Vegetative State and I to get food."
Vegetative State Guy: (to House and Wilson, holding up an iPod) "What's this? It says Ipp-od."
Wilson: (resignedly) "I'm coming."

House: "There are reports out of South Africa about a pill that'd temporarily revive someone in a vegetative state. We've all seen Awakenings. It made me cry. I wanna cry."

Cuddy: "We don't experiment on helpless patients!"
House: "Be reasonable, there's no way this is gonna work"

"Everything's conditional. You just can't always anticipate the conditions."

"Quick, what's the status? I gotta get back to our sleeper before he goes looking for the Orgasmatron."

"Deep inside, Wilson believes that if he cares enough, he'll never have to die."

[edit] Music

[edit] References

"House: Son of Coma Guy - TV.com", Copyright 2006 CNET Networks, Inc., November 13, 2006.

[edit] External links

House

Episode list | Awards | Soundtrack

Cast and crew

Characters

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/o/n/Son_of_Coma_Guy_53ab.html"

Category: House (TV series) episodes