- A man with IQ 178 works as courier and collapses in a bookstore. House is still playing his games for Cuddy's attention. Chase punches him.
- House and the team take on the case of James Sidas, an exceptionally brilliant physicist and author who traded his successful career for a job as a courier. For the ailing patient, intelligence is a miserable burden that has prompted depression and addiction, and this, coupled with his myriad unusual symptoms, nearly stumps the team. Meanwhile, the doctors at Princeton Plainsboro wrestle with strained personal relationships.—FOX Publicity
- A bearded delivery guy drops off boxes at a book store. The owner recognizes the man as James Sidas, a famous intellectual prodigy. When he convinces Sidas to sign one of his books, Sidas realizes his hands don't work.
House and the team initially thinks Sidas has a rare blood disorder called Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP).
Sidas tells Taub during an exam that he works as a courrier because it means he doesn't have to think. He fell in love with his wife Dara because she never cared how smart he was or what he had accomplished. "I decided I would rather be happy than smart."
Chase doesn't want to talk to Forman about Cameron leaving him.
Taub tells Thirteen that Sidas seemed surprisingly normal for such a genius. Taub is convinced Sidas does not have TTP, and House is checking to see how long it takes the team to figure it out.
House, who is looking all over the hospital for Wilson, doesn't blink when Taub and Thirteen suggest a splenectomy, the next course of treatment for someone with TTP.
Wilson finally gets to work and is met by House, who tells him he's planning on breaking up Cuddy and Lucas at Thanksgiving. The couple is having dinner at Cuddy's sisters house and House wants to crash the gathering.
Sidas begins rambling incoherently about colors which means that TTP is off the table, so the plan is to do an unstandard toxicology screen on Sidas and to search his home for other causes.
At Sidas' place Taub asks Chase if he wants to come over for Thanksgiving. Chase is resistant to the sympathetic gesture. Behind a vent Chase finds a bottle of vodka.
House helps out at Cuddy's clinic and it leads to her inviting him over for Thanksgiving. Wilson doesn't think House should go.
The team moves forwards with Sidas being an alcoholic. Taub and Thirteen perform a liver biopsy. Sidas tells them he only has a drink here and there.
We discover that Cuddy cleverly sent House to the wrong location for Thanksgiving.
Sidas' tests come back clear. Taub and Thirteen consider kidney failure instead.
Lucas returns home to find a drunken House waiting for him. House realizes that for the first time Cuddy has stopped giving him second chances. "I'm pathetic," he says before falling over. "I don't deserve her." Lucas invites him to stay on the couch. "I love her," House says.
The team (minus House) tries to figure out why Sidas' kidneys are failing. They put him on dialysis.
Thirteen is next to make sure Chase is okay. Once again he says he just wants to be left alone.
Cuddy shows up at House's place the next morning. Lucas has broken up with her, she says. He said he didn't want to get in the middle of what was between them. She's upset because House "lived down" to her expectations. "There is no us," she asserts. "There never will be."
House next tells Wilson "it worked," that Lucas fell for his trick.
House believes Sidas has been taking cough syrup (DXM) in order to make himself stupid. Combining cough syrup with alcohol would cause brain damage and lower the IQ. Sidas tells his wife "when my brain was on low everything didn't seem so miserable anymore." Sidas tells House he's not sure if he can live without the drug hmmmn, do we see a parallel coming into focus?
The team has removed the traces of DXM from Sidas' system. He is now back to drawing highly advanced chemical processes. When Dara leaves the room, Sidas tells Foreman that when he is normal he is unable to want to be with Dara.
House is back in the clinic. He bribes an undercover insurance company investigator to act happy with his care when she leaves the room, but Cuddy has already left for the day.
Dara tells Foreman "that isn't the man I married. He hates me." At that moment Sidas yells that he can't feel his legs.
Taub and his wife argue over his going back to work with House. She's upset Taub is back to doing grunt work and is letting House push him around.
An angry House is upset no one on the team is coming up with any good ideas. When he makes a crack about getting Cameron on the phone, Chase walks over and punches House in the face.
While telling Cuddy that nobody punched him, House tries to ask her out on a date. She's not biting: "I'm not doing this. It's not fun anymore."
Sidas tells House that after a suicide attempt 12 years ago he was put on narcotics. "Suddenly everything was just better. I didn't feel isolated or lonely." House suddenly has an epiphany that the ribs Sidas broke in his suicide attempt are significant.
House realizes that Sidas has more than a dozen extra spleens, caused by damaging his spleen in the jump. Sidas has TTP, they just didn't remove all of his spleens.
Chase apologizes to House. He says he hit him because he was sick of everybody asking him how he was doing.
Sidas tells Taub and House he plans to return to the DXM.
Taub takes a picture of House's face and tells his wife he was the one who punched him. She immediately starts to kiss him.
House gives Cuddy petting zoo tickets for her and her kid. She refuses to take them.
House tells Wilson Cuddy must have lied about breaking up with Lucas. He has no plans to mess with them anymore.
Cuddy tells Lucas it appears House is going to leave them alone, but she's not sure why.
"Maybe House isn't so bad after all," Lucas says.
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