Season 6

Season 6: 2009-2010

House, M.D. returned for its sixth season on September 21, 2009 with a special two-hour episode.

After finally realizing that his Vicodin habit is distorting his view of reality, House voluntarily enters Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital to detox. However, detoxing turns out to be the easy part - House can’t get his medical license back until he’s willing to admit his problems run deeper. Although he resists at first, he finally gives in. At the same time, he falls in love, but then finds his paramour has no further interest in him. When he turns to his doctor instead of Vicodin for help, Dr. Nolan realizes he’s ready to return to the practice of medicine.

Newly detoxed, House announces he’s giving up diagnostic medicine. On hearing the news, Foreman asks to take over the diagnostic medicine department with the rest of House’s team from Season 5. However, when Thirteen and Taub jump to other opportunities, he turns back to Chase and Cameron for help. Meanwhile, House realizes that he can’t give up diagnostic medicine that easily and plans to get all his former fellows back together. However, in the process, Cameron questions her commitment to both Chase and House and leaves them both.

As a condition of his release, House moves in with Wilson. Wilson encourages him to explore a relationship with Cuddy, and House decides to try. However, when he makes a gesture to help Cuddy, he finds his old private investigator, Lucas Douglas, has become Cuddy’s boyfriend and that Cuddy was hiding that from him.

Although House tries mightily to follow Dr. Nolan’s direction, it soon seems that his misery is permanent. Wilson hooks back up with his first wife Sam, and Cuddy and Lucas plan to move into a new home together. House tries to admit that he’s fine with Cuddy moving on, but when Dr. Nolan presses, he finds out that Cuddy means more to House than he’s ever been willing to admit. With his soul stripped open, House calls Dr. Nolan a fraud and despite Nolan’s pleading, he stops going to therapy.

Matters come to a head at the worst possible time - House gives Cuddy a very thoughtful gift as a home warming present, but Cuddy thinks House has found out she’s just become engaged to Lucas. When they’re called away to a disaster, House has to treat a woman who is trapped and may require amputation. His own feelings about his disability rise straight to the surface and he makes a serious effort to get through to Cuddy, but she rebufs him outright. However, when push comes to shove, House makes the right call again and convinces the trapped woman to agree to an amputation by admitting his choice to keep his leg caused him nothing but pain and loneliness. When the woman dies nevertheless, House tries to turn back to Vicodin and instead finds Cuddy, who has broken it off with Lucas and admits she loves him. They embrace as the season ends.

Cast

Main Cast

Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House
Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy
Omar Epps as Dr. Eric Foreman
Robert Sean Leonard as Dr. James Wilson
Jennifer Morrison as Dr. Allison Cameron (6 Episodes)
Jesse Spencer as Dr. Robert Chase
Peter Jacobson as Dr. Chris Taub
Olivia Wilde as Thirteen

Recurring Characters

Andre Braugher as Dr. Darryl Nolan (3 Episodes) Michael Weston as Lucas Douglas Jennifer Crystal Foley as Rachel Taub (3 Episodes) Cynthia Watros as Sam Carr Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alvie (2 Episodes)

Episodes

Episode Name (original air date)

Broken (September 21, 2009)
Epic Fail (September 28 2009)
The Tyrant (October 5 2009)
Instant Karma (October 12 2009)
Brave Heart (October 19, 2009)
Known Unknowns (November 9, 2009)
Teamwork (November 16, 2009)
Ignorance is Bliss (November 23, 2009)
Wilson (November 30, 2009)
The Down Low (January 11, 2010)
Remorse (January 25, 2010)
Moving the Chains (February 1, 2010)
5 to 9 (February 8, 2010)
Private Lives (March 8, 2010)
Black Hole (March 15, 2010)
Lockdown (April 12, 2010)
Knight Fall (April 19, 2010)
Open and Shut (April 26, 2010)
The Choice (May 3, 2010)
Baggage (May 10, 2010)
Help Me (May 17, 2010)

Overview

Having willingly entered Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, House comes under the care of Dr. Nolan, who is tasked with treating the world's best diagnostician. As a voluntary patient, House can leave any time he wants, but with his medical license in jeopardy because of his psychosis, he has to rely on Dr. Nolan's approval before being allowed to return to the practice of medicine. After accepting his treatment, eventually Dr. Nolan gives him his approval. However, House is soon tempted to start taking Vicodin again, Dr. Nolan suggests that he quit diagnostic medicine and go into research. He does so and also takes up cooking with Wilson. However, House's break doesn't last long and he is soon back to solving medical mysteries. When Dr. Nolan sees that this is the only thing that takes House's mind off his pain, he agrees.

Meanwhile, Eric Foreman takes over what's left of the diagnostic department in House's absence. However, his authority and the stress of the new position start to affect his relationship with Thirteen. In addition, Chris Taub considers his loss of income, the drop down in reputation from working for Foreman instead of House, and his persistent fear of extreme medicine and once again tenders his resignation. Foreman realizes he can't work with Thirteen as her boss because she's afraid to challenge him on diagnoses - he fires her and asks Allison Cameron and Robert Chase to return to the team.

However, affter Chase treads a thin moral line on a case involving an African dictator, he starts to fall apart. Cameron notices Chase is acting weird and believes he is having an affair. Chase finally comes clean and finds Cameron to be surprisingly supportive. They decide they should get out of Princeton while the getting's good. They plan to quit the hospital together and go somewhere else where they can focus on their relationship and on each other.

House's medical license is finally reinstated and he starts a plan to get all his old team members back, playing on Chase's fear of losing Cameron, Cameron's underlying love of diagnostic medicine, Taub's boredom with plastic surgery, and Thirteen's newfound adventurism in the face of her terminal illness. He succeeds brilliantly with everyone except Cameron, who realizes House put the patient's life at risk merely to manipulate everyone into working for him again. She realizes that she was a fool to have loved House and that his ego was what drove Chase to think he could play God with a patient's life. She leaves House, Chase and Princeton-Plainsboro for good.

House also has to come to terms with his attraction to Lisa Cuddy. He follows her to a medical convention, only to find out that Lucas Douglas has "got there first". His immediate reaction is to try to break them up, but when Cuddy announces a break-up with Lucas, it soon become apparent they faked it just to get House off their back, and that he didn't fall for it for long.

When Wilson starts to get re-involved with his first wife, House starts to fear that Wilson won't have time for him either, and his fears are confirmed when Wilson asks him to move out. Though later on, Wilson apologizes to House for kicking him out, and asks him to come back for a bit longer until he finds a new apartment, but House refuses. Once again, his leg pain starts to get worse and when Dr. Nolan confronts him about his relationships, House cuts off his relationship and tries to go it alone.

However, House soon learns that Cuddy and Lucas have gotten engaged. After losing a patient, House turns back to an old supply of Vicodin when all of a sudden Cuddy comes to him to tell him she's broken off the engagement. She tells House she loves him, even though she wishes she didn't but she says she can't help it. She helps him up off the floor and they kiss while holding hands

Major Events

House finally breaks his addiction to Vicodin.
House agrees to be treated by Dr. Nolan instead of trying to manipulate Nolan to get him to recommend reinstatement of his medical license.
House has a brief affair with Lydia, the sister-in-law of one of his fellow patients at Mayfield.
House meets his roommate, Alvie, a man with bipolar disorder who is also resisting medication. When House is released, Alvie agrees to take medication for his condition.
House announces he is going into research, and Foreman takes over the diagnostic department.
Taub leaves the diagnostic department.
When he realizes Thirteen won’t stand up to him because of their relationship, Foreman fires her. She breaks off their relationship and goes to Thailand.
House becomes an amazing cook in an amazingly short time.
Foreman asks Cameron and Chase to help him in diagnostic medicine.
House asks to come back to head the diagnostics department, at first working under Foreman as House’s medical license still hasn’t been reinstated.
When Chase realizes that their patient, an African dictator, will go back to killing innocent people, he manipulates test results and talks Foreman in to treating him for a condition he doesn’t have. The dictator soon dies and Chase reveals his deception to Foreman.
House deduces what Chase has done and helps Chase and Foreman cover up an anomalous test result.
When Chase starts acting strangely, Cameron starts to believe he is having an affair.
House follows Wilson and Cuddy to a medical convention. When he attempts to get closer to Cuddy, he finds out she’s been dating Lucas Douglas.
When Wilson tries to give a speech in favor of euthanasia, House drugs him and gives the speech in his place using the name of another doctor so he won’t be identified.
Chase admits to Cameron that he manipulated the dictator’s test results.
With his medical license restored, House manipulates all his old fellows to get them to come back. He succeeds with everyone except Cameron who has seen through House’s manipulation (House pretended not to know the diagnosis and threatened dangerous treatment to get the other fellows to overrule him). Cameron. She blames him for corrupting Chase and leaves both Chase and the hospital behind.
When House rides Chase particularly hard, Chase punches him. However, Chase admits that he did it to keep people from asking him about Cameron.
Wilson donates a lobe of his liver for a transplant for his friend Tucker.
Wilson and House move into a new condo, which Wilson learned about from Cuddy’s interest in it. He outbids her for it without telling her.
The junior fellows try to convince Foreman that they make more than him so he will confront Cuddy. However, he soon figures out what’s going on and when he says he has to quit because he unsuccessfully confronted Cuddy about it, the other fellows go to Cuddy and agree to salary cuts so she can give Foreman more money.
House tries to make amends to an old classmate, Lorenzo Wibberly, who he thought he cheated out of a high grade in medical school. He finds Wibberly working as a cashier at a market claiming he flunked out of med school because of the switched grade. However, Wibberly finally admits that House actually got him a higher grade and that his problems are the result of losing his medical license for gambling.
Foreman’s brother Marcus Foreman is released from prison to a half-way house.
It is revealed that Foreman’s mother Alicia Foreman, died in late 2009.
Lucas finds out that Wilson took the condo Cuddy wanted and starts playing a series of pranks on House and Wilson, initially making it look like they were pranking each other. When they threaten to retaliate, he threatens to reveal Wilson’s double dealing to Cuddy. House backs off.
Cuddy plays chicken with the hospital’s primary insurance provider and manages to get an increase three times what they were offering.
It is revealed that student film footage of Wilson was spliced into a porno film.
House starts reading a book of sermons written by his biological father, but finds they have nothing in common.
Chase realizes women only appear to like him for his looks.
Wilson buys House a gift for the condo - an electronic organ.
Taub and Foreman experiment with Vicodin.
We find out Foreman faked a lab result in medical school because of the pressure of trying to beat the rich kids who went there.
We find out Taub’s medical career was outstanding up until the time he lost his plastic surgery practice.
Cameron comes back to confront Chase about not signing the divorce papers. She finally admits that the breakup was largely her fault and that she has trouble maintaining relationships.
Wilson hooks up with his former first wife, Sam Carr. House’s attempts to break them up merely allow them to work out the issues that broke up their marriage.
Taub proposes an open marriage. Rachel agrees, but they both back out. However, Taub still has a brief affair with Maya, one of the physiotherapists at the hospital.
House returns to his old apartment at 221B Baker St. and finds Alvie living there.
When House finds out Alvie sold some of his stuff to raise funds, he goes to great lengths to get back one particular book. When Dr. Nolan asks him why he went to so much trouble, House tries to say he just wanted it back. However, when Dr. Nolan checks the book on Google, he soon finds out it was written by Dr. Cuddy’s grandfather. He soon realizes that the reason House is so miserable is because Cuddy and Lucas have just announced they are moving in with each other. When he confronts House about it, House breaks off therapy.
House gives Cuddy her grandfather’s book. Cuddy believes it is because House has found out she and Lucas are now engaged.
At a disaster scene, House treats a woman is trapped and may need her leg amputated. After first doing everything possible to save her leg, House realizes that his own decision to keep his leg cost him his girlfriend and led to constant pain. He convinces the woman to have the amputation. However, she dies on the way to the hospital from a fat embolism that House could have done nothing to prevent.
Heartbroken, House turns to Vicodin but finds Cuddy instead. She has broken off her engagement and tells House she loves him.

This article was the featured article for September, 2010

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