Lines in the Sand (House)
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- This page refers to the TV episode, for other uses of this phrase, see the Lines in the Sand disambiguation page
| House episode | |
| "Lines in the Sand" | |
| Episode no. | HOU-304 |
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| Airdate | September 26, 2006 |
| Writer(s) | David Hoselton |
| Director(s) | Newton Thomas Sigel |
| Guest star(s) | Heather Kafka as Sarah Geoffrey Blake as Dominic Braeden Lemasters as Adam Leighton Meester as Ali Stephanie Venditto as Nurse Brenda Previn |
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| All House episodes | |
"Lines in the Sand" is the fourth episode of the third season of House and the fiftieth episode overall.
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[edit] Plot
[edit] Adam
Adam, who is severely autistic, is learning shapes and words in his backyard. His father, Don, is trying very hard to show Adam words, but Adam seems more interested in drawing lines on his chalkboard. While eating his lunch, Adam becomes excited and screams loudly. Adam's doctor is House.
While House is doing the differential diagnosis for Adam, he notices that his blood-stained carpet has been taken out. He goes to complain to Cuddy, who has no intentions of indulging House's request. As a result, House refuses to work in his office. He begins to work in other people's offices during the course of the episode. While House is complaining to Cuddy, the rest of House's team tries to strap Adam down and get him into an MRI machine. After the MRI, Chase and Cameron go to Adam's house to run tests. Foreman tells House that all the tests are negative. Then, House holds a meeting in the clinic, and orders his team to get a stool sample. During the sample, Adam has another fit and coughs up fluid from his lungs. House moves into Wilson's office after he is evicted by Cuddy, and Wilson is not happy. The team finds a heart problem. House brushes this off and continues with his diagnosis. House's team takes a biopsy of the lymph node under Adam's arm per the suggestion of Foreman, and find that there are liver cells under his arm. Another differential in Wilson's office shows that Adam's liver may be damaged and is flowing into the lymphatic system, and was deposited in the underarm lymph node. House then moves to Cuddy's office for the differential and discusses the calcium carbonate in Adam's stool when House is evicted by Cuddy again, because she tells House that Adam is in a cardiac intensive care unit. Adam is stabilized and House discusses the possibility of pica, and suspects that Adam put something unnatural in his mouth. He orders his staff to get samples from the house. While searching the house, Foreman finds jimson weed, and suspects that might be the source of the problem. However, House is skeptical.
House finally makes a connection and stops the surgery to examine Adam's eye and shows that he has worms floating in his eye, and in other parts of his body. This is due to Adam eating sand with raccoon feces inside.
[edit] Ali
While House is treating Adam a daughter of a clinic patient in the last episode has developed crush on him. She tracks House down by visiting the clinic, flirting heavily with him and even flashing him at one point (the exchange cut short by Foreman). Cuddy tells House that Ali is stalking him and that she will call security. As House is leaving for the night, he finds Ali sitting on his motorcycle. She continues flirting, mentioning that the age of consent is fourteen in Iceland and that it's just an arbitrary number. However, Cuddy interrupts their exchange again and sends Ali on her way. Cuddy lies to House, trying to get him away from Ali, but then cracks under House's pressure and reveals that Ali is locked in her office and House should talk her out of what she is doing. House tells her that she suffers from Coccidioidomycosis, caused by the fungal spores of Coccidioides immitis in her brain, which she inhaled during an earthquake in Fresno. House says as most of her symptoms developed in her head, it may be that the spores mostly concentrated in her sinuses and the Frontal lobe of her cerebral cortex, most likely due to sniffing a flower coated in a loose dust-like film of the spores, resulting in headaches, cough, and her flawed judgement. However, impaired judgement is not a symptom of coccidioidomycosis, and was likely invented by House (given his apparent disappointment) as a means to get rid of her which he does by quoting the movie Casablanca.
[edit] Themes
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[edit] Connecting
A recurring trait of House's is his fundamental lack of ability to grasp social nuances, often interpreted by others as flagrant rudeness. This point is made particularly obvious during this episode. During a differential, the team discusses Adam's autism, and his inability to connect on a personal level with others. House takes a different view on Adam's disability:
"See, skinny, socially-privileged white people get to draw this neat little circle. And everyone inside the circle is "normal". Anyone outside the circle needs to be beaten, broken and reset so that they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized. Or worse - pitied. ... Why would you feel sorry for someone that gets to opt out of the inane courteous formalities which are utterly meaningless, insincere and therefore degrading? This kid doesn't have to pretend to be interested in your back pain, your secretions or your grandma's itchy place. Imagine how liberating it would be to live a life free of all the mind-numbing social niceties. I don't pity this kid - I envy him."
In a ploy to get Cuddy to relinquish House's carpet, Wilson reads to Cuddy the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome, a condition on the Autism Spectrum, and implies that House exhibits these symptoms. Ironically, House is the only one who can truly "connect" with Adam: twice, in fact. While trying to extract a biopsy, they are unable to restrain or sedate Adam. House inhales the anesthesia twice in order that Adam may feel more secure and imitate. He not only succeeds in sedating Adam, but is able to make eye contact, which impresses Adam's parents. House shrugs it off as a case of "monkey see, monkey do." Upon Adam's successful recovery and discharge, his parents attempt to thank House, who is quite unresponsive and himself avoids eye contact. Adam approaches House, hands him his beloved PlayStation Portable video game console, and makes prolonged and meaningful eye contact with him: a "connection." House can be seen playing with Adam's PSP numerous times throughout the series.
[edit] Mementos
As House is occupying Wilson's office, he seems to obsess over the various mementos that Wilson has accumulated from grateful patients. He appears to regard these objects with contempt, as he has not collected objects from the many people he has helped. At the end of the episode, however, House is given a memento by Adam: a PSP. It should also be noted that House was given a memento from his patient John Henry Giles in episode 'DNR'. Therefore, the assumption, given by House that he has never received a memento from a grateful patient, is in fact false.
[edit] Cultural references
When House meets with with Ali in Cuddy's office to say goodbye, most of the exchange is borrowed or adapted from the famous airport scene in the film Casablanca in which Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) implores Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) to get on a plane with her husband rather than staying with him. House even tells Ali she belongs with Victor (Lund's husband in the film), adding "is there a Victor in your class?". As the scene progresses, a soft piano piece reminiscent of the score in the film is added.
[edit] External links
- FOX.com-House official site
- House M.D. Guide
- House at EpGuides.com
- TVGuide's Page: Full list of House Episodes
- Television Without Pity-House recaps
- "Lines in the Sand" at TV.com
- "Lines in the Sand" at the Internet Movie Database
- Medical Reviews of House: Lines in the Sand
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