Directed by: David Platt
Written by: Doris Egan and David Foster
Nicole (Samantha Quan) is a young American woman seeking her biological parents in China. She's sure she's found them but they want nothing to do with her. She then goes to a Buddhist temple, where she's told to make a wish and lift a Buddha statue, and she does so. Then she's to try to lift the Buddha statue again; it's a good omen if she can't. And she can't, but then she feels excruciating pain and falls down. She's treated in China, then comes back to America to be treated at Princeton-Plainsboro.
Dr. Gregory House gets a call from his mother: his father John (R. Lee Ermey) has died. But he doesn't want to go to the funeral.
Dr. Cuddy tells House that everyone who came in contact with the patient needs a supplemental immunization. No nurse wanted to administer it to House, so the task falls to Cuddy.
However, it was actually a sedative. House wakes up in a moving car, driven by Dr. Wilson. Despite House's various attempts to sabotage the trip, he and Wilson arrive at the funeral home. Throughout the trip he's been talking on the phone with his team about Nicole's case.
At his mother's urging, Gregory House says a few words about his father, a Marine Corps veteran. To John House, the Corps was a sacred calling, and his family was not a priority at all. Then Greg begins crying, making Wilson suspicious. Greg turns to the coffin, kisses his father on the forehead, and clips a bit of skin off his ear. Wilson urges Greg to put the clipping back but he refuses. The DNA will prove that John House is not Gregory House's "real father."
At a diner, Dr. House and Dr. Wilson discuss the case. Nicole was born in China in 1983 (this episode first aired on October 14, 2008). China instituted the one-child policy in 1979, but Nicole's parents already had a son. So there was an attempt to kill the baby in some way, but ultimately she was given up at an orphanage.
Once back at Princeton-Plainsboro, House talks with his team about his consult with Wilson. It turns out that Nicole had metal pins put in her head as a baby but somehow she survived to adulthood. The Buddha statue at the temple must've had a magnet to prevent her from lifting it a second time, but the magnet also caused the pins to dig into her brain. And then being put in the MRI caused her more pain. House concludes that, in one way or another, "we're all screwed up by our parents."
Cuddy hasn't filled Wilson's position yet, so he decides to come back.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Busman's Holiday: Dr. House is presumably on bereavement leave, but his team keep calling him about the case. He even ropes Wilson into helping him diagnose the patient.
- I Have No Son!: Turns out the couple Nicole insisted were her birth parents were actually her birth parents. They just didn't want anything to do with her because they already had a son.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Dr. Foreman says he needs some Chinese medical records translated. House tells Foreman to give the documents to Dr. Kutner because he's "kind of Asian."
- Luke, You Are My Father: Nicole introduced herself to an elderly couple claiming to be their long lost daughter. The couple however want nothing to do with her and turn her away.
- Parental Abandonment: Nicole was abandoned by her birth parents (the same elderly couple in the opening) due to them already having a son and china's one child policy.
- Slipping a Mickey: Dr. Cuddy to Dr. House so Dr. Wilson can take House to his father's funeral.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Gregory House notes that the Marines attending the funeral are mostly of higher rank than his father: John House must've treated Marines of lower rank very badly and so they'd have no interest in coming to his funeral. "If the test of a man is how he treats those he has power over, it was a test my father failed. This man you're eager to pay homage to, he was incapable of admitting any point of view but his own." Duty was important to his father, at the expense of his family. "Maybe if he'd been a better father, I'd be a better son." To add injury to insult, Gregory removes a bit of skin from the corpse of his father; Wilson tells him to put it back.
- Shout-Out:
- To ABBA: Dr. House says his ringtone for Dr. Wilson is "Dancing Queen" by ABBA.
- To Sean Connery and James Bond: Dr. Wilson describes House's presumed real biological father as a Sean Connery look-alike. "The one you're pretending is your father? Nice pick. He looks like Sean Connery. So back when you were devising this fantasy, did you tell your father: Dad, I refuse to recognize your existence because I have chosen James Bond as my dad?"
- Status Quo Is God: The "annoying trip" to the funeral was the most fun Dr. Wilson has had since his girlfriend died. Since his position at Princeton-Plainsboro is still vacant, he decides to return.
- Unpleasant Parent Reveal: You travel all the way to China to meet your birth parents. But when you do, they are terrified to see you and deny having you. On top of that, you learn that they tried to kill you before they abandoned you, and while you survived, what they did has made you vulnerable to addiction. To call it "unpleasant" is an understatement.
