House, M.D. s06e03 Episode Script

HOU-604 - The Tyrant

We will anger the Americans slipping out like this.
If your son was a student at one of the greatest universities in the world So make him come to you.
We are protected near the U N.
But once we cross As always, I appreciate your caution, Joseph.
But as always, you have far too much of it.
Stay down, sir.
Get on the ground! Get on the ground! I'm just serving process! Your boss is being sued under Title 18 of the United States Code, section 1350, for genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture.
Mr.
President, this is only a civil lawsuit.
We can ignore it.
Mr.
President.
You want us to work for Foreman? Not permanently.
He is setting up interviews to replace Taub and Thirteen, but it might take a couple of weeks.
Well, what happened to them? He quit, and I had to let her go.
You actually fired your girlfriend? Yes.
You two are both competent, and I know I can work with you.
You really do know how to woo.
I need you.
It would be interesting.
And we could work together.
Did you see who the patient is? That's one of the reasons it'll be interesting.
Dibala is one of the most repressive dictators in the world.
You had no problem treating a guy on death row.
Who was still in prison after we patched him up.
We fix Dibala, he gets on a plane and executes half his country.
He's been repressing an ethnic rebellion in the south, the Sitibi people.
It's getting worse.
Dibala is a guest of the US government, and he's been invited to speak at the U N.
I'm not asking you to love him, I'm asking you to do your job.
Utterly incomprehensible.
And, of course, I'm talking about you firing your girlfriend.
We weren't getting along with her working under me.
This'll help.
Cameron and I worked together.
But you weren't her boss, and you stopped working together.
Why don't you just tell her you were wrong and Because I wasn't.
I know how this looks.
I know it might break us up.
But that's better than definitely breaking us up, which is what would've happened otherwise.
Hemorrhagic ulcers in the lungs.
Oh, my God, it's three years ago.
Does that mean I'm still crazy? You're back? You look good.
We're just helping out because I know.
I just ran into Thirteen while she was clearing out her locker.
My condolences.
Although it's not like she's the hottest woman in the world.
We haven't broken up.
Are you back? Sort of.
You get your license back? Not for a month or so.
So you'll be in charge, I'm just gonna pitch in a little.
Dibala thinks it was an assassination attempt.
Polonium, like the Russian guy in London.
FBI checked the service of process forms and his hotel room.
No radioactivity trails.
Acid reflux? No history of asthma or heartburn.
He has a bug bite on his hands.
Malaria's endemic in his country.
Let's start him on Coartem.
I don't want to step on any toes, but I guess I do have a higher duty to the patient.
If you have something to say, say it.
You're rushing to a diagnosis because you're rushing out of this room because you're rightly upset with me.
Although I wasn't the one who made that asinine decision to Do you have anything medical to say? Poison fits better because of the vomiting.
Bug bite might not be a bite, it might be the start of chloracne.
Assassination attempt through dioxin poisoning.
It's hard to detect.
Fits.
Start him on olestra.
You couldn't have just said dioxin up front? I was hoping you'd get there on your own.
So, I guess we should talk to Cuddy.
You are sure it is dioxin? Nope.
It's our best guess.
The olestra here binds to the poison, flushes it out of your system.
Where are you from, doctor? I'm Australian.
Do I hear a bit of British? Most people don't notice it.
Yeah, I kicked around there for a while.
You went to medical school there? Actually, a year of seminary.
And you left.
There was a Catholic mission near my childhood village.
I liked the priests.
They were good people.
But when my two younger sisters were dying from consumption, it wasn't more priests we wanted.
I fired my girlfriend because he said he was gone for good.
I need this in my life.
A week ago, it was the last thing you needed.
It's a process.
I'm learning.
And screwing me over as you go.
Yeah, that's why I did it.
Sorry.
If you want, I'll explain it to Thirteen.
He's not ready.
He doesn't have his license.
Then he can't practice.
But we'd be idiots not to listen to him.
You're in charge.
He sits in on all the differentials.
Until you get your license back, this is all unofficial.
No procedures, no patient contact.
I think I can probably deal with that last one.
The only reason I let you go is because our relationship wouldn't work if I was in charge.
But I won't be in charge soon so I came to offer your old job back.
I know I look bad, but circumstances have changed.
I don't want the job.
Why not? Because there's a much simpler explanation for you firing me.
You wanted to break up with me, but you were too weak to do it yourself.
Then why would I try to hire you back? Can we please get some dinner tonight? I'm sorry.
Uh You're a follow-up? You must not treat him.
Dibala killed my wife.
She was a trade unionist.
They took her from our home while I was at work.
Who took her? Dibala's Youth Labor League.
He pretends it's to get young people off the street, but he takes teenage boys from the provinces and feeds them drugs and alcohol and teaches them how to torture.
They dumped her body in my yard two weeks later.
They raped her.
They carved "inyenzi", cockroach, onto her stomach because she's Sitibi.
I'm very sorry, but I can't discuss other patients.
You should talk to a lawyer, talk to the U N So they can sit and watch like they did in Rwanda? There are two million Sitibi.
He is planning to massacre them all.
His radio stations are talking about a final war to exterminate the cockroaches.
He can't recover.
I'm sorry.
How was your first day of school? Didn't pee once in the sandbox.
How was it with Cuddy? What did you think I was talking about? Hmm.
You didn't use garlic.
You didn't use it last night either.
We always use garlic on Chicken Florentine.
It tastes fine this way.
You seem to be losing your sense of smell.
I think you're losing your sense of mind.
I can check right now if you pull my finger.
No, it's the Are you inventing some big medical mystery here? Because if you're imagining things again You weren't wearing shoes last night either.
Yes, shoes, garlic, I am vampire, Sookie.
I told you to get that echo fixed.
My downstairs neighbor, after you moved in, started complaining about the extra noise and the cooking smells.
What's his name? I don't want you making things worse.
He's on the condo board, and I'm trying to get the back garden renovated.
The white coats taught me a whole bunch of fun coping and relating skills.
He's not only a total jerk, he's a decorated war hero who lost an arm in Vietnam.
I mean, there's no winning with this guy.
Coping skill number one, complete avoidance.
You happy? Booty call? Give me 20 minutes to not shower.
Patient's having a heart attack.
Mask and 15 liters.
Just thought you'd like to know.
Streptokinase.
Heparin.
Lassa fever.
You were mad that I withheld it last time, so I'm saying it right up front.
He's already stabilized, so 40ccs of ribavirin, and we're home in time for Ellen.
I checked.
There's no Lassa in Dibala's country.
Oh.
The rash is gone.
It rules out your dioxin theory.
He's running a slight fever, which we can add to the heart, plus the lung ulcers.
Ebola? Marburg? Too long an incubation period and Yes? Don't people sometimes travel to places that have, you know, a fever that originated in the Nigerian town of Lassa? He's been to three other countries in the last two years.
Here, Zimbabwe and Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
No Lassa there either.
Oh.
Again.
Trypanosomiasis? No sleep disturbances, but it fits best with his symptoms and it's geographically the most What? The Egypt visit was for the African Union meeting, where I'm guessing he was "meeting" people from "Africa", which includes Liberia, which sent some members of their foreign ministry which has itself just been hit by an outbreak of jock itch.
No, wait, not jock itch.
Lassa fever.
I'll start the ribavirin.
I did say it up front.
It's great to have the old team back together again, huh? Yesterday, it's poisoning, today, Lassa fever.
Maybe a specialist Joseph, leave him alone.
These people know what they are doing.
Are you married, doctor? No.
You have a girlfriend? Yes.
Judging by your tentative answer and the complicated expression on her face, I believe that is she standing in the hallway.
I got a call from Douglas' department at Princeton General.
They want me to interview with them.
Which is weird because when I called last week, they said they had nothing available, so I never sent in my resume.
Douglas owes me a favor.
Most people send chocolates.
And I'd stand outside your apartment all night holding up a boom box except you told me you hate '80s music.
So about dinner, I'm free tomorrow night.
I was wondering what that noise was.
It's the damn cane.
And I'm Greg.
And I can't sleep with you banging around with that thing.
You're not actually saying that I have too loud a cane? Is that hard for you to understand? Well, only in the sense that it has a rubber tip on the end, not a tap shoe.
Now you're getting cute with me.
Okay, we started badly.
I apologize for the noise and we will try to figure out a way to be quieter.
And a thousand other things I don't give a crap about.
Now you keep it down or we're going to have trouble.
Wow.
You paged me? This is Ama.
She is from our country, but she lives here now.
We'd like you to use her blood.
For what? She recovered from Lassa fever two years ago.
Our Health Minister has advised us that plasma from one who has the antibodies is much more effective than ribavirin.
This is a signed consent form.
Will you take her blood, please? No.
I want to do this.
You understand that we will be using your blood to cure President Dibala.
I know.
Are you from the Sitibi people? I am Sitibi.
Did they threaten you in some way? Your family members back home? Please let me give the blood.
Please.
Do it.
She's being coerced.
If she is, I'd rather have a needle prick on my conscience than the death of her family members.
Hey! Don't let him in there! That's enough, we got him.
Hey.
You all right? Who is that man? He shot him? No.
You need a lawyer.
You can get a court-appointed.
I can help you.
I can't be helped.
You did a stupid, terrible thing.
But given the circumstances with your wife, you could get a reduced sentence.
She wasn't my wife.
Well, who was she? They never told us her name.
What his men made us do to that woman, he is now going to do to all the Sitibi.
You could have gotten killed.
He wasn't going to hurt me.
He fired a gun in the hospital.
Come here.
Maybe next time, don't yell out that warning.
The bloody eye was from an enlarged lymph node blocking the retinal vein.
We restored circulation, but it means we've got to add lymph involvement to the heart and lungs, and rising fever.
I'm just going to sit here quietly.
Why? I feel like I've been inadvertently undermining your authority.
So I'm just gonna observe.
I'm not gonna say a word.
The heart could point to sarcoidosis.
I'm thinking the X-rays indicate a lack of hilar adenopathy, which rules it out.
Staph aureus? No.
Because he smokes? He's miming a thermometer.
He says the fever's not high enough.
So some other infection.
He's wrong.
The fever could be misleading us into thinking infection.
Talk.
It could all fit with lymphoma.
I need you to spread your legs so I can do an "H".
Can't be lymphoma.
LDH is normal.
He's got good liver function, it's masking the elevated levels.
Biopsy the lymph node.
Check it out.
Makes sense.
Guess you don't need me.
Oh.
By the way, you might want to close the blinds.
It's really bright in here.
It's just a wild coincidence that he thought you were a rude jerk.
Come on, give me the benefit of the doubt.
You said he's a jerk.
I barely talked.
You talked! All I wanted was to sip morning espresso next to a peaceful, burbling fountain.
You could be sipping Courvoisier next to a replica of the Playboy grotto if you tell him what you got on him.
I don't have anything on him.
I don't want anything on him.
Closest he's been to Vietnam, ordering the Mee Krob at that place on the corner.
Mee Krob is from Thailand.
Exactly.
What did you do? Why do you think he's faking? I saw his mail.
You broke in? No.
He was holding it.
Private medical insurance, not from the VA.
Plus he's gotta be early 50s.
He's too young to be a vet.
So, I looked further.
You did break in.
Online.
There's no reference to him in any of the vet records.
Why would he fake being a veteran? Well, just look how you're acting.
People have been tiptoeing around this jerk for years.
Normally, we'd all tell the amputee to go screw himself.
Victims get pity.
Heroes get adulation.
It's way better.
Thank you for trying to help me out with my neighbor.
Now forget the Vietnam stuff.
I could prove this.
But you won't because you'll be too busy writing him a letter of apology and dropping it at his door, without knocking at his door.
I didn't do anything.
That guy's a total ass.
Which is the point.
It's easy to be nice to people you like, but being nice to people you hate, that's a skill.
Do it.
Thank you for saving my life.
The man that tried to kill you, he said that you were preparing a massacre.
The Sitibi are my countrymen.
I am fighting a guerrilla war.
In a way that's being called genocide.
Twenty years ago, these same Sitibi rebels took over the south.
They massacred tens of thousands, and they would happily do it again.
I'm trying to impose order.
I'm trying to prevent a genocide.
Genocide.
My own son, my youngest, he is a student here.
He hasn't spoken to me in years because of what he read in your newspapers.
But what he read is not true.
What about your Youth Labor League? There, I was at fault.
I hired men who, in their zeal, stepped over the line, and there were abuses.
But that will not happen again.
Hello? How's it going? Normal-looking nucleus.
How's it going with you? It worried me when you joked about letting that man shoot Dibala.
I wasn't joking.
You can't want to kill anyone, especially not your own patient.
It's only natural to feel No, it's completely unnatural.
Only psychopaths can kill other people without having some sort of breakdown.
Not when it's justified.
Look at soldiers.
Even when it's justified.
Am I trying to kill our patient? Of course not.
But if he died, am I supposed to just pretend that wouldn't be good for the world? The cells are neatly differentiated.
This isn't lymphoma.
I thought I had detected the sickly sweet smell of maple syrup and socialized medicine.
It smells like victory.
That big flag in your place prompted me to chat with your housekeeper.
Turns out you're a citizen of the Great White North.
You broke into my apartment? Technically, no.
Well, technically, yeah, but two steps, hardly You're going to jail.
Speaking of, you know what can get you six months and a $100,000 fine? Falsely claiming that you won a medal in Vietnam.
You think I'm faking? Canada did not send troops to fight in Vietnam, you idiot.
They sent troops to reinforce the '73 Peace Accords, which is where I tried to free a 12-year-old boy who stepped on a land mine.
Thirty-six years later, every second I feel pain in my hand like I'm still grabbing that boy's arm even though my arm isn't there.
So, no, I'm not faking.
Oh.
On a related note, go Maple Leafs.
Did you get the biopsy results? Is it lymphoma? No.
So we have to move on.
Infection, perhaps autoimmune Did you get the biopsy results? Yes, I just told you.
Is it lymphoma? Cameron and Chase? They both really like diagnostics, and I think they both really like watching House torture me.
Anyway, thank you for understanding about the job.
I had two really crappy alternatives.
There was a third.
What's that? You could have stepped aside.
We both would have lost our jobs.
You could have asked Cameron or Chase to take your place.
They wouldn't have wanted to.
You just said they both really like diagnostics.
You want to go back in time? I want to make this work.
I want to understand you.
I mean, you know how you made me feel.
If you could do it again I made the right decision.
I need your confidential medical opinion.
Is the President capable of thinking clearly? Obviously not right now.
Will he ever be? I think Neurons don't grow back, and he's already in his decline.
Anything he tells you, any command he gives, how will you ever know it's not just the delusions of a sick, mad, dying, old man? He just started spiking a fever.
It's scleroderma.
You don't have some clever way of telling me this time? Patient's dying.
I'm done with clever.
Look at his skin.
It's tight for a 75-year-old.
Based on his admission photo? Bit subjective.
Fever points to infection.
And now he's got nodules on his fingers.
That's blastomycosis.
Nodules? You're calling tight skin subjective? I'm with Foreman.
We would have seen fungus balls on the head CT.
Fungal lesions can be missed.
We could settle this with a test.
Anticentromere antibodies would point to scleroderma.
Point to, not prove.
And his fever's too high.
We have to treat him now.
If we treat wrong, we could send this disease into overdrive.
You're with me on the scleroderma? I guess.
I just don't care enough about the patient to waste my time trying to convince anyone.
We get it.
You don't like the guy, you don't want to work on this case.
And yet you're still here.
Why don't you take a stand? Either do something about it or shut up.
Treat him for blasto if you want.
I'll get Cuddy.
I can convince her to This isn't a democracy.
I don't care who you get.
At least for right now, this is my department.
We're treating him for blasto.
Start him on amphotericin B.
Inject my IV with an air bubble.
What are you doing? I will have another heart attack.
No one will know.
Let her go.
You tell my colonel I'm a sick, dying old man who can't be trusted.
I didn't say You were trying to put a gun in his hand and point it at my head.
The gun is now in your hand.
That is a practical difference, not a moral one.
If you want me dead, then pull the trigger.
It is not so easy when you have to do it yourself.
Allison.
I guess I didn't want you dead.
If you touch my wife again, I'll kick your ass out onto the street.
I don't care who you are.
I did her a favor.
I showed her her true character.
She's a better person than you are.
She is too weak to act on her beliefs.
But that is not her fault.
Almost everyone is.
Even my own advisers, my own colonel.
All they do is negotiate and debate and sign treaties.
They are appeasers.
All the while, we are beset by assassins and traitors, the scum Cockroaches? What are you gonna do about them? What is an enemy to you? Some younger physician who covets your office? In my world, there are dangers and bloodshed and death, and that makes you a man.
And men make choices.
And your choice is to send bands of drunk, crazed children to massacre an entire people? Don't ask me questions you don't want to know the answer to.
I saved your life.
I deserve to know what you're planning to do.
Whatever it takes to protect my country.
You broke into his apartment? I didn't break in.
I wish I believed you.
I can fix this.
I already did.
He was gonna press charges, but I promised him you'd leave.
You're kicking me out? I'll explain it to your psychiatrist, but, yeah, you gotta go somewhere else.
House, I know when things go wrong, usually you just double down and get more involved.
But here, you could go to jail.
And I truly believe that you've changed enough to know this is the right thing.
We need a blood sample.
We gotta do the anticentromere antibody test.
It'll show House is right.
It's scleroderma.
Why are you doing this now? Because I didn't want to kill him.
And you're right.
I have to take a side.
So I'm gonna do what I can to keep him alive.
I'll get you the blood.
Positive for anticentromere antibodies.
We gotta get him off the anti-fungals and onto steroids immediately.
I told you before.
This only points to scleroderma.
It doesn't prove it.
You're just gonna ignore the test? Blasto still fits best.
I know it's not conclusive, but when you put it with all the other evidence I've made my decision.
Have you told Thirteen you were wrong to fire her? What does that have to do with anything? I've worked with you long enough to know you're reasonable.
You can usually admit when you're wrong.
But there's some deep part of you that when you find you're wrong about the most important decisions you've made, you get insecure and you just retrench.
If you wanna mess up your relationship that's your right, but you mess this up, our patient dies.
Switch him to steroids.
Hi, honey.
How was your day? Morning.
First of all, my bad.
I've gone through this whole thing recently.
I don't want to bore you.
Short version, I'm really trying to do work on some stuff.
This is a definite setback.
Although, in fairness, you really did make it tough.
Phantom pain in your missing arm, the five different kinds of painkiller in your medicine cabinet, that's what this magic box of neurological trickery is for.
This'll be a lot easier if you do what the crazy guy who tied you up says.
Put your hand in there.
Put your hand in there.
Now look.
Mirror magic.
Your arm is back.
Now clench both your fists at the same time.
Clench.
Real hard.
If you believe in God, pray that this is gonna work.
You might also want to ask him why he blew off your arm.
Ready? Now let go.
Oh, my God.
You relaxed it.
For 36 years I've been in pain, and it's finally gone.
Oh, my God.
Thank you.
O2 sat's down to 88.
Going through the main stem bronchus into the right upper lobe.
Get them out of here! No! It's okay.
Bleeder.
Cauterizing.
Got it? Yeah.
Get the paddles.
I'm going back in.
What is happening? - He's bleeding into his lungs.
- Charging.
Another bleeder.
I can get it.
Hold on.
There's a third.
God, there's a dozen.
Shock him.
Clear.
Charging.
Clear.
You want to curl up and cry, the lounge chair's a little more comfy.
I switched his meds.
I thought I was wrong, so I took him off the antifungals, put him on steroids like you said.
You know what that means.
I was too late or I was right in the first place.
So, either you killed him by not having confidence in your opinion or you killed him by being too attached to your opinion.
If you're anything like me, and by the way, you are, you need to know which.
He's under lock and key in the morgue.
His government wants their own doctors to do the autopsy.
They're taking his body out tomorrow.
There's a reason I hired you.
You used to know what to do with a locked door.
I went down to the morgue to rerun the antibodies test.
You ran it twice.
Turns out, I couldn't get in.
They had an armed guard.
But I saw this.
It's a sign-in sheet from the morgue.
Your signature, That's right before you guys ran the test.
What were you doing there? Follow-up on a clinic case.
What case? You think this is really important? One of the patients in the morgue was a 70-year-old woman who had scleroderma.
You and Cameron, if you took that woman's blood, you could have messed up the test results so we treated Dibala for the wrong disease.
Cameron had nothing to do with it.
You son of a bitch! He was going to kill the Sitibi, every last one of them.
I don't care what he was gonna do.
He came to us and put his life in our hands.
All the good we've done, every life we've saved, it would have meant nothing if we just sent him off to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
Look at the news.
The moderates are taking over.
There's hope for peace talks.
You tell the world that I faked this test, Dibala becomes a martyr.
The massacres begin.
I cover this up, I become your accomplice.
You think you can guilt me into that? If the cops are going to come for me, please warn me so that I can tell my wife first.
Chase, you really think you can kill another human being without any consequences to yourself? No.
My neighbor called.
He sounded happy.
That's nice.
Even nicer, he's approving the garden expansion.
Huh.
And even more nicer, he's not going to press charges, even if you don't move out.
What did you do to him? I was nice.
You really want to know? I think I want to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Alligators' main prey is smaller animals that they can kill and eat with a single bite.

Previous EpisodeNext Episode