You Don't Want to Know - Recap

Kutner and Cole are hanging out after work and go to a performance by magician Flynn. Cole ends up getting chosen as an unenthused volunteer and watches as Flynn is lowered into a water-filled escape tank on-stage… and then has a heart attack.

House doesn’t have a case for the fellows to work on even though Kutner insists Flynn’s case is unusual enough to qualify. House isn’t impressed and insists Flynn simply screwed up the trick. Instead, House has a new game for the fellows to play: one of them will get immunity, and can pick two of the remaining four fellows for House to choose between to fire. The catch? To win, someone has to get Cuddy’s thong. Kutner insists that Flynn has a serious problem and House lets him check it out, but warns that if Kutner is wrong then he’ll be fired.

Amber (aka “Cutthroat Bitch”) tries to convince the other fellows to quit the game, but they figure she’s going to do it anyway. She proposes an alliance with Taub but he’d rather go it alone. Amber sabotages his attempt… and when she tries to set off the fire sprinkler, he sabotages her by getting Cuddy out of the way. Meanwhile, Kutner tests Flynn but doesn’t come up with anything. He appeals to Foreman who reluctantly backs him up and gives the okay for an MRI test. Flynn is barely in the chamber when he starts screaming in agony and Kutner and Thirteen determine he has internal abdominal bleeding.

In the differential, Taub claims he has Cuddy’s thong but House quickly determines that they’re Amber’s instead, and she backs down rather than reveal she’s going commando. House then figures what happened to Flynn: he swallowed the hidden key for the escape trick, and the MRI magnet pulled it into his spleen. House confronts Flynn who admits he has the key but says he didn’t screw up the escape. House isn’t impressed with Flynn or his magic tricks, but Flynn manages to put one over on him with a card trick, irritating House to no end. However, Flynn starts bleeding from the mouth and nose and House has to concede the magician has a problem. It’s back to differential but as House suspends off the thong contest, Cole reveals that he has obtained Cuddy’s panties. Everyone is skeptical except Thirteen, who is having trouble holding files. House sends Kutner and Taub to search Flynn’s apartments for drugs, and Cole and Amber to run tests. He has Thirteen meet him in his office and wants to know why she was clumsy earlier. She denies having any medical problems.

Kutner and Taub find rabbits at Flynn’s apartment and suspect tularemia. House tries to get Flynn to explain how he did the trick, but Flynn insists that the fun is in the mystery. House disagrees and asserts that Flynn simply has tularemia. Then he tricks Cuddy into confirming that she isn’t wearing underwear. Cole is equally mysterious bout telling House how he got the thong, irritating House to no end.

Flynn starts bleeding again and now that tularemia is out, they suspect cancer. House orders more testing but is more interested in Thirteen’s continual clumsiness and hand tremors. As they take Flynn in for testing, the magician prophesizes that he will die in 24 hours, and they spot more bleeding throughout his body.

House thinks the prophecy is another trick and isn’t impressed. Kutner believes tainted blood is responsible but Foreman suspects amyloidosis. House goes with Foreman’s theory and orders tests, but Flynn’s kidney shuts down. Kutner thinks this supports the blood tainting diagnosis but House still insists on amyloidosis. However, the cure for it requires bone marrow irradiation: if Flynn has an infection, his weakened immune system will kill him. House gives them two hours to test Flynn before they go with the irradiation treatment. Meanwhile, Amber, Kutner, and Taub all try to convince Cole to grant them immunity.

At the end of the two hours, the tests prove negative for blood tainting but Foreman overrides House’s irradiation treatment. To disprove the blood treatment, House insists they give him some of the same blood. Thirteen handles the transfusion, and House reveals that he’s done some checking and determined her mother is dead. Thirteen reveals her mother died of Huntington’s Chorea and there is a 50/50 chance she has it as well. She’s worried about the tremors but House revealed that after the first time when she dropped the papers, he substituted regular coffee for her decaf to see how she’d react. Thirteen is furious and House wonders why she’s never got a test for Huntington’s, but they’re interrupted when House gets a fever.

Everyone wants to use House as a test subject since Flynn is in critical condition and a biopsy will kill him. House doesn’t think he’s sick but while drinking coffee he realizes too late that someone drugged it. Cole and Thirteen do a biopsy on him and when he wakes up, he realizes that Thirteen drugged him. After she leaves, he takes a saliva sample from her water bottle that she left behind.

The biopsy doesn’t indicate blood tainting so Foreman okays the irradiation treatment. House is talking with Wilson and mentions he knows Wilson’s blood type. That make Wilson pretty nervous, as he wonders when House tested his blood. However, House has a breakthrough and realizes that people don’t normally talk about their blood types. House confronts Flynn as he’s going into radiation therapy and first asks how Flynn did the trick. Flynn still won’t tell him, even though he’s dying. Then House tells everyone what happened: Flynn has Lupus, which caused the manufacture of Type B antibodies. However, he has Type A blood, but the antibodies made it appear as if he had Type AB. Since AB is universal recipient, the hospital gave him the wrong blood type, causing all the symptoms. They give him a saline treatment and put him back on Type A blood and he recovers.

That night, House conducts the immunity ceremony, bringing the panties in on a pillow. Cole chooses the two people for House to choose one to fire: Amber and Kutner. House wonders why Cole picked Kutner and figures out that since Kutner is a liability for the hospital (he’s misused the defib paddles twice), Cuddy is the one who wants him fired. Cole cut a deal with Cuddy to get immunity in return for picking the two people she wants fired the most. House fires Cole, noting that the point of the whole thing was to undermine Cuddy.

House gets back the test results from Thirteen’s saliva sample and asks her if she wants to see them. She refuses and insists that she’d rather have hope, the same way that House always asks questions and goes after mysteries: if he ever solves everything, he won’t have any hope left.


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