'˜House' Season 6 Episode 13 '5 to 9'

'House' Season 6 Episode 13 '5 to 9' takes a little vacation from the usual House formula of a patient with strange disease and instead focuses on a day in the life of Lisa Cuddy, the much put upon hospital administrator.

Spoilers surely follow.

Lisa Cuddy has so far been the object of Gregory House's scorn and lust and even, on occasion, half hidden affection. House, on the other hand, has been the object of Lisa Cuddy's aggravation.

The viewer now knows that House is only one and not even the most major source of aggravation in Lisa Cuddy's life. True, during the day in the life, House, or Foreman, or someone will bother her about something to do with the latest case. There is even a fight that breaks out in a hospital corridor that puts Lisa Cuddy over the edge.

But Lisa Cuddy's day begins with a sick kid and an over amorous but under performing boy friend and starts downhill from there. Because of both she is late to the hospital and a meeting with an insurance negotiator.

It is with the last that we find out why Lisa Cuddy is so valued. She negotiates with the insurance company with all of the toughness and flair of a Cairo rug merchant, not bending, and not taking any deal one iota less than what she wants and what is good for the hospital. She actually acquires the respect of the insurance company people with whom she is hard balling.

Lisa Cuddy's other problem is a pharmacy tech who is stealing drugs and is likely selling them to a meth lab. At first she gives a sob story about using the drug to lose weight. But then, when found out, the pharmacy tech turns sociopath. If Cuddy turns her in, she will say that House (who has a history of skimming Vicodin) forced her to do it at Cuddy's behalf and that the two are sleeping together.

Very soon, though, the pharmacy tech will wish that she hadn't have been so candid about what she had done and what she intended to do without first checking to see if Cuddy had placed a bug in her office.

There is even a tender moment with House in a parked car, or at least what would pass for a tender moment if House understood how to manage one. The thing is, lust after or scorn her, House knows that she is valuable. Besides, another hospital administrator would never put up with as much his-er-offal as Cuddy does.

Source: House, 5 to 9, TV.Com