House Season 7 Episode 2 Promises Brutal Honesty from House & Cuddy--But for How Long?

House season 7, episode 2, "Selfish" opens with the normal medical mystery setup. A healthy person and a sickly person doing something, healthy person passes out and is rushed off to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) convinces cantankerous, but diagnostically brilliant, Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) to take the case.

Thanks to the season seven opener and the subsequent House/Cuddy hook-up, the part fans are chomping at the bit to get is how the new romance translates into their new working relationship. Episode two wastes little time getting to and focusing on the issues and hilarity the new twosome brings.

*Spoilers Follow*

House Reveals New Relationship

Cuddy and House arrive at the hospital with some hands-on affection in the parking garage. As the duo enters the hospital lobby, Cuddy convinces House to agree to keep the relationship silent until that afternoon. So of course House announces his new bed partner to his team as soon as he enters the office.

Taub (Peter Jacobson) is worried about how this is going to blow up ad make the team miserable. Foreman (Omar Epps) seems happy for them, but he could just be reacting to missing the vanished Thirteen. Chase (Jesse Spencer) doesn't seem to care, but since he may be dating four other women, he may not have time for other people's relationship problems. House's best friend, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), simply doesn't believe him. Cuddy later kisses House in front of Wilson, to prove this time sleeping with her wasn't just another House hallucination.

Hilarity of a Romantic House/Cuddy Learning to Work Together

Cuddy marches House to Human Resources to divulge the new relationship. When asked the nature of it, House lists as many colorfully raunchy ways to say sex as he can squeeze in. They sign a relationship agreement and Cuddy promises not to House any favoritism.

House doesn't challenge her when Cuddy denies risky treatment option, while Cuddy agrees to some treatments that she didn't believe in. House voluntarily does clinic duty. It's funny to watch these two strong characters worry so much about making the other mad and interesting to watch rebel doctor House kowtow to anyone.

But a Too Nice House Makes for Bad Medicine

Dr. Taub is afraid that House's new relationship is already taking the edge off of the team's work and negatively affecting their patient.

House sermonizes that, "People who have not seen Cuddy naked should not throw stones."

The healthy--now sick--person in episode two is a skateboarding tomboy named Della (Alyson Stoner). She is trying to let her wheelchair-bound brother live his life through her. In her empathizing with his disabilities, she doesn't want to take his bone marrow to get better. House thinks she is a moron, as he worries why Cuddy's body language seems to be telling him "no," while she is agreeing to treatment plans.

House contemplates this as he treats a man over 100, who is in the clinic with his son. Both want the dad to go to a retirement home (and both also slide House some money to say he needs to be in one). House eventually decides not to humor them and diagnosis the older man with zinc poisoning from denture cream. He gives their money back as a "refund."

Meanwhile, the skateboarder is getting worse and rejected one lung transplant. The best option to save her life is to transplant half of her brother's lung. Due to his disease, his life expectancy was to only reach 25 and the operation would shorten that.

House and Cuddy have a blowup about trading one life for another and that it put an unforgivable burden on the parents to make them choose. Cuddy tries to find a replacement supervisor for House.

The sick girl's father confronts House in the office, where House admits (after Cuddy forbade him to) that the best option for her to live is a lung transplant from her brother. Della figures this out and unhooks herself from the medical equipment and tries to leave.

Brutal Honesty Only Way House & Cuddy Can Work Together

Cuddy comes along and agrees that House should give the parents the lung transplant option. He admits he did hours ago and we finally reach the House/Cuddy showdown that was waiting to erupt and it's a classic sparring match. Blah, blah, Cuddy's a pencil pusher. Blah, blah, House is a patient bully.

The girl's brother overhears all his parent telling the doctors that they don't want the transplant. Upset that they didn't tell him, he goes to convince Della to take half his lung. He tells her that he was always watching her do all that stuff, without being a part of it. With the transplant, a part of him really would be doing everything with her.

House and Cuddy realize that their nasty fight was the first honest interaction they've had since arriving at the hospital. They agree to remain brutally honest, which causes House to remark upon and fondle Cuddy's bottom.

Next Episode of House Season 7

House season 7 episode 3 "Now What?" medical mystery focuses on a children's author who has a seizure before she is able to commit suicide. House tries to use her wanting to die to convince her to do treatments. The team has trouble diagnosing the author and House decides the answer is in her most recent book.

In further House/Cuddy relationship drama, the couple double dates with Wilson. The couple continues to compromise, but how long can they keep it up? This episode airs on FOX Monday, Oct 4, at 8 p.m. EST.

Sources:
House, air date September 27, 2010, FOX
House Season 7, Episode 2, Fox.com
House Season 7, Episode 3, Fox.com