Plot
A documentary film crew is chronicling a teenager named Kenny (Khleo Thomas) with a major facial deformity who opts to undergo a dramatic reconstructive procedure. When Kenny suffers a heart attack just prior to the surgery, House and the team are called in to determine the cause, since the surgery cannot proceed until Kenny's cardiac condition is diagnosed.
As the film crew continues to document Kenny, House becomes increasingly annoyed and tries to avoid them by briefing his team by the MRI machine and in surgery. However, ultimately he cannot escape the cameras and the candidates find themselves acting self-consciously in front of the lens. Meanwhile, House begins to regret recruiting former CIA doctor Samira Terzi (Michael Michele) when she fails to demonstrate the intelligence he witnessed at Langley. Wilson, who believes that House is being distracted by Terzi's looks, offers up the solution to quickly fire her and then ask her out on a date. He also notes House's propensity to hire attractive women, which led him to this situation. House argues that he's "not that guy"; Wilson retorts "every guy is that guy". During the episode the film crew also interviews Cameron, asking why she resigned and making it look like she was romantically attracted to House.
Dr. Taub, using his experience as a plastic surgeon, gains Kenny's and his father's trust and frequently clashes with House on the diagnosis. House believes Kenny is suffering juvenile rheumatoid arthritis while Taub believes it is merely the side effects of increased intracranial pressure. By persuading Kenny's father not to follow House's treatment and by attempting to kick him off the case, House fires Taub, only to have his decision reversed by Cuddy. Ultimately both House and Taub are proven wrong when Thirteen realizes Kenny is suffering Lyme disease, with the telltale rash hidden by his hair. Incensed by Taub's actions, House begins to dig into his life, and gets him to confess that he resigned his old position as a plastic surgeon because he was discovered having a secret affair with his nurse. He signed a non-compete agreement with his former partners in exchange for their keeping quiet about the affair, effectively blackballing him out of his area of expertise.
In the end Taub is not fired, but Dr. Terzi is let go and House's request for a date is turned down. Cuddy and House watch an early cut of the documentary, which has been edited to portray House as a compassionate, sympathetic doctor. House is aghast and leaves the room, questioning whether he can still trust Michael Moore movies. The documentary continues, revealing that the surgery was successful, and that Kenny thanks Dr. House.
Read more about this topic: Ugly (House)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)