photo: fox
House
Private Lives
Original Air date: Mar 8, 2010
Shannon – Associate Editor
shannon@thetwocentscorp.com
A blogger blogs. Her name is Frankie (Laura Prepon) and her husband, Taylor, doesn’t like her talking about him on her website. The neighbor comes to the door to ask them to keep their argument to a dull roar and he is in the process of calling an ambulance when he sees Frankie’s face. It’s covered in bruises but the husband didn’t lay a hand on her.
Wilson is going speed dating and he wants House to come along. House would rather stay home and watch porn.
Taub and Hadley scope out Taylor and Frankie’s apartment for toxins when the neighbor comes over to find out what they’re doing there. Apparently, Frankie’s been in contact with rat poison.
Wilson and House go speed dating. Wilson also brought Chase. House is peeved because Chase is too good looking. Wilson agrees. Chase says that women aren’t as enthused about looks as men. House bets $100 that Chase walks out with the most names. He also says that Chase has to lose the hot Aussie accent. Whatever, Chase is still the prettiest doctor I’ve ever seen. Besides House, that is. Wilson gets a bunch of women that want to cry on his shoulder about cancer, Chase is an ass to all his gals, and House meets a woman who would be perfect for him, but he sees through her façade. Oh, and Chase owes House $100.
Frankie is kind of annoying because she blogs everything, even how she thinks Foreman is condescending (he is, but that’s beside the point). No one wants to live under your microscope, Frankie. Get a freaking grip. Also, they were wrong about the rat poison, of course, because the episode just started.
House is mad that Wilson returned all his rented porn to the store but Wilson returned just 2 of the 3. Turns out, Wilson was in the third porn film as a favor to a friend when he was in college. Wilson swears him to secrecy but House has already shown the movie to everyone. And I do mean everyone.
Frankie blogs about her medical stuff and the team conclude she has a heart issue. They need to transplant a valve into her but she has to choose between a plastic one or a pig’s valve. Frankie wants to blog about it to get feedback but Taylor thinks that’s a bad idea because they’re the ones that are going to have to live with the decision, not all those readers.
House has replaced all the movie posters in Wilson’s office with posters from the porn he was in. Also, everyone keeps telling Wilson to “Be not afraid” (that was a line in the film) and now Wilson wants to get revenge on House. He enlists Chase for help who suggests he check out what book House is hiding under the cover for “The Golden Ball”. Wilson and Chase find the book and it’s a book of sermons for everyday life. Chase wants to know how they can use it in a cruel but funny way.
Frankie says she’s going with the plastic valve (that will not allow her to have children because of the risks of something happening to it) and Taylor thinks Frankie is basically an attention whore and that if she lets some random yahoos from the Internet make this decision for her, he’s not hanging around to see it. Frankie is getting prepped for surgery when her appendix bursts. And then she has cancer and a year to live.
Wilson confronts House about the book. Next day, the team all have copies of the book. Then they make fun of religion which is mildly offensive, and House wants to know how they got it since it’s out of print. Chase says they called the author who had several copies to give away. House wants to know if the author mentioned him, but Chase says no with no time to explain since the pagers are going wild. The experimental vaccine for the cancer they’re giving Frankie is killing her. Frankie’s days and nights are mixed up and she doesn’t have lymphoma but a bum liver instead and is dying faster than they originally thought. Now she’s got less than a week.
House reads Frankie’s blog and appears to pray. Wilson comes to House and tells him that he knows that the author of the sermon book is House’s perceived biological father. Wilson tells him that House has always thought religion was crap and then House epiphanies on “crap”. You’ve hit a new low, show.
House shows up in Frankie’s room to ask about her poop. Actually, it’s vegetarianism that’s killing her (her blog readers talked her into it, of course). She’s suffering from malabsorbtion. She’s not dying now and she wants to go with the pig valve.
Chase and Hadley talk more about Chase’s face and how pretty he is and she assures him that his relationship with Cameron was real. They have some real chemistry and I’m going to bet something’s going to happen here. I forget, are Hadley and Foreman together? It was so boring I never noticed.
Wilson and House ride the elevator while Wilson exposits about House’s need to read his alleged father’s book to find a common connection. Wilson asks him if he found anything and I have no idea what House says because my DVR cut off the end of the show. GAH!
So, I kind of hated Frankie the blogger. I don’t know if I’m supposed to like her or not, but I found her need to blog everything about what was happening to her very annoying. I’m all for sharing parts of your life via technology, but really, this girl took it way too far. Of course, I’m not really a blogger so what do I know? What’d you think? Annoying? Perfectly normal? Did you find it endearing that Wilson was in a porn? Just me, then? Ok. Let me know in the comments!
This episode aired last night in South Africa, where I live.
In response to your question as to whether or not it was endearing to learn Wilson was in a porno, I’d say the question is moot because he actually wasn’t. He was in an innocuous student film for a classmate; the classmate later became a famous director and the student film was re-released, this time with porn scenes added. A different actor portrayed Wilson’s character in those scenes. There is actually a scene in the episode in which the other actor’s face is clearly shown and it is obvious that it is not Wilson.
I’ve been blogging for 6+ years. Like Frankie, my blog is pretty much about my life; unlike Frankie, my posts are seldom about family members and when they are mentioned, I keep private matters private…which is probably why I am not famous, also unlike Frankie.
I found the character incredibly immature and insensitive to her husband’s feelings. Her eagerness to share with strangers even such things as their quarrels was vulgar. To put personal, life-and-death (both literally and figuratively, as in the life and death of her marriage) to the vote of strangers is staggeringly stupid.
And yet, I know there are people out there who are such attention whores that they will put their lives on the line (as Frankie did by accepting dietary advice from a coterie of strangers rather than from a bona fide dietitian) in order to get the warm fuzzies of approval from people who would not know them if they bumped trollies at the supermarket.
It was an interesting episode, medically speaking (one of my kids suffered from malabsorption as an infant…his symptoms were not even remotely similar), but mostly it was a study of yet another truly self-absorbed, sensitivity- and empathy-challenged narcissist, just this one is not being portrayed as a tortured genius.
Thank you for your comment, Violet! I think you’re my first commenter from South Africa.
I completely agree with you that Frankie was immature and insensitive and I’m afraid that there are more people out there like her than not.
And, I know that Wilson was not *technically* in the porno, but still. Why quibble over semantics?