House – Recap & Review – 5 To 9

photo: fox

House
5 To 9

Original Air date: Feb 8, 2010

Shannon – Associate Editor
shannon@thetwocentscorp.com

This week, we see PPTH from Cuddy’s perspective. We see her day from the time her alarm goes off until she goes to bed at night. You know, I think this may be one of my favorite episodes of House ever. I mean, it was definitely a nice change to see the world from Cuddy’s point of view.

Cuddy’s alarm goes off at 5 am and she feels around for Lucas who isn’t there. She does yoga until Rachel cries. The baby has a fever and Cuddy has to rush to get ready and out the door. Lucas finally shows up and convinces her to have a little grown up time since she’s already late anyway. Uh, poor Lucas only takes a minute to, uh, do his thing so now Cuddy is not only late but she’s frustrated too. Oh, and apparently she’s supposed to give some kind of presentation this morning.

There’s something up in the pharmacy. They got a double shipment of meds and there’s no order form to be found. The double shipment is for diet pills. Seems, Gail, one of the pharmacy techs was stealing meds to lose weight because her marriage is in the crapper. She begs Cuddy not to fire her. Cuddy fires her anyway, but won’t report the theft. Cuddy tells the pharmacy manager to go back through the records to see if there are any more mistakes. Turns out Gail was supplying a meth lab. Gail’s in Cuddy’s office and says she’ll lie if Cuddy turns her in and says House paid her to steal the meds and that Cuddy and House were having sex. Then she calls Cuddy a bitch. I oughta slap that girl.

Someone named Eli is waiting in Cuddy’s office. They’re negotiating with an insurance company who won’t budge. Cuddy says if they don’t agree to pay 12% PPTH will terminate the contract. Eli has by 3 pm to take the deal or Cuddy will go public. Eli is unfazed and thinks that PPTH will go under if all their patients have to pay cash. I think he’s right.

Here’s the awesome part of the episode. We don’t get to see House’s weekly epiphany. House talks to Cuddy about her ridiculous ultimatum at the elevator. Taub and Hadley come off the elevator talking and immediately interrupt to talk to House about their patient. We see them talking from Cuddy’s point of view and the elevator doors shut on House having his big eureka moment. That was pretty cool.

Cuddy sits before a board and tells them her ultimatum to the insurance company. The board is not happy with her decision. They tell her that if AtlanticNet insurance doesn’t have a contract with PPTH, Cuddy is out of a job.

Cuddy is working the clinic and a patient comes in claiming he needs breast milk to fight his cancer. He needs her to write a prescription for the breast milk so he can get reimbursed by his insurance. Cuddy won’t do it.

A lawyer is waiting in Cuddy’s office on behalf of a patient Chase performed a surgery on. See, the patient accidentally cut off his thumb with a table saw and Chase reattached it for him. The problem is, the patient didn’t want to pay the co-pay to have the thumb reattached because his insurance wouldn’t cover the whole bill. Now he’s suing PPTH to get out of the bill. Chase says he couldn’t let the guy go without a thumb.

Cuddy divulges her situation with AtlanticNet to Wilson who suggests she ask House what to do.

Lucas shows up with lunch for Cuddy. He tells her that Rachel is fine and offers to tail the AtlanticNet guys for her. She asks him how to find these guys. Apparently he tells her because she busts up the company’s CEO’s lunch. She basically calls him a rich douche and hey, guess what. He totally is a rich douche because he says no to her offer.

Eli is back with a counter offer of 8%. Cuddy turns it down but Eli says this is the only offer they’re going to get. Cuddy asks House what to do. House says it’s stupid to stick her job out on the line. It’s 3 pm so Cuddy calls a conference with the staff saying they’re terminating their contract with AtlanticNet. It’s pandelerium.

Cuddy is sitting in her car when House hobbles up. He says she’s not going to be fired and she won’t quit either because PPTH needs her and it matters to her. She asks House if he knew about Gail and he says he did but didn’t tell Cuddy because he thought he might need her someday. Then Cuddy epiphanies.

She has Gail back in her office and is sympathetic and tells her she can help her if she tells the truth. Gail says that she’s been stealing since 6 months after Cuddy hired her and that if she’s going down, Cuddy’s going down. What Gail doesn’t know is that Cuddy has bugged her own office.

Cuddy goes to hand in her resignation and Eli walks up with the offer with the 12%. She yells in victory.

The last scene shows Cuddy, Lucas, and Rachel snuggling in bed and it’s very sweet.

Gah, I’m exhausted just watching the episode but I have to say, I really liked it. I generally always like Cuddy and it’s nice to see what goes on in her world. I think she’s adorable with her daughter and Lucas is a great match for her. I think it showed a great parallel between she and House in that she’s just a stubborn about her job as he is. She’s no doormat. Really refreshing, don’t you think? Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought!

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