House 7.01 “Now What?” Recap

Season 7 of House kicks off exactly where season 6 ended. Cuddy went to House’s apartment after he lost the patient and is about to start popping Vicodin again. She tells him she has just broken up with her fiancé and that she loves him. House kisses her and that’s exactly where the episode 7.01 — ‘Now What’starts.

They kiss and touch and it’s all very emotional. Cuddy takes his shirt off to disinfect his wound — after all he is still dirty from being trapped in a collapsed building all night. House protests when she takes off his pants because he doesn’t want her to see his damaged leg. She ignores him, kisses his thigh and tells him she loves him. That’s all it takes for him to pull her to her feet and into his arms for some serious, long overdue sex. After that’s taken care of, House asks her now what. Was that a one time thing or not? Cuddy tells him to stop analyzing and enjoy the moment, which is interrupted by her cell phone ringing. House answers it and Cuddy’s assistant tells him he needs to talk to his boss. House tells him she can’t come to the phone, so the poor guy tells him Dr. Richardson, their only neurosurgeon, is sick. House, being his lovely self, tells the guy to use his brain and send Richardson home.

The big problem is the ER can’t stay open unless there is a neurosurgeon in the hospital and that would cause the hospital rating to drop. Since House sent Dr. Richardson home, now the committee has to be notified, which Cuddy’s assistant dutifully does.

Meanwhile, the team is worried about House, but the boys are even more worried about Thirteen, since they found a note she left for House, broke into her locker and found out she’s leaving for Rome. They have absolutely no concept of privacy, do they? Foreman confronts her about getting into a new Huntington’s trial in Italy and that she shouldn’t do it. She tells him to back off.

House asks Cuddy what would happen if there wasn’t a neurosurgeon in the hospital and after she tells him, he makes up an excuse to hide in the bathroom and call Chase, who does what his boss asked and pretends to be a neurosurgeon. Cuddy’s assistant, however, is smarter than he seems. His boss had already warned him about House’s team and told him not to believe anything they said. Chase gives in and admits he’s not a neurosurgeon, so now they’ve got a big problem in their hands as the ER and ICU are about to be shut down. They call every neurosurgeon in a 45-mile radius and get nothing. Chase calls House and tells him what’s going on and Greg tells him to suck it up and deal with it.

Back at his apartment, House and Cuddy are being all lovey-dovey — which is adorable and borderline too sweet — when Wilson interrupts them with a phone call. House ignores it, but Wilson is right outside the door, listening to the phone ring. Greg insists he is fine and Wilson eventually gives up and leaves.

At the hospital, the team decides to get Dr. Richardson back — who cares if he’s sick, right? — so Chase and Thirteen go to his house, only to find him hugging the toilet, puking his guts out. They give him something to make the nausea go away, but the medicine also makes him completely stoned. It’s important to add that, while waiting for Dr. Richardson to get better, Chase tells Thirteen he thinks they should have sex.

Yeah, I know.

They take Richardson to the hospital, anyway, thinking they can pull this off. However, when the committee representative comes to check on him, the neurosurgeon takes his clothes off and walks away, causing the ER and ICU to be shut down until there is a functioning, sober neurosurgeon present.

Back at House’s, Cuddy says he is hiding her and that he isn’t ready to go public. Right when they’re starting to argue, they hear someone trying to break in. House finds Wilson stuck on the kitchen window, which is downright hilarious. After laughing at his best friend, House helps his get out of that predicament and tells him he didn’t answer his calls because he was busy having sex with his girlfriend, whose name begins with a ‘C’and ends with ‘uddy’. Wilson obviously doesn’t believe him and House takes him to his room to prove it, but Cuddy is not there. Wilson says he is hallucinating and starts examining him. House once again insists that he is fine and not on drugs and tells Wilson he can leave. When he gets back to his room, he finds Cuddy hiding in his closet. She apologizes, saying she was pressuring him and that it wasn’t fair and that they didn’t have to go public yet. House says he is game.

Later on, when they’re playing Scrabble, Cuddy asks him why he hasn’t said he loves her back. He says actions speak louder than words. When they’re back in bed, she tells him about this place in France she would like to visit and House tells her they can go right now if she wants. She says she can’t because of the hospital and her daughter and right then the ugly face of reality starts to show. She compromises saying maybe in a couple of weeks they can make it.

All seems to be going really well until House tells her — when they’re saying goodbye — that it won’t work between them because he’s done so many bad things and he is never going to change and he is not the best person to be around a kid and that she would realize that eventually and leave him. And then it cuts to commercial and we’re all like what the hell just happened?

The next time we see them, they’re back on the couch talking and Cuddy tells him she loves him for who he is and that she doesn’t want him to change because he is the most incredible man she has ever met. And unless he’s breaking up with her, she has to get home and will see him the next day. House is touched and blurts out that he loves her and it’s really sweet.

Back in the hospital, Chase asks Thirteen again about having sex and she laughs it off and says no. Although, when she hugs him, he says he’s getting mixed signals. She laughs again and leaves. The team has prepared a going away party for her, but she doesn’t show. Foreman tells the team he called the hospital in Rome and they said they have never even heard of her and that her phone line has been disconnected. She’s just gone.

The end.

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