The essential episodes of House
Watch these 15 in order and you've got House — each pick states its reason.
- 01
Dr. Gregory House and his team take medical cases only after everyone else has failed to diagnose a patient. A Kindergarten teacher begins speaking gibberish and passes out in front of her class. What looks like a possible brain tumor does not respond to treatment and provides many more questions than answers for House and his team as they engage in a risky trial-and-error approach to her case. When the young teacher refuses any additional variations of treatment and her life starts slipping away, House must act against his code of conduct and make a personal visit to his patient to convince her to trust him one last time.
- 02
At a high-level campaign fundraiser, up-and-coming Senator Tom Wright becomes violently ill. Vogler pushes House to take Wright's case and dangles a new incentive in front of him: deliver a speech on behalf of Vogler's pharmaceutical company and save his whole team without firing one. House examines the senator finding that the symptoms point toward AIDS, a condition that would squash his career and presidential aspirations. But House refuses to settle for the easy answer. And House ends up giving the speech, but it doesn't go quite as Vogler planned.
- 03
While House and his team scramble to discover what's causing brain and kidney dysfunction in a pregnant woman, Vogler is on the warpath to get House fired after House's pharmaceutical speech. House determines the illness, but the woman and her husband struggle with an emotional and heartbreaking choice between her or her unborn child. Vogler calls for a vote of the Board of Directors to remove House, but when Wilson refuses to make the vote unanimous, Vogler threatens to take his money if the Board doesn't remove Wilson. Finally, Cuddy must take a stand against Vogler.
- 04
House's ex-girlfriend and former hospital legal counsel Stacy Warner returns not to be with House but to get his help diagnosing her ailing husband. While House decides whether or not to take the case, Cuddy forces him to substitute for a sick professor and present a lecture to a class of medical students. As he interweaves the stories of three patients who present with a similar symptom, House gives a lesson the students will never forget.
- 05
A 9-year-old terminal cancer patient, Andie, suffered from a hallucinogenic episode and was admitted to the hospital. Wilson convinces House to take the case, but he and his team struggle to diagnose what caused the hallucination. The young girl handles her illness so well that House wonders whether she is really that brave or if it is a medical symptom.
- 06
As House and his team diagnose Vince, a man with a giant, swollen tongue, a disgruntled former patient Jack Moriarty walks into House's office and shoots him. House continues treating his patient from his ICU hospital bed with Jack, who hospital security shot and hand-cuffed to his bed, as his roommate. When the after-effects of the shooting begin to impact House, he starts to question his ability to diagnose correctly. As his patient's body deteriorates, House struggles through his self-doubt and must trust his team to find a way to solve the case.
- 07
House has recovered from multiple gunshot wounds and is back at work, taking on two cases simultaneously: Richard, paralyzed after brain cancer surgery eight years ago, who drove himself on his motorized wheelchair headfirst into a swimming pool; and Caren, a young woman paralyzed from the neck down after a yoga session.
- 08
House finds himself dazed, confused and covered in blood after surviving a bus accident that left dozens seriously injured. Unable to clearly recall the events leading up to the crash due to his head injuries, House becomes convinced through his flashbacks that a fellow bus passenger was exhibiting signs of a deadly illness prior to the crash.
- 09
House remains inhibited by injuries sustained from a bus accident that has also left a victim rapidly deteriorating from a mysterious condition. Clues inside House's head hold the key to a patient's condition, and House's friendship with Wilson is tested beyond limits as murky memories from the bus accident the night before threaten to change their lives forever.
- 10
House and the team take on the case of a ballerina whose lungs collapse in the middle of a performance. When the treatment causes her skin to fall off, the dancer faces not only the prospect of never dancing again but also of dying an agonizing death. Meanwhile, House continues to suffer from a severe lack of sleep and is still haunted by Amber. While enlisting Wilson's help to diagnose himself, he is willing to do the unthinkable to make his visions stop.
- 11
House begins a detox program at Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital to get the Vicodin out of his system in an attempt to control his hallucinations.
- 12
Cuddy, House and members of the team join forces with a search-and-rescue team to provide much-needed medical attention at the scene of an emergency.
- 13
House participates in a school's Career Day and breaks a few rules by sharing explicit medical stories. Waiting outside the principal's office, he meets two fifth-grade students who assess House's relationship woes and try to help him understand how his selfish antics prevent him from showing Cuddy how he really feels.
- 14
When the team takes on the case of Emily, a six-year-old girl with multiple health issues, they must collaborate with her mother, Elizabeth, who is also a doctor specializing in Emily's condition. Meanwhile, House and Wilson take a little vacation to treat Wilson's cancer in House's apartment.
- 15
Facing a 6-month jail term and realizing that he won't be there for Wilson at the end, House finds himself examining his entire life while contemplating a dismal future without his best friend. Trapped in a burning building, House must come to terms with his life, choices, personal demons, and future.
Shows like House
The closest matches on shared genres, ranked by match strength and popularity.
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