Office Politics (House)

"Office Politics"
House episode
Episode no.	Season 7 Episode 6
Directed by	Sanford Bookstaver
Written by	Seth Hoffman
Original air date	November 8, 2010 (2010-11-08)
Guest stars
Jack Coleman as Joe Dugan Pat Finn as Senator Hal Anderson
Season 7 episodes
September 2010 – May 2011 "Now What?" "Selfish" "Unwritten" "Massage Therapy" "Unplanned Parenthood" "Office Politics" "A Pox on Our House" "Small Sacrifices" "Larger Than Life" "Carrot or Stick" "Family Practice" "You Must Remember This" "Two Stories" "Recession Proof" "Bombshells" "Out of the Chute" "Fall from Grace" "The Dig" "Last Temptation" "Changes" "The Fix" "After Hours" "Moving On"
List of House episodes

"Office Politics" is the sixth episode of the seventh season of the American medical drama House. It aired on November 8, 2010.

Plot

A New Jersey senator's campaign manager Joe Dougan(played by Jack Coleman) falls ill with liver failure and temporary paralysis.

Meanwhile, Cuddy pressures House to add a female doctor to his team but eventually tells him that she has chosen for him- a third year med student named Martha Masters. Taub appears to have a problem with Masters, which Foreman and Chase try to figure out. Throughout the episode, House keeps firing and rehiring Masters, rehiring her whenever he needs her for an idea, and firing her again as soon as he's done talking to her.

Masters suggests a neuroendocrine tumor, and the team also considers DIC. The team give Joe an MRI to look for a tumor, but don't find one. Taub runs Joe's blood, which also comes back normal. Looking at the senator on TV delivering a speech, House suspects the senator has Hepatitis C, and thinks that he's had sex with Joe, and thinks Joe has Hepatitis C as well. He gives Joe interferon, but Joe doesn't get better. Masters notes that a German research study has shown that 15% of people with Hepatitis C that have been injected with Hepatitis A have gotten better. When Cuddy says that this exposes the hospital to liability, Masters tells her that she's being a coward.

Foreman and Chase eventually find out that Taub dislike her because he interviewed her for Hopkins Med School for an hour and she didn't remember him, even though she remembered the 20th digit of Euler's number. At the end of the episode, Taub learns the truth about Masters. She remembers him, and he mumbles something to her.

House takes the senator's blood and runs it under Joe's name to get Cuddy to approve on his decision, despite Wilson's warnings that lying to her would be wrong now that they are involved. House also hires Masters in the end, saying she had him when she called Cuddy a coward. The show ends with Cuddy going to the nurses station to check up on House and discovering his lie. She is very visibly upset.

Reception

Critical response

This episode received a B+ from the AV Club.^[1]

Ratings

This episode was watched by 9.63 million American viewers.^{[citation needed]} 2.37 million Canadians watched this episode, ranking seventh for the week.^[2]

References

1. ^ http://www.avclub.com/articles/office-politics,47305/
2. ^ http://bbm.ca/_documents/top_30_tv_programs_english/2010/nat11082010.pdf

External links

• "Office Politics" at Fox.com
• "Office Politics" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Office Politics" at TV.com