House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids

A good scientific mystery in House 6.17 last night, as the team investigates a knight who is felled at a local Renaissance fair by something other than love and sword.   After some good digging around, House thinks he's discovered the root of the problem in the apothecary, which has been dispensing root vegetables like candy.   A white carrot may be the culprit - it's hemlock, most famously known for the poison that Socrates was sentenced to ingest by the Athenian assemblage.

I actually know a fair amount about hemlock, acquired in my research for my 2006 novel, The Plot to Save Socrates.   The symptoms of the victim in House seem somewhat to match what hemlock can wreak, but not completely.   Sure enough, House in the end figures out that the patient is suffering not only from hemlock - given to him by a jealous king - but steroids, which the knight took on his own, as a way of, well, enhancing his performance on the fighting field.  That's what happens when you mix old and new, and the old is a poison.

Interpersonally, it was great to see Libby from Lost - Cynthia Watros - especially after she was back on Lost last week, for the first time in years.   On House, she plays Wilson's first wife.   The two may be on track to getting back together.  Unsurprisingly, House opposes this.   But surprisingly - it's still refreshing to see House becoming a mensch - House in the end tosses the dossier he asked Lucas to get on Libby (actually, Sam for Samantha on this show) in the trash.    He's slowly learning to live with relationships he dislikes.

A sign of civilization, in contrast to what Athens did to Socrates, or what he allowed Athens to do to him, since he was given a chance to escape.

But there's no escaping the enjoyment of House.

See also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples

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The Plot to Save Socrates




"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Brenda Leigh's Niece and Lost's Libby on The Closer

It was nice to meet another member of Brenda Leigh's extended family on The Closer last night. Her niece is having problems at home, so she's staying with her grandparents (Brenda's parents). But Brenda's mother has a better idea - the niece can stay for the summer with Brenda!

But lest we forget what kind of show this is and who Brenda is - a police detective show about someone brilliantly obsessed with solving and closing every case that comes her way - you know that Brenda is going to put her niece to some kind of good use in cracking a case...

Which, as fate would have it, is about a psychologist apparently murdered by the father of one his patients, a charming, schizophrenic young man. Well, the father has confessed. But his elocution in court does not match the evidence. Perhaps the son can shed some light on this? Brenda uses his attraction to her niece, whom Brenda sits in an adjoining, visible to the son, to put him at ease.

The psychologist's wife, played by Cynthia Watros, best-known as Libby from Lost, is also a psychologist and may also have a role in the murder. Interestingly, Libby on Lost was a clinical psychologist. Her story is one of the most compelling and inexplicable in Lost, and has yet to be resolved. She befriends Hurley on the island and the two fall in love. She's killed by Michael. But we also learn that she was in the same mental institution - as a patient - with Hurley, well before the crash.

How could this be? It's one of the inexplicable coincidences that I think provide the keys to understanding what is really going on in Lost. But so far, we've been given no clue as to how Libby could have been in that facility, and transformed from patient to healer. Surely all of Lost is more than Hurley's dream from that institution....

So it was good to see "Libby" again, with a different name but the same profession, on The Closer. Now, if only Brenda Leigh Johnson could use her investigative talent to figure out what really happened between Libby and Hurley on Lost...

See also Tom Skerritt on The Closer and Det. Richard Tracy on The Closer and Pres. Laura Roslin vs. Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson



5-min podcast review of The Closer and Lost

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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