"House M.D." Heavy (2005)

Director:

Fred Gerber

Writers:

David Shore (creator)
Thomas L. Moran (written by)

TV Series:

"House M.D." (2004)

Original Air Date:

29 March 2005 (Season 1, Episode 16)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery

Plot:

A morbidly obese ten-year-old girl has a heart attack, and her mother insists that House and his team look past her weight to find the diagnosis...

Plot Keywords:

Sick Child | Doctor | Medical Doctor | Maverick Doctor | Pain

Cast

Hugh Laurie	...	Dr. Gregory House
Lisa Edelstein	...	Dr. Lisa Cuddy
Omar Epps	...	Dr. Eric Foreman
Robert Sean Leonard	...	Dr. James Wilson
Jennifer Morrison	...	Dr. Allison Cameron
Jesse Spencer	...	Dr. Robert Chase
Cynthia Ettinger	...	Mrs. Simms
Jennifer Stone	...	Jessica Simms
Susan Slome	...	Mrs. Lucille Hernandez
Ramón Franco	...	Mr. Hernandez (as Ramon Franco)
Karen Goberman	...	Mrs. Ayers
Chi McBride	...	Edward Vogler
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Rose Colasanti	...	Cashier
D.J. Evans	...	Classmate #2
Bryan Fabian	...	Classmate #3
Alec George	...	Classmate #1
Teddy Lane Jr.	...	Mr. Conroy
Austin Leisle	...	Seth
Alyson Morgan	...	Clementine

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | Japan:Unrated

Company:

Bad Hat Harry Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: While writing on the white board over House's left shoulder switches between being circled and not circled between shots.

Quotes:

Dr. Gregory House: Ever seen an infected pierced scrotum?
Dr. Lisa Cuddy: Uh... no, but I know a few people to whom I'd like to see it happen.

Movie Connections:

References "Punk'd" (2003)

Soundtrack:

Got To Be More Careful

A ground-breaking role for Jennifer Stone

I hate to admit it, but I'm one of the many who sought out this episode after Jennifer Stone became famous from "Wizards of Waverly Place." As for the show itself, I always saw the rapid-fire insults of Dr. Gregory House as something that looked funnier in the promos than the actual series is. I still do, but that doesn't mean I hate it. After checking out a few or several episodes and missing this one, I finally got to see it.

This episode is hardly kiddie-fare. It's not supposed to be, and none of them are anyway. Stone plays Jessica Simms, an obese 10-year-old girl who suffers a non-fatal heart attack during gym. Any reasonable person would conclude that this girl simply ate too much junk food, and is paying the price for it, but this isn't the case. Her mother wants House and his staff to consider another cause besides her weight. They do, and it doesn't work the first two times. During one procedure, she become impatient when she gets too thirsty and freaks out. In another she develops huge bleeding scars on her body out of nowhere. Because she is 10 years old, she's worried about her prospects involving friends, boys, etc., and eventually reveals that she had been stealing diet pills. Finally the staff concludes that the only treatment available for this poor girl might be a double mastectomy before she's even old enough to have breasts... or is it? Another one of House's patients who appears to have put on some extra weight is a middle-aged woman with a massive tumor in her torso who fears that if she has surgery she'll have a huge scar, and her husband will leave her for another woman. The doc handles the crisis in his usual crass manner that we all love. All this happens while the hospital board tries to force House to fire some members of his staff.

This wasn't the only non-kid-friendly role Stone was in. In an episode of "Without a Trace," she had a brief role as a girl who was brought to a sex-abuse party by some dirty old men who had an encounter with a missing girl. Unlike that role, she was the main subject here, and is certainly a surprise for anybody who knows her as the happy-go-lucky, fashion-eccentric sidekick she plays today.