The Moment House/Cameron Fans have waited for!

AND... a good case too. Actually, there were two good cases and an interesting guest star. Dave Matthews excellently played the patient-of-the-week, an adult left mentally challenged, but a musical savant, after being involved in a bus accident at age 10.

House eventually figures out that the right side of his brain has been malfunctioning since the accident and that the best thing for him is a hemisphere-ectomy, or removal of that damaged right side. House thinks that removing this dead half will allow the good half to perform at its best and give Patrick (DM's character) his best chance at a normal life. However, it will remove his musical savantism, since as we learn from House, musicianship is a global function (requiring both sides of the brain.)

Before the diagnosis, or maybe because House already suspects the final outcome and wants one last chance, House and Patrick play a beautiful duet. House rolls a piano into Patrick's room, sits down and plays the opening passage of The Boomtown Rats, "I Don't Like Mondays." Patrick fills in the next passage perfectly. House visibly stops to consider this for a moment, and then begins a pretty little song that we later learn he wrote himself when in Junior High. He stops after the first passage again, and Patrick fills in the next passage, plus the next one... one that House never wrote, and finishes the piece. It's gorgeous. It's also very cool seeing Hugh play piano (yes, that's really him playing!) and I'm sure that Hugh is thrilled to be playing with Dave Matthews.

After some consideration on the dad's side, and some back and forth with Cuddy, Patrick does have the hemisphere-ectomy and ends the episode able to button his shirt, something he could not do before, and a sign that House was right.

Patrick's case, however, was only one of two the team was working on this week. Through some very HOUSE-like spying and privacy intrusion, Cameron learned, by OPENING HOUSE'S MAIL AND READING IT, that he had booked airline tickets to Boston. Foreman caught House delivering his own blood to the lab for analysis. Putting two and two together, they assumed he might be looking for a job elsewhere. (Harvard, Cameron says, is looking for an Infectious Disease Dept. Head - House's specialty.)Cameron then feels perfectly justified to break into House's apt. and search it (she has learned from Greg well!) She and Chase let themselves in with a key they find hidden on the top of his doorframe and proceed to again open and read his mail. They find a phone bill with many calls to the 617 (Boston) area code. Chase picks up House's phone and dials the number, and "Massachusetts General" picks up.

As we know, Cameron is a direct line to Cuddy. In the next scene, we see Cuddy on the phone with Mass Gen, telling them in no uncertain terms that they can NOT woo away her ace diagnostician. She learns that he is NOT job-hunting and not coming for a social call. There could only be one other reason for his trip there, one that they would refuse to reveal. He's a patient. The doc that Cuddy speaks to at Mass General mentions the name of another specialist he's coming to see. It's someone Wilson knows, an oncologist with a sub-specialty in brain cancer.

Once Cuddy tells Wilson, it only takes an instant for Wilson to tell Cameron and Cameron to tell the rest of the team. This sets them all into a tizzy trying to figure out if perhaps he was mis-diagnosed. In between digging into House's "case", each of House's team members and friends deal with the news that he is dying. Foreman tries to tell House he likes him. Chase hugs him and cries. Wilson is more than a bit put out that House didn't come to him, his best friend AND an oncologist. Each person comes to House except for Cuddy. He shows up at her house, ostensibly to discuss Patrick's case, but really to cop an ass grab (which Cuddy allows) and to invite his poor, dying self into her bed (which she denies saying, "Call the Make-a-Wish Foundation!") Cameron comes to House's office with a letter of recommendation she asks him to sign. She tells him she's applying for a job at Penn, because there's no sense in staying there if he's not there. Again, very HOUSE-like of her to write her own letter. He tells her he's not dead yet and asks her if she's sure she wants to leave. She approaches him slowly, runs her hands along his face, and kisses him. House seems uncomfortable about this at first, but starts to get into it. Until, that is, he sees her reach into her pocket and pull out a syringe. In another Greg-like move, she has an ulterior motive. She's trying to sneak a blood sample from him so she can run tests. He's offended that she tried to pull that off, but she happily points out that he DID kiss back. (and boy, did he!)

Throughout, Greg is not happy that his team even knows he has cancer. He tries to direct their energies back to Patrick's case and tries NOT to talk about it whenever possible. He clearly enjoys, however, seeing each of his significant person's reactions. (especially Cameron's)

The team figures out that he WAS mis-diagnosed and he does NOT have brain cancer. I think he may have been a little proud that they got to the bottom of this.. but he was NOT happy that they told the folks at Mass. General about it. Why? Because he already knew he did not have cancer. He was using someone else's file to FAKE cancer so that he would be admitted to a clinical trial of a drug that would be injected into the pleasure center of his brain. His team is horrified that he would fake cancer to get high AND let them all believe that he was dying. Wilson doesn't seem as surprised. Knowing both Greg's personality and the extent of his addiction better than the others, he points out that while most REAL cancer patients do OK if they have people who care around them, HOUSE went out of his way to push away the people who cared about him when pretending to be a cancer patient. Wilson suggests that if he wants to assuage his pain, he might start small, "try spending time with friends " rather than injecting drugs into his brain. The episode closes with HOUSE looking from the outside in to a bar where Chase, Foreman, and Cameron are having drinks after work. He looks like he might join them.. and places his hand on the doorknob to enter as the credits roll.

This was definitely one of the best episodes of the season, and I'd say, in the Top ten for the series so far. Two more weeks off.. (Thanks AI.) and then back on 3/27 for NINE new House episodes in a row. Can't wait.