| abstract
| - Three Stories is a 1st season episode of House which first aired on May 17, 2005. Cuddy wants House to deliver a lecture to the medical students on diagnostics, and House finally agrees when she lets him off of clinic duty for a couple of hours. On the way to the lecture, he finds his ex-girlfriend coming to see him to ask him to treat her husband. After refusing, he heads to the lecture where one of the cases he presents starts to look very familiar. In addition to being one of the best episodes of House, it is a critical episode in the development of House's character and his backstory. Up until this episode, House finds it easy to wisecrack with Cuddy, Wilson, patients, family and fellows alike. Even on his best behavior on a date with Cameron, he breaks the news that he thinks she only likes him because of how damaged he is. Although there are clues to the contrary throughout Season 1, it would be easy to convince oneself that House is indeed past the point where he wants or needs any human connection whatsoever. Even Cameron has determined he is incapable of love, empathy or affection. However, all this goes out the window when Stacy Warner shows up. Although mentioned earlier in the series, House has insisted he is over her. We are left to wonder what kind of woman could possibly be "House's former girlfriend". When a beautiful, intelligent, kind woman shows up and greets him with "Greg" instead of "House", we expect House to treat her just like he treated the overly familiar Marty Hamilton earlier in the season. Instead, the wisecracks instantly disappear. House actually looks vulnerable and we realize later that the reason he isn't putting up his usual defensive is that Stacy would see right through it. She knows how much she means to him and hopes that in her time of need he will help her. House has no intention of doing so, but even when he blows her off by implying he would prefer her husband die rather than treat him, it's clear his heart isn't in it. The lecture tells us even more about House. Surprisingly, he's astounding at it despite his reluctance and his slow start. At every turn, he sucks the students in by allowing them to confirm their own biases by deflecting their assumptions with truthful but misleading answers like "that's what usually happens". However, he quickly turns on the students when they start jumping to conclusions and fail to delve deep into their knowledge. When Cameron lets the cat out of the bag, we see the lights go off in their heads - how could they have been so stupid as to have missed something so obvious. Like the contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes, they have seen, but they have not observed. The lecture has its desired effect, teaching the students both about the necessity of thinking through an initial diagnosis and introducing important issues about medical ethics. This episode is the first use in the series of telling the story in Anachronic Order, but it would not be the last. The similarly named Two Stories and Nobody's Fault later in the series also make use of the device of telling the story out of chronological order. In many episodes of the series, the patient appears to represent a part of House. In this episode, the tables are turned - there are three patients who, as it turns out, could have been House's case. The symptom they come to the emergency room with is identical in each case. Even his fellows are fooled for a while. For the audience, it's a guessing game like "To Tell The Truth" - one of the patients is the real House and he's gone to great lengths to keep enough detail out of the stories to keep everyone guessing. When House starts to take one of the cases personally, Cameron has her "House moment" and realize House is expressing anger about his own case. In addition, like many episodes, the patient has a "moral failing" and it appears they are being punished for it. In the case of "Mid 30's man", his leg pain is dismissed as the direct result of his drug abuse. However, the real situation is more complicated than that. Only the Volleyball Player is actually truly innocent - her condition is not due to anything she did and she is truly morally blameworthy. Ironically, it's the Farmer who is being punished for his moral failure, and it costs him his leg when he protects a dog that's just plain mean. Even more ironically, although it seems House was the one being punished for his drug use, like many other patients on the series, his illness is totally unrelated to his moral failing - he could have abstained his whole life and that aneurysm would have given way at some point. As such, with House, the equation is more complex - would the doctors have taken his leg pain more seriously if he hadn't been a drug seeker? The episode also raises other parts of House's backstory, such as his earlier connections to Cuddy, his near-death experience and, most importantly, the full story behind his disability. However, one issue that remains unclear was whether House became a drug addict before or after the infarction that gave rise to his disability. The episode is also the most honored episode of the series to date, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series for its writer, David Shore, in 2005 and a Humanitas Prize in 2006 - the top honor a television show can obtain, given to award outstanding writing promoting humanity, dignity and freedom. It is the series' top rated episode on TV.com, receiving a 9.3 out of 10. It finished 7th in Facebook's poll of the best episodes of the series completed in April, 2012.
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