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Cane and Able is the second episode of the third season of House and the forty-eighth episode overall. The episode's title is a double pun referencing the biblical siblings Cain and Abel.

Plot

House's ego has taken a blow believing he failed to diagnose his last case, and it's affecting him physically. He is in pain again, although he denies it. House's new case is seven-year-old Clancy, a product of in vitro fertilization, who's been admitted to the hospital with rectal bleeding and proclamations of being tortured by aliens. As the team runs tests on him, they discover the same test is giving conflicting results. House thinks the kid is having nightmares with the one symptom of having a bleeding disorder. But the tests on the bleeding disorder are first negative and then positive and both Chase and Foreman think the other made a mistake. But the tests keep going back and forth. When Clancy claims to have a tracking device in the back of his neck and the team discovers an unknown metal object exactly in that spot, they aren't quite sure what to think. The metal in the back of his neck was likely the remnants of a surgical pin that had not been completely removed several years prior and had migrated via the circulatory system.

Amidst this, Cuddy and Wilson decide not to tell House the truth about his last case, thinking that perhaps he will learn some humility if he believes he's not always right. Cameron discovers the lie and is outraged, but Cuddy convinces her to hold off telling House. When House and the team discover cells with a different type of DNA in Clancy's body, they are forced to give Clancy's alien claims a little more credence, but a frustrated House gives up on his young patient, forcing Cuddy to re-think her desire to hold back the truth she's hiding. She finally tells House the truth about his last case, House is relieved that his idea was right and suddenly realizes what Clancy might have. House tells the parents that Clancy has chimerism, where there are two sets of DNA in one body - in effect Clancy's twin brother had merged with him in the womb. In order to remove the "dead" cells in his brain, they have to perform brain surgery by inducing electric shocks to the brain to find the part of the brain that was creating hallucinations. When they fail to induce the hallucinations, House orders higher and higher voltage shocks to create a hallucination. He finally induces a hallucination in Clancy by scaring him.

Goofs

In this episode, House's team also created an antibody that bound only to the protein encoded by the patient's chimeric DNA in a span of a few hours or, at most, a few days. Antibody design and production takes weeks or months and often does not result in an antibody with such high specificity.

External links

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 * In this episode, House's team also created an antibody that bound only to the protein encoded by the patient's chimeric DNA in a span of a few hours or, at most, a few days.  Antibody design and production takes weeks or months and often does not result in an antibody with such high specificity.
-==Notes==
-{{Trivia|date=September 2008}}
-* The song [[Gravity (John Mayer song)|Gravity]] by  [[John Mayer]] is played at the end of the episode.
-* When Cameron confronts Wilson and Cuddy about misleading House over the success of his previous case, she chides them to "come up with a [[Baldrick|cunning plan]], and fast". This could be a possible reference to [[Blackadder]] {{Fact|date=May 2008}} - a show [[Hugh Laurie|Laurie]] was previously in. Baldrick, a rather dim witted character, would often say he has a 'cunning plan' (which was, more often than not, not cunning at all, but downright stupid.)
-* When House watches the heart echo on increasingly large screens, his line, "We're going to need a bigger boat" is a famous quote from [[Jaws (film)|Jaws]].
-* When Cameron tried to make a metaphor, House said "I had no idea what she meant, but I can smell what [[Dwayne Johnson|The Rock]] is cookin'" while raising his eyebrow. Both are a reference to former [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] superstar [[Dwayne Johnson|The Rock]].
-*When the team discusses the exam mess up both Foreman and House make fun of Chase. After the team finishes discussing what to do next, Chase tries to get back at Foreman by making a "[[Yo mamma]]" joke.
-* When Wilson and House are discussing why Wilson and Cuddy tried to conceal House's successful diagnosis of his last case, Wilson says "If we told you the truth [...] you'd think you were God, and I was worried your wings would melt." This is in reference to [[Icarus]] from Greek mythology, who flew too close to the Sun on wax wings and plunged into the sea.
-* When informed that Clancy has gone missing, House tells Chase "you take [[Alpha Centauri]], Foreman can look on Tatooine." [[Tatooine]] is a fictional planet in the [[Star Wars]] series.
 ==External links==