HOUSE, M.D.

1X01: PILOT (2004)

Dir. David Shore

Scene 1

[Rebecca riding bus and then running into a school. Meets up with Melanie]
Melanie: Why are you late?
Rebecca: You’re not going to like the answer.
Melanie: I already know the answer.
Rebecca: I missed the bus.
Melanie: I don’t doubt it, no bus stops near Brad’s. You spent the night, the
alarm didn’t work. Or maybe it did.
Rebecca: I didn’t sleep with him.
Melanie: Girl, there’s...[Interrupted]
Rebecca: I missed the bus!
Melanie: There’s something either very wrong with you, or there’s something very
wrong with him.
Rebecca: There’s nothing wrong with him.
Melanie: Please tell me you know that for a fact.
Rebecca: Melanie, I gotta go.
Melanie: You’re lying aren’t you?
Rebecca: I wouldn’t lie to you.

Scene 2
Rebecca: [Turns to class of 5 year olds] Good morning guys!
Class: Good morning Miss Rebecca!
Rebecca: Everybody’s in their seats?
Class: Yes!
Rebecca: Ok, Sidney, why don’t you tell us what you did this weekend. Come on,
Sidney, we know you’re not shy.
Sidney: How come we always have to tell you what we did, and you never tell us
what you did?
Class: [giggles]
Rebecca: Ok, I had a really great weekend, but you can’t tell Miss Melanie, ok?
Sidney: What did you do?
Rebecca: I made a new friend. It’s so much fun to make new friends, isn’t it?
Class: Yeah, Yes, ect.
Girl 2: Did you tell you mom and dad about your new friend?
Rebecca: Absolutely! You should never keep anything from your parents. And I
told them [gibberish]
Class: [giggles]
Rebecca: Wh..
Class [more giggles]
Rebecca: [gibberish]
Class: [Laughs and giggles]
[Rebecca goes to the board and starts writing]
Class: C, A, T, H
Sidney: “The.”
Boy: We know that word, “the.”
[Rebecca collapses, on the board the words “call the nurse” are written]

Scene 3
[House and Wilson are walking through the hallway. All you can see is their
hands and legs, showing that House is using a cane and limping. Wilson is the
only one of the two wearing a lab coat.]
Wilson: 29 year old female, first seizure one month ago, lost the ability to
speak. Babbled like a baby. Present deterioration of mental status.
House: See that? They all assume I’m a patient because of this cane.
Wilson: So put on a white coat like the rest of us.
House: I don’t want them to think I’m a doctor.
Wilson: You see where the administration might have a problem with that
attitude.
House: People don’t want a sick doctor.
Wilson: Fair enough. I don’t like healthy patients. The 29 year old female…
House: The one who can’t talk, I liked that part.
Wilson: She’s my cousin.
House: And your cousin doesn’t like the diagnosis. I wouldn’t either. Brain
tumor, she’s gonna die, boring.
Wilson: No wonder you’re such a renowned diagnostician. You don’t need to
actually know anything to figure out what’s wrong.
House: You’re the oncologist; I’m just a lowly infectious disease guy.
Wilson: Hah, yes, just a simple country doctor. Brain tumors at her age are
highly unlikely.
House: She’s 29. Whatever she’s got is highly unlikely.
Wilson: Protein markers for the three most prevalent brain cancers came up
negative.
House: That’s an HMO lab; you might as well have sent it to a high school kid
with a chemistry set.
Wilson: No family history.
House: I thought your uncle died of cancer.
Wilson: Other side. No environmental factors.
House: That you know of.
Wilson: And she’s not responding to radiation treatment.
House: None of which is even close to dispositive. All it does is raise one
question. Your cousin goes to an HMO?
Wilson: Come on! Why leave all the fun for the coroner? What’s the point of
putting together a team if you’re not going to use them? You’ve go three
overqualified doctors working for you. Getting bored.
Scene 4
[Cut to Rebecca, into the nose, and up the blood stream. Cut to House looking
through an MRI of Rebecca’s head.]
Foreman: It’s a lesion.
House: And the big green thing in the middle of the bigger blue thing on a map
is an island. I was hoping for something a bit more creative.
Foreman: Shouldn’t we be speaking to the patient before we start diagnosing?
House: Is she a doctor?
Foreman: No, but…
House: Everybody lies.
Cameron: Dr. House doesn’t like dealing with patients.
Foreman: Isn’t treating patients why we became doctors?
House: No, treating illnesses is why we became doctors, treating patients is
what makes most doctors miserable.
Foreman: So you’re trying to eliminate the humanity from the practice of
medicine.
House: If you don’t talk to them they can’t lie to us, and we can’t lie to them.
Humanity is overrated. I don’t think it’s a tumor.
Foreman: First year of medical school if you hear hoof beets you think “horses”
not “zebras”.
House: Are you in first year of medical school? No. First of all, there’s
nothing on the CAT scan. Second of all, if this is a horse then the kindly
family doctor in Trenton makes the obvious diagnosis and it never gets near this
office. Differential diagnosis, people: if it’s not a tumor what are the
suspects? Why couldn’t she talk?
Chase: Aneurysm, stroke, or some other ischemic syndrome.
House: Get her a contrast MRI.
Cameron: Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
Chase: Mad cow?
House: Mad zebra.
Foreman: Wernickie's encephalopathy?
House: No, blood thiamine level was normal.
Foreman: Lab in Trenton could have screwed up the blood test. I assume it’s a
corollary if people lie, that people screw up.
House: Re-draw the blood tests. And get her scheduled for that contrast MRI
ASAP. Let’s find out what kind of zebra we’re dealing with here.

Scene dialogues transcribed for educational purposes.