The third season of House came to a close on Five last night (*blub*) with a double-bill. I don’t know why they aired two episodes back to back though as it wasn’t a two-parter, just the normal self-enclosed instalments we’ve come to know and love. That’s not to sound ungrateful – House is brilliant and any time I spend with those characters is precious, I just wish Five hadn’t felt the need to rush through the final moments. Even though I’m already writing news on the cast for next series (see the story here), I so wanted the third season to end correctly.

The first episode entitled ‘The Jerk’ saw a chess whizz kid admitted to the hospital having violently attacked his gaming opponent. While the victim suffered wounds that would easily heal, Nate, the jerk of the title had severe head pains that House and his team struggled to diagnose. With an inability to censor his dialogue, 16-year-old Nate was obnoxious and rude to all his attending physicians and ignored his mother when she would attempt to intervene. Was his mean and inappropriate behaviour a symptom of his condition or was he simply a bit of a brat? If only we had a genius doctor that could help…

First Nate set about upsetting Chase, a move which won the support of House until the boy got under his skin as well. The poor mother revealed her resentment towards her rude, impatient and disrespectful son and her hope that his behaviour might improve once House had cured him. But for this to happen House had to get to the root of the boy’s condition and with his liver, and then his kidneys shutting down time was soon running out.

Funny moments along the road to diagnosis included the administration of magic mushrooms (yes, really) and House trying to stress the boy out through playing chess. Of course House and his team successfully diagnosed the boy, determining that he was suffering from haemochromatosis (I hope that’s spelt correctly.) A disease chracterised by an inability to correctly deal with iron in the body, Nate’s recent dietary shift from being a vegetarian to a meat-eater had prompted the symptoms to kick in. Sadly the nasty behaviour had not been a side-effect of the illness but having come so close to having lost her son, the mother was grateful that he was still living.

The second medical case of the double-bill involved a young couple from Cuba suffering a storm at sea in their frantic bid to meet with the fabled doctor House. The young woman, Marina suffered from a rare medical condition that her and her husband Esteban were desperate to cure, only having lost the medical records at sea, House and his doctors were clueless as to what was afflicting her.

Marina’s heart would beat though no pulse could be felt and after some exploratory work, her heart packed up altogether. House prepared Esteban to say a final goodbye to his beloved wife only to find that her heart was still working. Happy at what they considered a miracle from God, the couple hoped their problems were behind them but House was adament that without a real diagnosis nothing had been achieved.

Deciding to repeat the exploratory procedure that had prompted Marina’s heart to cease beating in the first place, House and his team were luckier second time around. They found that she had a rare congenital heart defect which could be cured.

While busy tending to the patients, the personal lives of the doctors were in chaos with the imminent departure of Dr. Foreman. Having applied for a position at another hospital, Foreman was upset to find that someone had sabotaged his scheduled job interview and he thought he knew who was responsible. When grilled by Foreman House denied the accusations, only to follow up himself by questioning Cuddy on whether she had done it. Cuddy refuted the claims before asking Wilson whether he had intervened.

Cuddy: You killed Foreman’s job interview.
Wilson: Why would I…?
Cuddy: Somebody did. Wasn’t me and it wasn’t House, which means it has to be somebody who thought he was protecting House which means it has to be someone who actually likes house, which means it’s either you or the weird janitor who wears his pants backwards.
Wilson: I want Foreman to leave. House has to realize he needs someone who stands up to him. Cameron is in love with him, Chase is afraid of him, and I enable him. House needs limits.
Cuddy: I give him…
Wilson: You authorise magic mushrooms.

Wilson, confident in his innocent tried to glean some information from Cameron only for her to complete the circle of accusations by turning on Chase. The young Australian twigged that this ghost-hunting was the tactic of House and insisted that if he truly wanted Foreman to stay then the grouchy doc would have to ask him not to leave.

Chase become quite insistent in his pleas and in a shocking move House fired him. Though admitting the job had been the best thing to happen to him, Chase mildly exited the building leaving the rest of the staff in uproar at House’s callous and unprompted dismissal. He did however, end the show with a smile on his face with Cameron accepting her feelings for her fellow medic – aww!

But Foreman – what about Foreman? Cuddy tried her hardest to make him stay by offering a huge pay increase and the chance to run his own department, separate from House. Foreman rejected this generous offer and with his final days quickly passing was presented with a farewell gift from Cameron. Having been encouraged by Wilson to ask his young diagnostician to stay, House attempted this reconciliation only for the conversation to degenerate into cruel insults and uncomfortable home truths. With that Foreman left Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital maybe forever.

And he might not be the only one. Having said goodbye to both of her teammates, Cameron handed in her letter of resignation to House. With Chase and Foreman off to experience pastures new, the female doc also wished to spread her wings and House was left without a team.

Will he miss them? Will they come back and was it a good ending to what has been a very strong season? I’m already counting down the days until season four hits.