Epic Fail (House)

"Epic Fail" is the third episode of the sixth season of House. It first aired on September 28, 2009.

Players in a video game known as SavageScape battle ferocious creatures. After the game ends, the testers find their boss, Vince Pearson, claiming that his hands are "on fire". House walks into Cuddy's office and quits. When he reports to Dr. Nolan, his psychiatrist, that his leg pain has returned, Nolan suggests that House take up a hobby that can channel his focus. House decides to learn how to cook. He joins Wilson in a cooking class, and is revealed as a genius in that area too, by applying techniques that he supposedly does not know to be of molecular gastronomy, a quite modern field even to gourmets.

Foreman wants to run the diagnostic department and Cuddy allows him a chance to do it. Foreman settles in House's office, and discusses Vince's case with Taub and Thirteen.

Foreman plans to treat him for complex regional pain syndrome with a spinal stimulation. But Vince has looked up his symptoms on the internet, and thinks he has mercury poisoning. Ignoring Foreman's orders, Thirteen and Taub perform the test for mercury and not the spinal stimulation. Despite Foreman saying his mercury test was negative, Vince demands treatment for the mercury but Foreman challenges him. As Taub and Thirteen administer the spinal stimulation, Vince's lungs begin filling with fluid. A thickened left ventricle in his heart is causing pulmonary edema. Taub suspects cocaine use. Foreman admits to Thirteen that he has been comparing himself to House. Taub and Thirteen go search Vince's office.

As Taub and Thirteen play SavageScape at the developer's office, she complains that Foreman told her that he made a dinner reservation rather than asking her. Thirteen realizes that Vince, in researching the birds in the video game, may have caught an avian-related disease. Later, Thirteen discovers that Vince has had a three-hour erection. The doctors implant a stent for the priapism. Thirteen suggests a brain tumor but Foreman overrules her with a diagnosis of thrombocytosis. Taub agrees with Foreman. Thirteen and Foreman are arguing about the new dynamic in their relationship when they see unknown doctors in the patient's room.