Last Resort (House)

"Last Resort" is the ninth episode of the fifth season of House and the ninety-fifth episode overall. It aired on November 25, 2008. This episode is an "extended episode" as it runs for an extra seven minutes (excluding ads), taking the total episode's length without ads to 50 minutes.

A gun-wielding man named Jason (Željko Ivanek) from the waiting room at the Princeton-Plainsboro clinic takes House, Thirteen, a nurse, and several patients from the waiting room hostage in Cuddy's office. The man claims to be sick with a long undiagnosed illness and demands medical attention from the best doctor in the hospital, threatening to kill any hostages necessary along the way. With a room full of already sick patients, House must use them as guinea pigs to assure the hostage-taker that the medications he is administering to him are legitimate.

As Cuddy and the rest of House's team communicate with House over the phone to run tests and offer possible diagnoses, they ponder the possibility that Jason has nothing physically wrong with him and that everyone in Cuddy's office could wind up dead. With one hostage already shot, Thirteen wagers her own already diminished health as she simultaneously receives the experimental treatments the hostage-taker patient is receiving as he wants to make sure they are not sedatives. Her life lies in danger as House's own determination to diagnose the hostage-taker threatens to thwart the SWAT team's plan to put an end to the standoff in the "Last Resort" fire.

At one point, House gets the gun in order to do an CT, but gives it back afterwards in order to continue the standoff and the search. After receiving medicine for Cushing's Syndrome, Thirteen develops kidney failure. This actually gives House a clue as Jason's kidneys are not failing and the team realizes that some of the drugs he'd previously taken must be protecting his kidneys and perhaps saved his life.

Next the team believes that its Melioidosis but Jason says he's not been to tropical climates having never traveled farther south than Florida. Realizing that Florida is warm enough for the diagnosis to fit, House calls for drugs to treat the disease. Jason sends House out in exchange for the drugs and demands that Thirteen take the injection first to make sure it's the real thing, despite knowing it would kill her in her current state. Although up until this point she has displayed reckless and risky behaviour in response to her disease, at this point Thirteen refuses, tearfully realising "I don't want to die." He prepares to fire at Thirteen, but at the last second grabs the drugs and injects them into himself as the SWAT team blows the wall down and storms the room.