House believes that an actor on his favorite soap opera is seriously ill after observing his symptoms on television, so he decides to intervene; Amber and Wilson have their first fight, much to House’s delight; and Cuddy tries to keep up appearances when an inspector shows up unexpectedly at Princeton-Plainsboro.

House copes with a patient whose symptoms conceal a greater problem, but spends much of his time dodging Cuddy’s orders to give performance reviews, and fighting with Amber over who gets to spend more time with Wilson.

House and the team encounter a woman (guest star Laura Silverman) admitted to Princeton-Plainsboro after she collapsed at her wedding. Her test results come up negative for a variety of common diseases, which leads the team to suspect foul play. When they discover the woman had been a music producer living in the fast lane until she converted to Hasidic Judaism, House insists that people do not change so easily, and that her seemingly rash decision may have something to do with an underlying condition.

When Dr. Cate Milton (guest star Mira Sorvino), a psychiatrist trapped at the South Pole and the research station’s only doctor, becomes ill in the middle of her assignment, she and Dr. House are thrust into a long-distance relationship of sorts. Unable to get Cate out or any additional medical supplies to the South Pole station, House and his team must resort to treating her via webcam.

House and the team treat a woman (Janel Moloney) who suffers from a sudden paralysis of the hands that causes an injury to her daughter while she’s spotting her at an indoor rock-climbing wall. As House probes the woman and her injured daughter for any leads as to what might be causing her condition, House is convinced that the woman is withholding information. When the woman’s daughter reveals some very descriptive details about her mother’s personal life, House isn’t so sure the woman hides anything about herself from the people around her, especially her daughter. As the team runs tests to find out what caused her paralysis, the woman loses her eyesight and her system begins to shut down, and House and the team are baffled as to whether it is the woman herself, or her own physiology that is lying to them.

Cuddy orders House to make a final decision on which two candidates he’s going to permanently hire. She says that if he doesn’t make a decision, she’ll reduce his salary and move his parking space. House visits Cameron in the emergency room to try to find a new case to help him make his decision, and he finds an uncooperative punk rock musician with a multitude of health problems. Although most of the candidates (particularly Amber) argue that the patient’s woes are due to his high risk lifestyle and drug abuse, House orders them to look into his symptoms, all while scoring each on a points basis for inclusion into his team. [...]

Kutner and Cole are in the audience of a magic show in a night club in Atlantic City. Finn, the magician on stage (played by Steve Valentine), is replicating Harry Houdini’s famous Chinese Water Torture Cell act, calling Cole up to the stage. Wrapped in chains, Finn is dropped in the tank and loses consciousness as soon as he enters the water.

Kutner suggests taking the case of the magician. He wants to run tests to find out why Finn’s heart stopped in the water, though House is sure the magician lost consciousness because he screwed up the trick and drowned. He permits Kutner to test the patient, but he says that he’ll fire Kutner if the patient’s problems were a result of screwing up the trick. [...]

A documentary film crew is chronicling a teenager with a major facial deformity who opts to undergo a dramatic reconstructive procedure. When the patient suffers a heart attack just prior to the surgery, House and the team are called in to determine the cause, since the surgery cannot proceed until the patient’s cardiac condition is diagnosed.

As the film crew continues to document the patient, House becomes increasingly annoyed and tries to avoid them by briefing his team by the MRI machine and in surgery. [...]

House is recruited by the CIA to help diagnose a mortally ill agent from an unknown illness and whom they believe was the target of an assassination attempt. The agent’s medical case is being spearheaded by Dr. Samira Terzi (guest star Michael Michele), who offers up very little information about the agent’s history or previous assignments, and Dr. Curtis (Holmes Osborne), an immunologist with the Mayo Clinic. The only information that Dr Terzi gave away is that the agent, known only as “John”, was stationed in Bolivia during most of the year and liked to eat chestnuts. [...]

House’s team gets a patient (Frank Whaley) with breathing problems with no apparent cause. He was just robbed and doesn’t have I.D. on him, and they don’t have his past medical records. Foreman suggests it might be a result of a vocal cord spasm. The patient complains of additional symptoms, and Foreman determines that he’s faking them. His alleged symptoms are the same as those of other patients, and the name he gave them was the same as the paramedic. Foreman thinks he might have Munchausens, but House thinks it might be a rare form of Anterograde amnesia recently discovered by Giovannina Conchiglia [1] that causes a patient to mimic those around him. House suggests that they try to convince the patient that he’s a doctor, since a Mirror Syndrome patient would be convinced, but a Munchausens patient wouldn’t. They go to one of Wilson’s surgeries, and the patient acts like a doctor. Specifically, he acts like Wilson. Wilson later notes that Mirror patients always mirror the most dominant person in the room, which means that Wilson was more dominant than House. House explains that as a consequence of the fact that Wilson was in charge of the surgery. [...]