"House M.D." - "Pilot" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Talking

In the opening scene of the episode, we see Ms. Adler taking the bus to work and arriving seemingly in a rush. She then has a brief conversation with a colleague before going into the classroom and excitedly saying hello to her students. After she is greeted by the kids, she asks what they did on their weekend, and the students return the question to her. While she was speaking, Adler involuntarily makes incomprehensible noises, prompting the children to laugh. Then, realizing she is unable to talk, she writes "Call the nurse" on the board and then experiences seizures, prompting a fellow teacher to come to her aid.

Robin Tunney has appeared in several movies and TV shows throughout her career, but is perhaps best known for her roles as Special Agent Lisbon in "The Mentalist" and as Veronica Donovan on "Prison Break".

Answer: cousin

Wilson tells House that the patient, a 29-year-old female, has suffered from deteriorating mental capabilities and has been prematurely diagnosed with a brain tumor. Wilson points out that at her age, a brain tumor would be highly unlikely, which is why he wants House's help to correctly diagnose and treat her. To try to further convince Hugh Laurie's character, Wilson (who is played by Robert Sean Leonard), highlights that House has several "overqualified" doctors working for him and that their skills could be put to good use.

Answer: Everybody lies

Dr. Foreman suggests the brain scan shows a lesion, but House is not convinced. When the former asks if they should talk to the patient before diagnosing her, House replies that "everybody lies", which is quickly followed by Cameron saying "Dr. House doesn't like dealing with patients". Foreman insists that treating patients is the reason that they became doctors, but House counters that by saying treating illnesses was the reason. House adds: "if we don't talk to them, they can't lie to us".

The writers of the show were very aware of House's "everybody lies" mantra. This very episode has an alternative title of "Everybody Lies", while the last episode of the series is called "Everybody Dies".

Answer: Dr. Lisa Cuddy

House tells his doctors to engage in differential diagnosis, a process in which medical professionals attempt to identify conditions that share symptoms and try to reduce the pool of options. This is the basic premise of the show: diagnosticians compare symptoms and try to figure out what's wrong with the patient.

The next scene shows House trying to avoid his boss, Lisa Cuddy. She tells him she was expecting him in her office 20 minutes ago, to which House replies with his trademark sarcasm: "that's odd because I had no intention of being in your office":

Dr. Cuddy, played by Lisa Edelstein, is the Dean of Medicine at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Throughout the series, the relationship between House and Cuddy is frequently a part of the storylines.

Answer: 2054

Before the MRI could start, a nurse stops the team. Immediately after that, we see House yelling at Dr. Cuddy for removing his authorization to order any tests (and as she points out, long-distance phone call privileges are revoked too). House leaves her office and tells the team to proceed with the MRI, giving the impression that "she folded".

However, Dr. House then tells Wilson that he'll have to work at the clinic 4 hours a week, and that by the time he got caught up with all the time he missed when he was supposed to, it would be the year 2054.

This episode first aired in 2004, which means House was predicting 50 years at the clinic.

Answer: Asthma

House walks into the clinic with clear disinterest in what he is about to do. Nevertheless, Cuddy is also there and makes him go into an exam room to see a patient for both a spasm and the fact that he is orange! The patient says he was playing golf when the pain started, but House laughs rather than showing any concern. After taking a pain killer, Dr. House diagnoses a non-medical situation: the patient's wife is having an affair. He arrives at this conclusion because her wife (or him, for that matter) hasn't noticed that his whole body is orange! House attributes this coloration abnormality to a combination of too many carrots and vitamins.

The next patient in the clinic is a child who's having trouble breathing. When asked if the boy has been using his inhaler, his mom says "not in the past few days" because she is worried about children taking medicine so frequently. After a few sarcastic jabs at the mom, House explains how asthma works: a stimulant causes the inflammation of air passages and cell lining starts to shed. While he says that steroids stop the inflammation, he seems to disconnect form this patient and think about Rebecca's treatment.

Answer: Brain

House discusses his thoughts with the team, who seem skeptical of proceeding with that course of action. A cerebral vasculitis diagnosis, they argue, would be unlikely at the patient's age. A tumor would be too, though, and that is the initial diagnosis with which Rebecca came into the hospital. House says that "if she gets better, we know we're right", and that if they're wrong, they would learn something else. Chase tries to have a light conversation with the patient, but she insists on her curiosity as to why her treatment is changing. Cameron interferes and tells Rebecca that they're treating her for vasculitis, the inflammation of blood vessels in the brain.

When they leave the hospital room, Chase confronts Cameron, saying it's a long shot guess and not a conclusive diagnosis. Cameron defends her actions, saying that it's better for the patient to have hope, even if it means she'll believe there's a chance to be cured in her last days of life.

Answer: He switches Vicodin pills for candies

The patient claims to have headaches, fever, and trouble with going to sleep. Despite his self-diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, House sarcastically says it's "the definition of getting older". The man also suggests it could be fibromyalgia, to which House responds: "excellent diagnosis!" Then, the doctor orders Vicodin from the pharmacist but skillfully places the real pills inside his suit pocket, then substitutes them for candies he bought from nearby machines.

Answer: Ham

While exploring Adler's apartment, Foreman decides to make himself a meal with ham, a seemingly irrelevant action. When the team meets, Foreman says that Wilson convinced House to treat the patient under false pretenses, given that Wilson is Jewish and Adler is not. Foreman explains that they found ham in the apartment, which is not typically a food Jewish people eat according to the neurologist. Wilson struggles to respond, even calling the patient Rachel instead of her real name, Rebecca. House then utters "you idiot!", directed not at Wilson, but at Foreman!

House explains: "where there's ham, there's pork, where there's pork, there's neurocysticercosis". This is an infection caused by a parasite from pork, commonly known as a tapeworm. House explains that if pork isn't cooked well enough, it can lead to eating tapeworm larvae which reproduce, and the immune system may not even recognize it's there.

Answer: Dignity

House's first words to Rebecca after greeting her are "you're being an idiot", giving the audience an early introduction of what his character would be like for the entire show. Rebecca initially refuses any more treatments because the one she received for vasculitis made her feel even worse. House reveals that the reason he walks with a cane is that an infarction in his leg caused permanent damage, which leads to him saying that dying never involves any dignity, since all of our bodies are by then rapidly declining.

Rebecca initially refuses treatment, but Chase has an idea to prove she has a tapeworm: an x-ray. The doctors scan her leg and find the pellet-shaped worm they were looking for. Adler is prescribed albendazole, an anti-worm medication that will fix the problem like magic! Rebecca receives a visit from her students at the hospital, ending the episode on a happy note.