As I’ve mentioned before, Gregory House is perhaps the highest profile atheist in American television. The writers at house love to throw that around. They find it hilarious to put House into situation in which he’s maddened by other’s superstition and faith. On one hand, its interesting to see an atheist articulate his viewpoints. On the other, its generally insulting to both Atheists and the faithful alike. This episode had both of those problems in spades.

A nurse working at an convalescence home comes into the hospital with a set of mix matched symptoms and a cat who can predict the deaths of her elderly patients. House is clearly not impressed by the Cat’s cognitive powers and becomes obsessed with proving the nurse wrong.

Taub is in an extra surly mood and buts heads with House repeatedly. He’s lost a bundle in the falling markets and he misses his status as rich plastic surgeon. Spurred on by a chance meeting with an old high school classmate, Taub begins to reconsider his life.

House is so desperate to prove the cat’s ineffectiveness that he turns the entire hospital inside out. Running useless test on corpses and demanding pointless tests paint him (and by extension atheists in general) as desperate to explain the unexplainable, just to throw it in the faces of the believers. Its shallow. Religious faith (or a lack of it) is an inheirently nuanced part of life, the writer’s attempts to boil it down to a mean and vicious doctor trying to disprove a cat’s ability to predict death should be considered insulting to believers and nonbelievers alike.

Taub decides to leave the hospital and go to work for his new buddy the high school classmate. The classmate claims to be a CEO working in medical technology. Taub is wooed back by promises of wealth and power again. Luckily for him just as he’s about to hand away his future and his cash, the “old friend” is exposed as a con man.

After finally discovering the source of the cat’s magical powers (namely, it likes to sleep on warm stuff) House averts an unneeded surgery to the superstitious nurse. IN a final face to face, House tries to convince her that she’s wasting her life looking for answers from the unseen. Not surprisingly, her answer is simple, you either believe or you don’t. That’s about it. That’s really all there is to it. Despite all the grinding self serving dialogue with Wilson and the useless tests and pranks, nothing really happens. That’s the problem with the obsession between House and and his religious or superstitious patients, the conflict cannot be resolved.