Gift Giving Guy

Tonight’s episode of House featured a demented take on gift giving. It’s Christmas time at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and House twists the Secret Santa ritual to turn his doctors against each other. He stuffs the Secret Santa stocking (pictured above) so all the names drawn are “Gregory House,” forcing his newest physician fellows to buy him presents.

Here are some of my favorite moments from the House episode, “It’s a Wonderful Lie.”

House: (Holding a Christmas stocking for picking Secret Santa names.) You’re now a team. You’ve gotta work together. And the simple fact is giving people crap makes people like people. So spend 25 bucks. Learn to love.

Wilson: What’s with Secret Santa? You trying to bring them together?

House: (playing foosball) I want to drive them apart.

Wilson: With gift giving?

House: Conflict’s built right into the name. Santa’s about sharing. A secret is about withholding.

Wilson: Aside from the Trojan Horse, gifts don’t usually…

House: What did you get your wife for your final anniversary?

Wilson: (thinking) Uh… a sweater.

House: She hated it.

Wilson: She loved it.

House: Then you didn’t buy it.

Wilson: I gave her some cash…

House: Gifts allow us to demonstrate exactly how little we know about a person. And nothing pisses off a person more than being shoved in the wrong pigeonhole.

(Kutner, Thirteen and Foreman are playing foosball with the patient’s daughter, 11-year-old Jane.)

Jane: I want to go see my mom.

Kutner: She’s sleeping. (Looks to Foreman.) Why don’t we just double the amount we can spend?

Foreman: Nope.

Kutner: Can’t afford another $25?

Foreman: If we allow $50, people spend $60.

Kutner: Oh, so you can’t afford another $35?

Thirteen: You must have someone you really like.

Jane: Or really dislike. (Thirteen and Foreman look to Jane with curiosity.)

Jane: My mom always gives the best presents to the teachers I get along with the worst.

Thirteen and Foreman: (Thinking, then dismissing her insinuation in unison): No!

(The others distracted, Jane scores a goal on the foosball table. She smirks.)

Kutner: How do you know “No”?

Thirteen: I know you didn’t get House.

Foreman: I know he didn’t get House.

(Scene change. Wilson and House are seated on a bench, eating pizza in the hospital corridor.)

Wilson: You gave them all your name?

House: Mm-hmm. Figured I could sow some dissension and get a few ties and sweaters.

Wilson: What happens when they find out?

House: It’s Secret Santa.

Wilson: And what happens when they find out?

House: They’ll argue about what to do with that information. The ties are less important than the dissension.

(Scene change back to foosball table.)

Kutner: We still have to buy him something.

Foreman: Not a chance.

Kutner: We’re not supposed to discuss this. We’re not supposed to know.

Foreman: He’s not supposed to put his name in there five times!

Jane: He wants presents. It’s sad.

Thirteen: It’s pathetic.

Kutner: I’m still buying him a present.

Thirteen: No… you’re not.

Kutner: Fine!

(House, seated, opens a mystery present he found on his desk while discussing his diagnosis of sarcoidosis with Kutner, Foreman, Taub and Thirteen.)

Kutner: It’s not Christmas yet.

House: I remembered… I’m not a satanist, I’m a druid.

Foreman: No lung involvement.

House: Yet. (Still unwrapping gift.)

Taub: We’ll need to do a bronchoalveolar lavage to confirm it.

House: That’s a shame... I was gonna surprise her with one for Christmas.

(Kutner, Foreman, Taub and Thirteen start to leave.)

House: WOW!

(House holds an unwrapped iPhone in his hand.)

House: (pointing to the iPhone) Now either that cost more than 25 bucks, or I’m seriously starting to doubt Steve Jobs’ business strategies… Thanks!

Tags: giftology, television shows