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| - Locked In is a fifth season episode of House which first aired on March 30, 2009. In a special episode of House, shot and told predominantly from the perspective of a patient, Mos Def guest-stars as Lee, a man who awakens after a bicycle accident in a small town in New York state, unable to move or communicate in any way apart from blinking his eyes. House, himself injured in a motorcycle mishap, occupies the hospital bed next to Lee and quickly annoys the doctors treating them both by insisting that Lee has "locked-in" syndrome. After House gets Lee transferred to Princeton Plainsboro, the team is on the case to try to "unlock" him. Meanwhile, Wilson suspects House is hiding something when he refuses to divulge why he was in New York and Taub worries that his attempt to quit the team will
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| abstract
| - Locked In is a fifth season episode of House which first aired on March 30, 2009. In a special episode of House, shot and told predominantly from the perspective of a patient, Mos Def guest-stars as Lee, a man who awakens after a bicycle accident in a small town in New York state, unable to move or communicate in any way apart from blinking his eyes. House, himself injured in a motorcycle mishap, occupies the hospital bed next to Lee and quickly annoys the doctors treating them both by insisting that Lee has "locked-in" syndrome. After House gets Lee transferred to Princeton Plainsboro, the team is on the case to try to "unlock" him. Meanwhile, Wilson suspects House is hiding something when he refuses to divulge why he was in New York and Taub worries that his attempt to quit the team will lead to House cutting him loose. This was the first episode that broke away from the standard camera convention of having the viewer have an omniscient perspective. Like the patient, the viewer is "locked in" to his point of view for most of the episode. Although the technique of telling a story through a fixed point of view was not new to the series, it later became a hallmark, appearing again in the episodes Wilson, 5 to 9 and Chase. Like many other episodes, Lee represents a part of House, in this case, the malfunctioning part that needs medical help. Lee is desperate to communicate because he knows it will help his doctors figure out what is wrong with him. He is frustrated with his inability to do so, but his efforts continue to bear fruit as minor details lead the doctors down the correct path. He even regrets not telling his wife things he could have told her when he could communicate. In the end, he is well on his way to recovery. Conversely, House is desperate not to communicate. He reaches out to a psychiatrist, but sabotages his own efforts, feeling that the therapeutic process is nothing but "whining" that will merely lead to the conclusion he had a bad childhood. When his best friend realized the truth, he accuses him of invading his privacy - a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black - and tells him to back off. However, the episode does very little character development, even though the patient gives both the characters and the viewers an opportunity to have each one of the characters have a monologue where they feel free to explore with some expectation of confidentiality. Ironically, although the series seems to bypass him entirely at this point, the character that is the most well developed in this episode is Taub who, fearing for his job, also tells the patient how he's torn because it's just as scary coming into work each morning. However, it's not House that Taub fears, but the knowledge that he will be once again making life and death decisions. We also learn a little about Foreman, who traces his difficulty with relationships to an incident where an old girlfriend hated the gift he bought. He thinks this shows he has difficulty empathizing with the feelings of the women he's in relationships with, including Thirteen. Ironically, it's House who remains the enigma, making up several different excuses for being out of town before revealing at the end that he too has been speaking endlessly to a stranger - his new psychiatrist.
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