In "Emancipation," I was pleased to see another well-plotted episode, in which the plotlines worked together rather than diverging. And the writers did an amazing job of getting in a tremendous amount of character development, while still giving us one great Patient of the Week and one fairly interesting one.

Foreman has been backgrounded lately in favor of other characters, so I was thrilled to see him this week, especially examining one of my favorite subjects: Is Foreman House-lite, or isn't he? As usual, the answer was "maybe, maybe not," but that's okay, I enjoy the journey, especially when the journey takes Foreman to his colleagues Chase and Cameron. I loved seeing the original ducklings gathered together to do a differential, and the reminders of how well they know each other.

Of course, their interaction also led to Cameron's funniest line ever: "Don't you work with three other doctors and a grouchy gimp?" Not to mention the Chase/Cameron moment after Foreman got his epiphany: "I think we gave him an idea." "Either that or he's off to kill House." (My husband's comment: "Hey, it's a win-win situation for them.")

In fact, I think that even though Foreman's patient wasn't the most interesting, the question of whether he could handle both cases and what House would do about it was my favorite part of the episode.

And the twist at the end--that House seemed to have been playing Foreman to push him into solving the case himself--was brilliant. Best of all is the question of whether House pushed Foreman for that reason, or whether he just claimed credit when Wilson said so...

(Personally, I think that House did it both because he wanted to push Foreman and also because it would annoy the heck out of him. Since this is Gregory House, never go for one motive, when two or more will do.)

The POTW was a twist on the usual "everybody lies" theme, where every lie led to a different lie, but for a different reason than usual. The scene between House and the POTW was brilliant. The POTW was so resigned, so sure that her parents hated her, that as a parent I just wanted to hug her and tell her it was going to be okay. But House...wow, his reaction, and the way his usual annoying behavior turned into brutal but caring and constructive honesty, was amazing. ("If you don't take your parents' bone marrow, you'll be killing their other child. If they don't hate you now, they will then.")

As usual, Hugh Laurie hit that climactic scene out of the park. He looked so stunned and broken, as his face changed and he sat back in the chair, that I almost cried.

This was a pretty busy episode, but they still managed to fit in a few amusing scenes about House's unwillingness to ask Cuddy out on a date. I loved Wilson's ability to drive House insane by not pestering him about it. Heh. I was beginning to wonder if House was finally going to crack from this treatment. He didn't, but he did manage to ding Wilson with the amusing "You're designed to have opinions and to force them on people." (Hey, takes one to know one...)

And, if you think about it, even this fit into the episode nicely, as Wilson pushed House's buttons by doing nothing, just as House pushed Foreman's buttons by doing nothing.

Overall, I thought the character moments in "Emancipation" were great, although Thirteen was too much like Cameron-lite for my taste. Recently we've learned more about her and it didn't seem like her to be lecturing a patient or trying to do amateur psychoanalysis.

On the other hand, I liked the scenes with Kutner and his dismay at being lied to, which was rather cute after all this time working for House. Once again, let me reiterate my desire for a Kutner-centric episode so we can get a better look inside his head. (House's comment "You treated her based on empathetic orphandom" was interesting, but I'd like to know more about Kutner than the fact he's an optimistic orphan.)

After due consideration, the Foreman/House interactions are still my favorite parts of the episode, but I must admit that the last thing written in my notes for this episode is "Oh, and Cuddy's still hot." Because I am, in fact, just that shallow. Now you know...