Birthmarks (House)

A 25-year-old Chinese adoptee travels to China to find her birth parents, but they reject her, stating they never had a daughter. While praying, she lifts a small Buddha and immediately collapses, vomiting blood. The initial diagnosis is that the woman contracted SARS in China.

Meanwhile, House learns his father has died, but refuses to attend the funeral. Cuddy uses the SARS diagnosis as a ruse to “inoculate” House, in reality injecting him with a powerful sedative. House wakes up to find himself in a car with his estranged best friend Wilson, who is taking him to his father's funeral.

While being driven to the funeral, House works with his team by phone. Their discussions are interrupted when Wilson is pulled over by a policeman for a House-created traffic offense. The stop results in Wilson's arrest on an old out-of-state warrant, still open because of another House-related error.

Back at Princeton-Plainsboro, the team is still perplexed by the patient's illness. House arrives at the funeral and delivers an unsuitable yet self-enlightening eulogy. Afterwards, House feigns grief in order to obtain a DNA sample from his father's corpse.

House calls China to learn more about his patient's trip, and finds out that the birth parents adamantly refused to acknowledge the daughter's existence. Wilson suggests that China's one-child policy may have caused the parents to try to kill the girl. House hypothesizes that the biological parents attempted to kill their infant by pushing needles into her brain. The needles were disturbed by a powerful magnet contained within the Buddha statue, affecting her brain functions and causing her first collapse. Kutner, who has formed an emotional attachment with the patient, explains to her adoptive parents that her alcoholism was caused by a needle which had embedded itself in the portion of her brain that controls addictive behavior.

As the day ends, Wilson tells House that he is returning to Princeton-Plainsboro, and House tells Wilson that the DNA test has proved his theory that John was not his biological father. Wilson says that no one gets to choose their parents, and admits that the trip was the most fun he has had since Amber died.

http://www.housemd-guide.com/season5/504birthmarks.php

• "Birthmarks" at IMDb