Games (House)

Cuddy orders House to make a final decision on which two candidates he's going to hire permanently. House visits Cameron in the emergency room to try to find a new case to help him make his decision and finds uncooperative punk rock musician Jimmy Quidd with a multitude of health problems. Most of the candidates argue that the patient's woes are due to his high-risk lifestyle and drug abuse, House orders them to look into his symptoms, while scoring each doctor on a points basis.

A few months previously, Wilson had told one of his patients that the patient was going to die. However, he later finds a flaw in his diagnosis and that the patient is fine. The patient complains that he was planning to sell his house and now he'll have to cancel the sale and won't be able to afford to pay the real estate broker. Wilson tries to compensate the patient from his own checkbook but the man decides to sue Wilson. Wilson correctly deduces that House is the one who counseled the patient to sue Wilson.

House tells Cuddy that he wants to keep all four of his candidates but Cuddy insists that he can only keep two. He asks who she would choose, and she advises him to keep Taub and Kutner. Later, he brings all four candidates into her office to highlight their strengths; although all their theories are wrong, each contributed to the correct diagnosis that the patient has measles, which he contracted while hanging around children to entertain them. Cuddy will not budge from her position.

House calls the team into the lecture room for a final time and tells Amber to stand up. House tells her that while she plays the game better than anyone, she can't handle losing or being wrong. House goes on to say that if she is going to work for him, she has to be able to deal with and accept both these things and fires her. House tells Thirteen to rise and fires her as well.

Cuddy later approaches House, telling him he can't have an all-male team (and in fact, she gave her advice expecting him to do the opposite) and orders him to hire Thirteen along with the two male candidates. As Cuddy walks away from House, his face turns into a mischievous grin. Cuddy then realizes that this was his plan all along. Had he kept Taub and Kutner, Cuddy would have always told him to hire Thirteen. Cuddy then agrees to the hiring of all three.

• Song played at the end of the episode is "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum.
• The guitar composition played in the background during the elimination of the team was composed and played by Hugh Laurie.[1] In the episode, House reveals that it was composed by Jim Moskowitz, who later came to be known as Jimmy Quidd, the patient in the episode.
• The record that House plays throughout the episode to annoy Wilson and at the end of the episode to induce a seizure in the patient is the track "Kicked Out" by Pussy Galore. It can be found on the album Dial 'M' for Motherfucker.