The Socratic Method

Name: The Socratic Method
Genre: Drama
Released: 2004-12-21
Duration: 44 min
Rating: 8.3

Episode aired Dec 21, 2004
TV-14
44m

IMDb RATING

8.3/10

5.1K

YOUR RATING

Medical Drama Drama

A 38-year-old mother, apparently suffering from thrombosis, alcoholism and schizophrenia, has only her young son as caregiver.A 38-year-old mother, apparently suffering from thrombosis, alcoholism and schizophrenia, has only her young son as caregiver.A 38-year-old mother, apparently suffering from thrombosis, alcoholism and schizophrenia, has only her young son as caregiver.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

8.3/10

5.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos1

User reviews5

8.35K

Featured reviews

8Hitchcoc

Too Easy

One of the problems with doctor shows is that when a cure is found the person is up and around in a day or so. This episode is fun because a young boy has been taking care of his mother because she has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Her behavior is off the charts. He is a sad case because his entire life involves hers.

Once again, House must play fast and loose with hospital authority in order to get what he wants. Once again, some of the methods result in dramatic misses.

House and the boy are allies until the doctor must divorce himself from their relationship. But he takes the blame for something he didn't even do. The ending is too easy, but the process, as usual, is the star of the show.

xredgarnetx

Gripping

SOCRATIC METHOD is one of the first season's more intense episodes, in which a mother with serious health problems is thought to have substance problems. Her son is like a parent to her, protecting her at every turn. House suspects something far more peculiar going on, and has his team check out the woman's home for possible contributing factors. This is the kind of episode that has hooked me on this show. It plays like a medical episode of LAW & ORDER, which is the highest compliment I can give any TV series. The acting is first rate, the drama is high, and the action is compelling. And we get to see the House team in a different light in this episode.

Trivia
As he's talking with Dr. Wilson around seven minutes into the episode, House mentions a "guitar player from an English band," revealing it as being Pink Floyd. That is a reference to Syd Barrett, a former guitar player who left the band in 1968 due to his deteriorating mental condition after struggling with LSD and mental health problems.

Goofs
In this episode, the patient is finally diagnosed with having Wilson's Disease by Foreman's confirmation of a copper-colored ring around her cornea. This ring, called a Kayser-Fleischer Ring, actually presents itself as a gray-green color.

Correction: The color of Kayser-Fleischer Rings can vary widely, with a copper-like golden-brown color being one of the most common, in addition to gray-green. It can also present as greenish yellow, ruby red, bright green, or ultramarine blue.

Quotes
Lucy Palmeiro: [Lucy is reading aloud "Her Praise" by W.B. Yeats] I will talk no more of books or the long war / But walk by the dry thorn until I have found/ Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there/ Manage the talk until her name come round./ If there be rags enough he will know her name/ And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days/ Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame/ Among the poor both the old and young gave her praise.

Connections
Referenced in House: Sleeping Dogs Lie (2006)

Soundtracks
Happy Bithday to You
Written by Patty S. Hill and Mildred J. Hill (as Patty and Mildred J. Hill) in 1893 as "Good Morning to All" and published in its final form in 1912
Played by Hugh Laurie on piano