Characters on House just aren't interesting when they're happy. In fact, that particular mutual exclusivity is the subject of this week's episode. Or at least it might as well be. I've written before about how Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital is as much an existential state as the setting of this show. While the paces of "Ignorance is Bliss" aren't as sharp as House can get, the overarching ideas it conveys are some of the more intriguing of the series. In a show that directly contrasts worth with wellness, it's only a matter of time before a character either leaves or becomes miserable.

Take our patient this week, a scientific prodigy who up and left his life as a public genius to pursue the beyond-mundane existence of a courier with a shaggy beard. His symptoms aren't too colorful, but the causes (yep, plural) are rather juicy. Long story short, he's a cough syrup addict with more than a dozen spleens that are all screwed up. Pretty awesome, all things considered. See, he was abusing the medicine to keep himself in a permanent narcotic haze that would dull his mental acuity, making him a satisfied idiot instead of a tortured super-brain. Cue the inevitable discussion with House about how it sucks to be the smartest guy in the room all the time.

Ultimately House and his new half old, half new team allow the patient to go home sans spleens and with their moral and medical permission to continue sucking down cough syrup like House used to eat Vicodin. Cured of his illness and the smarts that made him miserable, the patient goes home. Or, more to the point, he leaves Princeton-Plainsboro. Like every other patient, he ceases to be interesting the moment he's no longer a mess.

Consider who's now left on House's team. None of them are particularly happy, well-adjusted people. Even the kindest of them, Taub, seems to only be able to base a functioning marriage on some kind of lie. Chase was more interesting in this episode than he's been for a couple years, all thanks to his biting misery now that Cameron has left him.

And as for House, he spends the entire episode trying to break up Cuddy and Lucas. He fails and ends up a strangely balanced sack of sadness by the closing moments. That's not a bad place to land after spending an episode getting literally and figuratively knocked around.

Best Moment: House with the insurance woman. We haven't spent much time in the clinic lately, but those scenes are always some of the best.

Notes: I know that Robo-tripping is slang for cough syrup abuse, but I couldn't help imagining some kind of cyberpunk LSD every time somebody said it.

Episode Rating: 3.5/5- I'm giving this one a higher score than the episode on its own deserves because I think it makes good points about the larger symbols of the series. Still, "Ignorance is Bliss" spent way too much time on the never-interesting House/Cuddy romance and it was often over-the-top or downright sitcom-y. Taub's wife gets all hot in the biscuit because she thinks Taub punched House? Maybe on some ABC comedy, but not on this show.