Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
After firing Chase and losing Foreman and Cameron, House turns the vacant fellowship into a contest. He begins with forty applicants, sets them against one another on cases and narrows the group by dismissing candidates, including Amber Volakis. Taub, Lawrence Kutner and Remy “Thirteen” Hadley make the new team; Foreman later returns after being dismissed from another hospital. Amber stays in House’s life as Wilson’s girlfriend, so House’s decision to reject her does not end her part in the story.
The season tests the new group through cases and House’s shifting rules. He assigns applicants to compete for his attention, pits their judgments against each other and keeps changing the terms as he learns what they will do under pressure. The three new doctors react differently when his methods press at their limits, while Foreman returns with a different perspective after his dismissal from another hospital. Meanwhile, Wilson’s relationship with Amber grows serious, leaving House to watch his friend build a life that no longer revolves around him.
In the two-part finale, House tries to reconstruct a bus crash from fragments of memory because one injured passenger is dying and he cannot identify her. He learns Amber boarded the bus to collect him after he had been drinking; the crash damaged her kidneys, preventing them from clearing flu medication from her system. The team finds the cause, but Amber’s organs have failed too extensively for a transplant. Wilson stays with her and turns off her bypass. At the hospital, Thirteen learns she has inherited Huntington’s disease, and House and Wilson are left facing the loss in silence.