Faced with a hospital lock-down and an incomprehensible captain's log full of clues that might save the world [or at least New Jersey] from a smallpox outbreak, Dr. House turns to his favorite source of emergency consultation.

How does one concoct a smallpox scare in 2010, anyway? No, silly, not terrorism — slavery. After a cold open featuring horribly computer-animated frigate destroying a quarantined Dutch slave-ship and all of its occupants (whom the script makes sure to exploitatively de-humanize and then re-humanize), we see a teenage diver retrieve a jar of time-traveling germs:

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"What was in that jar?" Scabs. 217-year-old scabs. Apparently, House refuses to relinquish its "grossest thing on TV" crown to The Walking Dead [http://tv.gawker.com/5684012/] without a fight.

Anyway, that vacationing family ends up at Princeton-Plainsboro, there's a smallpox scare, the CDC is called in, and the whole complex is quarantined. House and his team are forbidden from poking the family for clues, so they turn to less-traditional sources:

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Long-time fans of House know that, for some reason, the writers love dead cats. As soon as Miss Amsterdam there mentioned the captain's cat, this mystery's solution was in sight. When House's impatience gets himself stuck in the trouble-bubble with the rest of the Poxer Rebellion, Amber "Cameron, Jr" Tamblyn surprises everyone by returning to the primary source:

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This episode of House will be notable in posterity because one of the quarantined family members — the father — dies of rickettsial pox before he can be treated. The rest, however, are saved.

Meanwhile, the hospital quarantine forces the romance between Wilson and Libby Samantha to progress with the help of an "adorable kid with cancer" sub-plot. House and Cuddy's relationship is not so lucky: no amount of mortality-facing can gloss over the fact that House lied to Cuddy to save last week's patient, and their romance hits a snag.