House: "No More Mr. Nice Guy"

When I reviewed the last episode of House way back in February, I suggested that the creative team was starting to repeat itself, and that rather than trying to whip up a few more episodes after the strike, they should take a long rest and come back in the fall with a few game-changing ideas like the ones that started this season. Tonight's episode proves that I was…
Right? Wrong? What do you think? Me, I thought "No More Mr. Nice Guy" was mostly middling, with another theme that felt like a retread, and several squandered opportunities. And that includes the big non-twist…but more on that in a moment.
First, our POW (patient of the week): A roly-poly carpet cleaner whose SUS (seemingly unrelated symptoms) include fainting spells, a lemony taste in his mouth, and strokin'. (Yeah, that's what he be doin'.) Oh, and persistent niceness. That's right: niceness. The dilemma for House and his team: Is the fact that this guy is never bothered by anything indicative of some kind of brain malfunction, and if so, is this the sort of thing that needs to be treated?
In other words, here's yet another patient whose behavior is so un-House-like that it makes House suspicious. When House chalks the problem up to syphilis, Kutner finds a vial of House's blood, and when he tests it, he discovers that House too has syphilis, and that some routine pharmaceutical treatment might modify his behavior and make him less irascible. But will a kinder House be a less effective House? And haven't we chewed over this paradox about a thousand times before on this show?
Well, luckily we don't chew it over long, because it's all a big fake-out. House duped Kutner by leaving some tainted blood in the lab because he knew that Kutner wouldn't be able to resist testing him (for reasons I don't completely buy, but whatever). And while I'm glad we're not going to have to go through another mini-arc about whether a "cured" House can still be a brilliant House, I'm also not sure we needed to pad out this episode with 5 minutes of the team standing around pontificating about the nature of their boss. This show has become very yack-y lately, which wouldn't be a problem, except that it keeps saying the same thing over and over.