Mrs. McNeil: I'm taking care of him for the same reason you helped us.

House: Some guy shot you and you hallucinated?

―Meaning

Meaning is the premiere episode of the 3rd season of House which first aired on September 5, 2006. A pain free House returns to work and to rigorous exercise. Without argument, he accepts two seemingly routine cases. He quickly solves one, but his team and Cuddy worry that he's obsessing so hard about finding a cure for the second that he might actually kill the patient.

If the overarching plot of the entire series is wondering if House will ever be redeemed, Meaning gives us a glimpse of what might have happened if House had later succeeded in repairing his damaged leg. By this time, it is clear that House's underlying personality (his distrust of other people and his brusque way of dealing with both superiors and subordinates) pre-date his infarction by decades. However, House continues to blame his unhappiness (which also predates his injury) on his leg pain.

However, at the end of Season 2, in the midst of hallucinations, House devises a treatment plan and even in his delirious state manages to communicate it. Not only has his leg pain disappeared, he has once again embraced the physical lifestyle he had to abandon. The exercise has improved his mood to the point where work is something to be embraced, not avoided.

He chooses an interesting pair of cases. The first is a true medical mystery; a woman who is paralyzed but shows no sign of trauma. However, the choice of the second is just a mystery to his close colleagues; a cancer survivor who clearly has no medical mystery attached to him that House takes on just so he can help another human being.

The mystery case is solved, and House shows empathy towards the cancer survivor, performing tendon surgery to relieve his pain to the great relief and gratitude of the man's wife. However, House realizes that despite his connection to the cancer survivor's family, he has derived no satisfaction from the case. Despite Wilson's assurances that House can't expect this to happen overnight, House creates a new medical mystery out of the cancer survivor, convincing his team, Wilson and Cuddy that his sober judgment can no longer be trusted.

House's inability to make "progress" with the cancer survivor starts to manifest itself as physical pain in his leg. As the "treatment" for the cancer survivor puts the patient's life at risk over and over again, House appears to be caught in a downward spiral until he comes up with another "Hail Mary" at the last minute. He becomes convinced he can cure the man without putting him at further risk. However, this is where Cuddy decides to draw the line; not at the dangerous tests, but at the relatively safe diagnostic trial.

House resigns himself to not getting his way, but it turns out Cuddy trusts House's judgment more than she lets on. She decides to treat the patient herself and, to everyone's surprise, proves House right. However, Wilson becomes convinced that if House finds out he was right, there will be no stopping him in future. He convinces Cuddy to keep it quiet. Meanwhile, House's leg pain increases and his desperation for Vicodin grows until he steals one of Wilson's prescription pads.

The events in the episode are key to several themes and plots in the series. This is not the first instance, nor will it be the last, where House's instincts in taking on a seemingly routine case wind up with him hitting a homerun. A short list of the beneficiaries of House's magic are Lucy Palmeiro, Olive Kaplan, and Father Daniel Bresson to name just a few. The episode also lays the foundation for events later in Season 3, the fight over keeping his blood stained carpet, and the eventual development of the Tritter story arc. However, by the end of the episode, it's clear that the optimism is over and that House will once again be House. Overall, the episode confirms that House is "almost always eventually right".

This episode was nominated for an American Society of Cinematographers award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Episodic TV Series.

An uncommunicative man who had been treated for brain cancer and is currently confined to an electric wheelchair suddenly drives the wheelchair into his family's pool in an apparent suicide attempt.

Meanwhile, thanks to the fact he was treated with ketamine during treatment for his gunshot injury, House's leg is pain free and he is running eight miles before coming into work each morning.

Cuddy and Wilson are discussing cases that they think will interest House. They are astounded that House has run to work. Although it's only been eight weeks since he was shot, House is raring to go. Cuddy tells him that she has a 26-year-old woman who is paralyzed from the neck down despite no obvious injuries. He also agrees to take the case of the guy who drove into his pool even though there does not appear to be any real diagnostic problem. Wilson wants to know why House is taking the second case. House says it's because he may be able to treat the patient for his pain, but Wilson doesn't believe him.

House's team welcomes him back, and Cameron reveals the shooter was never caught. They start a differential on the paralyzed woman. Suddenly, House sees his own blood on the carpet. He says he wants to keep the stain. He then starts on what to do about the wheelchair bound man, and suggests tendon surgery to deal with pain from his atrophied muscles.

They proceed with the surgery on the wheelchair patient. His family is denying he would try to commit suicide; His son thinks he was confused. House thinks it's promising the father attempted suicide because it shows his brain is still active. The wife thanks House, astounding Cameron, who has never seen a patient thank House before. When she demands he tell her why the wife thanked him, House avoids answering by quickly running away.

Chase tells House the patient flinched when they inserted a needle for the test, meaning the woman's muscle and nerve control are slowly getting better. House burns her to show she can move, and claims that she is faking. However, the patient denies that she's faking. House orders her to be discharged.

Wilson is also astounded that a patient thanked House, and that he was with the family during surgery. House admits he didn't have any emotional response to being thanked. Wilson tells him it will come back.

Cameron comes to say the woman patient is having trouble breathing. House threatens her with a needle but she continues to have trouble. He then notices something on her neck. He puts her on her back and draws blood from her pericardium, showing it's a genuine heart problem.

The team has to keep drawing blood from around her heart. House suggests exploratory surgery to look for a spinal tumor, even though they don't know exactly where on the spine to look.

House goes to see the wheelchair patient. Cameron sees House being kind to the patient and teases House about it. He astounds Cameron by asking her out for a drink. Cameron gets very uncomfortable until House tells her he did it to prove she was only interested in him while he was ill.

House goes to see Cuddy. She won't let him do the exploratory surgery because it's too dangerous. When House tries to bargain, Cuddy pulls rank.

However, when House does more tests and can't find anything, Cuddy finally gives in and approves the surgery. Wilson starts dogging House about how he practices medicine. They go to the woman patient's surgery when House spots that one of her toenails is cracked and discolored. He orders them to stop the surgery. House realized that she has scurvy from Vitamin C deficiency. She had a diet that didn't contain any.

House turns his attention to the wheelchair patient. He wants to discharge him. His wife is grateful that House treated his pain. House asks why she hasn't institutionalized him. She says she wants to take care of him. House thinks she does it because not taking care of him would make her miserable. As she goes to get him out of bed, House hears him make a noise. He asks the patient to do it again. He tells the wife that her husband was trying to talk.

House brings the wheelchair patient's medical records to the team. He tells the team the patient spoke, but they realize he grunted. He orders them to review the patient's medical history. Wilson accuses House of being bored while House attempts skateboard tricks. Wilson tells House to tell the wife the patient just grunted, but House refuses. Wilson leaves and, after he does, House grabs his right thigh in pain.

The team is dissecting the wheelchair patient's medical history and finds 214 symptoms, all of which go on the whiteboard. However, even Chase is able to eliminate all possible unusual diagnoses. Cameron thinks the symptoms are essentially random and don't show any underlying disease. House decides to perform an endoscopy to look for infection. Chase does the procedure, but the patient can't even respond to simple commands. The patient's throat collapses during the procedure, just as the team warned. They perform an emergency tracheotomy.

House can't understand why the patient gagged during the endoscopy while he was under anesthetic. House denies it was a spasm, and believes that his throat locked down. House wants to look into his brain for cancer, but the amount of dye necessary would be life threatening. House tells the wife that if it is cancer, it is a new cancer. When the wife asks if the husband could get better, Cameron shouts "No!" Although the wife realizes the test is risky, she admits her husband is all but dead and consents to the test.

The team starts the procedure and injects the contrast material. Unfortunately, the patient starts bleeding from his ear, again as the team predicted. Worse yet, the scans show nothing. House gets Foreman to review his previous radiology. Finally, the team has had enough and only Chase is willing to help with new tests.

Cuddy confronts House about his judgment. She points out that House never says he wants to help someone, he comes in with a prediction of catastrophe. She orders the patient discharged. Even Wilson refuses to help him. House then admits to Wilson his leg hurt, but has since gotten better. Wilson tells him it's nothing more than aches from the running and skateboard tricks. He refuses to prescribe him Vicodin. He accuses House of trying to get high either from drugs or solving problems.

House goes running and stops by a fountain to cool off. He then gets an idea and runs to Cuddy's house. He wakes her by knocking on her window and tells her that the patient dove into the pool because he was overheating. He thinks he has hypothalamic damage that has shut down his adrenal glands causing central adrenal insufficiency. He asks her to inject the patient with cortisol. Cuddy blows him off-she says he is guessing, not acting on evidence. He reminds her there is no risk to the shot. She tells him he has to learn to hear the word no.

Wilson finds House despondent in his office, expecting him to try to inject the patient instead. House admits he had no reason to think he was right.

Cuddy meets the patient as he is leaving. She gives him a shot of cortisol. However, the patient doesn't respond right away. Cuddy is despondent, but all of a sudden the patient starts moving and releases the seat belt on his wheelchair. He then stands up, although with difficulty. His wife and son rush to him.

Wilson tells Cuddy she can't tell anyone. She admits she had no medical reason to inject the patient. Wilson reminds Cuddy that House was just lucky, and if she tells House this time, he won't back down next time, which may leads to a patient dying. When Cuddy says she can't do it, Wilson reminds her everybody lies as the strains of You can't always get what you want start to play.

The episode ends with House entering Wilson's office, taking one of Wilson's prescription pads, and writing himself a prescription for Vicodin.

Both of the diagnoses in this episode are uncommon, but not terribly rare. Scurvy is almost unknown but does occur in people who exclude citrus from their diets. Secondary (central) adrenal insufficiency is also fairly rare, but it has numerous causes.

• Stephen Hawking was a brilliant theoretical physicist who had used a wheelchair for forty years due to ALS. He was born in the United Kingdom and was originally from Oxford. Hawking died on March 14, 2018 at the age of 76. Like Hawking, Hugh Laurie (Greg House) is originally from the UK and also grew up in Oxford. Hawking attended Oxford college while Laurie went to Cambridge, the two colleges also the oldest in Britain, having a rivalry that goes back to the twelfth century.
• The Butterfly is a swimming stroke where both arms are brought forward simultaneously. Until the development of the Australian Crawl, it was the fastest swimming stroke.
• Most of the exterior scenes were shot on the campus of UCLA. House runs up the Janss steps from the Wilson Quad. The scene where the team is sitting outside was shot at the Dickson Terrace between Royce Hall and the Powell Library.
• Part of the medicine hit a home run: when House notices Caren's jugular vein is distended, he was certainly correct that she had a cardiac tamponade.
• Cuddy seemingly pulls the number "24 times a year" out of thin air. In fact, it was the exact number of episodes in Season 2, and – unknown at this time – Season 3 and 5.
• The fountain House douses himself in is just a prop.
• House not using a cane in this episode is due to the fact that in real life Hugh Laurie (Greg House) had started developing leg pains as a result of pretending to walk with a limp.
• This is also the only episode of the entire House series apart from House MD Season 1 or the series finale episode, Everybody Dies where House is seen wearing button-down shirts with a jacket instead of either a plain T-shirt or a shirt underneath his button-down.

• Although it's perfectly plausible that House could give up his cane after the pain in his leg disappears, it is unlikely that he could walk without a limp given the continuing absence of his thigh muscle.
• House tells Cuddy that he hasn't taken any drugs for three months. It's only been two months since he detoxed from Vicodin while in a coma and this episode takes place over less than a week. House definitely took Vicodin in the morning before he was shot.
• House was probably a bit too quick in poking Caren with that needle. An embolism was probably more likely, and sticking a needle into the chest risks piercing the heart.
• When the team write up Richard's numerous symptoms on the whiteboard, they misspell diarrhea as "diarea" in one place even though it is spelled correctly in at least three other places on the whiteboard.
• Actually, an adrenal insufficiency caused by a pituitary or hypothalamic dysfunction is not diagnosed as Addison's disease but as an secondary or tertiary adrenal insufficiency, respectively. Addison's is caused by the functional loss of the adrenal cortex itself.
• Richard's recovery was probably a bit too quick. A man who hasn't used his legs for ten years and who has just had tendon surgery would most likely not have been able to stand.
• The way Cuddy administered the cortisol to Richard at the end would have caused a Shoulder Injury related to Vaccine Administration (SIRVA), as it was too high up on the shoulder.