The team takes on the case of 27-year-old Valerie (Beau Garrett), an attractive female executive experiencing intermittent episodes of excruciating ear pain. House is intrigued by the fact that she is beautiful and her husband is not and agrees to take on the case based on her looks. While treating her, the men on the team are charmed by Valerie’s beauty and personality, with only Thirteen looking beyond the superficial and trying to discover a link to her illness.

Thirteen finds out the missing link by spending half an hour asking Valerie about what she loves and hates during an MRI. During this test, Valerie’s brain bypasses the emotional centers and she uses the language sections of the brain to answer the questions. It shows that Valerie is, in fact, a psychopath. After hearing this analysis, House is even more fascinated by Valerie.

After Thirteen tries to expose Valerie’s behavior to her husband, Valerie accuses Thirteen of sexual harrasment and Cuddy removes Thirteen for her own sake.

Meanwhile, House orders Foreman and Thirteen to have sex, quit or fight as he is tired of their pointless bickering. He also uncharacteristically attempts to alleviate his conscience by reaching out to Wibberly (Ray Abruzzo), a former medical school colleague he wronged; the two were taking the same class at medical school, and House exchanged the paper he was submitting for a class with one Wibberly had written. House claims he was just testing a hypothesis that the professor would give him a bad grade regardless of the content of the paper. Much to his surprise, he got an A for the paper. Wibberly tells House that the failing grade he received for House’s paper led to him dropping out of medical school, and that he is now working as a bagger at a grocery store, and has to sell his home to pay for his father’s medical bills. House offers Wibberly a check to get him back on his feet, which is when Wibberly reveals that he didn’t drop out of medical school; his present circumstances are the result of a gambling addiction. House feeling remorse drops the check in Wibberly’s mailbox at the end of the episode. Wilson points out that House has chosen to apologize to Wibberly because he has not seen him for years, much easier than saying sorry to himself or Cuddy.

Thirteen confronts Valerie’s sister who has come to the hospital for organ transplant match and asks why she is helping her sister when she is so manipulative. She gets to know that as children, Valerie protected her elder sister from their drunken abusive father and it was only as she hit puberty that she started experiencing psychopathy. This leads Thirteen to realize that Valerie must have Wilson’s disease, which she discusses with House. This is confirmed by looking at her fingernails which are blue. She is started on chelation therapy to remove the excess copper. In the end Valerie insults her husband until he leaves. However, she is only faking – the treatment has cured her of her psychopathy, and she begins to feel emotions again. When Thirteen asks her what she feels, she replies that she does not know, but it hurts.

“Remorse” is the twelfth episode of the sixth season of House. It aired on January 25, 2010.

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