Eric Foreman
Encyclopedia
Eric Foreman, M.D.
, is a fictional character
on the Fox
medical drama
House
. He is portrayed by Omar Epps
.
, Foreman was a member of Dr. Gregory House
's handpicked team of specialists at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's Diagnostic Medicine Department. He was hired by House merely three days prior to the series' pilot episode
(as implied in a deleted scene of the pilot).
Foreman attended Columbia University
as an undergraduate before matriculating to Johns Hopkins Medical School. In the pilot episode, he mentioned he had a 4.0 GPA through medical school, a fact confirmed by Dr. James Wilson
in "Histories".
Little is known about Foreman's past, although it has been suggested that his family was not very well-off and his parents are currently living on a pension
(cf. "Histories"). Foreman was also a former juvenile delinquent who once burglarized houses and stole cars. (House claims that this was a major factor in his decision to hire Foreman, that Foreman's delinquent past makes him useful in identifying misbehaving patients.) His father, Rodney (who appears in the episodes "Euphoria, Part 2" and "House Training
"), is deeply religious, while his mother is unfit to travel, due to Alzheimer's disease
; Foreman also has a brother, Marcus (played by Orlando Jones
), who was incarcerated for drug possession until the season 6 episode Moving the Chains
. Although he has a somewhat strained relationship with his parents, the show depicts them as loving, though emotionally distant.
", Foreman became infected with a mysterious illness. Another patient, infected with the same condition, experiences a very painful death in front of Foreman. In the conclusion of the episode, Cameron, acting as Foreman's medical proxy, performs a white-matter brain biopsy
and the condition is revealed to be primary amoebic meningoencephalitis
caused by Naegleria
, a water-borne parasite that, upon being inhaled, attacks the brain. After treatment, it appears Foreman is cured of the meningoencephalitis, but something may have gone wrong during the biopsy. Although his brain had some confusion between the left and right side of the brain, he is in recovery. Upon his return from recovery, Foreman's memory seemed to have been impaired, as he struggled to remember key medical concepts (see "Forever") and could not remember how to make coffee. In the next two episodes, however, he seems to be able to once again keep up with his fellow doctors when coming up with medical theories.
When Michael Tritter
offers Foreman an opportunity to win early parole for his drug-addicted, incarcerated brother, Marcus, Foreman turns it down. Tritter sees this as hypocrisy, citing Foreman's own criminal record, and says that while Foreman tries being compassionate to ward off House's training, he is actually just as cold and methodical as his employer. That is supported when Foreman gives his girlfriend a chance to go to a nurse practitioner school as a way to end the relationship, and she states that both he and House cannot stand to let people get close to them. He eventually gave his two weeks' notice to quit, as he was scared that he was turning apathetic towards patients' well-being—or as he admitted in the Season 3 finale, he does not want to turn into House. House angrily countered that he was like him, and in many ways was more selfish by caring about how good he looked in the eyes of patients and by dragging out his resignation until House admitted he wanted him to stay. Foreman left without a word following this tirade.
In the episode "The Right Stuff
", Cuddy
reveals that Foreman took a job at New York Mercy
running the diagnostics department. In the episode "97 Seconds", it is shown that despite his desire to change, he is unable to break from House-like techniques, including using a whiteboard to brainstorm, but more importantly, disobeying the hospital administrator, believing that her idea is wrong and his idea will save the patient. The only difference is that since House is a known brilliant doctor, he has earned the trust that Foreman has not yet earned. So despite the fact that Foreman's idea is right, his boss states that Foreman had no way of proving that his idea was the correct one, and if she cannot trust Foreman to obey her, he cannot stay at the hospital. She then fires him.
Cuddy then offers Foreman his old job at Princeton-Plainsboro, claiming she needs someone to help control House. At first he declines the offer, but ultimately he accepts following an extensive series of failed job interviews. He finds that his insubordination at New York Mercy has led the medical community to conclude that House has trained him to be a loose cannon with no regard for authority or procedure... a "House Lite," as Dr. Cuddy describes him.
He rejoins the department in the episode "Mirror Mirror
", serving as Cuddy's eyes and ears on House's new team. Though House tries to make Foreman miserable enough to quit, Foreman soon realizes that the unorthodox and rapidly changing environment of House's diagnostics team is exactly where he wants to be, and the two return to speaking terms. Though House and Foreman are more confrontational than before due to Foreman's role as a buffer for House, House clearly still respects his skills, as is evidenced in "Whatever It Takes
" when he chastises his fellows for not listening to him.
In Season 5's episode "Let Them Eat Cake
", Foreman runs a Huntington's drug trial and asks Thirteen
to participate. In the next episode, "Joy to the World
", Foreman and Thirteen kiss passionately, but in the following episode, she expresses her wish to keep some distance. However, they subsequently decide to pursue a romantic relationship. House repeatedly referred to them as "Foreteen," a collective nickname.
In Epic Fail
, when House quits, Foreman takes over House's job and tries to treat a patient with Thirteen. Things get complicated and Foreman and Thirteen misdiagnose the patient, until Foreman realizes the right diagnosis and finds Thirteen stopped treatment as she came to the same conclusion based on an Internet suggestion (from House himself, though unknown to them). Foreman ends up firing Thirteen so he can continue dating her with no conflict of interest.
In "The Tyrant
", Chase forges test results for a patient who is an African dictator, leading to the patient's death. Foreman burns the papers that would have incriminated Chase.
At the beginning of season 8 it is revealed that Foreman has taken over Cuddy's job of Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro, performing the role for 12 months while House has been in prison. Foreman hired House back into his old position upon his release from prison.
in the second season (in "Deception", "Failure to Communicate" and "Need to Know"), during which time House referred to him as "Blackpoleon Blackaparte." It has also been implied that Foreman and House share certain characteristics (cf. "Poison"), both in terms of character and physical habits. Whether this is true is debatable, although in the episode "House Training
", he admits that he has problems with his own ego.
Like House, Foreman has also been shown to be extremely honest even at the cost of hurting other people's feelings. This is evident in the episode "Sleeping Dogs Lie", in which he tells Cameron
that the two of them were never friends, merely working colleagues, after she falls out with him over his writing up an article on a previous case, knowing she was already writing her own, and getting House to sign off on it while hers lay unread, leading to his article's publication. However, during a later bout with a deadly illness (see below), Foreman recants this position. His sincerity, given his dying state, was unclear, and she initially refused his apology, but accepted when he was placed in a chemically induced coma
. Similarly, in the episode "Resignation", he tells Chase that he's never liked him and never will. Despite these instances, later episodes such as "Wilson's Heart" and "Emancipation" demonstrate Cameron and Chase offering Foreman advice and support.
During Season Three, a change in Foreman's character, making him more sensitive to other people's feelings, can be noticed when he resists telling two interracial lovers that they are half-siblings in "Fools For Love". During the same episode, he is accused of being against interracial relationships. Foreman makes a bet with House, saying that Dr. James Wilson
is not dating a nurse in the hospital. The white nurse is actually dating Foreman, which explains his sensitivity to this particular case. Later, in "Needle in a Haystack", Foreman offers a Romani boy an interview for an intern job and tries to help him.
The season three episode "House Training" reveals a great deal about Foreman's character. Upon giving orders for a patient to be given immunosuppressing radiation treatment and then learning that it was nothing more than a staph infection
(the radiation therapy killed the patient's immune system, essentially dooming her to a painful death), he is visibly agonized and blames himself for killing her. Throughout the episode Foreman displays a passionately emotional side and at one point breaks down, stating that in many ways he is no better than from where he came simply because his ego has gotten in the way. In the following episode, Foreman is seen for the first time praying or meditating in the hospital chapel, despite the fact that he has expressed being fairly nonreligious before.
Foreman was able to get over the grief and trauma of killing a patient, and the self-doubt that his mistake caused, when he was able to save another patient's life by taking extreme measures in "Family". With a young boy dying unless he got a bone marrow transplant immediately, Foreman was forced to get the marrow from the patient's little brother, without anesthetizing the boy first as he was too sick to be sedated. Foreman strapped the boy down to a bed and drew the marrow from him by force in several places on his body to get the samples he needed, ignoring the boy's screams of agony in order to do so. The patient survived as a result, and while Foreman acknowledged this, he was also horrified with what he had done. He tendered his resignation the same day.
Foreman takes a job at Mercy Hospital in New York, and he immediately goes out of his way to conduct differential diagnoses with a calm head and professional attitude, almost the exact opposite of House. However, when a patient presents with a condition with similar symptoms to the patient he killed, Foreman goes against regulations (like House) to save the patient's life, which he does. Despite making a life-saving call, Foreman's administrator fires him due to violating regulations. Foreman is then re-hired by Dr. Lisa Cuddy
to serve as a partner of sorts with Dr. House and to act as the "eyes and ears" of Dr. Cuddy on House's team. His position is permanent, as he cannot be hired anywhere else. His personality appears to have changed drastically since being re-hired and has become distinctly sarcastic and biting, and although he shows some level of restraint, his sense of humor has become very similar to that of Dr. House. He nevertheless states that he does enjoy being back at PPTH and working with House again.
Significantly, as he did during his temporary stint as House's supervisor in season 2, Foreman has picked up House's habit of practicing medicine in plain clothes, eschewing the white coat he wore during his first hitch as a member of House's team. However, his outfit is still more professional than House's, tending toward well-tailored suits and ties.
In his romantic life, Foreman is shown to have intimacy issues. His relationship with a PPTH nurse named Wendy - between season 3's "Fools For Love" and "Insensitive" - ends with her breaking up with him as he will not truly allow her to get close. Having begun a relationship with teammate Thirteen in season 5, his issues are highlighted in "Simple Explanation
", where he admits and demonstrates to her that he works through major emotional stress alone, although he later makes a point not to entirely shut her out. In the following episode, "Saviors
", teammate Dr. Chris Taub
deduces from a conversation with Thirteen that Foreman does not open up much to her in private.
After comments from House about his general lack of spontaneity in "Lucky Thirteen", Foreman voices concerns to Chase that he is "boring," to which Chase offers that Foreman is too controlled regarding the events in his life, which prevents him from pushing his limits. In a moment between Taub and Thirteen during "The Softer Side", Taub mocks Foreman for having a robotic manner, comparing him to the fictional android character, the T-1000
from "Terminator 2."
Foreman is a fan of jazz music, first shown in the episode "Who's Your Daddy?", when Foreman makes a Miles Davis
reference, and later in the episode "Insensitive", where he plans to attend a jazz festival.
jokes, Foreman does not appear to take them personally. It seems that House does so simply because Foreman's race is an easy target—just as House often targets Chase with his nationality and Cameron with her gender, House uses Foreman's race as a source of humor, and other episodes (c.f. "Humpty Dumpty
") establish that House is not racially prejudiced. In the episode "Family", Foreman fears that he has begun to disregard his patients' lives much the way House does, and he decides that he'd rather leave his job than continue on that path. In the third season finale, House makes a last attempt to keep Foreman from leaving, but it fails.
Although House stated in the pilot that he hired Foreman because he was an ex-car thief, House often states or implies that he thinks Foreman is a great doctor. The best example of this is in the Season 2 Episode "Autopsy". House and the surgical team are trying to determine the exact location of a blood clot in order to be able to remove it. Foreman swears he spotted a clot on the screen that neither House nor anybody else saw. House nods and states "That's good enough for me." Also, in the third season finale "Human Error", when House is trying to stop Foreman's leaving, he bluntly declares that he is "indispensable" and that "he needs him" on his team, in an unusual display of respect for a subordinate.
Since Foreman's return to Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, it has been shown that House still holds a great deal of respect for Foreman. In stark contrast to previous seasons, he tends to treat Foreman as an equal in his understanding of diagnostics and Foreman in return shows a marked regret at having quit the job in the first place. In "Whatever It Takes", House reprimands his new fellowship candidates when they fail to listen to Foreman's instructions while House is away. House tells the candidates that the reason he left Foreman in charge was because Foreman knows what he's doing and that they should listen to him next time. Later, in "No More Mr. Nice Guy" Foreman believes he is not getting the respect he deserves from Kutner, Taub and Thirteen when he tries, and fails, to do their performance reviews, which he believes is due to House frequently humiliating him. House replies that if he did not humiliate and taunt Foreman, he would not be strong and able enough to handle the rest of the team. In future episodes, Foreman was considered to be in charge whenever House is unavailable. He is also the primary attending physician whenever House is legally unable to do so, such as when House's license was suspended at the beginning of season 6, or when House was recovering from a bus crash and drug overdose while diagnosing Amber.
" Dr. Foreman took over as Head of the Diagnostic Department in Dr. House's absence. Dr. House was treated for psychosis and depression in Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital by Dr. Nolan, he was supposedly able to leave whenever he wanted because he had voluntarily entered the hospital. However, House's medical license was on the line and he was not able to leave without Dr. Nolan's approval letter to allow him to practice medicine again. To prevent Cuddy from shutting the department down, Foreman asked to fill the void that House had created. The stress of the job and newfound authority over his former co-workers caused a strain in the relationship between Foreman and Thirteen causing them to break up, as well as leading to Taub's resignation. In "Teamwork
" House's medical licence is re-instated and he is given back his title as the Head of Diagnostic Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro and Foreman had to take his job as senior-fellow on the Diagnostic team back.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
, is a fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
on the Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
medical drama
Medical drama
A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the...
House
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...
. He is portrayed by Omar Epps
Omar Epps
Omar Hashim Epps is an American actor, singer, songwriter, and record producer. His film roles include Major League II, Juice, Higher Learning, Scream 2, The Wood, In Too Deep, and Love and Basketball. Epps' television work includes the role of Dr. Dennis Gant on the US medical drama series ER,...
.
Background
A neurologistNeurologist
A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...
, Foreman was a member of Dr. Gregory House
Gregory House
Gregory House, M.D., or simply referred to as House, is a fictional antihero and title character of the American television series House, played by Hugh Laurie. He is the Chief of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, where he leads a team of diagnosticians...
's handpicked team of specialists at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's Diagnostic Medicine Department. He was hired by House merely three days prior to the series' pilot episode
Pilot (House)
"Pilot", also known as "Everybody Lies", is the first episode of the U.S. television series House. The episode premiered on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. It introduces the character of Dr. Gregory House —a maverick antisocial doctor—and his team of diagnosticians at the fictional...
(as implied in a deleted scene of the pilot).
Foreman attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
as an undergraduate before matriculating to Johns Hopkins Medical School. In the pilot episode, he mentioned he had a 4.0 GPA through medical school, a fact confirmed by Dr. James Wilson
James Wilson (House)
James Evan Wilson, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is played by Robert Sean Leonard. The character first appears in the show's pilot episode when he introduces a medical case to Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of the show. Wilson is Dr. House's only true friend,...
in "Histories".
Little is known about Foreman's past, although it has been suggested that his family was not very well-off and his parents are currently living on a pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
(cf. "Histories"). Foreman was also a former juvenile delinquent who once burglarized houses and stole cars. (House claims that this was a major factor in his decision to hire Foreman, that Foreman's delinquent past makes him useful in identifying misbehaving patients.) His father, Rodney (who appears in the episodes "Euphoria, Part 2" and "House Training
House Training (House)
"House Training" is the twentieth episode of the third season of House and the sixty-sixth episode overall.-Plot:A young female scam artist named Lupe collapses while participating in a Three Card Monte scam on the street...
"), is deeply religious, while his mother is unfit to travel, due to Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
; Foreman also has a brother, Marcus (played by Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones
Orlando Jones is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002.-Early life:...
), who was incarcerated for drug possession until the season 6 episode Moving the Chains
Moving the Chains
"Moving the Chains" is the thirteenth episode of the sixth season of House. It aired on February 1, 2010.- The Case :The team takes on the case of 22-year-old Daryl, a large offensive guard who repeatedly banged his head against his helmet shortly after attacking a fellow player during a fit of...
. Although he has a somewhat strained relationship with his parents, the show depicts them as loving, though emotionally distant.
Character history
In the episode "Euphoria, Part 1Euphoria, Part 1
"Euphoria " is the twentieth episode of the second season of House, which premiered on the Fox network on May 2, 2006. This episode is the first half of a two-episode story arc, the second half being "Euphoria "...
", Foreman became infected with a mysterious illness. Another patient, infected with the same condition, experiences a very painful death in front of Foreman. In the conclusion of the episode, Cameron, acting as Foreman's medical proxy, performs a white-matter brain biopsy
Biopsy
A biopsy is a medical test involving sampling of cells or tissues for examination. It is the medical removal of tissue from a living subject to determine the presence or extent of a disease. The tissue is generally examined under a microscope by a pathologist, and can also be analyzed chemically...
and the condition is revealed to be primary amoebic meningoencephalitis
Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis
Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is a disease of the central nervous system caused by infection from Naegleria fowleri.-Presentation:...
caused by Naegleria
Naegleria
Naegleria is a eukaryotic genus. The genus was named after French zoologist Mathieu Naegler.Species include:* Naegleria fowleri, which causes a rare and generally fatal disease in humans* Naegleria gruberi-External links:...
, a water-borne parasite that, upon being inhaled, attacks the brain. After treatment, it appears Foreman is cured of the meningoencephalitis, but something may have gone wrong during the biopsy. Although his brain had some confusion between the left and right side of the brain, he is in recovery. Upon his return from recovery, Foreman's memory seemed to have been impaired, as he struggled to remember key medical concepts (see "Forever") and could not remember how to make coffee. In the next two episodes, however, he seems to be able to once again keep up with his fellow doctors when coming up with medical theories.
When Michael Tritter
Michael Tritter
Detective Michael Tritter is a recurring fictional character in the medical drama series House, portrayed by David Morse. He is the main antagonist of the third season, which ran between 2006 and 2007. Tritter is a police detective, who tries to get Dr. Gregory House to apologize for leaving him...
offers Foreman an opportunity to win early parole for his drug-addicted, incarcerated brother, Marcus, Foreman turns it down. Tritter sees this as hypocrisy, citing Foreman's own criminal record, and says that while Foreman tries being compassionate to ward off House's training, he is actually just as cold and methodical as his employer. That is supported when Foreman gives his girlfriend a chance to go to a nurse practitioner school as a way to end the relationship, and she states that both he and House cannot stand to let people get close to them. He eventually gave his two weeks' notice to quit, as he was scared that he was turning apathetic towards patients' well-being—or as he admitted in the Season 3 finale, he does not want to turn into House. House angrily countered that he was like him, and in many ways was more selfish by caring about how good he looked in the eyes of patients and by dragging out his resignation until House admitted he wanted him to stay. Foreman left without a word following this tirade.
In the episode "The Right Stuff
The Right Stuff (House)
"The Right Stuff" is the second episode of the fourth season of House and the seventy-second episode overall.-Plot:A pilot, Captain Greta Cooper , is flying in on a United States Air Force mission when she sees lightning and the landscape suddenly turns into strange colors on her...
", Cuddy
Lisa Cuddy
Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. She also becomes House's love interest through the...
reveals that Foreman took a job at New York Mercy
Mercy College (New York)
Mercy College is a private, non-profit liberal arts college with its main campus in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and satellite locations throughout southeastern New York, including the Bronx, Manhattan, White Plains and Yorktown...
running the diagnostics department. In the episode "97 Seconds", it is shown that despite his desire to change, he is unable to break from House-like techniques, including using a whiteboard to brainstorm, but more importantly, disobeying the hospital administrator, believing that her idea is wrong and his idea will save the patient. The only difference is that since House is a known brilliant doctor, he has earned the trust that Foreman has not yet earned. So despite the fact that Foreman's idea is right, his boss states that Foreman had no way of proving that his idea was the correct one, and if she cannot trust Foreman to obey her, he cannot stay at the hospital. She then fires him.
Cuddy then offers Foreman his old job at Princeton-Plainsboro, claiming she needs someone to help control House. At first he declines the offer, but ultimately he accepts following an extensive series of failed job interviews. He finds that his insubordination at New York Mercy has led the medical community to conclude that House has trained him to be a loose cannon with no regard for authority or procedure... a "House Lite," as Dr. Cuddy describes him.
He rejoins the department in the episode "Mirror Mirror
Mirror Mirror (House)
"Mirror Mirror" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of House and the seventy-fifth episode overall. It aired on October 30, 2007.-Medicine:...
", serving as Cuddy's eyes and ears on House's new team. Though House tries to make Foreman miserable enough to quit, Foreman soon realizes that the unorthodox and rapidly changing environment of House's diagnostics team is exactly where he wants to be, and the two return to speaking terms. Though House and Foreman are more confrontational than before due to Foreman's role as a buffer for House, House clearly still respects his skills, as is evidenced in "Whatever It Takes
Whatever It Takes (House)
-Plot:Drag racer Casey Alfonso experiences blurred vision and distorted hearing after she develops a seizure following a race. Sent to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, House takes the case, hoping that by solving it, he will be able to test drive a dragster, but Foreman does not believe her...
" when he chastises his fellows for not listening to him.
In Season 5's episode "Let Them Eat Cake
Let Them Eat Cake (House)
"Let Them Eat Cake" is the tenth episode of the fifth season of House and the ninety-sixth episode overall. It originally aired on December 2, 2008.-Plot:...
", Foreman runs a Huntington's drug trial and asks Thirteen
Thirteen (House)
Remy "Thirteen" Hadley, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House, portrayed by Olivia Wilde. She is part of the new diagnostic team assembled by Dr. Gregory House after the disbanding of his previous team in the third season finale...
to participate. In the next episode, "Joy to the World
Joy to the World (House)
"Joy to the World" is the eleventh episode of the fifth season of House and the ninety-seventh episode overall. It aired on December 9, 2008.-Plot:...
", Foreman and Thirteen kiss passionately, but in the following episode, she expresses her wish to keep some distance. However, they subsequently decide to pursue a romantic relationship. House repeatedly referred to them as "Foreteen," a collective nickname.
In Epic Fail
Epic Fail (House)
"Epic Fail" is the third episode of the sixth season of House. It first aired on September 28, 2009.-Plot:Players in a video game known as SavageScape battle ferocious creatures. After the game ends, the testers find their boss, Vince Pearson, claiming that his hands are "on fire." House walks into...
, when House quits, Foreman takes over House's job and tries to treat a patient with Thirteen. Things get complicated and Foreman and Thirteen misdiagnose the patient, until Foreman realizes the right diagnosis and finds Thirteen stopped treatment as she came to the same conclusion based on an Internet suggestion (from House himself, though unknown to them). Foreman ends up firing Thirteen so he can continue dating her with no conflict of interest.
In "The Tyrant
The Tyrant (House)
"The Tyrant" is the fourth episode of the sixth season of House. It first aired October 5, 2009.- Plot :The team treats a brutal African dictator named Dibala who has fallen ill;...
", Chase forges test results for a patient who is an African dictator, leading to the patient's death. Foreman burns the papers that would have incriminated Chase.
At the beginning of season 8 it is revealed that Foreman has taken over Cuddy's job of Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro, performing the role for 12 months while House has been in prison. Foreman hired House back into his old position upon his release from prison.
Personality
Despite his youthful offenses, Foreman initially may have been the best-adjusted of House's team. He is shown to possess a level of leadership skills, and was temporarily appointed House's boss by Dr. Lisa CuddyLisa Cuddy
Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. She also becomes House's love interest through the...
in the second season (in "Deception", "Failure to Communicate" and "Need to Know"), during which time House referred to him as "Blackpoleon Blackaparte." It has also been implied that Foreman and House share certain characteristics (cf. "Poison"), both in terms of character and physical habits. Whether this is true is debatable, although in the episode "House Training
House Training (House)
"House Training" is the twentieth episode of the third season of House and the sixty-sixth episode overall.-Plot:A young female scam artist named Lupe collapses while participating in a Three Card Monte scam on the street...
", he admits that he has problems with his own ego.
Like House, Foreman has also been shown to be extremely honest even at the cost of hurting other people's feelings. This is evident in the episode "Sleeping Dogs Lie", in which he tells Cameron
Allison Cameron (House)
Allison Cameron, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House, portrayed by American actress Jennifer Morrison. An immunologist, Cameron was a member of Dr...
that the two of them were never friends, merely working colleagues, after she falls out with him over his writing up an article on a previous case, knowing she was already writing her own, and getting House to sign off on it while hers lay unread, leading to his article's publication. However, during a later bout with a deadly illness (see below), Foreman recants this position. His sincerity, given his dying state, was unclear, and she initially refused his apology, but accepted when he was placed in a chemically induced coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. Similarly, in the episode "Resignation", he tells Chase that he's never liked him and never will. Despite these instances, later episodes such as "Wilson's Heart" and "Emancipation" demonstrate Cameron and Chase offering Foreman advice and support.
During Season Three, a change in Foreman's character, making him more sensitive to other people's feelings, can be noticed when he resists telling two interracial lovers that they are half-siblings in "Fools For Love". During the same episode, he is accused of being against interracial relationships. Foreman makes a bet with House, saying that Dr. James Wilson
James Wilson (House)
James Evan Wilson, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is played by Robert Sean Leonard. The character first appears in the show's pilot episode when he introduces a medical case to Dr. Gregory House, the protagonist of the show. Wilson is Dr. House's only true friend,...
is not dating a nurse in the hospital. The white nurse is actually dating Foreman, which explains his sensitivity to this particular case. Later, in "Needle in a Haystack", Foreman offers a Romani boy an interview for an intern job and tries to help him.
The season three episode "House Training" reveals a great deal about Foreman's character. Upon giving orders for a patient to be given immunosuppressing radiation treatment and then learning that it was nothing more than a staph infection
Staphylococcal infection
Staphylococcus is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria which includes several species that can cause a wide variety of infections in humans and other animals through either toxin production or invasion....
(the radiation therapy killed the patient's immune system, essentially dooming her to a painful death), he is visibly agonized and blames himself for killing her. Throughout the episode Foreman displays a passionately emotional side and at one point breaks down, stating that in many ways he is no better than from where he came simply because his ego has gotten in the way. In the following episode, Foreman is seen for the first time praying or meditating in the hospital chapel, despite the fact that he has expressed being fairly nonreligious before.
Foreman was able to get over the grief and trauma of killing a patient, and the self-doubt that his mistake caused, when he was able to save another patient's life by taking extreme measures in "Family". With a young boy dying unless he got a bone marrow transplant immediately, Foreman was forced to get the marrow from the patient's little brother, without anesthetizing the boy first as he was too sick to be sedated. Foreman strapped the boy down to a bed and drew the marrow from him by force in several places on his body to get the samples he needed, ignoring the boy's screams of agony in order to do so. The patient survived as a result, and while Foreman acknowledged this, he was also horrified with what he had done. He tendered his resignation the same day.
Foreman takes a job at Mercy Hospital in New York, and he immediately goes out of his way to conduct differential diagnoses with a calm head and professional attitude, almost the exact opposite of House. However, when a patient presents with a condition with similar symptoms to the patient he killed, Foreman goes against regulations (like House) to save the patient's life, which he does. Despite making a life-saving call, Foreman's administrator fires him due to violating regulations. Foreman is then re-hired by Dr. Lisa Cuddy
Lisa Cuddy
Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. She also becomes House's love interest through the...
to serve as a partner of sorts with Dr. House and to act as the "eyes and ears" of Dr. Cuddy on House's team. His position is permanent, as he cannot be hired anywhere else. His personality appears to have changed drastically since being re-hired and has become distinctly sarcastic and biting, and although he shows some level of restraint, his sense of humor has become very similar to that of Dr. House. He nevertheless states that he does enjoy being back at PPTH and working with House again.
Significantly, as he did during his temporary stint as House's supervisor in season 2, Foreman has picked up House's habit of practicing medicine in plain clothes, eschewing the white coat he wore during his first hitch as a member of House's team. However, his outfit is still more professional than House's, tending toward well-tailored suits and ties.
In his romantic life, Foreman is shown to have intimacy issues. His relationship with a PPTH nurse named Wendy - between season 3's "Fools For Love" and "Insensitive" - ends with her breaking up with him as he will not truly allow her to get close. Having begun a relationship with teammate Thirteen in season 5, his issues are highlighted in "Simple Explanation
Simple Explanation
"Simple Explanation" is the 20th episode of the fifth season of House. It first aired on April 6, 2009.-Plot summary:As Eddie Novack lies on his deathbed, his wife Charlotte is stricken with respiratory failure. The team takes Charlotte's case and wheels Eddie into her room, as he seems to gain...
", where he admits and demonstrates to her that he works through major emotional stress alone, although he later makes a point not to entirely shut her out. In the following episode, "Saviors
Saviors (House)
"Saviors" is the twenty-first episode of the fifth season of House. It aired on April 13, 2009.-Plot:Cameron cancels a vacation with Chase, saying she wants to make sure House takes the case of an environmental activist named Doug who collapsed at a rally...
", teammate Dr. Chris Taub
Chris Taub
Christopher Michael "Chris" Taub, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. He is portrayed by Peter Jacobson. He becomes a member of House's new diagnostic team in the Season 4 episode titled "Games".-Professional life:...
deduces from a conversation with Thirteen that Foreman does not open up much to her in private.
After comments from House about his general lack of spontaneity in "Lucky Thirteen", Foreman voices concerns to Chase that he is "boring," to which Chase offers that Foreman is too controlled regarding the events in his life, which prevents him from pushing his limits. In a moment between Taub and Thirteen during "The Softer Side", Taub mocks Foreman for having a robotic manner, comparing him to the fictional android character, the T-1000
T-1000
The T-1000 is a fictional nanomorph mimetic poly-alloy assassin and the main antagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day controlled by the series main antagonist Skynet. The T-1000 is portrayed primarily by Robert Patrick; however, being a shape-shifter, the T-1000 is played by other actors in some...
from "Terminator 2."
Foreman is a fan of jazz music, first shown in the episode "Who's Your Daddy?", when Foreman makes a Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
reference, and later in the episode "Insensitive", where he plans to attend a jazz festival.
Relationship with House
In the first two seasons, House's relationship with Foreman was probably the least complicated of the relationships he has with his fellows. While Foreman is considered to dislike his boss ("DNR"), constantly challenges House's behaviour and diagnoses, and terms him "an anarchist" ("Deception") and "a manipulative bastard" ("Euphoria, Part 2"), he genuinely respects House's medical expertise and House seems to appreciate Foreman's professionalism. Although House frequently targets Foreman with racistRacism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
jokes, Foreman does not appear to take them personally. It seems that House does so simply because Foreman's race is an easy target—just as House often targets Chase with his nationality and Cameron with her gender, House uses Foreman's race as a source of humor, and other episodes (c.f. "Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty (House episode)
"Humpty Dumpty" is the third episode of the second season of House, which premiered on the Fox network on September 27, 2005. Dr. Lisa Cuddy's longtime handyman Alfredo falls off her roof, causing breathing problems.-Plot:...
") establish that House is not racially prejudiced. In the episode "Family", Foreman fears that he has begun to disregard his patients' lives much the way House does, and he decides that he'd rather leave his job than continue on that path. In the third season finale, House makes a last attempt to keep Foreman from leaving, but it fails.
Although House stated in the pilot that he hired Foreman because he was an ex-car thief, House often states or implies that he thinks Foreman is a great doctor. The best example of this is in the Season 2 Episode "Autopsy". House and the surgical team are trying to determine the exact location of a blood clot in order to be able to remove it. Foreman swears he spotted a clot on the screen that neither House nor anybody else saw. House nods and states "That's good enough for me." Also, in the third season finale "Human Error", when House is trying to stop Foreman's leaving, he bluntly declares that he is "indispensable" and that "he needs him" on his team, in an unusual display of respect for a subordinate.
Since Foreman's return to Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, it has been shown that House still holds a great deal of respect for Foreman. In stark contrast to previous seasons, he tends to treat Foreman as an equal in his understanding of diagnostics and Foreman in return shows a marked regret at having quit the job in the first place. In "Whatever It Takes", House reprimands his new fellowship candidates when they fail to listen to Foreman's instructions while House is away. House tells the candidates that the reason he left Foreman in charge was because Foreman knows what he's doing and that they should listen to him next time. Later, in "No More Mr. Nice Guy" Foreman believes he is not getting the respect he deserves from Kutner, Taub and Thirteen when he tries, and fails, to do their performance reviews, which he believes is due to House frequently humiliating him. House replies that if he did not humiliate and taunt Foreman, he would not be strong and able enough to handle the rest of the team. In future episodes, Foreman was considered to be in charge whenever House is unavailable. He is also the primary attending physician whenever House is legally unable to do so, such as when House's license was suspended at the beginning of season 6, or when House was recovering from a bus crash and drug overdose while diagnosing Amber.
Head of Diagnostic Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital
In the season 6 episode "Epic FailEpic Fail (House)
"Epic Fail" is the third episode of the sixth season of House. It first aired on September 28, 2009.-Plot:Players in a video game known as SavageScape battle ferocious creatures. After the game ends, the testers find their boss, Vince Pearson, claiming that his hands are "on fire." House walks into...
" Dr. Foreman took over as Head of the Diagnostic Department in Dr. House's absence. Dr. House was treated for psychosis and depression in Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital by Dr. Nolan, he was supposedly able to leave whenever he wanted because he had voluntarily entered the hospital. However, House's medical license was on the line and he was not able to leave without Dr. Nolan's approval letter to allow him to practice medicine again. To prevent Cuddy from shutting the department down, Foreman asked to fill the void that House had created. The stress of the job and newfound authority over his former co-workers caused a strain in the relationship between Foreman and Thirteen causing them to break up, as well as leading to Taub's resignation. In "Teamwork
Teamwork (House)
"Teamwork" is the seventh episode of the sixth season of House. It aired on November 16, 2009. This episode marks the departure of Jennifer Morrison from the series, since it was stated by Fox that Cameron's character would be written out of the series by the middle of season six.-Plot:After...
" House's medical licence is re-instated and he is given back his title as the Head of Diagnostic Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro and Foreman had to take his job as senior-fellow on the Diagnostic team back.
External links
- Eric Foreman at House Wiki
- Eric Foreman on TVIV