DistractionsHouse M.D. : Season 2 Episode 12
The final season's opening episode partly explores what path an imprisoned House would take aside from practicing medicine, revealing physics as his other forte.[20] The episode \"Body & Soul\" makes a nod to this with a reference to a particle physics text amongst his books, as mentioned by his then-wife Dominika Petrova.[32] House fakes his own death in the series finale, thus giving up his ability to practice medicine, in order to spend time with Wilson, who has five months to live. He does this in order to avoid being sent back to prison for destroying an MRI machine in a prank gone wrong. The series ends with House and Wilson riding off into the countryside on motorcycles, as Dr. Chase takes over House's department.[33]
House is an atheist. He openly and relentlessly mocks colleagues and patients who express any belief in religion, deeming such beliefs as illogical. He does not believe in an afterlife because he finds it is better to believe life \"isn't just a test\".[25] However, in the season four episode \"97 Seconds\", he expresses sufficient interest in the possibility of an afterlife to electrocute himself in an effort to find out; he is dissatisfied with the results and denounces the possibility of an afterlife.[60] This is also an example of House's tendency to self-experiment and submit to risky medical procedures in the name of truth. Over the course of the series, he disproves the effectiveness of a migraine cure by self-inducing a migraine and controlling the effects through drugs,[21] undergoes a blood transfusion to assist with a diagnosis, and overdoses on physostigmine to improve his memory after sustaining head injuries, subsequently causing his heart to stop beating, then undergoes deep brain stimulation soon after.[61][62][63] In \"The Fix\", he steals experimental medicine only tested in rats to try and regrow his thigh muscle, eliminating his pain. In the following episode, \"After Hours\", he finds out that the medicine causes tumors, and operates on himself in his bathtub based on a CT scan. Ultimately he is unable to continue and eventually brings in Cuddy, who sends him to the hospital.
House frequently says, \"Everybody lies\", but jokingly remarked he was lying when he said it.[43] House criticizes social etiquette for lack of rational purpose and usefulness.[54] Dr. Cameron states in the first episode of the first season \"House doesn't believe in pretense... so he just says what he thinks\".[65] In the season three episode \"Lines in the Sand\", he explains how he envies an autistic patient because society allows the patient to forgo the niceties that he must suffer through.[54] In the same episode, Dr. Wilson suggests House might have Asperger syndrome, which is characterized by a number of traits found in House, such as difficulty accepting the purpose of social rules, lack of concern for his physical appearance, and resistance to change; though he later reveals to House that he does not truly believe this, and that claiming this was a part of a ploy to soften Cuddy's opinion of House.[54] House is a strong nonconformist and has little regard for how others perceive him.[44] Throughout the series, he displays sardonic contempt for authority figures.[66] House shows an almost constant disregard for his own appearance, possessing a permanent stubble and dressing informally in worn jeans, wrinkled shirts over rumpled T-shirts, and sneakers.[67] He avoids wearing the standard white lab coat to avoid patients recognizing him as a doctor, preferring a shabby blazer or, less frequently, a motorcycle jacket.[26][66]