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Joe Luria is the main antagonist of the House two-part story "Euphoria", albeit he would only appear posthumously in the second part. He was a corrupt police officer who was illicitly growing and selling marijuana, with his actions in doing so causing him to contract a disease that ultimately killed him, and very nearly killed Dr. Eric Foreman, one of House's fellows.
He was portrayed by actor Scott Michael Campbell.
Biography[]
Luria was first seen apprehending a criminal named Babyshoes. During the arrest he suddenly became unusually jovial, mocking Babyshoes while deliberately reading his Miranda Warning incorrectly, and displaying a reckless attitude towards gun safety; it was unclear how much of this was Luria's normal personality on display, and how much of it was the disease affecting his judgement. Either way, Babyshoes took advantage of Luria's delirium to draw his own gun and shoot at Luria; the bullet hit his bulletproof vest, shattered, and fragments lodged themselves in his brain, leaving Luria on the ground laughing deliriously. Babyshoes tried to flee the scene, but was soon apprehended by other officers.
House agreed to take on Luria's case after becoming intrigued by Babyshoes' testimony that he had already been laughing before being shot. Luria remained in a euphoric, near-delirious state, and so wasn't much use in telling House's team anything helpful. House himself therefore went to investigate Luria's precinct, and found evidence that he and several other officers had contracted Legionnaire's Disease from an improperly maintained air conditioning unit. Foreman, meanwhile, broke into Luria's apartment, which he found to be appallingly unsanitary. Moreover, Foreman discovered that Luria was illicitly growing marijuana on a rooftop shack, and theorized that either his brain had been affected by excess marijuana usage, or he had contracted something from a mouldy piece of food or some other unsanitary object in his apartment.
While Foreman treated him for Legionnaire's Disease, Luria took an obviously disdainful and contemptuous attitude towards him, for no obvious reason other than Foreman being the only African-American on House's team. The feeling was very much mutual, however, with Foreman finding Luria more than reminiscent of the bigoted cops he and his friends had been forced to deal with in his youth. The argument was soon halted in its tracks when Foreman realized that Luria had developed Anton's Blindness, a rare condition where an individual loses their eyesight, but thinks they can still see.
The bullet fragments in Luria's brain prevented House's team from doing an MRI, with House accidentally destroying one of the hospital's MRI machines by attempting a test run on a corpse he'd shot in the head. Not long after that, Luria started bleeding out, and Foreman suddenly became extremely amused by his situation, causing House's other two fellows, Dr. Allison Cameron and Dr. Robert Chase, to realize in horror that whatever was affecting Luria was now affecting Foreman too. Luria and Foreman were therefore quarantined together until it could be determined what they were suffering from, and whether or not it was contagious.
Later on, with his condition having further deteriorated, his eyesight now completely gone, and suffering from short bouts of intense pain, Luria woke up to discover that he was now sharing a quarantine area with Foreman. While he initially remained disdainful of his new room-mate, Luria soon became afraid and tearful at the prospect of dying. Unable to do anything else, Luria suggested that the two men pray together, despite neither of them being religious.
After an increasingly desperate Foreman attempted to infect Cameron in order to give her an incentive to more thoroughly investigate Luria's now-quarantined apartment, Luria was seen in intense pain despite being maxed-out on morphine. Foreman nonetheless gave him another dose, as despite Chase's warnings that a further dose could kill Luria, House agreed that not giving him another dose could cause him to die from the shock of the pain. The morphine would only momentarily relieve Luria's pain before it came back, far worse than ever, causing House to realize that whatever was affecting Luria had moved into his brain's pain centres, and that the only way to stop the pain from killing him was to put him in a chemically-induced coma.
While Foreman made the disturbing discovery from the EKG machine that Luria still appeared to be in increasing levels of pain despite being in a coma, Cameron searched Luria's apartment again under House's guidance, and discovered that he had been fertilizing his marijuana plants with pigeon droppings, causing House to theorize that Luria (and Foreman) had been infected by the cryptococcus neoformans parasite. While the treatment for the parasite initially seemed to work, Luria suddenly went into cardiac arrest, with Cameron simultaneously discovering that House's theory had been wrong. Foreman tried desperately to revive Luria, but failed, with Cameron sadly realizing that the disease had moved into Luria's brain stem, and that there was now no hope of recovery. House therefore officially declared Luria dead, leaving him and his team with the task of saving Foreman.
House later discovered that he had actually been right about Luria and Foreman having been infected by a pigeon-borne parasite, but had misidentified it; they had both been affected by naegleria fowleri, introduced into their bodies after they were sprayed by rainwater that Luria had been collecting in a still in order to water his marijuana plants, which the pigeons had been bathing in. While this discovery came too late to save Luria, he was able to save Foreman's life.
Trivia[]
- Luria's death at the end of the first half of the two-parter marked the only time in the show's entire run that an episode ended with the patient dying, without House having successfully diagnosed the disease they were suffering from (albeit a few other episodes had the patient dying before House could diagnose them, but him successfully making a post-mortem diagnosis before the end of the episode). He would, however, successfully diagnose Foreman (and by extension, Luria) by the end of the following episode.
- While Luria is shown to be a generally unpleasant individual and shows obvious signs of bigotry towards African-Americans, the exact extent of his villainy (beyond unwittingly causing the health crisis that takes up the two-parter by his careless and unsanitary actions, as well as his drug-dealing and obvious bigotry) remains unclear given that he isn't ever shown to be in his right state of mind. He does show some redeeming aspects towards the end of his life, however, as well as seeming genuinely remorseful and showing some empathy for Foreman in the final scene where he's shown to be coherent.
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