Season 8

Season 8 of House, M.D. is the final season of the series, consisting of 22 episodes. It premiered in the United States on October 3, 2011, and concluded on May 21, 2012. At the start of the season, Gregory House is serving a prison sentence for driving his car into Cuddy's living room at the end of the previous season; in the prison clinic, he still relies on his remarkable powers of observation and deduction to diagnose inmates' puzzling conditions. After being released on parole, he returns to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, only to face a new power structure in which his former subordinate Foreman has been promoted to dean, and to accept mandatory conditions including psychotherapy and an electronic ankle monitor. The diagnostics department welcomes new faces Adams and Park, while Chase and others also seek to rediscover themselves this season. The throughline of the entire season is the failing health of his best friend Wilson, who is diagnosed with cancer: House, who has always presented himself as cold and self-centered, is forced to confront a predicament he cannot solve with medicine, and the two men's conversations about death, companionship, and the meaning of life become the most moving part of the series. In the finale, "Everybody Dies," House makes a startling choice, bringing this story of an unruly genius to a conclusive end. As a closing chapter, the season continues the episodic structure of puzzling cases while shifting its focus markedly toward relationships and emotional reckoning.