Lin-Manuel Miranda Rocks the Detox Ward in House

The doctor is back in on Fox’s House, and he prescribed a dose of Broadway talent for the show’s season six opener. The Emmy Award-winning medical mystery series has admitted more than a few board trotters over the years—Tony Award winner Robert Sean Leonard has been a series regular since day one, with Tony winners like Cynthia Nixon, Joel Grey, Faith Prince and, as of September 21, In the Heights mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda showing up to fill guest spots.

The season premiere kicked off with a montage from within Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, where title star Hugh Laurie ended season five detoxing off Vicodin and battling drug-and-stress induced hallucinations. (PS: Why hasn’t someone cast this man as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady? Emma Thompson mentioned it to Variety last year, but we’re getting impatient.) Moments after the opening credits, Miranda frenetically makes his network television debut, entering as House’s manic, hyperactive Puerto Rican roommate, Juan “Alvie” Alvarez.

The role of an awkwardly adorable hip hop artist who spits verses on the fly isn’t much of a stretch for real-life freestyler Miranda, but his comedic timing is dead-on, and the chemistry between House and Alvie rivals that of In the Heights’ Usnavi and Sonny. (“It turns out you’re my only friend. And I hate you,” House declares wryly to his newfound sidekick.) The pair’s shenanigans, which include joining together in civil disobedience on Mayfield’s “Ward 6,” culminate in an unlikely hip-hop duet during the hospital’s talent show: Alvie blanks mid-song a la Eminem in 8 Mile, only to be rescued by House, who rushes onstage to finish his roomie’s rhymes. (However, our favorite musical moment was real-life Brit Laurie’s tongue-in-cheek singing of HMS Pinafore’s “For He Is an Englishman” in a urinal while cheating his drug test.)

Miranda was joined by Broadway alums Angela Bettis (The Crucible), Megan Dodds (The School for Scandal) and Andrew Leeds (Falsettos), as well Shakespearean master Andre Braugher, who justified the episode’s two-hour running time with a star turn as the attending physician standing between House and his freedom.

Just in case viewers didn’t get their recommended daily dose of Broadway on the 21st, rumor has it Miranda will return for at least one other episode this season. Maybe House will have a hallucination where he's Henry Higgins, with Miranda returning as Colonel Pickering? A fan can only hope.