Why 'House' Actor Kal Penn is Gone

Now, in the hours since last night's episode, the rumor mill has been churning over time. People have been speculating on the motives behind Kal Penn's departure and come up with some whoppers. Searches for the phrase "Kal Penn Death" are popping up all over Google. As far as I can tell, Kal Penn is not dead or even remotely sick in real life. In fact, Fox has scheduled a 1:30 press junket with the actor, so it's a safe bet he's alive and kicking. Also, he wasn't written off the show due to any friction with the other cast members or producers.

The truth is much, much nicer. According to an interview with EW's Michael Ausiello, Kal Penn has left House (and Hollywood) to work in the Obama White House. He tells Ausiello that during his time volunteering for the Obama campaign, he got to know the President pretty well and "expressed interest" in working for the administration. Now, Kal Penn will be the associate director in the White House office of public liaison. Not sure what that entails, but it sounds pretty fancy. Basically, he'll go from working with Hugh Laurie to working with President Obama, which makes him the luckiest guy on the planet.

As viewers, we're thrown into the same space as the doctors, each of us wondering what, if any, clues we might have been given that lead to this action. The truth is that we weren't given any clues. If anything, House's nod to Kunter's correct diagnoses in last week's episode would have been our only clue that something was off. House never delivers such praise. It didn't feel a like goodbye then, but watch it again, and it does.