The Cottages meet in the hall and compare notes: the urine tested free of bacteria, which Foreman says makes sense since he found out that the reason why Driscoll can't pee is because of a nerve problem in his bladder. The male Cottages know House well enough to know that he'll look past boring diagnoses like spinal cord tumor and cerebral palsy in favor of syphilis. Foreman and Martha decide to head him off at the pass by testing for it now. For some reason, Martha gets to draw Driscoll's blood, even though she is terrible at this and usually almost kills patients with only the slightest touch. As it happens, this time, the patient almost kills her first, suddenly grabbing her by the throat until Foreman springs into action and pries him off of her. He calls for help from security (HA!) and for like the first time ever, a guard actually does his job by helping Foreman wrestle Driscoll back onto his bed.

After the break, Taub examines Martha's sore neck while House has little sympathy for her, saying she's fine and their patient is not, so they should focus on him and his newest symptom of psychosis. As predicted, he goes for the syphilis diagnosis, and Foreman says they already did the test and it was negative. Martha M. Masters stops feeling sorry for herself long enough to suggest that perhaps Driscoll was poisoned by one of his students. House begrudgingly sends the menfolk off to check the boot camp for potential poisons, keeping Martha behind long enough to tell her that in the face of him being all mean to her, she came up with "a good idea." Yes, and now that he's accomplished this, it wouldn't kill him to show a little bit of concern for poor Martha. But he doesn't.