TV Recap: Masters of Sex - "The Excitement of Release"

Isabelle Fuhrman
Welcome to the weekly recaps of the Showtime series Masters of Sex that follows the history of Dr. William Masters (Michael Sheen) and Virginia Johnson's (Lizzy Caplan) actual studies of sex. Make sure to tune in every Tuesday for a dissection of the week's episode featuring thoughts of the show in general as well as predictions of where things are headed.

With everything in its place, Masters and Virginia are back trying to sell their book. Meanwhile, Tessa Johnson (Isabelle Fuhrman) is living with the reality of her mother writing a sex book. Her friends think she is as promiscuous and able to just fall for any old thing. This causes her to go on a date that ends with her forcefully having sex with someone. Meanwhile, Lester Linden (Kevin Christy) and Betty DiMello (AnnaLeigh Ashford) are receiving a ton of hate mail. Masters and Virginia go through a slew of potential investors with help from Barton Scully (Beau Bridges). They even get potential help from Hugh Hefner (John Gleeson Connolly), though Masters is initially against it. Despite Virginia's marriage, she chooses to raise her newborn with Masters by her side. 



Rating: 4 out of 5

Beau Bridges
In a recent interview, the creator claimed that this is the episode of which season three was meant to start with. In fact, it makes plenty of sense why. After jumping around a lot in the past two episodes and meandering for a bit, this is the episode where Masters of Sex gets back to doing what it does best. It tries to sell the taboo and make it a household conversation. While that is all that Masters and Virginia do for most of the episode, it is interesting to see how their dynamic continues to change over time. It may not have a lot else going on for them and it may be a little redundant, but you have to admit that seeing them sell sex remains a big impact on the show.
Then there's the return of Barton Scully, who has remained a central character to the series since the beginning. One of the things that people, especially if you don't know the history, could possibly worry about is that Barton will potentially die at any time. He went in for shock therapy, which apparently went well enough that he is still alive and willing to support Masters, even if it isn't as a coworker. Even the presence of Hugh Hefner shows how sex has become more accepted. To my recollection, Hefner is the first major celebrity depicted on the show. Speaking as the show has a closing credits card this season claiming that the series is "Based on"Masters and Virginia's exploits, there's a chance that we'll be deriding from the history a little. Who knows exactly what, but the next step is on its way. 
Then there's probably the point that I was most excited about during this season. Speaking as the show decided to embrace a significant time jump that turned its child characters into supporting players, I wanted to understand their life. I wanted to know what life was like knowing that their parents aren't traditional. For the most part, we get that in this episode. Since it seems that all of the other children have dropped off significantly, I guess that Tessa will be our central focus for most of the teenager stories. It is likely that we'll see the other kids return, but for now, it is nothing more than her facing various troubles.
Also, we get to a point in this episode that I have been really looking forward to. Tessa is just a normal girl trying to be an independent figure. She doesn't want to be her parents' daughter. She doesn't want people to think that she is promiscuous. Yet, the ramifications of their occupation makes her an easy target. It is tragic to see her forcefully be put into a situation because of that, as if Virginia was supposed to be full of great tips in a pseudo-creepy way. I can only hope that things aren't entirely that bad for her this season, but I do think that we need to see more development of her as a character and see entirely how this influences her social life. We have gotten a taste, but I want to see more.
Masters of Sex has bounced back, if at least gotten back into form. I can only hope that now that the show isn't embracing time jumps as much (I hope) that we'll see a more focused story and that everything will come back together nicely. Will we see more Hefner and Scully? I kind of hope so. The show's expansive secondary characters all mark something great about the show. I especially think that after a rocky start, Tessa may be another one of them. So now that we know what's going on, it's time to see if the series can avoid the meandering downfall that plagued last season's back half. For now, it looks like we're in good hands. 

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