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| Caitlin Fitzgerald |
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.
As Virginia and Masters begin to have their relationship, her parents come into town unexpectedly after being prodded by Tessa Johnson (Isabelle Fuhrman). This upsets her and causes a few days of complaints between each other. Libby Masters (Caitlin Fitzgerald) worries that Masters isn't spending enough time with their son, who is getting bullied by another child. The studies are going forward between the loving couple of Lester (Kevin Christy) and Betty (Annaleigh Ashford). Virginia tries to find a way to make her studies more respectable to her parents. Nobody is quite seeing eye to eye. Even in the Scully household, Margaret (Allison Janney) discovers that polygamy has a conflicting nature as she quickly disagrees with the way things are handled. Masters decides to pick a fight with his son's bully, which upsets Libby. He receives some acclaim for his work.
Rating: 4 out of 5
It seems like the unfair balancing act is starting to impact the show. Where last week felt like a lot of exposition without much payoff, this week feels like there's a lot of great moments to count. The studies are up and we're exploring character dynamics as greatly as we usually do. Maybe there's nothing as cathartic as getting your book properly displayed in a book store, but we do get to have some fun with the characters and see how Virginia handles her time with her parents. The polygamy thing also had plenty of moments that clicked.
Still, what probably stands out is that Masters forcefully insults a child in this episode. He doesn't just reprimand him for assaulting his son. He gives him dark prospects of his future and that life is probably going to be horrible. It is a moment that is staggering and even if well intentioned, it does have a certain psychological impact on the child. Maybe Masters isn't the perfect idea of a husband, but insulting a bully is itself being a bully and causing more conflict, especially when his son doesn't immediately come to his good graces in the time following those events.
In a way, this is an episode about how love is actually structured. Is it something communal, or do we need something more tangible? Is being there for the person as bad as being in love with two people in the same way? No matter what, there is always going to be conflict. Even the way that treat them, even if it's like a child, there's something that is damaging about it in a sense. I like that the show found ways to describe the difference between love and sex, resulting in something that is a little staggering and missing from some of the characters.
If there's one thing that hasn't been fun about this season, it's that the quality of the show seems to differ wildly from week to week. I do think that it is consistently good and arguably stronger than the last half of last season. I do think that there's something to the Masters and Virginia relationship, even if it seems as odd as Margaret and Barton (Beau Bridges) trying to get over each other's disconnect. Sex becomes complicated, and I think that the show is handling it pretty well. I just need something more to make it a little better.
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