Masters of Sex: Master of His Domain

“The real shock, that night, was your child. The night I stood on your doorstep, I wasn’t looking at Shelley. I was looking at your daughter, wrapped around this stranger’s leg… one of how many strangers that have met your children their way in and out of your bed. And I thought I cannot be a part of this… And I know better than to be yet another man who parades through their lives while the mother they do have tries to keep clean sheets on the bed.”  – Bill Masters to Virigina Johnson

That line, a harsh and mean-spirited (but not entirely inaccurate) takedown of Virginia Johnson by Bill Masters, is but one of the many examples of the greatness of this week’s episode, Asterion. Responding to last week’s pallet-cleansing season reboot, Asterion sends its characters hurdling into the future, initially five months but eventually two years by episode’s end.

But the episode never feels rushed or without direction. Quite the opposite, it feels delicately and expertly plotted, stopping in to give us pulse-checks of the main characters. This episode almost felt like the true beginning of season two, allowing us to comfortably omit some of the less praise-worthy moments of season two thus far.

It’s as if head lice never existed!

The true star of the episode is Michael Sheen’s Emmy reel-worthy performance. As the character of Bill Masters is often drawn as the clinically aloof surgeon, Sheen is rarely given the sort of heft or meaty material awarded his counterparts. But, here, the build-up resulting from the emotional rift with Johnson results in several Bill Masters explosions and, in turn, several opportunities for Sheen to potentially monologue his way to an Emmy nomination in 2015.

Masters should be happy enough – he has finally branched out and started his own practice where he can conduct his sex study independently without the interference of unsupportive hospital administrations. Yet, it isn’t really about the sex study any longer… It’s his undying love for Virginia Johnson that fulfills him. Resentful for her taking a lover (or four), Masters punishes Johnson by, initially, not including her in important decision making and, later, in his hostile take-downs where he ridicules her sexuality and, most damagingly, her ability to provide a stable environment for her children.

What I love most about Asterion, the title referring to Greek mythology and to a point on the human skull through which neurosurgeons orient themselves, is the way the audience gracefully drifts in and out of different time periods within the story. These transitions are cleverly interpreted visually by gradual fades or appearances of timely neighboring storefronts: a Communist headquarters fades into a CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) field office in addition to the modeling agency that initially dabbles in the burlesque but morphs into providing talent for stag films.

Masters of Sex S02E07

Our orientation point is Lester Linden (Kevin Christy), the cameraman once awed by the Masters and Johnson study, as he returns to document not only study participants but also Masters and Johnson themselves. As he says early in the episode, “Some men come home to fame and fortune… some to measure ejaculate.” His familiar presence and the lens through which he films many of the important scenes in the episode are indications that the show is returning to the more ensured tone of season one but tweaked just enough to maintain intrigue moving into season two.

Also serving a similar orienting purpose is Betty DiMello, now freshly divorced, who has indeed returned to the Masters clinic as office manager – something I’d predicted just last week. Even Barbara (Betsy Brandt), Masters’s failed secretary, reappears to unsuccessfully seek admittance into the sex study. I anticipate we will hear more of her story in the future.

Somewhat exhaustingly, the brilliant episode is so incredibly detailed and rich with content that it’s almost impossible to catch all of the subtleties on a single viewing. Still, focusing on the central relationship of Masters and Johnson, it is ultimately Virginia Johnson who provides the most forward momentum by giving in to the undeniable link that irreversibly binds the two. Even Libby Masters, now with a second child to fill the gaping hole in her marital life, acknowledges that Masters is only bearable when he is around Johnson. With an air of inevitability, Johnson gives in and returns to the hotel room trysts that caused their professional relationship to evolve into a personal one.

The episode closes poignantly with Masters and his mother (the great Ann Dowd) coming to a truce over their long-standing estrangement. Despite the Bill Masters we’ve seen over the past hour, his mother stands firmly by his side: “I am so very proud of my son.”

But The Shirelles “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” ironically plays us out to black, a great way to end the episode and kick off the rebirth of Masters of Sex.

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