I’m not a religious person by nurture or by nature, but for a Masters of Sex episode to reference “the greatest sin…” Well… That must be quite the sin.
Clear your dirty minds, though. In this case, “the greatest sin” is the sin of despair. Of giving up. Of abandoning hope. Of ignoring that problem that encompasses your life and compromises your happiness.
Much has been made of that throwaway line initially uttered by vaginismus-sufferer Barbara during a lunch counter talk with the impotent cameraman Lester (made for each other if ever two people were). It is echoed in the end of the episode by Bill Masters, himself, but more on that later.
But I, personally, would not dwell too much on this theme of despair as I’m not convinced it stretches across all of characters. To me, the center of the episode is, yet again, the continued exploration of the Bill Masters psyche, and actor Michael Sheen continues to deliver undeniably brilliant work in this latest episode, “Below the Belt.”
Masters is threatened from all corners of his life. He can barely keep the lights on at work. His brother keeps bugging him with pesky absolutions and forgiveness chatter. Libby 2.0 now volunteers at night and doesn’t have dinner on the table when he gets home. And, perhaps worse, he can’t achieve a satisfactory erection – even for his obsession, Virginia Johnson.
Sheen’s performance as Masters has always been about repression, quite the contradiction for a man who openly studies sexuality in the 1950s – the era of repression. This season, however, the repression has started to wear thin, and the years of emotional and physical abuse have started to surface. It’s the contradictions of Bill Masters that make him a vital character and, we are lead to believe, an object of obsession for Virginia.
Bill seems to have patched things up with his mother, an interesting fact given his long hatred for her perceived casual ignorance of the regular beatings Bill endured at the hands of his father. Yet, later in the episode, Bill’s brother Frank confronts him with his version of their family history – that Frank endured the same torture Bill did – and reacts to it in a fashion similar to his mother. He scoffs at Frank, claiming Frank has rewritten their family history.
Probably similar to his mother, Bill doesn’t want to admit that he left his brother behind to endure said tortures. Yet, Bill puts a fascinating spin on the behavior: rather than allow Frank to call their father an alcoholic, an easy way to explain away his violent behavior, Bill forces Frank through acts of violence to understand that perhaps their father was not an alcoholic after all. There was little evidence to that fact, so perhaps their father was simply a sadistic monster.
These scenes are difficult to watch as the ultimate pain conveyed is that of two brothers struggling to understand the tragedy of their childhood. Each brother brings his own spin to the story, and neither agreeing. These scenes are especially powerful as Christian Borle is allowed to play Frank as a real person, a damaged person looking to cover over his pain with theatrical showmanship. After this episode, I look at his previous, extremely theatrical work in earlier episodes in a different light.
At the end of the episode after struggling for years to overcome his impotence, Bill confesses to Virginia “I give up,” again echoing Barbara’s greatest sin – that of despair. Yet, Bill’s despair or “giving up” leads to a reversal of his impotence. He engages, bloody and beaten, in vaginal intercourse with Virginia for the first time since their breakup two years earlier.
But what exactly does Bill give up on? Figuring out his father? His marriage? His obsession with getting all details of the sex study just right? His practice? Only time will tell the answer, and, I suspect, the answer is more of a combination than any straight line.
In other news, Virginia ended the charade with the psychotherapist who nonetheless challenged her to look inside herself and figure out why she consistently deceives others, including herself. This scene, while a solid showcase for Lizzy Chaplan, was a tad heavy-handed and on the nose for me. It was brief enough, but it will be interesting to see if Virginia continues with her therapy sessions.
Libby 2.0 continues to ingrain herself in the CORE movement, stepping up from sandwich girl to full-on canvassing. She earns her wings and the respect of Coral’s brother Robert – after he makes a well-deserved jab at her about lice. Libby 2.0 seems to be patterning herself after Virginia in putting aside social boundaries and pursuing what she wants out of life. The parallel is echoed when Virginia glances in on Libby 2.0 engaging in friendly banter with Robert. That begs the question: will Libby 2.0 truly follow in Virginia’s footsteps? Her sexual footsteps?
I’m still waiting for the Barbara/Lester spin-off sitcom (He’s an impotent atheist! She thinks God closed up her vajayjay because she had sex with her brother! It’s Square Peg/Round Hole Tuesday nights on CBS!), but until then, the seduction of Dr. Austin Langham by Cal-O-Metric pioneer Flo will have to do. Initially, I’d feared he (and the show) would seek redemption by bedding a larger, older woman – the antithesis of everything he’d wanted before.
Instead, Flo sexually harasses him in the workplace, telling him he will lose his job if he doesn’t sleep with her (her actual words were something along the lines of “Does the carpet match the drapes?”). Given where Dr. Langham has been, or at least where his penis has been, over the duration of the series, this sexual turntable is an especially satisfying direction to take.
Maybe once I’d despaired about the direction of the show, but Masters of Sex has brought this viewer back into the pro camp by finally achieving, for now, the right balance between the characters. Masters and Johnson have always been the strong core, but it is only recently where the periphery has fully delivered on their promise.