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Libby and Essie spend days together, until Libby's forced to reveal her pregnancy and urges Essie, once again, to bond with her son. Bill's attempt to scare her to death with the shocking details of his professional life backfires, and she gets very into the Study and what it's all about, which makes him the frowniest frowner of all who've frowned. But while butting into their research, she picks up on the vibe between Bill and Virginia, and decides to put her foot down. While it's nice to see her finally fess up and apologize for neglecting Bill's care as a youngster, it's only a shortstop before she's blaming Francis's mistress for the whole thing, and comparing her to poor Virginia.
Gini, meanwhile, is breaking the curve in a major way over in DePaul's Anatomy class, eventually earning her the confused admiration of the whole tribe of Lost Boys -- including certified dreamboat Gil McKinney -- and an invitation to head their study group. Of course, they're pre-med and can only meet at night, and she's too busy fucking or watching those who are fucking at night, so she can't be friends with the boys after all. The secretaries won't have her, since she's not really a girl anymore either, and she's forced to have her lunch with Dr. DePaul, which they both openly hate and secretly love.
Libby reveals to Essie that her father vanished to Virginia after her mother's death, which is one reason she's so obsessive about family; when Bill finally gets the truth out of her about the pregnancy, she goes off on him also about his torture experiments from the first act of the season, which is fairly gratifying indeed but ends up with a fairly basic, awfully maudlin -- but also very true -- monologue about how she and the baby are the only things keeping him tethered to the Earth at all.
Ethan -- after getting the Riot Act from a truly amazing cake decorator about his nuptial ambivalence -- reveals to Vivian in passing that he's Jewish, although not in the religious and barely in the cultural sense. She goes Vivian on that shit immediately, and after getting tossed on her tuchas for barging into the local Orthodox Temple with her blonde hair a-tossin', she drags Ethan to a Presbyterian minister for some indoctrination. He claims to be cool with converting, but after a fainting spell and a bizarre conversation with a Catholic patient, he decides to be both Jewish and no-longer-affianced. Turns out they both kinda knew that she'd nabbed herself a doctor, and he was settling for the best girl he didn't really love that much, so it's bloodless. (At least for now.) Hopefully he'll go back to stalking and whining at Virginia every week, because that was so attractive.
But the Masters & Johnson A-plot this week is really where it's at: After Virginia scratches hell out of Bill during a session, they mind-meld and decide they need to start filming people from outside their vaginas during sex, to see if those kind of things are performative, primitive, or involuntary. (They are all three.) Of course, Bill is hoping that it means his dick is magic, but Virginia's convinced they're completely neurological.
It takes a while to convince Jane to go for it -- since we have now graduated to pretty much just straight-up porn -- and then Lester balks at filming it, but in the end Gini and Bill get it figured out, and take a field trip to a porn store outside town to get it developed. After seeing her first performance, Jane exits the Study entirely, so Virginia jumps in for her in a sort of frenzy of science. Bill loves it a little too much, and ends up trying to pay her an honorarium for her on-camera work.
The intention -- to put a money wall between the two of them, ease the pressure on his marriage, get Essie off his back, and provoke Virginia in like five different ways -- is accomplished, but way too hard than he was expecting, and Gini seems to exit their work altogether. But after a desperate moment or two, she pulls herself together, and writes herself a performance review to elucidate their relationship in a way he'd never argue... While he's still at the office, watching her masturbate, on repeat, in a movie he shot himself, and tried to pay her for. Classic Masters!
Week: A civil defense lockdown drill amplifies conflicts across the staff, Ethan's contract isn't renewed, and Gini and Bill consider breaking confidentiality to figure out which subject impregnated another one. (I'm guessing it's Jane, and the daddy is Austin, but only because they're the only ones we know.) Meanwhile, Margaret seeks answers about Barton's deal from "an unlikely source" that I'm hoping is Dale -- because I don't know if you've noticed, but I love the shit out of Dale -- but could also easily be Bill, which would be just as weird and maybe even cooler.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
The team brought in aspiring auteur Lester Linden to film women's internal reactions during sex, but you know it's not gonna stop there. Libby's just about figured out what Bill's baby-ambivalence is really about, which is good because his mom's in town now and Libby just got miraculously pregnant again. Bill's getting jealous of Virginia's medical education, regardless of how much she's impressing the reluctant Dr. DePaul, or her continued participation in the study.
RM 5
Virginia: "So you know how we were doing it a minute ago? For science?"
(Helpful visual aids.)
Virginia: "I had this thing. I have had it before."
Masters: "Is it that horrible face I make?"
Virginia: "No, I can overlook that for science. This is a fuzziness in my vision."
Masters: "This is my penis being magical?"
Virginia: "No, before, um, bearing down. Stage one, this kind of numbness."
Masters: "Can you not say that in a cooler way? Like, a loss of sensory acuity."
Virginia: "That's a valid description."
Masters: "That way it sounds like I fucked you blin... Shit! You got me."
Bill's got a werewolf claw situation going down his back. He's ever so proud of them. His little scars. Like five A-plusses on either side, in red pen. A performance review. Flying colors.
Virginia: "Oh, like I haven't come away with war wounds. Remember the bruises on my hip after vaginal rear entry, male superior?"
Masters: "Yeah, that was outta sight! But seriously, cut your nails."
Virginia: "You should put that in my performance review. Mrs. Johnson's manicure has proven problematic in research sessions."
Masters: "You're going to have to keep nagging me about that. I hate doing it, and not for the reasons you might think."
Virginia: "I don't see why you feel insecure. I'm the one being graded."
Masters: "And I just got ten A-plusses. Still. Asking me, Bill Masters, to put into words what I can barely hear myself feeling is like asking a housecat to do math."
Virginia: "And yet until you make that clear, it's going to look like I don't matter."
MASTERS MASTER BATH
Libby: "Bill? Are you in there?"
Bill: "I am looking at my scars and wondering if I'm a perv for getting turned on."
Libby: "Meanwhile I need to come in there and barf everywhere."
Bill: "We are a rum bunch."
Libby: "I'm not talking about the baby until she's a for sure thing, so let's say I got sick on your mom's turkey tetrazzini. Wouldn't even be a lie. She puts cream cheese in everything, and since you're not here she stares at me until I have seconds. I just keep eating and eating until her overcompensating Mommy programming is satisfied."
Bill: "Don't let that bitch make you do anything. Throw it in her face if you feel like it."
Libby: "Honey, she's gonna keep coming here until she sees you. This isn't going away."
Bill: "I will just keep having sex at work all night and never come home, and eventually she will die. Problem solved. Plus, I was going to do that anyway."
THE OFFICE
Masters: "Let's list all the crazy things that happen. Toe-curling, back-arching, nail-digging if you're really good at doing sex obviously..."
Virginia: "Okay, um, jaw-clenching, nasal-flaring, hand-splaying. Have I mentioned lately that you look ridiculous when you're fucking?"
Masters: "So like every single muscle group."
Virginia: "Which means it wasn't my fault, and you can stop pretend-bitching at me about it. Involuntary spasms are not a violation of the bro code."
Masters: "That lets a lot of people off the hook. Remember that lady who drew blood? And the guy who pulled out the lady's hair like he was an ape? I just thought they were gross! Turns out they were fucking."
Virginia: "The assumption would be that this is passion, unquantifiable, but I think what we're collecting is proof that they're just involuntary. So then we can study that!"
Masters: "You lost me when you said it didn't mean anything, but then you got me back at the end."
Jane: "I brought you coffee on my own recognizance. I anticipated your need, and insisted on a fresh pot downstairs. Also, here's an apricot danish. Please do my employee review while you enjoy them."
Masters: "Oh, for God's sake!"
Virginia: "I'll do hers, you do mine. Okay? Now, let's make a checklist of all the involuntary spasms..."
Masters: "You know what's fun? Using technology. Let's get Lester to just film the whole thing."
Virginia: "You mean pornos? How does that fit with the anonymity of the subjects?"
Masters: "Who needs faces? Those are just confusing scribbles of meaningless emotional information and social cues I don't understand anyway. It would be just bodies, clutching and yanking and snatching. See what Jane thinks, she's always the best canary."
CAKE TASTING
This lady is a boss. A Cake Boss. She's like the Effie Trinket of cake. Ethan Haas is a hottie and she is bored -- and also very much all about cake -- so she's up his ass the whole time he's waiting for Vivian to come save him from the cake.
Marie: "Let me get you a hundred different kinds of cake, white cake for a white wedding, classic white cake, white raspberry cake, white almond cake, white amaretto cake, French vanilla cake which is also a white cake..."
Ethan: "I mean, isn't it just cake?"
Marie: "Get the fuck out of my store."
Ethan: "Sorry, but I... My fiancée is driving this bus. I'm happy with..."
Marie: "You are not allowed to abstain. I am the motherfucking Cake Boss and I say you will fully participate in this, the most important day of your goddamn life."
Ethan: "...That's fair."
Ethan: "Vivian, thank God. This lady almost punched me for talking about cake."
Vivian: "I got stuck candy-striping a terrifying penis! It was like an anteater! I saw it by accident and now it's all I can see!"
Ethan: "This from the woman who thought I came eight gallons of blood the first time we did it. Listen, honey. That's a regular penis. Mine is modified."
Vivian: "Who the hell would do that to a little baby? That's worse than the Crucifixion!"
Ethan: "Same in both cases. Actually it's becoming medically recommended for..."
Vivian: "Wait, you're a JEW? I mean, of the Jewish persuasion? I mean..."
Ethan: "My parents are Jewish. And I guess the end of my penis."
Vivian: "I just can't believe I didn't know that! Or what I am supposed to feel about it!"
Ethan: "I'm not, though. Our kids won't be. It doesn't factor in."
"I'm not Jewish, I'm nothing, okay? The man you are going to marry is: Nothing."
Which, that's a sticky wicket. What a thing to say about yourself. It already is reminding me of Yang and Burke. This is why you should refuse to settle for anything, and eventually die alone, having been better than every single opportunity that comes your way. Right? Think how much happier Elise Langham would be, for example. Or the Scullys.
I guess I'm more confused by the fact that it's 1957 and neither of them have ever heard of anti-Semitism or... I mean like Israel just happened. I know they're both kind of dumb, but that's amazing to me. On the other hand his parents seem to have a pretty complicated relationship to their heritage, as we'll see, and her family has other shit going on, so maybe they both just forgot Jewish people exist until this conversation. I can see that being true. This whole show is that same kind of thing: Oh wait, women can read? Duh, I knew that! My bad.
THE APPROACH
Jane: "Okay so like, indicate on my body where the camera would not be going past."
Virginia: "Like, collarbone? Obviously the facial contortions are mostly comedic."
Jane: "Not my ass, either."
Virginia: "I can work with that."
Jane: "And not my appendix scar, which has a horrific story attached."
Virginia: "A good rule for Lester would be to avoid all identifying marks, and that."
Jane: "Can I get it in writing?"
Virginia: "I guess, but wouldn't you say we've had you covered so far?"
Jane: "You and I both know this is a step forward. My Gammy and Gampy couldn't look at the Ulysses film of my vaginal contractions and say, It's our little Janie!"
Virginia: "Why on Earth would they... Okay, got it. Fine."
Virginia: "A contract, like a movie star. And extra money, too."
Jane: "For real?"
Virginia: "Jane, you're essential. Somebody has to be brave enough to show where it's safe to step, that it's okay what we're doing, and that's been you every time."
Jane: "I want to screen it first, before anybody sees. And if at all possible, I like to be shot from the right."
Virginia: "Beave St. Marie, you're becoming a diva."
Jane: "More like I have to put a million fences around this to make it okay. Why are you giving me an honorarium? To legitimize this out of being porn. It's not like I need money specifically to maintain my vagina. Or like how kinky people have to buy so much equipment all the time: It needs to be a game and grown up, all at once; it's gotta have rules, and an end zone. That's the cage that keeps the canary safe."
AT HOME
Essie: "Can I borrow a coffee urn?"
Libby: "Yeah, I have seventeen of them for some reason and you can borrow any of them except for the one on that very high shelf."
Essie: "Can I borrow the one on that very high shelf?"
Libby: "If your old ass can get up there, you can."
Essie: "But you're way taller than me!"
Libby: "Fine. I'm secretly pregnant. The doctor said no climbing around on the shelves like a cat or I'll lose the baby again."
Essie: "Let's talk about it! Forever!"
Libby: "Nope. Knock wood, shut your face, take as many coffee urns as you want."
Libby: "And Essie? Please make amends with your crazy son. Having you in town and only talking to me is making me crazy, because you force feed me casseroles and make me get things off shelves and I don't have the energy."
Essie: "Have you noticed he is vile to me at every turn?"
Libby: "I have, and I think you need to take care of it. You can't expect him to meet you halfway. We can only ask of people what they are able to give; otherwise you're just setting you both up for disappointment."
TEMPLE
Vivian trip-traps right on into an Orthodox Mincha, with her shiny blonde curls just bouncing all over the place, ready to get down to business about her fiancé. The guy is as nice as possible about getting her the hell out of there, but it's so overwhelming -- and he's still davening like, while he's doing it, so it's even crazier and meaner-looking to her -- and so firmly/efficiently, which reads as harshly, that she ends up just sobbing to herself outside for a while.
Points for trying, though. Like if you wanted to figure out almost any mysterious religion, normally going to their house of worship and looking for somebody in an intense outfit would be the right call. But if you were setting somebody up to have the most jarring experience of Judaism possible, you would tell them the same thing.
Poor kid. Poor dumb kid who only learned about Jews an hour ago. Jews, foreskins, and many kinds of white cake. Big day for ol' Vivian, if you think about it.
ANATOMY
One funny thing Dr. Lillian DePaul likes to do is say your grade out loud as she's returning your test to you. So she goes up and down the rows of boys, saying their scores -- "Banks, 79; Robertson, 78" -- and when one of them ("Schacter, 64") gets pissy about it, she goes off in a way that seems almost calculated to make Virginia fall even more in love with her prickly self.
DePaul: "You think it's unfair of me, to read the scores out loud. Would you prefer I write them on your locker? In blood? Because that's how my fellow students notified me of my grades, in Anatomy 101. It was inspiring."
Up and down the rows, all but one below 80, and then in the middle -- and to her credit she doesn't shy from it, or drop her voice, or anything -- you get a glorious, ringing "Johnson, 99." You can't even think, for a moment, how long it'll take before they accuse them of being in the same coven. And the boys don't, either; they ask her to join their study group while the scores are still being read, and by the time DePaul's finished, they've asked Virginia to lead them.
AFTER WORK
Essie: "Oh, she passed out hours ago, during Perry Mason. You know, he's supposed to be so incorruptible, but in this one he doctored a ballistics test! Now what are you supposed think of him?"
Masters: "I mean, it's not like he claimed he could cure homosexuality or anything."
Essie: "Want some of my deadly turkey tetrazzini?"
Masters: "Shit no. I ate at work."
She does a heartbreaking, gay pantomime, hands on thighs, almost baby-talking, and when he doesn't remember their routine and she needs him to remember: He'd come home from school -- terrified, exhausted -- and she'd say, "What did you eat for lunch?" It was always the same, because it was Billy Masters and Billy Masters liked macaroni and cheese, so he'd spend his nickel on mac and cheese and when he got home she'd ask, like she didn't know already, and he'd say, "Aww, Ma!"
Masters: "I never called you 'Ma.'"
Essie: "That part does sound like poetic license, you're not wrong. But I don't want to fight. I think you work so hard, I wish you could bring your work home. Even just paperwork, just to be here. With us."
Masters: "It's not just paperwork, it's after-hours subject matter."
Essie: "Oh. Because the ladies have to wait for their husbands to drive them in?"
Masters: "Um..."
Essie: "I'm interested. I'm not playing the interested game, I am honestly fascinated by how completely this work absorbs you. I want to understand what you do."
"The fact that you said the one thing I am desperate to hear makes me angry for some reason. So angry that I will answer you, in fact. I am not studying pregnancy, I am studying sex. I watch people fornicate and masturbate, I stick cameras up them and wires to them and I write their histories and fantasies down and I compile all of that into science. Still interested? Ma?"
"Uh, yeah. I get that you're being an asshole and trying to shock me, but what else is new? Listen, ya little wind-up robot. People have been fucking forever. Longer than even I've been alive, if you can believe it. The Blessed Virgin Mary aside, it's something everybody does and has always done. I am not shocked by bodies like you are. You wanna talk about sexual histories? Your dad was horny as hell. You wanna hear about that shit? No?"
Estabrooks 1, Billy 0. You can almost hear another spring sproi-oi-oinging free, somewhere inside his works at this one.
I always say Libby's my favorite character but I think Mom might be gaining. Somehow they both know exactly what keys to turn, where to step, and if you asked them I feel like they wouldn't be able to tell you how.
He thinks Virginia's going to be the one that saves him, but I think it's the other way around: He won't deserve her, until these ladies are done working their magic on him.
THE REVEREND BIBB
Vivian: "I just wanted some sense of like, what is a Jew even about?"
Ethan: "Cut to the Orthodox Temple on Delmar. That's like saying you want to learn to swim, so you join the Navy."
Vivian: "Anyway, we had a weird conversation about it and now he's converting."
Ethan: "I don't give a shit one way or the other, so..."
Bibb: "A resounding endorsement I'm sure."
Vivian: "Don't hassle us, Reverend. I'm frazzled."
"Fine. Dr. Haas, Vivian can explain Jesus to you, and I'll second-guess her every step of the way, and then when I feel like you're good and indoctrinated, we'll make you do a whole ceremony in front of a bunch of judgmental yuppies who will never accept you, and that will freak your brain out and you'll realize you've been making promises you can't keep this whole time. Then you'll have a panic attack. Sound good? Because then comes the wedding, which is the same thing but twenty times worse."
STUDY GROUP
Is a bunch of douchebags, but at least you get to see 1957 college students sitting on a lawn somewhere having a study group in their perfect clothes. Also, one of them -- the worst one, admittedly -- is Charles, who is played by Gil McKinney in a sweater vest, which is about as perfect as it gets. But even ameliorated by that, there is no denying that Virginia has fallen in with a pack of cunts. And not the good kind.
Tim: "I have Psych lab in a minute..."
Virginia: "This is just a preshow. I've divided up all the subjects among us, so here are your packets, and then we'll each present."
Travis: "Hey, did DePaul slip you the..."
Virginia: "Hell no. There's no sisterhood, if that's what you're thinking. She hates me for being a woman."
Mason: "But then how did you possibly excel?"
Tim: "Are you pre-med?"
Virginia: "I don't know. I just want to graduate."
Charles: "[Nearly a compliment, but then it turns into ten shitty things.]"
Virginia: "All right, Sweater Vest. Take it easy. I'd put my kids in time out for..."
Charles: "You have children? Nobody has children!"
Virginia: "You really have no idea what is coming out of your mouth, do you? In honor of that, I'm switching your study packet to the colon, bowel, and rectum."
Charles: "That seems fair."
She settles into the Wendy Darling thing they're putting on her fairly easily, because it only accesses the parts of her that she likes best: It's not about caring for them, like it's her natural role as a woman or some shit; it's about shepherding them, like she shepherds Bill, because she's the only person who can see where they're going.
She didn't exist above the neck until they saw that 99 on the top of her paper, and now they'll follow her anywhere. She isn't a woman but she's not-not a woman; it cancels out; she can't have kids because women have kids; she can't have kids because they are her kids now; she can't have kids because we do not love where we desire. She provokes so many contradictory responses at once -- involuntary, on both sides -- they can't even debase her: She can just be this. Just be a shepherd.
And maybe they'll talk about her breasts when she's gone, or wonder if she's fucking her boss; maybe they'll imagine her and DePaul, at each other like lions on a desk somewhere at night, when the hair comes down. But that was going to happen anyway, wasn't it? So they stretch out under the sun, on a green lawn their tuition pays for, in their lab coats and sweater vests, and wonder aloud how smart she really is, how high she'd test, if a test were ever created that could measure something as large as what goes on in there.
BE YOUR OWN BEST
Libby: "Help me bury this bird, it's freaking me out."
Essie: "They keep moving but it's just involuntary. He died when you hit him, it's the quickest way to go."
Libby: "Well, we're not putting him in the trash. It's my fault, I need to do something."
Essie: "What does that even mean?"
Libby: "What's the worst thing you've ever done?"
Essie: "Not today, honey. What's this about? Why are you being weird?"
She's a good mother; she doesn't care about specifics. Just how it feels.
Libby: "What I did, I did fairly recently."
Essie: "To save your own life? My mother always said you have to be your own best friend."
Libby: "My mother died, when I was a girl."
Essie: "I know. I'm sorry."
Libby: "What Bill doesn't know is that my father vanished that week. I tell people he died, but really he just picked up sticks and moved to Virginia."
Essie: "It's ironic that for you, that was a bad thing."
Libby: "After that I just really wanted to grow up and have a family. Maybe I settled."
Essie: "Or maybe you're in the middle of your happy ending and don't know it yet."
AUTEUR THEORY
It's a complicated affair, this filming of Jane masturbating. She's concerned about showing her face, and Masters wants Lester to know already what her body is going to do, so he'll film it -- first the hands, then at the end, her feet -- and when she's finally finished she has to tell him it's over. He didn't know about the feet. He was thinking about Edward Steichen, the body as landscape: "The undulation of stomach muscles like ripples on a lake, the spiking of fingers like stalagmites," he says; taking credit for the final product. You might think he's too much the artist for this work, but that could apply to any of them. Which means he's perfect.
Lester: "So how are you going to get this developed? Because first of all, the boys at the lab know what a lady looks like from the outside, so that's out. And also, you gotta watch them if you don't want this to be porn. It can't be duplicated and distributed for people who aren't pretending it's just science."
Jane: "These concerns are valid!"
Masters: "Okay, well, where does one usually get porn developed?"
Lester: "Fifty years from now Locust Street won't be a porn haven, but now, it's where you go. Not that I have ever, um, been."
Of course, that's when Essie drops by, even more determined to fix her son.
Essie: "I brought dinner. I thought you'd get hungry, watching all that sex!"
Virginia: "Oh my God your mom rules."
She sets a table for the five of them: Lester, Jane, Masters & Johnson, and Mommy. Looking for a happy ending, while Libby sleeps. Bill is lost, needless to say, in an ecstasy of misery the entire time, which I think she secretly loves just as much.
Essie: "Tell me dear, what is your part in this?"
Jane: "Um, I masturbate? And have occasional intercourse."
Essie: "Wonderful! And what about you, Lester? Do you masturbate as well?"
Lester: "Constantly. But um, not for science. Is this cream cheese in this?"
Essie: "My little secret, yeah. Tell me, what secrets have you people discovered tonight?"
Virginia: "People grab at their partners during sex."
Essie: "Fascinating. I mean, I know that, but do go on."
Virginia: "Romance novels will tell you that is an expression of passion, or intimacy, but what Bill and I are finding is that it's actually something that you can't control. It's not desire, it's an involuntary spasm. That's what we've been exploring tonight."
Masters: "It's fine when it's science, but I hate it when she says it like that. For reasons you can never know."
Essie: "So you're masturbating on film, is what you're doing? My. How brave."
Jane: "Well, they've really broken down my boundaries at this point. I'm the canary."
Virginia: "There are so many physical phenomena better recorded visually. Like... Bill, what's the..."
Masters: "Sternocleidomastoid contraction. Stop making me do this. Tricks."
Jane: "I have a sterno..."
Virginia: "It's just a neck spasm."
Masters: "Opisthotonos."
Virginia: "That's when your back arches..."
She sparkles at him, for a moment; Essie registers the zap between them, the game they're playing. They need an audience for this, since she can't just ask for his approval, and he can't test her without giving tacit approval to her education, which he can't do. So they need to be having a conversation with people, to put walls around the conversations they can't have when they're alone. He's impressed; more than that, he's proud. And that makes her proud. And that makes Essie terrified.
Because they're also talking about his sternocleidomastoid contraction; they're talking about her back, arching. The nails down his back, like a row of a-plusses.
Essie: "Right. So you capture this, for the world to see...?"
Jane: "No, just scientists. Right? Right?"
Virginia: "Bill, black olives."
Masters: "[Thanks.]"
Essie: "Since when don't you like black olives, Billy?"
Virginia: "More like detests. Jane, take note. I can spot 'em a mile away now. In fact, you should put that in my review. Mrs. Johnson continues to distinguish herself as my official food taster. Which..."
Masters: "I'm working on it. God."
Lester: "My department head said I should focus more. Wasn't sure which way he meant."
Masters: "Let's not discuss it right now, Mrs. Johnson."
Virginia: "You know what, you're never gonna do it. Let's do it now, over dinner."
Virginia hops up, a little bit in love with their double act, putting on a show for dinner guests in this private haven they share; a little bit ahead of herself. She thinks it'll be funny. Essie hates every word.
Virginia: "Oh, you've actually made some progress! Hush, Bill. As an assistant, Mrs. Johnson acquits herself more than adequately..."
Essie: "That's my son. Not a gusher."
Virginia: "That's my Bill, too. Mrs. Johnson's commitment to the work cannot be underestimated..."
Jane: "Hope mine's a little more detailed, Gini..."
Maybe without the peanut gallery she'd have read forward a little quicker, made a little more headway before the words came out. Maybe it would have changed everything.
"Were it not for Mrs. Johnson's conscientiousness, dedication, and enthusiasm, I would be at a complete loss. She has become absolutely invaluable to me..."
You can't deny it's touching. He sits there, so pleased with himself and so horrified to have it out there. It's nothing dirty; it's something he bled for, even just this. Which Essie knows, too. Her Billy's not a gusher. This is something he paid for.
Masters: "That's enough of that. You can finish it yourself, Virginia."
Virginia: "What's to say? This is perfect. I'm kind of overwhelmed by the..."
Masters: "You're better at things than I am, you should do it. We need to go, actually."
Virginia: "Right, porn store. Catch you kids later. Essie, sine yo pitty on the runny kine."
Essie: "Undoubtedly."
LOCUST ST
The fellow at the store is about what you'd expect: Greasy hair, bottle-cap glasses, sort of ill-looking.
Porny: "We do tons of homemade stag films, no problem."
Masters: "Why, your implication is unfathomable!"
Porny: "Whatever floats it, mate."
Masters: "It's simply a film of a woman masturbating. How is that...? Oh, gotcha."
Porny: "Self-service is a biggie right now, I got one over there with Rosemarie Bacardo. Some seriously unconscionable activities with a canoe paddle toward the end."
Masters: "Great. Could you get me a quote on how long it'll take?"
Masters: "My feet are sticking to the floor. This is comforting how opposite of Room Five this place is."
Virginia: "Gimme a nickel. I wanna see the thing with the canoe paddle. Or something else. My chances of ever being in this kind of place again are nil, so."
Gini drops the coin in with a gloved hand, and ushers him over to look. They giggle like schoolboys. In the film, a lady goes to town on a divan. It's "erotic" in the sense of how when people describe things as "erotic" they mostly aren't.
Masters: "She's a terrible actress! There's no discernible detumescence, no corrugation of the areolae... The one thing you can't fake is vasocongestion."
Virginia: "If women were in the habit of fooling you, you'd have 'em by the short hairs now!"
Porny: "Come back Tuesday."
Virginia: "We can't leave it. Jane would die."
Masters: "He needs to do it right away."
Porny: "He's doing a mop-up right now."
Masters: "Words cannot express how deeply I wish to remain in the dark regarding what you mean. We'll pay extra, I'm not letting this out of my sight."
Porny: "Wanna keep this little lady all to yourself?"
Masters: "It's not of her! Gross!"
Porny: "Then you are a shitty casting director, because she is hot as hell."
Bill gets in the kid's face, shouting. It's involuntary.
PRESBYTERIAN
Vivian: "I realize it's your first day, but trust me when I say it's easy to get the hang of pretending to give a shit about any of this. WASPs have been doing it since the turn of the century."
Ethan: "I can do most of this myself, get the books and read them and..."
Vivian: "We're a team! Team Jesus!"
Ethan: "Actually, I'm the only one doing anything. In fact, I pretended my waffle was the body of Christ this morning, just for practice."
Vivian: "It's kind of like how nobody else can beat up your baby brother except you. Until you stop being a Jew, you can't make fun of Jesus. After that, go wild."
Ethan: "That's why religion is all so dumb! You can't joke around, but you have to pretend you believe things that are clearly jokes, or else everybody..."
Vivian: "You don't have to believe them, you just have to say them."
Ethan: "So is this because you're going to go to Hell if you marry the heathen? Or because you want to get married in a church?"
Vivian: "We both know the answer to that one, don't be rude. You just stand up and say, The Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior, you don't have to yank my chain about it."
So he does. He says it while he's starting the car and he says it while he's backing out and he says it as he's running into a man, and then he stops saying it, and then the man yells at him for a while, and then he keels over, because panic attacks are some of the most dramatic involuntary things. But at least he didn't pull anybody's hair out like an ape.
THE OFFICE
Between Essie and the review and the porn store and the ultraviolence, Virginia completely forgot about study group. We know Gini well enough to know how much this is going to bother her, but there are parts she doesn't even know yet.
Tim: "We waited for you for over an hour..."
Virginia: "I couldn't even tell you all the million insane things that went down last night. I was at a porn store until midnight, that's merely one of the things. I'll make it up to you..."
Tim: "Thing is, we don't have a free hour. Travis and I have Organic Chem, the scariest kind of Chem, at 1. Charles has crew, because of course he does, because he's perfect..."
Virginia: "Then some other time during the day?"
Tim: "We don't have days. We're pre-med. We have to carve out of nights."
Virginia: "That's gonna be tough for me..."
Tim: "I get it. You're old, you have this job, whatever it is, you've got kids. But Charles is on academic probation, which see above re: Charles is awesome, and I have to average a B if I don't want to lose my Dad's tuition money..."
Virginia: "This is a huge deal to me. I pay my own tuition, which is why I have this job all day, and also the other job all night."
Tim: "No harm, no foul. Sorry it didn't work out."
Virginia: "I think my perfect marks will survive."
Tim: "On that score, can we copy your notes?"
Virginia: "I HATE BEING A BOY."
THE CAF
Where the typing pool is having a lunchtime baby shower.
Shirley: "If this isn't the sweetest, cutest, most darlingest thing in the whole wide world!"
That Being: All you need to know about this Shirley.
Virginia: "How fun! I didn't know you were having this."
Shirley: "You know Val, she loves any excuse to get the secretaries bitching about our bosses and shoving angel food cake in our faces. Or any other white cake."
Virginia: "Anyway..."
Jane: "I mean, we can make a space for you..."
Typing Pool: (Is not, collectively, feeling that.)
Virginia: "No, I'm good. I have to work while I eat because I now have three jobs. Four if you count fucking."
Typing Pool: "That's probably best. You freak us out. Neither fish nor fowl."
Virginia: "I HATE BEING A GIRL!"
BE YR OWN BEST FRIEND
Dr. DePaul: "Can I sit at this lonely table with you?"
Virginia: "Are you going to insult me?"
Dr. DePaul: "Have you not noticed that I'm basically over that?"
Lillian: "Listen, my first year of med school, my fellow students -- all men, not that I need to clarify that -- made me feel about as welcome as a case of piles."
Virginia: "Vivid."
Lillian: "Then I stupidly tried to sit with the nurses, which was a fucking disaster..."
Virginia: "Oh, honey. Oh, you strange rare bird of a person. What are you supposed to do? Just eat alone for the rest of your life?"
"Focus on the work. At the end of the day, that's what endures. That's the thing we leave behind."
Some of us sooner than others. She's not talking about fish, or fowl, or men, or women. She's not talking about being a boy, or a girl; a med student in a sweater vest or a secretary in a clique. She's talking about the difference between being alive and being dead, but Virginia won't know that yet. Virginia thinks she's praying to the God of Science, like everybody else in this building. But she's not. She's working in His honor, playing out her life as feverishly as she can, to save every woman from her story. You have to be weird to save the world. You leave kindness behind you, when you go.
MASTERS
When Essie comes in, Bill assumes it's Virginia, and addresses his demands to the open air.
Billy: "Mother. You show up at night, you show up at day... I'll call security."
Essie: "We need to really seriously talk right the fuck now. Not at home, either."
Billy: "Is my wife okay?"
Essie: "For now. Look, you want to hear the worst thing I ever did?"
Billy: "No. Less than anything in this world do I want to hear this. You're standing in an office, in the middle of a career, that was born from your weakness and your mistakes. Don't sully it by telling the truth now."
"The worst thing I ever did was not to speak up. I didn't speak up, and I didn't stop what was happening to you. I didn't speak up about a lot of things, so I'm gonna speak up now."
He stops trying to stop her when he realizes she's not really talking about him, after all. It's the best apology he's likely to get, and it's what he wanted to hear, but she's not even halfway to her point, so it means nothing.
Essie: "Do you remember Eleanor de Sousa? All high heels and long, red nails. She used to give you saltwater taffy. Do you? Your father's secretary."
Billy: "Absolutely not. I'll sleepwalk into the ocean before I..."
Essie: "I said your father was very sexual, and he was. But not with me. She was so pretty."
Billy: "What the hell are you going on about?"
Essie: "I can see it, Billy. Maybe better than you can? There's something..."
Billy: "Stop right there, Mother. She's a research assistant. Don't insult her."
Essie: "Whatever it is, it's real and it's complicated. You were winter for so long and now I see you doing things, acting ways, like a normal human being, and it scares me to death."
Essie: "The man your father was, with Eleanor de Sousa, was the man he wanted to be. And what we got at home was very little. Less than nothing."
Billy: "Worse than nothing. Now, get out of my office. This conversation is..."
Essie: "That's what Francis used to say, This conversation is over..."
Billy: "Don't you fucking compare him to me."
That's all she's been doing; it's involuntary. There is a capacity for violence. Men like apes; women drawing blood, by tooth or claw.
Essie: "If you don't want to be compared to him, don't be like him. Figure out what the hell you are doing. Bring those pieces up into the light and look at them, and assemble a life. Because right now you are drowning in things you can't look at."
RECOVERY
Two crummy scenes in a row. First, Ethan wakes up in a recovery room at the hospital to a proselytizing Catholic who happens to have a bunch of merch on him, and they have a long talk about what is a man, and so forth. Comparisons between St. Jude and St. Anthony, lost causes and lost things.
Ethan: "Thanks, but I haven't lost anything. I don't think."
Rando: "You're not Catholic?"
Ethan: "I'm nothing. Or I'm Jewish, but I'm... What I am is a doctor."
Rando: "My son worshiped Pythagoras, numbers, from childhood. Now he's at MIT."
Ethan: "Good job, then."
Rando: "When you were a boy, what did you want?"
Ethan: "I liked baseball. A professor told me to do pre-med because I was good in math and sciences, so I did that. My parents wanted that anyway..."
Rando: "They really put you into place, don't they? The people that love you."
Ethan: "I only really ever wanted one thing, and she nearly killed me. So now I just do what I'm told. The experiment failed."
Rando: "St. Jude for your marriage. St. Anthony for your spirit. Don't get old like me."
HOME
Bill: "I'm supposed to talk to you, about something I don't know what, but Mother's up my ass about it."
Libby: "Hang on, the guy's about the kill the other guy on television. Okay. I have a thing to tell you but I can't tell you. It's involuntary, I can't..."
Bill: "You're pregnant and superstitious about it?"
Libby: "There it is. Well done, Dr. Masters."
Bill: "But that's impossible."
Libby: "Right, because I have a uterus incompatible with conception. Right? So it would be impossible, basically, for this to happen. And yet."
Bill: "What are you implying?"
Libby: "I had a card in my back pocket I didn't need until now, but now I need it. Doing experiments with your frozen semen is kind of a betrayal. That's true. But I didn't cut into your body, or make you sit in a cold chair for eight or twelve hours at a stretch, or fuck you from behind, staring at the wall, night after night, for no reason other than my own sick pride. So it's a matter of degree."
Bill: "Am I in trouble, then?"
Libby: "No, quite the opposite. You're going to be a father. And we're going to drop this whole thing. We're going to forgive and love each other and make a family, and get a happy ending. You aren't going to grumble at me, and you aren't going to hate this baby, and if you find yourself sleepwalking you're going to visit the doctor. You're going to make peace with your mother, and yourself. Got me?"
Bill: "I am going to fly apart into a million pieces."
Libby: "No, you're not. You sit in that exam room night after night, watching people fuck, and you think it's about arousal plateau orgasm resolution and you think it's about physiology and numbers, and by thinking this you control it. You conquer it by studying it. You don't love where you desire, and you don't desire where you love. You think making a God out of Fucking brings you closer to it, but all it does it push you further away. Because the point of sex isn't orgasm, Bill. It's life."
Nothing that truly matters in this world can be measured like that. This, us, is life. Immeasurable. This is love; the involuntary, the very sphere of it. Without it, you're just a man lost in space. Calling out, hoping to hear something back. Little broken Billy, and Billy that loved Barton, and Bill that found a wife, and Bill in Room Five, all of them just want one thing: A home. They want to call out and hear something come back; some sign that there are walls, holding all those million pieces in. Holding you. And that is what I am, Major Tom.
Me and this baby are the echo. Listen.
HAAS
Ethan: "No bacon for me, thanks."
Vivian: "What? You love bacon. Everybody loves bacon. People without personalities, even they come pre-installed with talking about how much they love bacon."
Ethan: "Trying something new."
Vivian: "How about some ham?"
Ethan: "LOL. You know, my dad's never even tasted bacon?"
Vivian: "He must be a very interesting person if he still finds things to talk about, then."
Ethan: "My grandparents raised him that way, and he tried with us, but I thought he was dumb and the second I could, I started eating bacon and I never stopped."
Vivian: "Everybody loves their parents."
Ethan: "Obviously. But you know what, I don't even know why we don't eat bacon, or why we get circumcised, or why you pretend you're eating somebody's flesh..."
Vivian: "Your father believes in Christ? Because I was given to understand..."
Ethan: "No, girl. No. I am saying... What am I saying?"
Vivian: "That you're nervous, and homegirl better step up the blowjobs. That's what I'm hearing."
What he's saying is that when you live by the numbers you die by the numbers, and eventually you fly apart into a million pieces. He's saying his father is the echo, and it just took him this long to hear.
Ethan: "I'm not nervous. Because I'm not converting. Which sucks for you, because you can't marry a Jew."
Vivian: "Why not? I am very progressive. My parents are a fucking carnival sideshow, they can't point fingers. I like blowing people's minds."
Ethan: "You don't, really. You like me on paper and because I'm adorable. You want to be married in a church. You deserve to be married in a church."
Vivian: "Nah. We can go to the courthouse. I like you. I want you."
Ethan: "What about our kids?"
Vivian: "They won't be Jewish anyway, but if you want to raise them some kind of way we can discuss it. We're a team. Now you tell me, why do you suddenly give a shit?"
Ethan: "I should care about something. I should stand up and declare myself about something."
Vivian: "That's the wedding. You're talking about the wedding."
Sometimes, but not every time. It always looks insane from the outside, but the things that come back, the echo, wouldn't work any other way. It doesn't need to make sense to other people. Making sense to other people -- or at least shaping yourself into what you think they want, or what gives the least resistance -- is what got you into this. Every problem started out as a solution. That's why we need saints.
Vivian: "Bitch we already went through this. I vetted you every step down the line, connected the dots over and over, and you always said okay. You picked me."
Ethan: "Honey, we both know you picked me. Like mother, like daughter."
Vivian: "So you're saying you like..."
Ethan: "Ha! No. Maybe a little, but probably not. What I'm saying is if I went back to when I was twenty and I designed the perfect girl, she'd be you."
Vivian: "And now? Who would you design now?"
Ethan: "I wouldn't. That's the thing I needed to figure out."
THE SCREENING
Virginia: "Jane, you seem perturbed."
Jane: "Are you so taken over by Masters that you need me to explain the problem here?"
Virginia: "Maybe. All I see is neck strain, vasocongestion, and the start of a very promising stomach-muscle spasm. Like ripples on a lake, undulating."
Jane: "Yeah, but they're my ripples. My landscape. My lake, my stalagmites."
Virginia: "You can't tell it's you."
Jane: "No, I can't tell it's me."
Virginia: "I don't get it. You might be right, little canary."
"Okay, it's like this. I like fucking. I like the weight of men and the strength of them. I like feeling like I am flying apart into a million pieces; like I'm in the center of a net of a million nerve endings. I know sex from the inside out. I don't want to look at it from the outside in. It's involuntary and it... That's not me. That's just ... somebody, spasming.
"I don't know who that girl is, and honestly I don't want to. But I don't want anybody else to see her. I want to protect her. I want to protect how good she feels."
Virginia: "You've been fine with this all along..."
Jane: "Don't try to work me, Johnson. I take pride in what we've done, you know I do. And please don't punish me on my performance review, but... I can't have this out there. I love her too much. This landscape."
RM 5
Virginia: "Well. Our girl has gone."
Masters: "What's this?"
Virginia: "Jane can't do it. We have hit her wall. I've destroyed her film already. Don't yell at me about it. She has bent over backwards for us, literally on more than one occasion, and I won't see her punished."
Masters: "Why on Earth would this be the thing?"
But he knows why. Libby explained it already. It's the echo.
From the inside out, you're a bird in flight. From the outside in, it's just involuntary kicking. You don't even have to be alive for that.
Masters: "But we paid her."
Virginia: "I know you think that solves it, but it exacerbates it I think. Money for her naked body, that's... Give her infinite credit for getting this far, but that's something hookers and porn stars do. She gave it back, even."
Masters: "Well, that sucks."
Virginia: "...So I decided to do it."
Masters: "Whoa, what?"
Virginia: "I've done worse for the study. Or I mean... You know what I mean. The work is what endures. It's what we leave behind that matters."
TONIGHT
Johnson has requested Masters run the camera. She doesn't mind being on film, but Lester... He's a nice boy, but he is something like her employee. It's a cozy situation.
And with just Bill, she's able to relax into it. More involuntary movements, more data to record. She trusts him to keep the camera on the landscape; below the collarbone.
LATER
Virginia: "Are you taking it in? My screen debut? And we gotta find an editor, somebody to cut this down into useful things we can actually..."
Masters: "Virginia? I need to give you this."
Virginia: "What, my performance review? Did you actually... This is cash. Way more than you owe me out of petty cash for the Dictaphone and the..."
Masters: "It's not for that. It's for you. You're the only unpaid volunteer, I think I've been taking advantage of you. So I added up every time we..."
For a second she thinks it's a joke. Dr. Bill Masters, making his first joke. Crudely lurching to life. But the joke's on them both.
Virginia: "Are you paying yourself, too? Because you fuckin' better say yes."
You could talk for an hour and he'd still never understand that one. You can't ask people for more than they are able to give; you're just setting you both up for disappointment.
Masters: "Of course not. It's my study!"
Virginia: "It's our study."
Masters: "I mean, sure. But don't sell yourself short. You shouldn't be selling..."
Virginia: "I'm not. And I wouldn't. Tell me this was just a dumb idea and put it away. Tell me you've embarrassed yourself, I've ignored grosser oversights than this."
When she finally meets his eyes, it's a lot colder there than she was expecting. Like a man, lost in space, listening for an echo. Like a cold clean winter, finally thawing.
Because he does feel lost, and he is flying apart into a million pieces. He is drowning in things he can't look at. But the life at home is a life he chose, and built, and muscled through. And the life here in the office, this double-act in the middle of the night, is the most confusing thing in the world. It's a knot so tight and hard to unravel that it's painful behind his eyes; it's hot and red and he can't even look at it to figure out why.
"You don't mean this," she nearly begs. If it were any other woman than Virginia Johnson you might call it begging, but that's not what she's doing. "Because if you mean this..."
And he says, "Take the money. I want you to have it."
Once you were a bird in flight.
OUR GIRL HAS GONE
Right on time, Ethan Haas finds Virginia crying, alone in her car. Convinced he was right, convinced retroactively that a little voice inside her always knew.
Upstairs, a handyman comes in late to change a bulb. Bill Masters is embarrassed just existing.
Eustace: "Generally I don't mind working this late. But my wife and me, we're celebrating tonight. Best performance review on the whole crew!"
Masters: "Congratulations."
Eustace: "And how about you? How'd you do?"
"Not good, I'm afraid. First Do No Harm. That's the first promise you make. And I, um, maybe I haven't lived up to that. I've been making promises and doing harm. I didn't even know what I was doing, it was almost involun... It was beyond my control."
His back aches and for a second he can't remember why. He think it's just a neck spasm, opisthotonos, and then remembers: How he bled for her.
When Eustace is gone Bill cues it up, all developed. Keeping this little lady to himself.
Virginia sits at a quiet kitchen table, finishing her review.
"Mrs. Virginia Johnson has proven herself to be a very competent assistant. She has consistently demonstrated a natural aptitude for the work, an enthusiasm and dedication to it, and an eagerness to take on a larger and more integral role as our research progresses...
He recognizes her arousal now, in the movement of her fingers and the way she settles into it, gravity pulling at her skin. He'd know her, collarbone or otherwise.
"There is one quality that Mrs. Johnson possesses that works both to her advantage and to her disadvantage: She cares very passionately about everything she does.
Plateau. Female reclined, solo, with no back to scratch, she plays just one rhythm. Her movements just spasms. Not poetry, not... You need a face, don't you. Or else she's just some girl.
"To ensure that her professional momentum continues apace, it would be my recommendation that Mrs. Johnson try not to take her work so personally, and adopt a more detached approach.
She taught him this; she taught him how her body works, what her body likes. What his likes, too. Every orgasm is a Johnson orgasm. He's practically a virgin.
The camera slides up, across the landscape. If she knew, would she be different? If she knew he was looking, recording her face, would she comport herself differently? How much of this is a performance? How much is she, are we, under review?
We say it's passion, intimacy, but some things aren't voluntary. Some things arise from power that isn't located in me, or in you, but in the space between us, where we touch. Where we echo. Across time and across this screen, it reaches out. He stares up at the scene, enraptured. Her face is a landscape, too; he's a ghost on the hill. He is there, and not there. He is flying into a million different pieces. He is a man in space. He is a bird in flight.
And if he called out, into the empty office, what would it echo back?
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook.