Masters of Sex Season 3 Episode 9 recap.

Was that scene between Virginia and Dan Logan the first real love scene we’ve seen on this show?

I say ‘love scene’ instead of sex scene, even though it gets a little too close to the grossness of the phrase ‘making love’, because there have been dozens of sex scenes on this show, but this is the first one in a long time that seems borne out of genuine passion for one another, and not seeking comfort, or human connection, or validation of femininity, or sperm donation.

Which made it powerful.

This whole episode was powerful.

I could almost have started here, in the show. Not quite, but maybe this season.  They have a business, they’re trying to expand to different avenues of using their union, and each doesn’t agree with the other, for both professional and thinly-veiled personal reasons. This spills out into their lives and their world, into Libby Masters and her affair, Johnny Masters and his ax to grind, and we even go out into the world of Betty and her secret alternative lifestyle, and Dr. Langham, and all.

And we’re blissfully free of Tessa, and there are two Silvermans on this episode, if you’re watching closely. And Bill and Libby get to collude about the people they’d like to get out of their lives, and having to redouble their efforts?

Charming, and buyable. This is what investigating sexuality looked like in the 60s. That it was several steps forward, and several back at the same time. That it was men who were terrible to their children, and also those who were heartbroken at missing them, and women who wanted to have sex and have ‘reasons’ behind it, and unreasonable bosses.

All this to say, Nora makes my teeth itch. This woman is so cloying and earnest and I am pretty uncomfortable with the implication that people whose fathers beat them are more likely to be interested in sex as an intellectual endeavor. She’s just so frustrating and simper-voiced.

But I like that she’s a distraction—one that’s going to create problems for naïve, stupid Bill, and that he’ll feel somewhat equal with Virginia, for whom Dan Logan is a distraction.

I like these kinds of complications in my show. I wish this show were this good all the time, and that we didn’t have to confront the spectre of Tessie any time soon.  Virginia’s children are so conveniently put away when she doesn’t need them, they could hide for the rest of the season, couldn’t they?