Masters of Sex: Story of My Life
September 7, 2014 8:40 PM - Season 2, Episode 9 - Subscribe
Virginia continues to impersonate a patient's case history in order to glean advice from a psychiatrist. Betty and Masters' attempt to remedy Lester's impotence by hiring a prostitute rattles him even further. Libby gets the third degree when she offers her eyewitness testimony regarding the beaten man. And Barbara Sanders wrestles with an unsettling diagnosis that exposes a chain of secrets and causes Masters and Johnson to clash over their treatment strategy.
I think they've been telegraphing the Libby/Robert affair for at least a couple of weeks. Hard to tell if they're really going there or if it's just a tease, but I'm not sure this is the kind of show that would set something like that up without an explicit payoff. If I had to guess, maybe she goes for it and gets rebuffed and thus humiliated. Libby's storyline isn't great, but it must be hard to give The Wife something interesting to do on a show like this. I often think of Carmela Soprano and Skyler White, too often pigeonholed as the buzzkill counterparts to their husbands' bad-ass adventures. (Also, I forget how much Libby is supposed to suspect about Bill's affair -- she can't be as clueless as she presents herself in conversations with Virginia, can she?)
This episode was in tell-don't-show mode, with lots of talk talk talk about the different characters' psychology. Was interesting to finally see the other shoe drop with regard to Virginia's feelings about her affair with Bill, which she seems to finally be considering in realistic terms. All the stuff between Bill and his brother and their daddy issues isn't really working me, which makes it frustrating that so much time is being dedicated to it, but, well, character development I guess. Maybe someone else finds that stuff really interesting, but I'm not crazy about shows that suddenly drop in characters from nowhere ("Well, hello, long-lost little brother") and let them dominate the story for a few episodes before they disappear again. Feels a little like cheating.
Some of the directorial choices seemed kind of self-conscious this week -- underscoring Bill's line to his brother about "whatever keeps you on the straight and narrow" by setting up a line of out-of-focus liquor bottles in the foreground of the shot struck me as visually clunky -- but maybe that's just because I found the episode as written a little dry.
posted by Mothlight at 5:53 AM on September 9, 2014
This episode was in tell-don't-show mode, with lots of talk talk talk about the different characters' psychology. Was interesting to finally see the other shoe drop with regard to Virginia's feelings about her affair with Bill, which she seems to finally be considering in realistic terms. All the stuff between Bill and his brother and their daddy issues isn't really working me, which makes it frustrating that so much time is being dedicated to it, but, well, character development I guess. Maybe someone else finds that stuff really interesting, but I'm not crazy about shows that suddenly drop in characters from nowhere ("Well, hello, long-lost little brother") and let them dominate the story for a few episodes before they disappear again. Feels a little like cheating.
Some of the directorial choices seemed kind of self-conscious this week -- underscoring Bill's line to his brother about "whatever keeps you on the straight and narrow" by setting up a line of out-of-focus liquor bottles in the foreground of the shot struck me as visually clunky -- but maybe that's just because I found the episode as written a little dry.
posted by Mothlight at 5:53 AM on September 9, 2014
I just binge watched the series up to this point over the holidays and the main thing I noticed is that the into credits are so so similar to Dexter. The music is very similar in style and beat, while showing a bunch of innuendos about sex just like was done for Dexter about murder/cutting people up. Did the two shows employ the same person to create the intros? Interesting that they were both on Showtime too.
posted by LizBoBiz at 12:27 PM on December 1, 2014
posted by LizBoBiz at 12:27 PM on December 1, 2014
the main thing I noticed is that the into credits are so so similar to Dexter
I've been binge watching also, and my husband and I had this conversation today! Best I can tell, there's no relation between the two sets of opening credits. You're not the only one to think they're similar, though.
posted by terilou at 7:16 PM on December 27, 2014
I've been binge watching also, and my husband and I had this conversation today! Best I can tell, there's no relation between the two sets of opening credits. You're not the only one to think they're similar, though.
posted by terilou at 7:16 PM on December 27, 2014
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posted by oh yeah! at 8:19 AM on September 8, 2014