‘Masters of Sex’ Breakdown: “Story of My Life”

SPOILERS ABOUND, so don’t screw around…

Season Two, Episode Nine: “Story of My Life”

Written by Amy Lippan; Directed by Jeremy Webb

This week, things get more psychological as Virginia, Bill, and Libby face their past decisions in the perfectly titled ninth episode, “Story of My Life.”

Quick Breakdown

The episode picks up with Virginia still in psychologist Dr. Madden’s office, pretending to be Barbara. She’s told her story and now wants his advice, but he isn’t quite convinced of Virginia’s story. He comments on how she told it with little emotion, as if she was relaying another person’s history (which she is). He also tries to explain to her that there isn’t some checklist of things to do to fix this.

Eventually, he recommends thinking about what she would have said to her brother all those years ago if she could. Virginia then practices, saying, “Stop” as a 12-year-old version of Barbara — because she assumes that’s what Barbara wanted to say in the moment but didn’t.

Meanwhile, Bill is having a big family dinner with his mother, brother, sister-in-law, and wife. Everyone seems to be getting along pretty well, but Bill is especially cold toward Frank. Libby is a little embarrassed because she made a rum cake for dessert and Frank is a recovering alcoholic. But before dessert is served, Bill makes an excuse to leave and “go to work.”

In reality, he heads to meet Virginia at the hotel. But Bill is still not preforming sexually and is running out of excuses. Virginia is getting a little confused why he only wants to pleasure her, so he lies and says that he’s just come from having sex with Libby, which makes Virginia a bit uncomfortable. They end up not doing anything (like a married couple).

The next morning, Betty and Bill meet with a prostitute to help Lester with his impotence. Bill presents the idea to a very nervous Lester, who is rather unsure of the idea. Bill tries to encourage him to do it and be part of the study in a different way. “I’m offering you a chance to be a pioneer,” he says. Eventually, Lester agrees to meet with her.

Libby meets with a lawyer for CORE (the Civil Rights group), who is trying to make Libby more of an eyewitness than she was to last week’s hate crime. He wants her to present facts that other witnesses saw to make their case stronger since she is the only white witness.

After the meeting, Libby talks with Robert, saying, “I’m trying to remember a time when what I said mattered this much.” Libby seems willing to lie and might even be a bit excited by the idea. But Robert tries to make her see she’ll be a bad liar and will get destroyed by the defense. He doesn’t think she can handle lying under oath and will hurt their case more than help it.

Libby is upset that Robert wanted her help but now doesn’t want it. He says they need a different kind of witness. Libby clearly has mixed reasons for doing it, but she feels once again rejected.

Meanwhile, Barbara comes in to meet with Virginia and Bill. Bill wants Lester to film the session, but Virginia tells Lester Barbara’s not ready to be filmed. Barbara is very nervous for Bill to exam her. She becomes extremely emotional as Bill begins, and they have to stop.

This leads to Bill and Virginia disagreeing about the treatment method. Bill says they aren’t prepared to fix her psychologically and can only focus on the physical, but Virginia fears the idea of only treating the physical and not dealing with the mental issues at hand.

Before Barbara leaves, Virginia meets with her and tries some of the techniques she learned from the psychologist. Barbara says that she still talks to her brother and that’s he’s recently gotten divorced again. Virginia encourages her to practice saying things she wanted to say to him earlier like “Stop.”

That night Frank takes an unknowing Bill to an AA meeting because it’s Frank’s sober birthday. Frank gets up and shares his story, which includes many dark details about his childhood and their father. He talks about how he found ways to disappear physically and mentally, which led to his alcoholism. Bill eventually has enough of listening and leaves before Frank finishes.

Lester meets with the prostitute at her place to try to fix his sexual dysfunction. He’s very nervous and keeps saying awkward things about his fear of dropping dead (like his father recently did). But the “treatment” doesn’t work. When he meets with Bill to talk about it the next day, he says he doesn’t want to participate anymore.

Virginia meets with Dr. Madden again and pushes him for more things “she” should do to make things better. (She’s being a little pushy.) As he probes deeper, Virginia realizes she needs to say more and begins slipping into her own life. She talks about Dr. DePaul’s judgment of her for sleeping with a married man (Bill). She says she never saw herself as a threat to this man’s wife because she didn’t want to marry him (very interesting), and this brings up feelings of guilt.

In Barbara’s next session, she tells Virginia that she met with her brother Paul and talked to him about what happened. Virginia is shocked because she didn’t tell her to do that but to just imagine talking to him. Barbara is glad she did. Her brother remembered it differently. He told Barbara that it was all her idea, which made Barbara realize it was her choice and that he didn’t push her to do it. Virginia isn’t sure what to do or say since she made the assumption Barbara was a victim.

The next day, Libby runs into Virginia in the café in Bill’s building. Virginia wants to get away from her, but Libby tells her how she admires her bravery and that she could use a little bit of that now.

Libby then goes to the CORE office again, but this time, she offers her services as a volunteer. Robert is surprised. She says she can type, answer phones, and so on, but Robert says they need someone to do a sandwich run. She hesitates a second but takes their order. (Is this the start of a new Libby?)

Frank comes by to see Bill at work, demanding he apologize for leaving the AA meeting. But Bill is angry because he thinks Frank took his story and is passing it off as his own. Frank says he was Bill’s replacement and that their father did similar things to him after Bill left. Bill doesn’t want to believe their father treated them both the same because he feels guilty for leaving Frank behind.

That night, Bill and Virginia meet at the hotel, and she confronts him about what they are doing to Libby. The guilt is catching up to her. She wonders what they’ve told themselves to justify what they have done. But Bill doesn’t want to talk about it (“The past is the past,” he says). He also still thinks Libby won’t ever find out.

Virginia calls him out: “It hasn’t been about the study for years!” But Bill says it is. He says this is how they can research sexual dysfunction. In the final moments of the episode, he admits to her he’s been having trouble with impotence.

Rating

A-

This week dove deeper into the psychological issues of nearly all our characters. Libby and Virginia both took big steps in this episode by facing down their issues. Libby finally did something useful and not self-serving by volunteering at CORE, and Virginia admitted her and Bill have made some bad choices.

Bill, however, is still trying to live in his world of denial, which is getting harder and harder for him to maintain thanks to the sudden appearance of his brother Frank and to Virginia’s guilt. How much longer can he go before breaking?

With just three episodes left this season, we seem headed toward Libby finding out about Bill and Virginia, which will create new complications for all involved and for the study.

Now for some random thoughts and my favorite moments of the night…

Lester’s evening with the prostitute was quite humorous.

Frank’s speech about his childhood was a good way of letting us know more.

Pauline and Libby’s conversation comparing husbands was perfectly crafted to push Libby to change.