Lots of different activities going on tonight, as BIll and Virginia start the episode together in the lobby of the hotel in which they're carrying on their affair, and then spend most of the rest of the hour apart. But first they start off having a discussion over where Barton could be hiding out, as neither of them seem able to get in touch with him. Then Bill tells Ginny that he hasn't been able to yet convince Greathouse (Danny Huston, who showed up in the last episode) of her importance in the study, since she's not herself a doctor despite her name being on the paper with his. Ginny's having none of that though, and gives herself the task of getting rid of Bill's assigned secretary so that he can be given free reign to hire her back at least in that position temporarily. She thinks it will be easy since all secretaries now seem to despise her very presence.
So Bill starts his new job at Memorial Hospital and is quickly preoccupied with a case involving an 18-year-old girl named Rose, who comes in needing immediate surgery for a botched abortion. Over the rest of the episode we find out that Rose thinks she's sick for having "urges" that can't be quelled, and she's had another previous abortion already that her parents knew about. This time her mother wants Bill to give her a hysterectomy, which Bill refuses to do, saying it's too drastic a move and would take away her choices for the rest of her life. Greathouse and Rose's mother insist he do the procedure and even Rose tells Bill she agrees as along as it will stop her from acting like a "whore," but Bill actually ups his sympathy level for once, tells her she's not her worst part, and gives her something more useful- and IUD. This subplot also involves Betty, who's spending her days sitting in Bill's reception area for hours at a time, pretending she's getting fertility treatments so she can tell her husband they're working on it. Bill yells at her to tell him the truth, but she won't do it and eavesdrops on Bill's case through the shouting matches with Greathouse. She then goes to Rose and tells her the inspirational story of how she stabbed her own mother in the eye with her high heel (lol), but when Rose mentions what Bill's already said to her, Betty seems to see him in a new light.
Meanwhile, on Virginia's side of things, she's dealing with Lillian's continuing deterioration from her metastasizing cancer. She's slurring her words now and can't go through with a taped promotional message on pap smears, so Ginny figures it out and schedules an appointment with Lillian's oncologist. It doesn't do much good though, as Lillian just says she doesn't want anyone to know, but it does seem to bring the two women closer together as friends. Ginny also has a very uncomfortable meeting with Dr. Ditmer over his required use of the phallic device/camera she and Bill invented, and seems to have an orgasmic reaction over just her explanation of what the device does, right in front of her. Gross. This scene also cuts back and forth between Bill explaining to the equally curious Greathouse all the different positions couples can take in the sex sessions of their study (this after Greathouse just called anyone who differs from the norm of sexual behavior perverts, sluts or queers. Nice. Look in the mirror dude). Ginny tries to confront Vivian about Barton, who comes in to the hospital so that Austin can fix her broken wrist (which she maintained after cutting her dad down from the ceiling last week), but Vivian blows up at her for stealing Ethan away and then dumping him, telling her not to pretend they're friends. She then later confesses to Bill, who meets her outside her school, what happened to Barton, and that he and her mother have gone to Venice for his recuperation. Bill is pretty devastated by the news.
Ginny comes into Bill's office to try to woo away his goofy new secretary Barbara (played by Betsy Brandt- hey it's Marie from Breaking Bad!), but she changes her mind when Barbara proves to be so nice to her and eagerly wants advice on Bill. Ginny then has a friendly final scene with Austin, who lets her in on the dance parties he's having in his office after hours now that his wife's kicked him out, but he mentions that the two of them will never be together romantically because they're both "lone wolves." Ginny seems to agree. Back at the Masters house, Libby has hired a new nanny, an 18-year-old African American girl named Coral (Keke Palmer), who Bill at first is skeptical about, but Libby insists she has all kinds of things she can teach her. She ends up confiding in her about Bill's distance and coolness toward his own child as they fold the laundry, but Libby seems to have a change of heart when the naive Coral proves to be not so naive in everything, as she figures out how to calm the baby's crying without feeding him. Bill now thinks she'll work out after all, and for some reason Libby turns into a bitch the next day and starts trying to correct Coral's grammar, forcing her to pronounce the word "ask" correctly and not to talk "her own way" in front of the baby. I didn't really understand this scene at all, since from all that we've ever seen of her, Libby's been nothing but sweet and kind to everyone, not jealous and bitter in the slightest (she's like the complete opposite of Betty Draper). I guess we'll see where that goes.
The episode ends with Bill and Ginny meeting up again at their hotel to walk in together as the faux married couple they're pretending to be, and I don't know how they're fooling themselves that this is "work," since neither of them is doing any work at all on the study at this point. All this secrecy is clearly for their own pleasure. But, since next week looks to be a kind of bottle episode, involving only Bill and Virginia in a sort of one act play, I can only assume we'll be finding out then what this "affair" is all about.
