Well. Bill's tenure at Buell Green was even shorter than his last job. It is getting a bit ridiculous, but they seemed to indicate that Bill was finally headed towards giving up his surgical career in order to focus entirely on his research. But first, Bill and Ginny are in bed, finally acknowledging the fact that they don't kiss, even though they both seem to want to and are, as always, toying with each other about it. But mostly Bill and Ginny take a backseat to Ginny and Lillian in this episode, as Lillian continues to receive radiation treatments that she's become increasingly intolerant towards.
Ginny keeps taking Lillian to these appointments, but eventually Lillian gets the doctor to tell her straight what's going to happen to her, and when she's told it will be a slow, painful deterioration made even slower by the radiation, she makes a choice to end it early. Ginny's furious with her, but Lillian is certain about this, saying she doesn't want to go out that way and would rather end it all now. Ginny's very broken up and confides in Bill her sorrow about a losing a friend she never saw coming. Bill observes that Ginny never saw it coming because she's a woman, but comforts her by telling her that he also knows her as Lillian does, and the two of them finally kiss, seeming to get closer and closer each week. Ginny helps Lillian with making arrangements for her death (that's gotta be unpleasant), and Lillian says she would rather donate her body to science than be buried. The two of them then spend an evening drinking together, where Lillian confesses she missed out on the intimacy and closeness of being in love, like Ginny has with Bill. Ginny tries to laugh it off, but seems to agree with the sentiment. Later on, Lillian takes an overdose of sleeping pills and when Ginny comes back to the house after having forgotten to retrieve a letter she was supposed to mail, she finds Lillian dying and at first calls for an ambulance, but then decides to hang up and respect Lillian's final actions. Poor Lillian.
Let's go ahead and get the Libby story out of the way early this time. So, yeah, she continues to be awful as she spies every day on Robert dropping off and picking up Coral outside the house, and even Bill thinks she's losing it. She then has a friend do a background check on Robert, finds out he's been arrested three times, and again tries to make Coral break up with him. God, Libby. How much further can she try my patience? Coral refuses once more, so Libby tells her to have someone else drive her, because she doesn't feel "safe" with him in front of the house. Coral nods, but when she tells Libby her aunt is picking her up, Libby actually follows her outside the house and around the corner to of course see her getting into the car with Robert down the street. So what does she do then? Well, she actually gets in her car at night, taking the baby with her, and goes to their apartment, snooping around the mailbox like a stalker, where she's caught by Robert in the hallway. Ok, this is becoming like a tragicomic scene from The Office, as Robert naturally asks her what she's doing, and corrects Libby that he's not actually Coral's boyfriend, but her brother (I thought so!). Libby seems to be in a stunned silence, and Robert notices her leg is bleeding from a scrape she got getting out of the car. He tries to patch it dry with a cloth, and now, finally, we see that Libby has been having some kind of erotic fit, because she's clearly attracted to this guy and so into him touching her that she freaks out, shoves him Coral's severance pay and tells him to tell her she's fired, before running back to the car and collapsing in tears. Ok, so Libby's got forbidden urges, and that's what's behind her racist behavior? Weird. But I guess it's a slightly better explanation for what they've been doing with her recently, and at least it kind of ties into her dance lessons with the carpenter guy last season.
In the other B-plot, Betty has resumed her affair with Helen, even after getting a talking to from Gene that he's ok with it just being the two of them, since he'd rather not adopt kids. Betty suggests to Helen that she get her an apartment so they can see each other all the time, but Helen's not into the idea of being Betty's "mistress." Betty thinks it's just as well to lead an unconventional life since they could never be normal anyway, but Helen instead drops by the house with Al in tow, announcing that they're going to elope. Betty completely flips at this news and tells Gene she hates them both and never wants to see them again. When Gene tries to tell poor dumb Al that Betty just doesn't like Helen, Al thinks it's weird because he saw them kissing at the restaurant the other night and assumes they must be so close. Wow- were people really that oblivious back in the 50's? Turns out Gene isn't, as he figures out that Betty loves Helen and confronts her about yet another lie. She cops to it, saying it doesn't matter because they're married now, but this is the final straw for Gene, who says he can't handle this many lies and pretty much tells her it's over. Can't really blame him there.
Finally, Bill and Virginia aren't getting any traction with recruiting black patients for their study, and Ginny finds out from a nurse that Hendrix forbade the staff from participating. Bill gets into it with him about this and Hendrix is understandably worried about the perception of two white doctors doing sex research with only black subjects, thinking it's dangerous for the hospital. Bill and Ginny then go to a black journalist to publish a story on the study, but the reporter is mostly interested in portraying Bill as a revolutionary in order to tie him to a larger picture so the community can identify with him, using his past instances of resistance with violence as examples. Bill balks at the smearing of his reputation and tries to threaten the editor of her newspaper with falsifying results on black sexuality that confirm racist stereotypes. The editor's not cowed in the slightest, but Bill doesn't back down, which of course, once again, costs him his latest job. Hendrix does encourage him to cut the chord with practicing medicine though, and strike out on his own, which Bill seems afraid of doing, but may finally be ready to make the leap. He rushes over to Virginia's house to tell her, but the door is opened by some guy who turns out to be the man Virginia met in the hotel lobby at the end of the fight episode, who says they've been dating for two months. Bill's so upset by this he nearly has a panic attack on the way to his car (lol). But hey, what do expect, dude? You've got a wife, so she's entitled, right? So that's it for tonight- Bill's angry, Ginny's sad, Libby's insane, and poor Lillian has dearly departed from this earth. But come back next week, when I believe the show will be making a time jump, but we'll have to tune in to see how many years we're going to be skipping forward. See you then!
