Well, all the supporting characters are back this week, as we check in with Austin, Lillian, Betty and Libby after spending the entire time with just Bill and Ginny in the epic third episode of the season. But tonight it's back to business as usual, although we do start off with Ginny having a dream wherein Bill has resumed the study without her and downgraded her official position to "mistress." This freaks her out, as she wakes up in the hotel to find Bill reading the paper at the table and she's now in a prickly mood, as she scolds him for not waking her. As the two leave the hotel they're spotted down the hall by Austin, who has to occasionally take his kids there for their visits while he's separated from his wife.
Ginny then wants to unload her car of all the paperwork relating to the study but Bill doesn't want Barbara to have it because she's terrible as a secretary and wants Ginny to organize everything herself. This puts her in an even worse mood, which sours still further when Bill questions her selling of diet pills he spots in the trunk. Back at the hospital, Bill is resuming the study but keeps getting horned in on by Greathouse, who continues to be a pig who just wants to watch women masturbate, and Bill attempts to shoo him off first by telling him he's only watching old men, and then by warning of possible "transference," that might make him attracted to other men, but Greathouse persists in showing up, much to Bill's disdain. Bill also keeps trying to make Greathouse bring up the possibility of hiring Virginia with the board, and at first Greathouse pretends to agree but later tells him he never brought it up at all. He also brings a bunch of male colleagues into the study room to watch a pretty young girl in the lab but at that point Bill's had enough. He punches out Greathouse along with some of the other men and is promptly fired by him, who threatens him with never working at any other hospital. Libby is of course greatly upset by this and fed up with Bill's continual quitting of his jobs, but when Bill gets panicky and starts to stutter while he promises to take care of her, she calms him down and agrees that it will be fine.
Speaking of Libby, the show continues to try to turn her into Betty Draper 2.0, which I do not like at all. She keeps needling Coral about her pronunciation, and Coral defies her on it in front of her bridge group, but then baby Johnny gets lice and Libby's convinced it came from Coral and pushes her to wash her hair with anti-lice shampoo. Coral appeals to Bill for help and he's on her side, but that only angers Libby more, to the point where she forces Coral into the bathroom and washes her hair for her. Ugh. Why are you doing this, show? I actually liked Libby, which was rare for me when it comes to the standard "wife" character on a lot of these shows, but this is really forcing her over the edge. And frankly, Caitlin Fitzgerald is far too warm and kind to play bitchy in that ice queen perfect way that January Jones does it. It won't work.
Elsewhere, back on Ginny's side of things, she's confronted by Austin in the cafeteria about him seeing her at the hotel and she plays it cool by claiming that she and Bill just need a place to work on the study. He seems to believe her and she tells Bill what happened later, but he's worried about it, which turns her off and she walks out on him (at least this time). But Bill's right, because stupid Austin didn't buy it at all and in fact has a drink with Lillian later and spills the beans to her about the affair (she's very upset), and in the last moments of the episode comes over the BIll's house for dinner to give him what he thinks is sound advice when it comes to fooling around on the wife. He basically asks him if it's worth losing his family for and Bill just says nothing in response. Lillian spends the episode trying to get an endorsement for her pap smear program from the doctor it's named after, despite her failing health and radiation treatments she's now enduring. He doesn't seem all that interested and when Lillian finds out from Austin about Bill and Ginny she tries to get Ginny to fess up to her, but Ginny won't budge an inch. Lillian seems devastated by this and decides to hand the entire program over to the doctor who will take all the credit for it. Ginny's upset but Lillian is sure about it, having decided there was no one appropriate to carry on the work in her place (because she's that disappointed in Ginny, in case you didn't get it).
Finally, Betty comes back tonight, still deceiving her husband Gene, the Pretzel King about her maybe having children. This time though, Bill's had enough of that as well and tells him that they've just found out Betty's sterile. He's clearly uncomfortable lying and Gene is extremely upset about it, and when he wants to pay Bill for all the fertility treatments anyway, he finds out that Betty lied all along and knew before they even met. She tries to explain how she knew he wouldn't marry her if he knew the truth, but Gene fesses up that he met her before they met at the church, when he was a shy teen who came to her at the brothel. Betty's shocked, having not remembered this at all, and Gene says he didn't care that she wasn't a "good Christian girl," he just thought they it was fate when they met again. In the last moments of the episode, Ginny's losing hope of the study returning, as she tries to embrace her new career as a diet pill saleswoman, but Bill secures a new position rather quickly, as he joins an African-American hospital headed by Dr. Hendricks (Courtney B. Vance) who tells him they're happy to welcome both him and his partner there. So that's it for tonight everyone. Lots of talking as usual (this is probably one of the more cerebral shows on TV), but come back next week to find out where all this is headed.
