A very busy episode tonight, one that spent most of its time in the offices of Masters and Johnson, as a CBS News crew moved in to interview the pair for a piece that will presumably be their first exposure to a national audience. But Bill and Ginny were slightly less interesting this week, as some major action finally took place between Libby and Robert after weeks of tension. First off though, it is Bill and Virginia in the hotel, with Ginny tending to his bruised eye that's begun to heal up as he tells her about his brother and sister-in-law moving back to Kansas City, which is good riddance as a far as I'm concerned. Sorry, but Frank was kind of annoying and that whole storyline dragged. Bill says he's going to make things right with him though and asks Ginny if their gross, blood smearing sex last week was any good for her. She says yes and tries to egg him on when she sees he's attempting to use her goading to get hard again, but this time it doesn't work, and Bill is once more deflated (pun intended).
At Ginny's house, before going in to work she's paid a visit by George (haven't seen him in a while), who's now remarried and is apparently spending more time with the kids. He tries to get a word with Ginny, but she avoids him as she dashes in to the office, where the CBS guys are setting up, annoying both Bill and Lester, who sees that they are wanting to censor his precious footage (it looks like he now has hundreds of hours in the stock room). Bill is totally flustered by this whole thing, and to top it off is not great on camera either (big surprise). He and Ginny are lectured by PR man Adam Arkin on how to appear agreeable (he uses the old Nixon-Kennedy example, which of course was recent news at that time), and he also insists on Bill getting rid of his bowtie so as to come across less "academic." Bill isn't comfortable with any of this, but he and Ginny do manage to get through most of the interview in one piece, with Ginny having to coax Bill on when it comes to volunteering information. But the network guys are having problems with almost every word BIll and Ginny utter and tell them they're going to have take out words like orgasm, climax and masturbation. They also want to present a fake couple and film them coming in to the office to ask for advice on sexual dysfunction. Bill is adamant about not doing this, since they haven't even had any success in treating this yet, but is scolded by Arkin that he's got to be the one to get there first on camera if he wants the credit for any research that he's done or will do in the future. Bill's unsure, especially when also lectured by Lester for letting them walk all over his principles, but he does agree that they might be right about how best to present the work to the public, since he knows nothing about this area.
Meanwhile, Libby and George both come to the offices as the interview is taking place, and handing BIll his tie and seeing how Ginny and she are wearing the same color adds further fuel to Libby's insecurity over her position in Bill's life. She also sees Robert on the way to the office, where most of CORE is upset over the arrest of Martin Luther King the night before, but Libby hadn't heard anything about it, for which Robert continues to scoff at her ignorance. While sitting in the lobby waiting to be interviewed, George and one of the other salesmen in the building comment on how Libby looks too beautiful to be married to Bill, and this gives her the confidence to leave and go down to the CORE office, choosing them (or really, Robert) over her husband's work, which does not include her. Back upstairs, George finally pulls Ginny aside and tells her he wants to take the kids with him and his wife Audrey on a six-week tour of Europe- a suggestion Ginny laughs at and swiftly refuses. But George says it make more sense for them to be with him than sitting at home with a babysitter, since she never sees them anyway. Ginny is upset but knows it's true, and later solicits the advice of the building's divorce lawyer on whether she can fight George on this. He advises against it, since George has never proved irresponsible with the kids or asked for anything like this before, and besides, if she does challenge it it may open up a can of worms for the courts to see her not so motherly arrangement with them herself. So Ginny ultimately agrees to let them go, but is upset when they mention all the rules and responsible mom type role Audrey is already playing in their lives, unbeknownst to her.
Austin this week, is still being seduced (or I guess I should say harassed) by Flo, who now wants to bring some role playing into their sex life, begging him to pretend to break into her house and have his way with her while she cries out against it (ala Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, who died this week in the show's universe). Austin is terrible at this and uncomfortable to boot, and Flo complains about his lack of effort, describing herself as a person filled with self-loathing who wants to be hurt (ick). Austin, her polar opposite who's full of himself more than anything, thinks she ought to change since she realizes that now about herself, but Flo just laughs that self-awareness never changes someone's behavior and insists that they go on. Weird. Wonder where this is going.
Finally, back to the real fireworks this week, which is Libby and Robert. After working at the CORE offices, Libby stays around and accepts a ride home from him, where she tries to get him to warm up to her in the car by asking why he likes to make fun of her lack of knowledge about certain areas (namely current civil rights activities), but Robert asks her a pretty sensible question, which is why she's doing this in the first place. She claims to believe in the cause and that she's not just a dilettante housewife, but I don't really buy that for a second, since it's been obvious to me this whole time that she's only doing this because she's got the hots for Robert. When he pulls up to the house a police car comes up behind them and the officer gets out and starts harrassing Robert, wondering why he's in the car with a white woman in this neighborhood. Libby quickly claims that she's invited him inside and tries to stop the cop from shoving him around when they get out, ushering him into the house to get away from the guy. Boy, does that scene ring bells that are still horrifyingly potent today.
In the house, Libby basically pulls out all the stops to seduce Robert, insisting that she sew up his now torn shirt, even though he mildly attempts to stop her, commenting on what the neighbor watching the kids thought of him coming in with her, and then demanding that she NOT sew up his shirt in her bedroom (lol). But, hey, when a woman is coming on this strong it probably takes a better person than Robert to resist completely, and Libby nearly begs him to stay with her when he says he's leaving. She then goes on about not knowing who she is, or why she wants what she does, but feeling better when she's around him because people who don't like her make her feel visible for the first time, since she's never had the chance to break any rules or make any waves and no one has ever made her feel alive in that way. Which is probably a lot more honest than her genuine commitment to the civil rights cause, at least at the moment. Robert again suspects her of being a white woman with low confidence who wants to somehow "lower" herself by being with him, but when she kisses him and says she wants him he responds and the two of them end up having a passionate tryst on the kitchen floor, with Libby seeming ecstatically happy about it. For once, it's a sex scene on this show that's actually very sexy too, which is nice to see, after all the mind games of couples like Bill and Virginia and Flo and Austin.
But the last scene of the night is a bookend BIll and Ginny one, back in the office as Ginny sits with Bill while he expresses his own self-loathing, worried that no one would want to look at him on TV or even be with him in reality, wondering why Ginny even does herself. Ginny tearfully professes to find him attractive even if he doesn't, but Bill isn't convinced until she hugs him in a full embrace and they both cry as they cling to each other to end the episode. So, that was quite a night, and with just one more left, I find myself most interested, believe it or not, in what's going to happen with Libby and Robert after all this build up. It has to be a full blown affair, right? It can't just end in one episode, can it? We'll have to come back next week to find out. See you then everybody!
