Meanwhile, Ethan still pines for Virginia’s affection and is left cold after she turns him down – the same way he did to several of the nurses he slept with in episode two who chastise him at the start of this one. As Ethan says, in one of the episode’s pivotal lines, “Once you’ve seen Oz, who wants to go back to Kansas?” However, when he heads to the operating room after a night of heavy drinking, writer Amy Lippman closes that potential conflict by having him insist the surgery went fine. (Interestingly, another moment of a dazed Dr. Masters getting a mixed reaction to a potentially faulty order during surgery also goes unresolved – maybe these are extremely talented surgeons).
Unfortunately, the trend of not relying enough on Caitlin FitzGerald, who plays Libby Masters, continues this week. The actor, who often exudes radiance and vulnerability in the same scene, is still a neutral supporting character. In her story this week, she entertains Bill’s mother, who wants to stay in town and help them raise her grandchild.
Another mild complaint with the episode is that the dialogue is anachronistic. The writers are starting to use cruder dialogue during the sexual Q&As, although Masters of Sex still takes place in the mid-to-late 1950s. The language and slang that George uses to describes his sexual lifestyle in this week’s episode would not seem out of place in a contemporary version of that same scene. Unlike Mad Men, this series’ most obvious referent, there is a lack of period-appropriate language and remarks.
Directed by Jennifer Getzinger, who has many Mad Men episodes to her credit, Thank You For Coming has the same rhythms and look as scenes from AMC’s masterful drama. Besides the hot and bothered montage of masturbators discussed above, the camerawork this week is slowed down. Getzinger has the camera linger more on characters’ reactions. It stays on the face of the young nurse as she awaits a sexual initiation from Dr. Hoss, on Bill as he watches his discerning wife look away from an embarrassing situation involving his assistant’s kids, on Virginia as she quivers in disgust at her ex-husband’s arrival at her study under a false name.
Thank You For Coming is bookended with George baring his most lurid sexual secrets for an attentive Dr. Masters. At the episode’s start, the viewer has not learned his identity. By the end, one understands precisely why Masters is so interested in gathering more details about this man’s sex life. In one of the last scenes, Bull gazes at Virginia through the window between their offices, voyeuristically, as he listens to her ex’s testimony. For an episode that relies so much at gazing at and lingering on its characters at their most susceptible, it ends with a gaze of a different kind. When the doctor listens to Mr. Johnson’s titillating details, he is not in Kansas anymore.
