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Masters Of Sex Season Premiere Review: “Parallax” (Season 2, Episode 1)

Masters of Sex begins its sophomore season with some outstanding performances and big plot turns, although its dramatic subtlety has started to wane.

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Even as she resists sex with strangers, Virginia shows different sides when with two of her co-workers. After seeing DePaul with a black eye, she tries to coax an answer to find out if her boss is the victim of sexual violence. However, this dignity is not as present when Dr. Langham comes in to escape his wife, a lady who yells into the loudspeaker that he is sleeping with her sister. Perhaps it is not surprising that Virginia has bonded so closely with another adulterer and is continuing with the study, even if under the front of a more scintillating desire.

Episode director Michael Apted dissolves us back to the climactic moment of season one that launched this second boost of sexual energy through steam from Bill’s shower or a hazy atmosphere around Virginia to return us to the heat and humidity of that front porch plea. Later on, when Bill confronts his baby’s shrill cries, upon approaching the child’s room, Apted pulls back the camera through the sides of the door, so that Bill looks like a much smaller man, anxious and unable to mend the cries of his own child. (Subtlety does not pave way when the record Bill turns on to drown out the crying is “Bye Bye Love.” Ditto with a scene moments later when he goes for a run, a painfully obvious allusion for trying to escape his guilt.) However, from the dulled colors that turn the show into a more interesting one, aesthetically, to the stunning performances, it is good to know Apted will be back to direct a few more times this season.

The most interesting two-person scene from this episode is not with Bill and Virginia, but rather with a couple trying hard (and failing miserably) to make things work: the Scullys. Barton’s decision to resort to electroshock therapy to “cure” him of his homosexuality still feels irrational for a man of such standing and intelligence. However, he still goes through of it and – of course – it does not leave Barton at peace. Beau Bridges and Allison Janney get the episode’s most memorable scene (and one of the most painful on any show in recent memory) when Barton tries to initiate sex with his wife, and she slowly realizes his libido is charged not from her but the lewd magazines hidden in his cabinet. “There is only a shred of me left that still feels like a woman,” she spits at him, after a tryst turns sour. (Before this moment, she reads Lolita in bed as her husband flipped through dirty magazines, which seems too obvious.)

Both Bridges and Janney stand good chances at taking home Emmys next month and it is because they shine a light on a repressed married life not usually shown in film or television. Margaret has had a difficult time dealing with her husband’s lust and lack of approval for her, but it is comforting to see her try to work things out near the end, when she denies Bill entry into her house shortly after Barton tries to hang himself. Maybe she wants to be the medicine her husband really needed.

Overall, Masters of Sex’s season premiere is strong, even if a few rushed moments that come from trying to pack many plots into the opening stifle the dramatic energy. The scene where Bill kicks his mother out of his home by proclaiming that he is just like his dad – he even tells the hotel concierge at the end that his name is Francis, his father’s – is too high-pitched to work. He shouts with angry relish, “I am my father. You know it and now your son knows it, too.” (Masters of Sex is not quite as nuanced with these themes and character developments as, say, Mad Men.)

Meanwhile, Ashford is also still struggling to give Caitlin Fitzgerald (whose Emmy snub stings even more than Sheen’s) a more meaningful storyline. Here, she exists to help convince the powerfully named Dr. Douglas Greathouse (Danny Huston) to give him a role at a hospital, where he can continue his study. While still the stoic if sometimes shattered wife, she does not get much to do.

Masters of Sex may not be as nuanced as one would hope for upon return, but with performances that top even its best hours last year, let us hope the show continues to reap the high quality – and perhaps land a Best Drama nod next year.