As for the other subplots, the results vary from revealing to less than riveting. We return to the very questionable spark between Libby and Robert, which came to a head in the last episode when they collapsed into a heap of sexual bliss on her living room floor. While his explanation for his desire – it has to do with the danger of their taboo relationship – is not entirely convincing, Libby’s is. And, it is a shocker. It turns out that she knows about her husband’s long-time fling with Virginia, and she has been aching for a relief.
“I know that I want it,” she tells Robert, gazing at him with purpose and passion, as they lie entangled in bed. “I know I want to feel.” While the other characters struggle to reconcile what they need and want, Libby’s want and need is entwined. The storyline still feels forced, but at least Libby (and strong work from Fitzgerald) is giving an appropriate endpoint to the character’s bizarre motives from the beginning of this season. It is fascinating to see the similarities between her infidelities with her husband’s. When Libby remarks that she doesn’t think she’ll ever return to his apartment, we know that it’s only a matter of time before this happens.
While Masters of Sex’s second season has often seemed aimless, trying to figure out its pacing and direction perhaps too frequently, there is a real sense of urgency from deadlines in this episode. When George tells Virginia that he wants custody of her children, there is even more pressure to get the CBS story on the air, to validate her time away from her family as useful. However, Dr. Joseph Kaufman – the competing doctor who wants to publish a book about sexuality – beats them to the punch and becomes the subject of a special news bulletin. (The fact that it is Bill who caved in as a way to get CBS to cancel their feature is less surprising than the familiar face that ended up as Kaufman’s research partner.)
The ways that the strands of Virginia’s life – her affair with Bill, her distance from her family, her eagerness to prove her worth as a professional – come together in such close proximity this week is quite exhilarating. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is a Virginia-centric episode and marks Lizzy Caplan’s most gripping work on the show to date. (This should be her Emmy-certified episode to win the approval of voters next summer.) For a character with such fluid conversation skills, it is disarming to see Virginia clench up in fear when trying to unpeel to her children what will end up happening. She tries to wrap her head around telling them the truth, but she never manages to. (It is a kind of social dysfunction in front of her children that slowly makes her descend into a breakdown.) Caplan has never shown a finer emotional range on Masters of Sex, moving from control and delight at the episode’s start to shaking from distress by the time CBS cancels the feature.
As great as this finale was, there are a few instances when the episode tries to do too much, and much of it centers on the historical context. As the new president of the United States is about to pronounce a shift to a changed America, there is a dream sequence where Bill imagines himself being showered with confetti like Kennedy on a float with Jackie. (Here, he is JFK, while Virginia is Jackie.) It is beautifully filmed, although a bit too on the nose, with the camera floating above Bill as he realizes the setting and moves into the crowd, parting it like the Red Sea. Meanwhile, the subplot with Austin and Flo is amusing but inconsequential, and their sexual chemistry remains a question mark that the writers will have to figure out on hiatus.
Regardless, this is a stellar finale, wrapping up several of the stories in powerful, unpredictable ways and featuring amazing performances. (Even Beau Bridges manages to return, bringing some of the sunny weather from season one with him.) “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” puts a lot of pieces in place while revealing big changes about the characters we love. It was the Masters of Sex closer we knew we wanted, as well as the one the series, which has gone through some growing pains in its sophomore year, really needed.
