Alton, Illinois Is For Lovers

The Cradle Will Either Fall Or Fail To Attract Dr. Masters's Notice

The Symbol: Bill and Libby's brand-new baby, John.

The Scene: Bill is lost in a reverie of showing up at Virginia's house the night he got shitcanned from GW and having super-hot sex with her, until the spell is broken by baby John's crying, which Bill does nothing to address, bedding down on the living-room couch.

The Meaning: In general, babies are for chumps. Specifically, this one is trying to keep Bill from leading his best life.

Because You Can't Spell "Virginia" Without...Wait, That Doesn't Work -- Hey, Come Back!

Alert Type: Bad Reputation Alert.

Issue: Virginia's having a hard time at work since that first presentation on the sex study.

Mitigating Circumstances: At least the film of her masturbating didn't actually show her face? Everyone still knows it was her, though -- including this Dr. Crane, who creeps on her in the ladies' room and is apparently just the latest in a parade of leering jerks hitting on her the past few weeks.

Resolution: Short-term: just as Austin is coming in to intervene on her behalf, Virginia knees Dr. Crane in the nuts and takes off. Long-term: she at least has to consider the possibility that continuing to work at the hospital is not wise.

Spoiler: The next doctor to approach her with a proposition is actually on the up-and-up -- Dr. Ditmer wants to use the same camera technology in a throat study, and due to Virginia's expertise, he's willing to work around her schedule to secure her participation -- and she will feel bad about biting his head off.

Shock Therapy!

Do you have unnatural urges? Are you sufficiently fond of your wife to want her to stick around even if you currently are not interested in touching her parts? Do you have a pioneering spirit? Ask your homophobic doctor if Shock Therapy might be right for you!

Warning: side effects include short-term memory loss, confusion, physical fatigue. Does not necessarily remediate suicidal thoughts.

Night Of Hot Sex: His Side

After Bill checks into a hotel under a fake name which the guy at Reception already knows, he gets into the shower to VERY MOROSELY remember the Night Of Hot Sex, during which he looked pretty desperate...

...and Virginia looked kind of concerned?

In the afterglow, Bill reaches for Virginia's wrist, and she jokes that he's taking her pulse. Then the phone rings, and since it's the middle of the night, she knows it's Ethan, and that he'll keep calling until she picks up. Bill -- of course -- is shitty about it: "Like a collie, who keeps barking until someone tosses it a treat." So then she has to inform Bill that Ethan has proposed. "And? What did you say?" "Nothing. Yet." When she gets up, we only hear her half of the conversation, which includes "Ethan, I'm sorry. Things have changed." And as Bill looks stricken -- realizing, perhaps, that whatever the two of them are doing is preventing Virginia from arranging a life with some stability for herself and her kids, or maybe that's just my interpretation, and I'm not saying Ethan the lady-slapper is the person Virginia should settle down with either, but at least he's not as big a coward as Bill with regard to making room in his life for Virginia -- we hear Virginia tell Ethan, "It's where I belong." Of course, this conversation happened BEFORE the Drs. Crane of the world were up her ass all the time...or trying to be.

Libby vs. Small-Mindedness

As Libby exposits that little baby Cock-Block is at his three-week checkup, the pediatrician remarks that she's "brave" to come back to the hospital after the whole sex-study scandal. Libby's like, huh? "The important thing is that you don't blame yourself," says Dr. Judgy in a way that leaves no doubt as to whether he thinks she should blame herself, which he clearly does, given that he likens her to the oblivious wife of the Brooklyn Vampire.

Winner: Draw? Libby has the moral advantage, but...like, Bill is still unemployed.

Cal-o-Metric!

Can I tell you about this wonderful new weight-loss product? Oh, I wish I had known about Cal-o-Metric when I was trying to shed those last few pounds of baby weight after the births of my beloved children! ...What's that? You've never been pregnant. I...am not sure how to proceed? I'm not actually an off-label amphetamine saleswoman; I've recently lost the income from my job as a sex researcher and our absolute sluttiest study participant turned me on to Cal-o-Metric because it's earning his wife like an extra $100 a month. Sorry to imply that your extra weight is less noble than mine. They made me. Cal-o-Metric is great, I am told! PLEASE DON'T GO.

Vaxx On

Libby has brought Bill to a charity event where she expects him to schmooze a Doug Greathouse in pursuit of a job at GW rival Memorial Hospital, where we see Greathouse himself on stage talking up the beneficiary of everyone's largesse: vaccinations against rubella and pertussis! Everyone is into it! It's maybe a bit cheap of the show to highlight the gap between scientific advancements everyone supported in the late '50s but have since become the target of idiotic, unfounded paranoia, but on the other hand, pertussis and rubella are both back because famous morons read something on a mommy message board and then repeated it to their credulous fans, so HIGHLIGHT AWAY. (Please vaccinate your kids.)

Pretzel King!

Whether you need a delicious, healthy snack or the financial intercession of the man who made them and thinks you can aid the fertility of the secretly gay wife who already tried to have her tubal ligation reversed (by you) but couldn't due to scarred fallopian tubes, the Pretzel King has got you -- and the restoration of your sex study at a new hospital -- totally, totally covered! Mmmmm, deception: salty!

I Would Do Anything For Love, Including That, Under Certain Conditions

Situation: Barton wants to try putting his P in Margaret's V.

What Makes It Awkward? The only reason he's hard is because he just flipped through an issue of Male Figure in the bathroom BECAUSE HE IS A GAY MAN.

How is order restored? It kind of isn't. At first, Margaret is happy -- if shocked -- that Barton wants to be intimate with her, and things are going okay until he tells her to turn over and she realizes what's happening. He begs her to let him try it his way, but she's like, "By pretending I'm a boy?!" Everyone involved is upset and sad. Come on, Barton, if the fictional guy in Far From Heaven can start a whole new life in a different city with his boyfriend then so can you I mean HOW HARD COULD IT BE TO COME OUT IN AMERICA IN THE LATE '50s?! jk, probs pretty hard.

Night Of Hot Sex: Her Side

This time we get to see That Night from Virginia's perspective, including Ethan's half of the phone call. This scene comes on the heels of one in which Jane reveals that Ethan called Jane to whine about Virginia turning down his proposal and urging her to start over in California with Ethan since the study is basically dead and there's nothing left for her in St. Louis...and now we hear Ethan saying basically the same thing: "This cannot be because of work." Either way, this is not a cute look for you, Ethan.

GW Hospital: Where Everyone's Making Embarrassing Scenes, All The Time

Virginia and Lillian are volleying questions back and forth -- Lillian about all the Cal-o-Metric pills in Virginia's desk; Virginia about the BLACK EYE Lillian suddenly has -- when Austin comes tearing in, slams the door, and hides below the glass line. TURNS OUT he's hiding from Elise, his wife, who has come to the hospital with all their kids in tow to scream up and down the halls and over the intercom that even though WE just saw Austin bragging to Virginia about his newfound fidelity, in actuality Elise's whore of a husband has been fucking her sister for months.

Masters vs. Masters

In case you missed the total lack of attachment Bill feels toward new baby John, here it is again! Libby has rolled the dice and left Bill with his son for a few hours while she goes out for lunch -- over Bill's strenuous objections -- and when the baby starts bawling after a while, as babies do, Bill makes like he's going to go, I don't know, pick him up, but then instead puts on a record, loud enough to drown out the crying. When the music abruptly stops, he looks up to see that Essie has appeared to do the parenting, Libby having asked her to come see how Bill was getting on alone. "From the look of it, about as well as you did, back in the day," Bill snits. Leaving aside the fact that I'm pretty sure "back in the day" is an anachronism...this is just one of the many issues with fatherhood that Bill has snarled together: he's resentful of his own parents and his own shitty childhood, yes, but also John's arrival has meant that if he were to end his marriage to pursue a real relationship with Virginia, he would look like a real asshole. So instead, he's just sleeping with a woman who isn't his wife, and takes this opportunity to rub his remorselessness in Essie's face: "I am my father. You know it. And now my son knows it too. And you know, the real magic here, like some dark, malevolent sleight of hand, is that I have now also turned into you." Essie, who had come into this exchange hoping to convince Bill to quit blaming her for his childhood, doesn't really have much to say to this.

Winner: Bill, by fighting dirty.

Enjoy Single Parenthood, Libby

Libby comes home from her lunch overjoyed to see that John is doing so well and calls Bill a "baby magician," but he pissily doesn't react, and she quickly figures out that the real baby magician is Essie. Before she can get upset about Bill's total abdication of his parental duties, he crisply informs her that Essie is going back to Ohio, "for good. So you're going to need to get a nanny." Libby knows this is Bill's doing (I mean, duh) and protests that she needs and depends on Essie, but Bill snaps, "It's done and it's the last time we'll speak of it." He's going out and he thinks she should start making nanny calls now. Marriage to Bill seems fun! It's almost like being married to no one.

"You Two Go Ahead; I'll Just Hang Around Here." (...Sorry.)

Situation: Barton has waited for Margaret and Vivian to go out shopping and then hanged himself in the basement.

What Makes It Awkward? He didn't time it out quite right, so when they get home, they can hear him kick away the furniture he was standing on and struggle in the noose.

How is order restored? Margaret cuts him down and he lives, but I doubt any of the Scullys would say that's restored order.

Oh He's A Great...HOUSE! He's Mighty Mighty...etc.

Hospital Ladies Stick Together

At the end of an eventful day at GW, Lillian gets a bottle of liquor out of her desk and pours mugs of whatever it is for herself and Virginia. Though Virginia had asked earlier if the shiner were the work of a violent man Lillian might be seeing, Lillian gets her to admit that she didn't really think that was the cause (Lillian says it was a medicine cabinet, and I think we're supposed to surmise that she passed out and fell into it?). Lillian sighs, "It's sad that no one would ever think I got a black eye from a jealous lover," but the reason is simple: "Because I'm not reckless." Virginia says that being careful isn't such a bad thing. Sure, Lillian: take "careful" advice from Virginia! Things are going great for her due to all the considered, cautious decisions she's been making lately! But whatever: I'm just happy these two have quit being frenemies and started being friends.

The Night After The Night Of Hot Sex

This talk of carefulness sends Virginia back to the night AFTER That Night, when she met up with Bill in the lobby of a hotel in Alton, Illinois, a half-hour's drive from St. Louis, where they could be pretty sure they wouldn't be spotted by anyone they know. What follows is basically a seminar in missed connections because no one is being honest. They start by talking about Ethan and how badly he's taking the breakup, and Virginia muses, "It is a rare man who could understand how a woman could choose work over love." "Is that what you told him -- why you ended it?" says Bill, because he was about to tell her he loves her or something along those lines, I assume. "It's the truth," Virginia says smoothly. She also doesn't want to have anything as pedestrian as an affair, because they always end the same, and "what we have between us is so much more than that -- more than a single affair. We have the work." Bill notes that something felt different That Night, and she shrugs, "There were no wires." And that's when Bill comes up with some horseshit about "a whole separate line of inquiry opening up": "I think it would be a mistake to end it now." Thinking he means the study, she agrees. After another apology, he tells her, "I think continuing the work is a good idea, but only if you understand the terms. I don't want you to feel that you've been led on." And she's like, totally, but when he goes to get a room under his fake name, her face falls, and I can't tell if it's because she's sad that he can't think of her as a colleague without trying to fuck her more, or if she was hoping they could continue seeing each other romantically, but not in a tawdry "affair"-y way. I guess she has a whole season ahead to speak up for herself and quit going along with whatever Bill wants her to do...or not.