Let There Be Light (After The Electric Company Confirms The Masters Clinic Actually Did Pay Its Bill)

"And Can You Also Get Patients To Bring In Their Own Sheets?"

Bill is just about to cap Pauline -- who, we learn during their chit-chat, apparently married Frank at City Hall; I feel we can be pretty certain a fancypants like Libby would have required a real wedding -- when suddenly the lights go out. Bill stomps out to berate Betty about it, and while she did pay the electric company -- late, but she just phoned and confirmed that the payment is there and that they'll turn the power back on momentarily -- some of their patients took a while to pay and some of their tenants paid their rent late, so she had to triage their bills so that they didn't get put on some kind of "DO NOT Accept Checks From These Buccaneers" list by the medical lab they use. Bill snaps at her to find them some viable tenants, not downmarket ones that are going to make him look bad by association. Betty wearily tells him she's already on it, without adding that she's also looking to take her CPA skills to an office where they'll be more highly valued but SHE SURE SHOULD.

Prestige Tenants Who Are Scared Of The Neighbourhood < Grubby Tenants Who Can Pay

Who Knew An Expert In Human Psychology Could Be So Insightful?

Situation: Virginia's finally figured out that she can't treat Barb by proxy anymore, so she's come to Dr. Madden's office to confess and tell him she's done with therapy, or whatever this is.

What makes it awkward? Dr. Madden already kind of thought something was up, but he wonders if Virginia's come to the office to see him on this particular evening (rather than just cancel over the phone) because she subconsciously knows she has some stuff she wants to work on herself -- namely, what a big liar she is, and the guilt she feels around that.

How is order restored? It kind of stays awkward, actually. This conversation happens around a flashback to what happened after Bill told her about his broken wiener: though Virginia went into that meeting intending to end their sexual relationship out of loyalty to Libby, she was evidently moved by Bill's invocation of "the work" (how their solving his boner problem could go on to help millions of other impotent men) and also flattered by his contention that she's "the only one" who can "fix" him. So when we cut back to Virginia with Dr. Madden, he's nudging her toward a realization that she's deceiving herself about the nature of her "affair" (his word) or "relationship" (hers) with Bill, and that she's come to Dr. Madden this evening because, on some level, she wants his absolution. Which she won't admit. Anyway, she doesn't have time for that: she's got a hard-on to harden!

Mean Drunks

Alert Type: Denial Alert.

Issue: The formerly estranged, formerly drunk Frank is back in Essie's and Bill's lives.

Complicating Factors: Frank's AA-osity -- urging Essie not to drive after she's had a drink; offering forgiveness that feels more like an accusation -- makes his mother and brother feel judged.

Resolution: "I think you drink as much as you want," Bill assures Essie, "which is as it should be." That he says this when they both have drinks in their hands is just a coincidence!

Spoiler: Frank might not be wrong about Essie's driving.

Licing Her Out

Libby is still volunteering at CORE, and though she's not too proud to get sandwiches, she wants to contribute in a more meaningful way -- specifically, by canvassing a housing project to encourage tenants to participate in a rent strike. Robert, who doesn't seem to doubt her sincerity, flatly refuses to let her come, and when she naïvely points out that he'd said they needed all the canvassers they could get, he has to explain why she might not be that effective: if these tenants, who are living in the first decent apartment they've ever had in their lives (and which is, despite that, still a shithole), have to open the door and see Libby standing there, they're going to dismiss her as just another white person telling them how to live. Not only that, but those buildings are full of rats and lice AND HE REMEMBERS HOW LIBBY FEELS ABOUT LICE. These two have come a long way, but if they're going to graduate from frenemies to friends, she'll have to bring him a lot more sandwiches.

Second Place Is The First Loser

Bill decides to ruin lunch with Virginia by brandishing a paper in the American Urology Review, and at the risk of spoiling it for you if you're still working your way through the archives, a Joseph Kaufman (maybe this real guy?) has published his research on sex, which sounds kind of similar to theirs. Virginia is trying to bright-side it by pointing out that he does mention, in his footnotes, their 1958 paper on the stages of arousal, though it also says they've stopped their clinical research since then. Bill is all bitter that this dude is currently out in front in the field they basically invented -- apparently having added two bullshitty arousal staged in order to distinguish himself (if any of the real Dr. Kaufman's descendants are reading this: that's not my opinion; I'm paraphrasing Bill), and pouts that the only thing that matters in science is "the man who got there first." Virginia doesn't narrow her eyes at that construction BUT I DO. Anyway, Bill, if sex research has moved on without you, isn't that kind of your fault?

You Want (Shady Diet Pill) Fame? Well, Here's Where You Start Paying: In (Making Flo) Sweat

A Job Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Well/With Single-Minded Focus

Alert Type: Boner Revival Alert.

Issue: In case you hadn't heard, Bill's junk stopped working.

Complicating Factors: What might under other circumstances be a loving, mutually supportive series of attempts from both partners to be open to new forms of sexual expression with the goal of removing the psychological blocks keeping Bill from achieving an erection is, because Virginia is trying to apply what she's learned from their research in kind of a clinical way, which is just adding to the feelings of failure Bill's already experiencing.

Resolution: Virginia tries a little light bondage -- she ties Bill's hands together behind his back with her neckerchief, then climbs on top of him while talking about how he's not allowed to touch her bare breasts even though they're right in his face -- and both seem astonished that it produces the desired result. However, her response is to be all "I want you inside me," aggressively taking his pants off, whereas he tries to tell her to keep talking, and in all the chaos, Bill's boner peaces out.

Spoiler: Bill's boner didn't go far.

Misfit + Misfit = Fit...?

Situation: Barb trips (or starts to faint or something) at the bottom of the stairs at the clinic, and Lester helps her up.

What makes it awkward? When she asks whether, based on what he's seen of the patients who come in and, Lester thinks Bill can actually cure people, Lester is evasive because of his own sexual issues, and the conversation turns into a debate on God (Barb has some degree of faith) vs. science (which is what Lester believes in). Barb feels belittled and takes off.

How is order restored? Lester finds Barb at the diner the next day and they have a conversation about how they've both despaired that their conditions may ever improve. After finding this common ground, they actually introduce themselves to one another. Let's all remember this meet-cute moment when their pure true love triumphs over their unco-operative parts!

Shep Vouched For You

White Ladies Don't Suck At Everything After All!

Even though Robert forbade her from joining the canvassing operation, Libby just shows up anyway, and guess what? She's a killer canvasser! I don't think any of us will totally forget what a bigoted bitch she was for the first half of the season, but she's figured out how to make herself a useful ally to an important and underserved cause, so I can probably stop shitting on her for a while.

Cal-o-Metric Girls Need Love Too

Alert Type: Blatant And Unambiguous Sexual Harassment Alert.

Issue: Flo's sick of hinting around and informs Austin that if he wants to keep his job at Cal-o-Metric, he's going to have to fuck her.

Complicating Factors: Considering what a big slut he is, Austin is nervous as hell and tries to prep her for disappointment with a long analogy that boils down to "I won't be able to have sex with you if my boner doesn't like you."

Resolution: Flo opens his pants and determines that his boner is actually fine with this whole thing. Flo's cat is not so sure.

Spoiler: Fine x2. And though Austin thinks that giving Flo the good loving twice satisfies her requirements, this is actually going to be an ongoing arrangement.

Masters vs. Masters

After Essie gets in a car accident which she denies was the result of her driving drunk -- according to her, she only had one Tom Collins -- she ends up at Bill's office, where he watches as Frank (who, as we will all recall, is a plastic surgeon) stitches up her busted face. Obviously, Frank is quick to accuse Essie of being an alcoholic, and Bill of enabling him, and as Essie helplessly begs them both to stop fighting, Bill kicks Frank out of the exam room and finishes stitching her up. But Frank hasn't left, and after Libby has come to pick up Essie and take her home -- "Summon your better nature," Essie asks Bill -- the two brothers have a talk. Frank was so excited to reconnect with Bill: through AA, he'd finally found clarity after years of despair, and wanted to share that with Bill. Naturally, Bill is shitty about this, sneering that to Frank everyone seems like an alcoholic: "Who's next, me?" Frank's basically like, uh, yeah. Frank enumerates symptoms he's seen Bill exhibit in the past few weeks, and draws a direct comparison between Bill and their father, who Frank thinks was an alcoholic too. Bill is incredulous at this accusation, insisting that their father only had one glass of Seagram's after work, but Frank stands his ground: "Our drunk dad beat you, and then, he beat me." But, he says, that doesn't have to be the end of the story: "I forgive you for leaving me. And I forgive our dad."

Bill then proves how right Frank is by transforming into their father -- or, at least, someone who seems a lot like the man Bill described to Virginia on fight night. He's so astonished by the notion that Frank could forgive "the monster who beat you" that he turns this into a failure on Frank's part, accusing Frank of being weak, and guessing that Frank tried to avoid their father's beatings by hiding -- or, as Frank described in the AA share Bill ditched, deflecting with magic tricks and jokes. Frank tries not to take the bait -- "I forgive you, Bill. That's what matters here" -- but that just makes Bill crazier, and he brags about never having begged their father to stop beating him: "I NEVER BEGGED, so why-- why did you? Huh? Maybe the same reason you were a drunk. A sloppy alcoholic, with your amends and your steps and chips, clinging to your little code words and your trinkets because there is something inside you that is weak. You've always been weak, Frank. Francis. Well, that's your real affliction: it's cowardice. You are a coward. You want to forgive me? Okay: forgive me for not respecting you. Forgive me for seeing you for what you really are: a weak little boy who became an idiotic clown, who grew up to become a gutless, pathetic man."

And that's when Frank finally cracks and punches Bill, who -- just like with his father -- takes the punches to show Frank he isn't worth the effort it would take Bill to fight back. "This is what binds us," says Bill, bloody and bitter. "Him, living on in us." Frank hauls ass out of there. Hey, um, maybe Virginia can ask Dr. Madden if he's taking new patients because BILL?!

Winner: Frank, though it's a sad moment for Masterskind.