Everyone on 'Masters of Sex' Needs Virginia

If last week's episode wasn't your cup of tea, never fear: This week on Masters of Sex 's new episode "Dirty Jobs" the show went back to delivering some fast paced plot (not that I don't love a nuanced conversation on male gender roles, but viewers do not live on intellectual exploration alone, you know?). And as this week's twists and turns unfold, one major take-away point emerges: everyone would be lost without Virginia Johnson. Cause seriously, guys, she's awesome. And yet she just keeps getting screwed over.

Bill's had a reasonable understanding of how vital Virginia is to his study for quite some time now, but this week, as he tries to start lining up research subjects, he gains a whole new appreciation for it. It turns out that not only is Bill way less good at making people feel comfortable in general, but women are way less eager to sign on to a sex study when there aren't any women researchers. Go figure. Plus Bill just doesn't think of things like warming up the dildo on his own. He tries once again to convince the lecherous hospital administrator to get the board to hire Virgnia, even insinuating that the secretary assigned to him, who doesn't know anything about secretary work, is the administrator's mistress.

This, naturally, doesn't actually work out for the best. Despite Bill's efforts to keep this lecherous pig as far away from the study as possible, he not only shows up to observe, he later brings along a whole troop of other doctors to creepily watch an unsuspecting woman from behind the mirror. This here, this is why women are reluctant to sign on to a sex study run only by men. And after Bill learns that the administrator in question never even mentioned Virginia to the board because you shouldn't "promote secretaries to lofty positions," and that he has no intention to stop being a creep, Bill punches him and is out of a job.

See, this is the kind of thing that didn't tend to happen when Virginia is around.

Case and point, when Virginia is confronted by Langham who was visiting his kids in Alton and saw Virginia and Bill at the hotel there, she plays it off perfectly. Because she is awesome like that.

Meanwhile, Virginia's other boss, Dr. Lillian DePaul, does not seem to appreciate just how awesome Virginia is. The two have a meeting with a big shot doctor from out of town to talk about DePaul's pap smear program, and Virginia makes the whole thing run smoothly, correcting DePaul's lapses brought on by the tumor, and even going the extra mile to talk DePaul up for a separate award. But then it turns out Langham doesn't beleive Virginia's explanation about the hotel after all, and he tells DePaul that Virginia and Bill are having an affair. Rather than lashing out, DePaul is just quietly heartbroken that Virginia won't let her in, in spite of everything, and hands over her program to the visiting doctor to take to Miami.

In other words, after throwing herself into yet another project she believes in and working her fingers to the bone to make it happen, Virginia is cut out again. Instead of inheriting DePaul's program, Virginia's contributions go unrecognized and unrewarded yet again. For a woman who is so invested in her work — and the idea of work itself — it's got to be crushing. So it's no wonder that Virginia, having been twice burned now, has decided that following her dreams is overrated and doing for herself by any means necessary is the way to go. In other words, she's decided to seriously commit to the whole selling diet pills thing. (And she's creepily good at it).

Hopefully, though, things will be looking up for Virginia soon — although things aren't looking so great for a lot of people. Bill, out of work once again, is not welcome at most hospitals now, a fact that has Libby in hysterics — though Libby herself has become a much less sympathetic figure as she continues to torment Coral, the poor eighteen year old nanny; if there's a scene in this episode even more uncomfortable than the lecherous doctors ogling the research subjects, it's Libby forcibly scrubbing Coral's hair with anti-lice shampoo (because obviously black people equal dirty right?). But despite the mess his household is getting to be, Bill at least has found a hospital willing to take him, and to hire Virginia to boot. Only catch? It's a black hospital.

Wonder how Libby's going to react.

Image: Showtime