Review: 'Masters of Sex' Season 3, Episode 6: The Trial and Error of 'Two Scents'

PREVIOUSLY: Review: ‘Masters of Sex’ Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Matters of Gravity’ Is Out of This World

The Syllabus

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

A fitting companion to last week’s chronicle

of failure, “Two Scents” hangs together on the multiple meanings

of “try”: to attempt, to test, to challenge. In matters of kinship,

sex, romance and science, tonight’s episode of “Masters of Sex”

recognizes that effort alone is in fact no guarantee of the desired

outcome—that tricks of timing, of fortune and fate, often conspire against

us—and yet the characters strive, still, to write a different ending. As the

season passes the midway point, the slightly ragged “Two Scents” establishes

the state of play for the remaining episodes: dissatisfaction becomes action,

and the proverb attributed

to British educator W.E. Hickson becomes the catalyst for change.

Intermediate

Entomology

Stymied in their research by the deeply personal connection

between reminiscence emotion and olfaction—it’s impossible to mass-produce

memories, after all—Virginia (Lizzy Caplan) and Dan (Josh Charles) finally have

a breakthrough. Drawing a rather brilliant connection, Virginia glosses a

recent study, published in Nature, which found that the common gypsy moth,

known to entomologists as Lymantia dispar, secretes pheromones to attract a mate.

Before you can say “climax,” the perfumier and the

scientist are collecting sweat samples from Lester (Kevin Christy) and

investigating their effect on female subjects, reopening the series’ longtime

fascination with the rules of attraction. Is the evidence that pheromones

create a sexual response even when the scent evokes unpleasant

associations—”Her mouth says no, but her vagina says yes,” as

Virginia so succinctly puts it—proof that allure is simply a collision of

molecules? Or, as the consummation of Virginia and Dan’s flirtation may

suggest, is part of the equation beyond the realm of empirical evidence?

As I read it, “Two Scents” tends toward the latter

interpretation even as the study of pheromones pays off. We are not, after all,

mere gypsy moths flying toward every flame. Virginia’s interest in Dan is, to a

significant extent, a reaction to the feeling that her relationship with Bill

has stalled, “forced back to Ground Zero.” This brutally honest

assessment comes as they retreat to the clinic’s observation room after being

recognized at their old haunt, the Chancery Park Plaza Hotel, the camera

peering in through the two-way mirror. Like the striking image of Bill (Michael

Sheen) watching Dan and Virginia earlier with the microphone turned off, the

scene uses the series’ impeccable

set design to reflect the growing gulf between them. “What we

had,” Virginia says from behind the glass, “was about as natural at

two amoeba in a Petri dish.”

A Room of One’s

Own

Though I initially

celebrated Libby’s (Caitlin FitzGerald) outspokenness this season, the

limitations of her role as hectoring wife, fruitlessly (if rightfully)

criticizing Bill’s every decision, become clear once more in “Two

Scents.” She’s not unsympathetic, at least at first, describing her

miscarriage and the terms of her disastrous marriage to Joy (Susan May Pratt),

but the episode underlines the plight of the housewife by transforming her into

a miserable shrew. (For a series interested in the many faces of feminism, it’s

not a good look.) As if it weren’t enough for a fellow football mom to explain

the purpose of spectatorship and snack duty—”Your job is to be invisible,

while cheering them on”—Libby reacts to Paul’s (Ben Koldyke) accusation of

“mollycoddling” Johnny (Jaeden Lieberher) by revealing Joy’s plan to

leave. It’s as needlessly cruel as Bill’s treatment of Johnny’s bully, Dennis (Blake

Morgan Ferris), in “Matters of Gravity,” reducing her discontentment

to a few wild swings of mood. Maybe she and Bill deserve each other.

Too bad, because the magnetic pull of Joy’s empty apartment

held some promise, at least as a midcentury reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s

“A Room of One’s Own.” Libby has spent much of her time in the

decade-or-so covered by “Masters of Sex” thus far casting about for a

purpose, primarily in the realm of politics, and Woolf understood firsthand

that work requires time and space away from the demands of domestic life. More

than anything else, Libby requires a room of her own, if only to begin building

the life raft she needs to leave her husband. It’s disappointing that

“Masters of Sex” should sabotage this instinct for nuance, just so

Libby can engage in another screaming match.

Celebrity Studies

Speaking of disappointments, any potential humor or pathos

“Two Scents” might have dredged from Bill and Virginia’s new

patients, movie star Isabella Ricci (Kristen Hager) and her strapping husband,

plays so broad I can’t even tell you the man’s name. (Lurch? Asshole? Philanderer?

He’s an archetype, and not a particularly engaging one.) The notion of

celebrities as unrepentant narcissists desperate for affirmation or coasting

through life without consequence is all too familiar, and “Masters of

Sex” invests surprisingly little energy in complicating the stereotype.

At the very least, the episode does seem willing to poke fun

at its own excesses. Despite her treatment at the clinic being a

“secret,” Ricci turns up at the clinic in a less-than-inconspicuous

get-up—wide-brimmed maroon hat, bug-eye sunglasses, leggy dress, white fur

coat—and I couldn’t help but laugh at the smash cut to Virginia in the break

room after Ricci rips open her blouse: “The problem is… She’s

insane.”

Remedial Parenting

Boy, is Bill Masters insufferable sometimes.

Explaining the quarterback sneak to Johnny using salt and pepper shakers,

calling the members of the youth football team by their jersey numbers, and

befriending his son’s bully, he hits a new low on the likability index here.

Unsurprisingly, however, “Masters of Sex”—never shy about turning our

frustration with Bill to useful ends—twists his extraordinary selfishness in

the final act, framing him as a man with the stunted emotional intelligence of

a child. Replicating the image that concluded “Matters of Gravity,”

the camera pulls back from Bill and Dennis discussing trading cards on the

couch to reveal Johnny hidden in the dark, watching as Bill watched Dan and

Virginia, with a mixture of fear and longing. “Sometimes people just seem

to be slipping away,” Bill says to Paul earlier in the episode, yet he’s

too immature to realize that he’s visiting the same sorrow on his son.

If Bill seems to have failed in his attempt to avoid the

mistakes his father made, Virginia at least continues to try, with mixed

results, to oppose her mother’s fantasy of “someplace better.”

“You don’t take care of me!” Virginia yells at Edna (Frances Fisher)

as Tessa (Isabelle Fuhrman) eavesdrops through the door. “You belittle me!

And you criticize me!” While she discourages Tessa from taking seriously

Edna’s interest in husbands and beehive hairdos, Virginia begins to believe in

fairy tales herself—she’s suddenly taken by Dan’s idea of “proper

courtship,” something she’s never evinced much interest in before. The

unifying action in “Two Scents” may be the characters’ attempt to

escape from the expectations of their parents, and it’s telling, in the end,

that none manage the feat.

“If at first

you don’t succeed, try, try again,” goes the revised proverb (wrongly)

attributed to W.C. Fields. “Then quit.”

Public Speaking

Stealing the best quote from right under Betty DiMello’s

(Annaleigh Ashford) nose, it’s Lester’s wife, Jane (Heléne Yorke): “Can I

just say that I have to pee?” she asks, hoping to catch a closer look at

Isabella Ricci. “I’ve had two kids! By the time I get out there, it’ll be

true.”

Head of the Class

Way to go, Tessa! Your grandmother may not give two craps,

and your mother’s brilliant career may have made you too shy to share the news,

but I’m proud of you. I don’t read Teen Society, but I’m sure “Life and

Love” is great.

Grade: B

READ MORE: ‘Masters of Sex’ Creator Michelle Ashford on Season 4 Plans and Beyond

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