Masters of Sex S2E8 - "Mirror, Mirror" Recap

Bill has been meeting with a plastic surgeon named Frank. They're old college mates that lost touch but now Frank has sought him out because he and his wife are struggling to conceive. As it turns out, he has a low sperm count. Bill is ready to dismiss him but then we learn that Frank is Bill's brother.

Virginia is highly determined to thoroughly research sexual dysfunction, as more of these cases have been turned away during their new screening process for the study. Roughly a third of the applicants have been shown to suffer from various forms of sexual dysfunction. She also has Barbara on her mind, who admitted to having a "closed vagina," a condition today known as vaginismus.

Lester asks for time off to attend his father's funeral and tries out his first draft of his eulogy on Virginia while a couple in the study is engaged in coitus.

Bill needs to find more funding for the practice and is being audited by the IRS for filing as tax exempt when he needed a board of trustees in order to be able to qualify. Bill and Betty devise a scheme to enlist the chief of police as one of their board members and set up a dinner with the chief and his wife, along with Bill and Libby. Betty also makes Virginia attend to ensure the best possible outcome. They sell the study as a preventative measure of divorce, saying that sexual dissatisfaction is the number one cause of it, which in turn leads to bad-behaving people who engage in criminal activity. Libby then suggests they attend the Veiled Prophet Ball, an event which promotes philanthropy among the city's elite. She also volunteers to raise funds. Libby has quite the knack for sales, as she convinces the Cal-O-Metric lady Flo to purchase an ad in the VP Ball program.

On her way out of the building, Libby is nearly run over by a pickup truck filled with white men who throw the body of a black activist and history teacher out onto the sidewalk. Libby is shocked, frightened, and drives off, but not before being spotted by Coral's brother Robert. The police and newspaper later report the incident as stemming from the man having marijuana on him. It's a cover-up stemming from the white supremacy of law enforcement. Robert later stops by to ask Libby about what she witnessed. The police won't do anything if the only witnesses that come forward are black. In their conversation, Robert also compares the VP Ball to the KKK, as it's a room full of white people listening to a person in a white hood.

Bill pronounced the Cal-O-Metric spokesman dead. He was an old obese radio star that ate himself to death at the hotel where Bill serves as an on-call doctor. He tells Elliot, the night manager, that he'll need a coroner, not an obstetrician. Later, we see Flo hire Langham as the new spokesman for Cal-O-Metric.

Virginia goes to meet Barbara and asks to speak with her to get a better understanding of her type of sexual dysfunction, vaginismus. Unfortunately, things grow dark when the the questioning about Barb's first sexual experience triggers her memory that it was her brother. They had an ongoing incestuous relationship until their mother caught them. The abruptness of the memory coming back has Barbara terrified to the point that she comes calling on Virginia late at night. Virginia thinks that God closed her up because of what they did and that it sickened them.

At the VP Ball, Libby sees the Veiled Prophet wearing a white hood and begins to notice how all of the waiters are black. She tells Bill about Robert stopping by and tells the truth about what she saw. She says how Robert wants her to go the police and Bill is exasperated by the thought, saying it's not their issue. She then points out to Bill that everything in his life has been about the study and now she doesn't know where she fits in. He tells her she fits with him. But Libby later goes to visit Robert to talk about what she saw.

Virginia makes an appointment for Barbara with a psychologist but Barbara is horrified about the idea of sitting down with a stranger, particularly a male one, and share such dark secrets. Virginia then rashly goes to the appointment, impersonating Betty, to relay the story she shared in the hopes of receiving some useful advice that she may pass on to Betty.

Bill meets with Frank, who talks about how he first became interested in plastic surgery after seeing a woman who got into a horrific accident be patched up with a new face. Unfortunately, the accident was a failed suicide attempt, which she later fixed with a bottle of pills. Fixing a person's outside is the easy part. Frank admits he spent his life pretending Bill didn't exist but now he wants his brother back.

Masters of Sex airs on Sundays on Showtime at 10PM.