Masters of Sex: Season 1

In October 1956, Washington University researcher Dr. William "Bill" Masters (Michael Sheen) proposes a controversial study of human sexuality but is rejected by his university. Undaunted, he begins the study anyway and hires Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan), a nightclub singer-turned-secretary, as his assistant. Upon learning that their sole subject, prostitute Betty Dimello (Annaleigh Ashford), is a lesbian, Virginia sets about recruiting additional female and male subjects, including Bill's co

Virginia has trouble telling Bill that she cannot accept his proposal, but Bill informs her that Scully has cancelled the study because he found out they were monitoring couples having sex. Bill believes it was Ethan who told Scully and fires Virginia on the spot for sleeping with him. Bill moves the study to a brothel with the help of Betty, but he and the participating prostitutes are arrested shortly after. Meanwhile, after being rejected by Virginia, Ethan tries to replicate their sexual lia

Bill and Virginia continue working at the brothel but Bill grows increasingly frustrated with the conditions. Betty recruits some men for the study but Bill is nonplussed to learn they are homosexual prostitutes. Betty blackmails Bill into reversing her tubal ligation but the procedure fails, leading Betty to commit to deceiving her fiancé. Haas takes the case of a woman carrying quadruplets but Scully reassigns it to Bill. Bill drops the homosexual men from his study on the grounds that they ar

With the study back in the hospital, Bill and Virginia recruit new participants on campus. Virginia has a one-night tryst with her ex-husband, George, who appears at the hospital, having signed up as a study participant. Bill begins sleepwalking, possibly due to anxiety. His mother comes to visit, and suggests that she move to an apartment close to them to spend more time with the baby, but this stirs up painful childhood memories of the physical abuse Masters suffered at the hands of his father

When Bill and Virginia expand the study to include couples, they discover that the nature of sex is affected by the participants' attraction to one another. Austin is asked to participate in the study again, but is disappointed that his partner is not Jane, and cannot achieve an erection. This angers him, and he demands that the findings be thrown out and that he be paired with no one else, as Jane will only have sex with him as part of the study, due to the fact that Austin is married. Bill exp

Libby and Bill vacation in Miami, but Masters is drawn back into his work by a sexually adventurous couple there, while Libby tries to open a dialogue with them. Virginia enlists Jane in an effort to debunk Freud's theory that a vaginal orgasm is more mature one than a clitoral one. Dr. DePaul complains to Masters about the respect given to Johnson, who is often mistaken as a doctor, whereas DePaul is often mistaken for a member of the secretarial pool. She also accuses him of conferring legitim

Virginia tries to find a new secretary. Bill tries to balance the study and his affair with his home life. Austin continues his sexual relationship with Margaret Scully, while Barton Scully is stabbed by a trio of gay-bashing thugs while waiting in a car cruising for gay sex. Feeling he cannot be seen at a hospital, he tries to treat himself, but Masters intervenes and stitches him up. He comes home to catch Margaret in her infidelity, but his indifference to it hurts Margaret, who believes him

Johnson redoubles her efforts to get a college degree, but when she learns that Dr. DePaul's Basic Anatomy class is a requirement, DePaul refuses to give her class credit for her work with Masters, though she later concedes that Johnson is one of her better students. Margaret encounters Dale, Scully’s lover, at a bar, and after he states that he is meeting someone there, she sees that the someone is Barton, who had told her that he had a board meeting that night, and who tries to cover by saying

Bill and Virginia decide to film external bodily reactions in the study, and hire filmmaker Lester to film Jane masturbating. Vivian wants a Christian wedding. After revealing that he is Jewish, Ethan agrees to convert to Christianity. Estabrooks expresses regret that she never spoke up to oppose the physical abuse Bill's father inflicted upon him. She also reveals that he had a years-long affair with his secretary, and says that she sees that there is something going on between Bill and Virgini

Flora Banks, a young woman, tells Bill and Virginia that she got pregnant from her participation in the study, and wants to know who the father is. Bill and Virginia disagree as to whether to maintain study confidentiality or divulge the father's identity. Ethan learns that he has been denied a future job at the hospital. Barton informs him that it is because he failed his performance review, as some of his superiors had concerns about his professionalism and character, which Ethan interprets as

With Virginia no longer a part of his office, Bill accepts Libby's offer to temporarily serve as his secretary, to help him help compile the study work for a hospital-wide presentation. However, in the course of her work, she learns of a file on a couple who had sex in the study 23 times. She questions Bill about it, not realizing that the couple in question is Bill and Virginia. When Bill sees another doctor's presentation put his colleagues to sleep, he becomes determined to grab their attenti

Margaret confronts Barton about his homosexuality. He intends to pursue electroshock treatment with the hope of curing it, but Margaret has concerns about the risks involved. DePaul takes a more Bill-like approach when speaking again to Chancellor Fitzhugh about funding. But he tells her that the funding Bill gets is due to the patients he brings into the hospital, which DePaul does not. When she says that patients are not referred to her, Fitzhugh says this is because most women do not want to