‘Masters of Sex’ episode 5 review: Michael Sheen is amazing in depressing, unnerving hour

In between tonight’s episode of “The Walking Dead” and what we had tonight on “Masters of Sex,” we may be able to officially coin October 27 one of the most depressing nights of television in recent history. There wasn’t really any one moment say “this made us smile,” and that is with the expectation that this is not a series that is all about people holding hands and dancing on rainbows.

Clearly, the biggest slice of devastation came courtesy of Libby suffering a miscarriage, which is really tragic no matter how you slice it. She was a long into her pregnancy, and maybe in modern times this baby could have been saved, but now the one bit of glue keeping these two together now seems to be gone. With Bill sleepwalking and with the two in a constant state of stress, we wonder just how long we are going to see these two survive as a couple.

For almost the entire episode, we thought that we were going to sit here and write that this man, still played wonderfully by Michael Sheen, is one of the most horrible men imaginable. He doesn’t show love to his wife or to his mother, does not treat Virginia well, and seems completely detached to everything but the study. But with those tears at the end to Virginia over the loss of his child, he suddenly showed us that he was human. The fact that it came alongside Virginia, and not his own spouse, should be somewhat telling.

Speaking of Virginia, her son Henry hates her, and wants to spend all of his time with the father that doesn’t seem interested in him for more than just a couple of days. While this is hardly a revolutionary story shaping TV history, it was painful and depressing all the same to watch her continually go down the rabbit hole of putting her job first, and everything else somewhere much lower down the list.

You could say that maybe Ethan is happy now with the provost’s daughter Vivian, but is he really? He deflowered her without knowing in advance, and now a guy probably not down for something serious with her is tied to a young girl who values him as her everything.

So in the end, there are no winners this week, except for us as viewers looking for quality television. We cannot judge serious programming for whether or not it makes us feel good sometimes so much as whether or not it does its job effectively. Luckily, “Masters of Sex” did this, and left us with a pit in our stomach we will be feeling for some time. Simply outstanding. Grade: A.

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Photo: Showtime