John is coming in to view an audition that is happening behind a one-way mirror. A beautiful woman enters the room and is attacked by a wild-eyed man. Her face goes blank and the audition is cut. The men watching are wearing helmets that allow them to feel the same things as the women in the room. Three more women enter, one after the other, but none pass the audition by making the men feel the right thing. Except for the final one, who felt true terror at the attack, so much that it overwhelmed the men watching.

John had come down to tell the other man, Herb, that Anne wants to see them so she can complain. She's an actress for this show, and is overwhelmed with the situations they keep putting her in. Herb wants to give her an earful and tell her she can be replaced now so she can't complain anymore, and John realizes he hates Herb.

When they get to Anne's, they plug into a show of hers on TV. John realizes that Herb has been putting her in increasingly dangerous situations to get a boost in emotions on the helmet. Herb spouts off something sexist about how women just want to be put in their place anyway. When John protests, Herb defends himself by reminding John that people want new experiences of things they haven't done before, and learning how to sky dive over and over gets boring after a while. John could hide in the lab making the equipment, but Herb had to keep coming up with new things or they'd be out of a job. And he reminds John that he signed off on everything, even if he didn't read the scripts.

Anne enters, and brings up the fact that a robbery on her apartment is planned soon. She said she's bought a gun and will kill anyone who enters, burglar or actor. Then she says she's quitting at the end of the week. She knows they will keep upping the ante until she dies, and she's unwilling to do that. Herb counters by telling her she can't. The man she's in love with, he's paying. The gun she bought, he recorded it and knows. They've started recording her at all times without her knowing because that's when she lets her guard down the most and the emotions are the most real. Anne smacks him and he smacks her back.

When Anne threatens to kill herself, Herb threatens to edit it to make her look bad. Anne leaves and tells them to as well. They do, and Herb placates John by telling him that Anne will never kill herself anyway, it's not who she is. John goes back to the lab and watches the secretly recorded tapes of her having sex with the man they paid to fall in love with her, pretending it's him instead.