We had been thinking about this for a long time […] One of the things we wanted to explore, given where our show is going, is what constitutes a family, and we started talking about what it was like for a lesbian couple to try and put together a family in that day and age. What we realized is that, if Betty was going to carry the bulk of this storyline, for her to actually have to face the reality of what it means to be a mother in this situation, Helen had to be out of the picture for her to fully take on the reality of what happens. […] It actually made Betty’s struggle all the more heroic in the end.
— EW, Masters of Sex creator Michelle Ashford, talking about the decision to kill off Helen.
Michelle Ashford
October 17, 2016