REVIEW: ‘Dying For Sex’ Celebrates Life’s Pleasures

Tender in its approach to exploring the endless complexities of life, death, and orgasms, Dying For Sex implores us to seek joy — of all types — in the precious time we have on Earth. Created by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether and based on the podcast series of the same name, the show is vibrant and alive despite the protagonist’s slow descent into the hereafter. At times wickedly funny and simultaneously gut-wrenching in its frank depiction of grief, the show, like life, understands that pleasure and pain can walk hand-in-hand.

A superb Michelle Williams plays Molly, a 40-year-old who we first meet while in couples counseling with her husband, Steve (Jay Duplass). She’s complaining about how Steve never touches her and the fact that, since her breast cancer treatment, she’s lived in a sexless marriage. However, a phone call from her doctor about a recent biopsy makes her reassess her entire life. Her cancer has metastasized, and she’s dying. Her prognosis, at the longest, is five years, and even that is only a 30% guarantee.

With this news, Molly makes some significant decisions in her life. She leaves her husband to explore herself, her sexuality, and what turns her on. Having never experienced an orgasm, she’s determined to find that release before, well, being released from the pain and suffering her body is putting her through. This runs the gamut from finding her dominant side to kink exploration at a sex-positive party. Some of her interactions play it too broadly, such as a man who likes to dress up and act as a dog, but others are profound in showcasing the many ways we yearn for connection.

Throughout Dying For Sex, there are three crucial relationships. Molly and her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate), her mother Gail (Sissy Spacek), and her neighbor turned lover, played by Rob Delaney, who is referred to as Neighbor Guy. It’s that relationship with her neighbor that best encapsulates the series study of sex and the layered ways in which we want. She’s at first disgusted by him, then uses her anger to fuel her darker, dominant traits to surface with him as submissive.

Dying For Sex highlights the need for connection. 

However, the transformation between the two and how their relationship transforms is one of the highlights of the series. Delaney has never been better, his affable nature merging with a darkness that has always set well behind a heavy brow. But the lightness he brings and the chemistry between the two allow their burgeoning relationship to bloom into something offbeat yet real. There’s genuine care because the characters take the time to figure out each other, clothed and otherwise.

But while the series’ sex-positive position is welcome, it spends far too much time on some of the hokier moments when it thrives in emotional connection. The story between Molly and her mother is deeply complicated as the former must deal with a traumatic moment from her upbringing that rests heavily on her psyche. And despite the severity of the storyline, it isn’t given enough room to breathe even if we witness Molly heal as she processes the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend when she was a child.

The narrative is undoubtedly potent, especially as it arrives as Molly is learning to find herself through her sexuality and needs. But it’s one of the instances where the short season and 30-minute runtimes don’t allow for the show the chance to grow. Spacek is terrific as Gail, and she and Williams work wonderfully against one another. But it’s not the centerpiece relationship to Dying For Sex.

That would be Molly and Nikki. Slate is fantastic as Nikki, a woman watching as she loses her best friend and grapples with the idea of having to live a life without her. Their love story anchors the series. Molly might see stars while exploring her libido, but Nikki would lock down the universe, make it all stop, to keep her best friend. That logic-defying friendship, that specific bond between women who have seen each other at their very worst and loved them more for it, gives Dying For Sex its heart.

Jenny Slate is extraordinary in Dying For Sex. 

Early in Dying For Sex, Molly tells Nikki, “I want to die with you.” What a profound statement and platonic declaration of love. Here is where the grief starts in earnest because Nikki knows she will love Molly until the end, through every prolonged hospital visit and medical malaise. And to love her means she’ll have to say goodbye to her first. The vulnerability in Slate’s performance, as she tries to steadily maintain a level of calm and humor, provides the series a tether. Both characters are finding themselves through the messy unpredictability of life.

Not everything works, of course. There’s an overreliance on internal monologues that distract from the story, and certain storylines need more room for closure. And Esco Jouléy is so wonderful and soulful as Sonya; we wish to see more of her. But the effect of the tear-inducing experience is immense. We care deeply for these characters, primarily the friendship at the center. The series lets us hold them in our fears and questions about life and our purpose.

In the last episode, we’re struck by a line that’s unsettling in its pointed poignancy: death is natural. As natural as birth. Our body knows how to die, just like it knows how to orgasm. Dying For Sex isn’t so much about the death or sex in its title but the life that inspires both. What do we do with our time, and how do we seek others who will fulfill our desires and fill the gaps in our lives with love and laughter? That journey matters most because our lives and the value we find in them stem from those we share our days with.

Dying For Sex hits the emotional target with teary laughter due to a superb ensemble and insightful, earnest writing. Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate are extraordinary as their characters seek what they need to make the most of the time they have left and the time they have together.

Dying For Sex is available now on FX on Hulu.