Dying for Sex

I don't know what I expected when I pressed play on Dying for Sex. Maybe something raunchy as hell. Maybe something extremely depressing. But I wasn't prepared for was how this series would crawl under my skin and just... stay there.

Molly isn't a character. She's a woman unraveling in real time. Her body's failing, and no one knows what to do with that. Not her husband, not her doctors, not even herself. So she does the thing she does best, she makes meaning out of chaos. She dives headfirst into sex, story and sensation. She's doing anything that feels like life while she still has it.

Yeah, this series definitely have it's funny moments. Some parts made me laugh out loud in fact. But the other parts? The other parts felt like being punched in the chest while smiling because underneath Molly's wild stories is a loneliness so sharp it bleeds.

What broke me most wasn't even the diagnosis. It was the friendship. Molly and Nikki. The way they held each other through the fear, the dark jokes, the quiet knowing. It reminded me how love can be both the thing that saves you and the thing that makes the goodbye all the more unbearable.

This show doesn't give you answers. It just hands you the pain, and asks you to feel it.

A really beautiful and well written series.

Based on a podcast of Holly Kochan's final life journey, played by the brilliance of Michelle Williams. Along for the bumpy ride is her friend, Nikki Boyer, and Jenny Slate plays the bumbling sidekick to perfection, attempting to help Holly to fulfill the dying wish of going out on a big sexual bang.

Williams and Slate are having too much fun in between the sadness and misery associated with dying! The writers have them going full pelt - head first - into all sorts of maddening life adventures where normal folks fear to tread. It is a very funny series, with heavy undertones, but balanced just right without falling into cringing sitcom territory.

A lot of people won't like this show because they just want another joyful, beautiful love story about a dying wife being taken care of by her devoted husband. Well, that's not what you'll get here and it is also not reality. Terminally ill women are not victims or props who lose their personalities or desires. They have the right to live and die the way they want to. And to leave a marriage that's broken.

This is a powerful show with phenomenal performances by Williams, Slate and Delaney. I watched it in one sitting. Since I am sick and can't do anything else. For months. And I am glad i didn't have to watch another show about how beautiful dying is...

I started watching the series thinking it would be just a silly comedy, and the first episodes really feel that way, humorous, and a bit absurd. But as the series progresses, it takes a surprisingly deep and emotional turn. The episodes become more reflective, exploring themes like regret, grief, human feelings, and the will to live out our desires. Molly shows us the complexity of being human, while Nikki proves to be the kind of loyal, supportive friend we all wish we had.

I have to admit, the final episodes made me cry and reflect on my own life. This show is the perfect example of not judging a show by its cover.

Some shows are best for watching alone in a binge, and being completely devastated by the end of it. This is one of those shows. It's a funny show, but it's so so heavy. There are quite a few troupes and unrealistic TV things (person of color that's basically her fairy godmother, hot stranger that's her neighbor, and apparently she has the best health insurance in America despite not being wealthy), but the core ideas of the show feel so true. So many devastating truths are beautifully explored in nuance and with a rawness that's rarely seen on TV. We might never move past our trauma. Our trauma is part of who we are. We long for intimacy with another human being but we are so scared of it. It might just take death for us to face our truths. The performances are excellent.