Dying For Sex finds the funny in a tragedy

A lot has been made—at least across the pond—about the amount of dicks on-screen in The White Lotus. Which is a bit odd considering that Mike White’s satire averages, what, two shots of them per season? That hardly seems like a show that, to quote that Guardian headline, is “so obsessed with graphic penis footage.” The new FX dramedy Dying For Sex, on the other hand, does, indeed, show a whole lot of dicks, both on the phone and laptop screens of Molly (a charming and vulnerable Michelle Williams, who pulls off a really tricky tonal balancing act here) and in front of the protagonist herself. (“It’s like a sunflower bending toward the sun itself,” marvels Jenny Slate’s Nikki, Molly’s best friend, of a pic of a full erection in one of the show’s many colorful descriptions of the organ. Much later in the miniseries, a large member detaches from a dude’s naked body and starts flying around the room in a moment of surrealistic whimsy.)  

During couples therapy with her husband, a journalist played by Jay Duplass—the writing and the actor are equally great at painting Steve as a responsible, caring, and nevertheless irksome nice guy—she gets a call from her doctor and learns that she has inoperable breast cancer. In another session, this one with her new therapist at the hospital, Sonya (Esco Jouléy, from the second season of Nick Hornby and Stephen Frears’ chatty TV exercise State Of The Union), Molly shifts from anger to sadness as she confesses, “Look, I’m too young, and it sucks, okay? I haven’t done anything in my life. I actually don’t know what I like or what I want. I’ve never…I’ve never even had an orgasm with another person, and now I’m gonna die.” 

If this all sounds heavy, dark, and dismal, know that the show, save for some of the last installment for obvious reasons, really isn’t any of those things. Dying For Sex is, at its heart, a comedy—and a funny, energetic, and buoyant one at that. After the lightbulb moment that Molly has with Sonya, she decides to live for the day, so she leaves stable Steve, crashes with messy Nikki, and embarks on as many sexual adventures as she can while she still has time. Over the course of the show’s eight mostly brisk half hours, we see her go from nervously propositioning a sweaty gym rat in an elevator (only to apologetically back out)  and exploring her nifty $200 vibrator to engaging in piss play with a “human pet,” going to a sex party, and dominating and kicking her slob of a neighbor (Rob Delaney) in the dick as a “top.” (The searching-for-an-orgasm premise and sex-positive spirit is reminiscent of John Cameron Mitchell’s wonderful 2006 film/love letter to Brooklyn Shortbus‚ if you’re looking for an uplifting digestif after your watch.)