The Big C: "Sexual Healing"

By Claire Zulkey | July 12, 2011 | 3:00am

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Well it was the sex episode tonight. Was it good for you?

Things have been going so well for Cathy and Paul this season, I was curious to see how her affair with Lenny in Season 1 would factor into this episode (as hinted in the “previously on The Big C” episode teaser.) Never fear: things are by and large still fine between the Jamisons—they’re just trying to figure out how to get their sex on. After Paul gives Cathy her steroid shot, he starts making the moves on her (insert needle-dick joke here. Now insert "insert" joke here.) Cathy’s not feeling up to it, though, and so Paul reassures her, “We have a lot on our plates right now. We’re not teenagers: I don’t miss it!” Which to me doesn’t sound very reassuring: I think you’d want your husband to miss having sex with you, but just be able to deal with it somehow.

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Andrea’s parents have very suddenly discovered they’re being sent to Ghana for missionary work, so Cathy invites her to stay with them, despite Paul’s semi-ambivalence about the situation. In a somewhat predictable turn, Andrea runs into Paul masturbating to a Victoria’s Secret catalog. It’s all good between the two of them eventually, but Cathy catches wind of it and confronts Paul about his lie about not missing sex. For some reason he throws her affair with Lenny in her face, and Cathy points out that he had an affair as well. I suppose the old affairs will come back around later in the season: is Tina possibly pregnant? I’m guessing Lenny isn’t.

After Cathy’s pep talk to him last week, Sean’s on antidepressants and so chipper I assumed that he was lying the entire episode about being on them (but I don’t think that’s the case, at least so far.) After nailing love to Rebecca, he waxes on about his favorite parts of her body, which include her nipple hairs and butt dimples. I don’t know how she must feel like since I have a perfect body, but I think she overreacted just the tiniest bit. Obviously Sean was Rebecca her in his weird way, and you’d think she knew by now that Sean has odd tastes (like making their own toilet paper.)

Rebecca and Cathy have yet another warmed-over Sex and the City-type scene in a sex shop, as the two try to figure out ways to entice their menfolk. Now, once again, I can’t speak to this since my own sex life is an embarrassment of riches, but did anybody else think “That doesn’t sound too bad” when Cathy admitted it had been two months since she and Paul had had sex? She has Stage 4 cancer, after all. But Rebecca was a good friend and chided her for not paying attention to the important things. Although what does Rebecca know, anyway. In an attempt to get Sean to see her as the sex object she is again, she dresses up in a sexy schoolgirl outfit, which he rebuts. However, they bond over Sean’s various disgusting physical imperfections.

Cathy has more success at the sex shop, though. She buys a Fleshlight for Paul so he has new and exciting ways to masturbate, but his first attempt to use it fails miserably when he ends up having sex with his wife instead. What a loser.

Remember how Adam got bad germs all over him last week when the bad girl gave him a blow job? Well his badness doesn’t seem to be going away. After the girl he’s seeing asks to take it slow, another, looser girl opts to make out with him under the bleachers after uttering the ominous statement that instead of being known as the kid whose mom has cancer, he can always be known “for something else.” Adam, you should chat with Shane Botwin from Weeds before you go down that path.

—It felt like Cathy and Rebecca’s discussions about Rebecca and Sean “really” liking each other felt a little bit of a retread. She’s having his baby and they’re voluntarily living together and he went on antidepressants for her—I think we established that already.

—"Come on, Paul. Do me. Come on. It’s gonna be great.”

—”For real? Or are we still in Bruges?”

—It seemed like the producers relied a lot more on pop music this episode than usual—maybe because pop music is sexy?