“I want him. I want him to rub that beard on my face. I want him. Oh God, I want him right now. I can’t wait anymore.” Molly thinks this to herself as she looks at the man (Chris Roberti) she’s just picked up at a bar for a one-night stand as they ride home in an Uber together. She asks him if he wants to kiss her, and he does. The camera films his rough hand on her face and hair in close-up. Both Sheila Callaghan’s script and Chris Teague’s direction are keenly observed, focused squarely on desire and the things that trigger it.

Then the guy cums after a five-second handjob, groaning and spasming for like a full minute, like a character from a Farrelly Brothers movie. He gets thrown out of the Uber for it and everything. Is it funny? Sure — my notes read “lol” and everything. Is it as funny as the moments that preceded it were sharp, sexy, and vulnerable in how they exposed Molly’s hunger for contact with this man? Not by a long shot.

I reviewed the second episode of Dying for Sex for Decider.

Yet for all its reliance on the finely observed details of human interaction, both inside and outside the bedroom, there’s an element of unreality to the proceedings. Part of that is its nature as a sitcom-length dramedy: There’s gotta be a joke every 90 seconds or so, and by god the story and the characters will do whatever it takes to hit that mark. (This is an anti-comedy bias of mine, I freely admit.)

But it also has to do with the character of Molly. White, thin, blonde, and beautiful, she has a smart, successful, attentive (except in one important way) husband who dotes on her. She has a quirky yet dependable friend who does the same. She has no job or calling the show seems to even find worth mentioning, yet she has no apparent worries whatsoever in terms of insurance or medical debt.

Molly has just gotten the worst hand she can possibly be dealt, and that’s true regardless of your socioeconomic status. But her situation is unusual, and the show doesn’t seem interested in examining this. Maybe it’ll get around to it — it’s early yet. But I get the bad feeling that this show is gonna be, ugh, life-affirming, and I’m not sure exploring the ways in which even dying itself is easier on the white and wealthy than it is on others jibes with that overall vibe. (It’s probably going to be easier to get laid looking like Michelle Williams than it might be otherwise, too.)

That said, there’s something honestly admirable about a show that asks its audience to embrace a woman who jilts her husband for being too nice and caring, while not wanting sex enough. That’s pretty much the inverse of what the classic ideal husband delivers, and what the classic ideal wife wants. But pleasure is important, truly and sincerely, much more so than society typically allows us to admit and embrace. Life is too short for anyone to live otherwise — much too short, in Molly’s case. Dying for Sex essentially asks the audience how willing they are to prioritize their own pleasure in far less dire circumstances. That’s a hard question, no pun intended, to answer.

I’m covering Dying for Sex for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere.