If you've ever questioned how many emotions you can feel at the same time, best new shows that I have seen in years.

The premise: a woman discovers she has stage 4 cancer and leaves her husband to try and chase her elusive dream of an orgasm with another person. It sounds depressing (and more than a little awkward), but it manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, sweet, and brilliantly clever. It also manages to skewer the idea of cancer and death being "inspirational" while still being, somehow, inspirational. Seeing Molly bring a human pet that she met on a kink app into a chemo session specifically to make her awful (ex-ish) husband and his new girlfriend stop telling her earnestly that she is a hero is... perfect.

In fact, the entire miniseries is perfect. Only eight episodes long, and with episodes averaging out at around the 30-minute mark, it's a very bingeable show. The writing has to be tight, and not a single word is wasted. Michelle Williams (as Molly) and Jenny Slate (as Nikki) give award-worthy performances that they disappear into, ed by a stellar ing cast. The show expertly weaves between levity and darkness, sometimes shockingly, and manages to be deeply relatable, despite being about a situation that few people can relate to.

It's A Spiritual Successor To Sex And The City (Without The Problematic Bits)

Dying For Sex Handles Kink & Sexual Desire Incredibly Well

Many shows have dealt with sex, kink, and sexual desire, but it's a difficult thing to do well. Sex is, absolutely, funny, but it can be difficult to stay on the right side of the laughing-with/laughing-at line, and when dealing with kink, most shows fetishize fetishes, creating a wall between the viewer and the world being explored. However, it's clear that Dying For Sex has put a lot of care into portraying the kink community with as much accuracy and respect as possible, and it pays off.

There are extremely explicit scenes throughout the series, and sex that is good, bad, and everything in between. But none of it feels like the show is shaming the characters involved with it — whether kinky or vanilla. It models an extremely healthy exploration of sexual desire, and one that comes with physical limitations. It's a far cry from the one-liners of SATC that prioritize a quick laugh over a respectful discussion, but it has the same ability to center topics that would usually be considered taboo.

It's a far cry from the one-liners of SATC that prioritize a quick laugh over a respectful discussion

One of the best things about it is that it is clearly incredibly well-researched, too. Characters who come into Molly's world through kink are not one-dimensional doms, but people with real jobs and lives outside of their sexual preferences, and they are never the butt of the joke. Details like mentions of top drop, potluck at a kink party, and just seeing aftercare onscreen highlight how Dying for Sex is created by people who are clearly knowledgeable about the scene — or just know how to hire the right experts to check their work.

Yes, She's Dying, But There's A Winged Body Part Flying Out The Window

Dying For Sex Is A Masterclass In Dark Humor & How To Talk About Serious Subjects

The series manages to pack a significant number of meaningful subjects into only a few hours of TV; not just death and sex (which, on their own, are pretty weighty), but everything from childhood trauma to the breakdown of a marriage, difficult relationships with parents, racism and sexism in medicine, kink shaming... it's a laundry list of Serious Subjects. However, it's all approached with an awareness that in comparison to death, it's not that deep, and that life itself can only be taken so seriously.

It also provides excellent, genuine commentary on the state of medicine in the US. Molly's relationship with her oncologist, Doctor Pankowitz (David Rasche), is a key part of the show. He starts off cold and even misogynistic (no, Dr. Pankowitz, gynecological issues are not "mental health"), and Molly struggles to speak up. However, as the show goes on, she is able to request what she needs from him, to make him take more time and care with her, and to eventually make him a er in her goals.

This is actively contrasted with her first doctor, whose dismissiveness led to her cancer not being diagnosed when she first brought him concerns, but both reflect the state of misogyny in medicine. And yet they make us laugh along the way. Nikki screaming at the first doctor (screaming forgiveness, but still!), at Dr. Pankowitz wearing a party hat and figuring out how to talk about sex, are all scenes that allow the show to make its point without hammering us over the head with it.

The heaviest moments are balanced out with viciously, brilliantly dark humor. Dying For Sex feels very much like Fleabag in that way, with an inner monologue from the lead that is absolutely hilarious, and which is often used to break the tension of the very big scenes. The opening episodes are more comedy than drama, and the show as a whole is an absolute masterclass in dark humor.

I Have Never Snort-Laughed While Sobbing During A Death Scene Before

Dying For Sex Is Uplifting, Absolutely Devastating & Never Trite

Of course, just when you think that it's all dark jokes and dry humor, Dying For Sex will level you with an absolute gut-punch of a scene — Molly breaking a bone for the first time, or wondering if her date saw her chemo port. There's something magical about combining these brutal moments with the irreverence that the show does so well, and there is not one that falls flat, or that crosses from funny to uncomfortably cringey.

Just when you think that it's all dark jokes and dry humor, Dying For Sex will level you with an absolute gut-punch of a scene.

The rest of the magic in the show is in how it manages to take a deeply unusual circumstance and turn it into something incredibly relatable — even borderline wish-fulfillment. Of course, no one would want to be diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, no matter the state of their orgasms, but it speaks to a universal desire to discover ourselves, and to be seen and wanted and so very loved in a friendship that will absolutely stand up to death.

Everyone deserves someone like Sonya to guide them through the hardest parts of life, and to find a way to turn an uncomfortably misogynistic doctor into a careful listener and great . Molly steps into herself, and the shot of her deathbed from above is absolutely devastating and beautiful in equal measure.

And it would be so easy for that to be trite — another emotional drama about death that is really about life, and "seizing the day" — except this isn't that, either. Early on, the show makes the point that this isn't about that kind of cliché, when Molly yells at Sonya about how ridiculous, how unfair her situation is, and how a bucket list about going rollerskating isn't going to fix it.

It's not really about "finding joy in the little things" or anything that would fit in a greeting card. It's about something so much more visceral than that, and something deeply real - it's not going to leave you galvanized to pursue your most outrageous, impractical dreams under a "life is short" banner. Instead, it will rip out your heart, rearrange it a bit, give it a good stomping, and then put it back in, and I'm not sure that I will ever be the same.