| Dying for Sex | |
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| Genre | Comedy drama |
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| Based on | Dying for Sex by Wondery and Nikki Boyer |
| Showrunner | Elizabeth Meriwether |
| Directed by |
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| Starring | |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Production | |
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| Original release | |
| Network | FX on Hulu |
| Release | April 4, 2025 |
Dying for Sex is an American comedy drama miniseries for FX on Hulu created by Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether. It stars Michelle Williams and is based on the podcast series of the same name created by Molly Kochan and Nikki Boyer. [1] The series premiered on Hulu on April 4, 2025. [2]
Molly starts the series ten years into an unhappy marriage with her husband Steve and inhibited by the traumatic effects of her mother's boyfriend forcing oral sex from her aged seven. During a couples therapy session with Steve, her doctor calls her to say her metastatic breast cancer has progressed to Stage IV. [3] Her medication increases her libido, [4] and Molly attempts to give her husband fellatio in their kitchen, only for him to start crying as her breasts reminded him of her death. At the hospital, she tells counselor Sonya that she had never had an orgasm with another person and their conversation inspires Molly to leave Steve and explore her sexuality, with Nikki taking over the logistics of Molly's treatment. [3]
In the second episode, Molly signs for a dating app and is pleased to receive multiple dick pics. At a subsequent hospital visit, she is told they will induce menopause. On her way out, she invites an app user to a hotel, but backs out after seeing him; she then issues - and rescinds - an invitation for a guy in an elevator to visit her room. Once there, she orders a vibrator and orgasms to Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in Speed , a clownfish entering and exiting a coral reef, and in front of a male webcam model. The man promptly blackmails her, causing her to call Nikki and then Steve; the latter shames Molly, prompting her to gather possessions and leave him immediately. Molly debriefs with Nikki at a bar and then leaves in an Uber with a patron, [3] who prematurely ejaculates on their way to have sex; [5] the driver dumps them at a highway divider. [3]
Having attended a Stage IV cancer group in episode three, she visits a group for those with curable cancer, but is ejected to avoid disconcerting its members. Following an abortive encounter with an inexperienced 25-year-old, Molly starts masturbating and hears her neighbour also doing so; aroused at the thought he is doing so to her, she orgasms. The pair subsequently run into each other while he's emptying his trash in the hallway; her ordering him to pick it up moves both of them to run to their rooms and masturbate and Molly to deny him permission to ejaculate. Molly later storms into his apartment, demands that he masturbates, and tries to kick him in the penis, though the latter causes her femur to snap. [6]
Molly then searches for submissive males online and finds a finance bro into penis humiliation and penis cages, only to struggle to mock it due to her awe with it. Molly and Nikki then attend a "kink-forward, play-party potluck", where Molly witnesses G slowly instructing a woman she had made masturbate on a table. Impressed, Molly visits G at her workplace, where she tells Molly to attempt submission before attempting dominance; following an abortive attempt at the latter with the finance bro, Molly submits to G at the back room of her home goods store. That afternoon, she returns to hospital, where she asserts her wants and needs with her doctor, and explores her relationship with Neighbor Guy. [6]
In episode five, Nikki is unavailable due to anaesthesia from dental surgery, so Molly is taken to the hospital by her mother, a recovering addict who brings uninvited guests; she also sees Steve and his girlfriend. Nikki does not reply to Molly's texts, so she instead invites her pet, a conquest with a kink for puppy play, to snuggle with her for shock value. Nikki breaks up with her boyfriend Noah after he switches her phone off post-surgery. At home, Molly attempts to urinate on her pet, but is interrupted by her mother, and neither can take Molly's pet's collar off; Molly calls Neighbor Guy and Gail tells him about Molly's cancer. After Gail leaves, Molly and Neighbor Guy discuss her condition and his past and she resumes kicking his penis. [7]
Molly then spends Thanksgiving with Neighbor Guy and experiments with butt plugs. She attempts to orgasm with him, but freezes from trauma. At her cancer group, Sonya directs its attendees to write about their fears and then to move their bodies at will while others read their stories, though Molly suffers a deep-vein thrombosis and spends Christmas in hospital. [7] Wanting to orgasm, she ignores Nikki's plans and Neighbor Guy and orders a dojo owner from Queens to masturbate on New Year's Eve; following an argument with Nikki, Molly runs out to the dojo owner's car, but then loses sensation in her hand. [8] She subsequently apologizes to Nikki. [7]
Molly then sees Neighbor Guy while out and collapses shortly afterwards, prompting the pair to profess their love for one another; [7] at the hospital, her collapse is revealed to be caused by a collapsed lung and she is intubated. Nikki goes to collect Neighbor Guy and Molly's things from her apartment, but is interrupted by her car being towed and then by Noah calling her; he brings to the hospital a bagful of vibrators for Molly and soup for Nikki. A subsequent lumbar puncture reveals that her cancer has spread to her spine and she needs to enter hospice care, between which Neighbor Guy makes Molly orgasm. She spends her final weeks with Nikki and Gail and being looked after by Nurse Amy, with one final visit from Noah. After Molly's death, Nikki rekindles with Noah. [9]
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Good Value Diet Soda" | Shannon Murphy | Story by : Kim Rosenstock & Elizabeth Meriwether Teleplay by : Kim Rosenstock | April 4, 2025 |
| 2 | "Masturbation is Important" | Chris Teague | Sheila Callaghan | April 4, 2025 |
| 3 | "Feelings Can Become Amplified" | Chris Teague | Keisha Zollar | April 4, 2025 |
| 4 | "Topping is a Sacred Skill" | Shannon Murphy | Madeleine George | April 4, 2025 |
| 5 | "My Pet" | Shannon Murphy | Harris Danow | April 4, 2025 |
| 6 | "Happy Holidays" | Shannon Murphy | Sasha Stewart & Sabrina Wu | April 4, 2025 |
| 7 | "You're Killing Me, Ernie" | Shannon Murphy | Elizabeth Meriwether | April 4, 2025 |
| 8 | "It's Not That Serious" | Shannon Murphy | Kim Rosenstock | April 4, 2025 |
The series is loosely based on the real-life experiences of Molly Kochan [10] of Los Angeles. After being diagnosed for breast cancer, Kochan underwent chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy, radiation therapy, and breast reconstruction treatment. In 2015, she was re-diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, which meant her illness was terminal. [1] She went on to co-create along with her real-life friend Nikki Boyer a podcast called Dying for Sex, in which Kochan related how, after the diagnosis, she left her unhappy marriage and began a journey of sexual exploration.
Kochan died in 2019 at the age of 45 and, one year later, both her memoir and the podcast were released. [11] Boyer took care of Kochan until the end. [10]
It was announced in November 2023 that Michelle Williams was cast to star in the series, which Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock would showrun. [12] In January 2024, Jenny Slate joined the cast. [13] Rob Delaney, David Rasche, Esco Jouléy, Jay Duplass, Kelvin Yu and Sissy Spacek were added in recurring roles in April. [14] [15] [16] Filming on the series began in March 2024 in New York City. [17] The trailer of Dying for Sex was released on March 18, 2025. [18] The series premiered with all eight episodes in the United States on Hulu on April 4, 2025. [19] Internationally, Dying for Sex was made available to stream on Disney+. [20]
Streaming guide JustWatch reported that Dying for Sex was in the top ten most-streamed series in the U.S. from March 31 to April 6. [21] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Dying for Sex has an approval rating of 96% based on 25 critics' reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Jaunty and sweet but never flippant, Dying for Sex leverages wonderful performances from Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate to present a bittersweet ode to living life to its fullest." [22] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 82 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [23]
Lucy Mangan, in The Guardian, complimented the series for "upend[ing] just about every expectation" and for being "a feminist endeavour to its core." Langan appreciated the show's highlighting of Molly's emotional and physical exploration of her desires, through a "variety of sexcapades," as well as the strong female friendship between Molly and Nikki, wishing, "uniquely in the annals of modern television history," for "longer episodes or a longer season, so that more justice could be done to all parts of Molly’s life." [24]