Netflix tells me that I am a 97% match for Sex/Life, a soap opera about the mom in a heterosexual nuclear family whose bad boy ex shows up. The blurb sounds annoyingly heterosexist; I highly doubt that I will like it. But it's 4:00 am, fireworks kept me up all night, and I'm too groggy to say "no" (I used to have the same problem in bars around 2:00 am).
Scene 1: Billie is a young woman in a dance club, holding her hair. Blaring music. Voiceover about when you are young, "the world is full of possibilities." I remember lots of Saturday nights like that, except I never danced holding my hair. She grabs a scuzzy-looking freakazoid, and they sneak into a booth and swallow each other's tongues. Then he performs oral sex on her. I remember lots of Saturday nights like that, except I was the one performing oral sex on the scuzzy-looking freakazoid.
Switch to the present: Billie in bed with her baby, being awakened by her toddler. I don't remember anything like this. She goes out to the back yard of the gigantic mansion that passes for middle-class housing on tv, to see the butterfly that her toddler -- named Hudson -- has captured. Husband Boring (Mike Vogel) arrives in a swank suit ("as gorgeous inside as outside," Billie voice-overs. "I've never caught him looking at another woman"). Nope, no recognition. I couldn't care less if Bob looks at other guys. In fact, I encourage it, especially if he brings him home to share.
Scene 2: Boring comes in the house -- wait, I thought it was morning. He's just getting home. He takes off his clothes while discussing boring heterosexual managerial-professional things. Butt and chest close-ups, but full body is blurred. Billie drools.
Whoops -- he gets a phone call before they can swallow tongues. While Billie waits, she flashes back to the various guys she's known who were much better in bed. We see their various sexual positions (some nice butts).
Phone call's over. Time for the tongue-swallowing -- nope, a peck, then hitting the shower without her. No wonder girlfriend spends so much time thinking about past hookups!
So why marry someone so boring? He had money? Because the bad boys turned out to be bad. We get a montage: one was abusive, another ghosted her, she caught one screwing a woman, and another screwing a guy! You've got to see the disgust on her face. Girlfriend is intensely biphobic!
Scene 3: Flashback to Boring and Billie moving into their mansion in super-ritzy Greenwich, Connecticut. It's snowing. I get the feeling that we're at the end of a Hallmark Christmas romcom, where the heroine chooses the nice guy over the sleazoid, and discovers that he's actually a prince.
Flashback within a flashback of Boring meeting Billie's working-class parents (and actually liking them!), giving a lady his seat on the train (yeah, that will save the world), and at work, celebrating the company's "high risk, high reward" money-making something or other. I get it; he's nice, and rich. Who cares if he has a small penis?
Flashbacks to getting married and giving birth. Then we cut to Boring watching football in the bedroom. Billie finally gets him interested in doing it (gross scene of her breasts flappoing all over), but he keeps trying to sneak peeks at the game! "Boring, dear...you don't seem to be into it. Go get my vibrator."
Scene 4: While Boring snores, Billie gets up, pours some vodka into a coffee cup and calls her friend Sasha, who is still part of the party scene: "The band hasn't even gone on yet."
Billie: I hate being the mom in a heterosexual nuclear family! Of course, her kids are absolutely wonderful, giving her life infinite meaning, making every moment a joy. Women who don't have kids are worthless, living drab, shallow, useless lives. But otherwise, life with Boring is so darn boring! I'm suffocating here! (This complete contradiction is puzzling. I'm wondering if some higher-up forced the "kids are the meaning of life" proviso onto the "life is boring" speech). I'm thinking of going back to Bad Boy.
Sasha: Oh, no, girlfriend. You have a perfect life as the mom in a heterosexual nuclear family. Millions of women would kill to get what you have (wait...90% of American women get married, and 86% have children). You will not fuck that up! She goes out into the club, where people are dancing and flirting, and starts cruising hot guys. This life is drab, empty, and meaningless, believe me! Sorry, gotta go.
Scene 5: Billie starts writing a journal about how much she liked the old days. Flashback to Billie and Sasha strutting their stuff. Sasha completed her Ph.D. and is now a psychology professor at their alma mater. So she has achieved academic success, but her life is still drab, empty, and meaningless, because she isn't married with children? Flashback continues: every Saturday night they went to the Ludlow Street Cafe to try to pick up a member of whatever band was playing. On this particular night, Sasha hooks up with the rapper Kossi.
This is the second time a woman has said "hello" to an aroused penis. Is that a heterosexual convention, or did the writers just make it up?
So Billie has to walk home all alone through grunge world. A scuzzy biker tries to grab her, but just-as-scuzzy Bad Boy rushes to the rescue He explains that Kossi asked him to give her a ride home (did he actually stop the sex to go find Bad Boy, or what?). He turns out to be a rich record producer who lives in a ridiculously elegant apartment the size of a museum gallery, with a stage and a huge statue of the Buddha in the main room (I've seen Liza Minelli's apartment in New York: maybe a tenth of this size). . And he's good at oral sex by the pool. The only reason to choose Boring over Bad Boy would be his money, but turns out that Bad Boy is even richer. So what's the problem? Marry him!
Scene 6: Uh-oh, Billie forgot to close down the journal where she describes sex with Bad Boy in detail, and exclaims "I miss him so much!" Boring sees it, and freaks out. He grabs her by the neck and yells "Who are you?"Hey, that's physical abuse! Dump him! Then: "I can be bad, too. How about if we do it doggy style, right here in the kitchen next to the artistic bowl of green apples, where our kid can come in at any moment?"
While ramming, he yells "You're mine! You're all mine, and don't you forget it!"Um..equal partnership? Women are not property? Does Billie object? No, she likes it.
Scene 7. Later, Billie looks at the bruise she got from the rough but apparently consensual sex, while a guilty-looking Boring puts on his boring suit. The minute he leaves, she goes to the train station and...runs into another nuclear family mom. "Why, Billie, what are you going into New York for? Do you have an appointment there? With whom?" She stumbles and murmurs and makes up a story about her Mom being sick. Wait -- before, she said she moved to New York to go to grad school. Did she grow up there?
She goes to Sasha's apartment, explaining that she's basically having a panic attack. She can't breathe, her heart is racing...about what? She just fantasized about an ex. Wait -- Sasha is not alone. We zoom in to her half-naked houseguest -- Bad Boy!
So what? Billie has been married to someone else for at least four years. Why can't Sasha date her ex? But Billie thinks of this as a gigantic betrayal, and rushes out. The end.
Beefcake: Both Boring and Bad Boy get shirtless and butt shots. Bad Boy shows his penis in Episode 3. The only other male character is a rapper who doesn't ake anything off, even while getting oral sex. Jonathan Sadowski (left) appears in six episodes, but not here.
Other Sights: Some establishing shots of New York City.
Heterosexism: Contradictory. Sasha has a professional career, a hot boyfriend, but her life is presented as meaningless. Billie life with house, husband, and kids is presented as perfect one moment, meaningless the next. So women can't find meaning in their lives, regardless of what they do.
Gay Characters: Obviously ntot, unless you count the freakout over the bi boyfriend.
Reflections of My Life: I remember some partying back in the day, but otherwise everyone's reactions seem bizarre. Who cares if your wife writes a journal entry about an ex? Or you friend dates an ex?
Stacking the Deck: Making Bad Boy and Boring BOTH ultra-rich? Ridiculous!
My Grade: D.