In the final moments of “Sex/Life” season one, desperate Connecticut housewife and former New York sex-haver Billie (Sarah Shahi) is finally ready to act on years of yearning and months of journaling about the one that got away. She’s been trying to make things work with her handsome, loving, and loaded husband Cooper, and to put dreams of her handsome, loving, and loaded ex-boyfriend Brad in the past. But as the final episode comes to a close, the elevator doors to Brad’s penthouse open. Billie emerges, clad in a girlish puffed-sleeve floral dress. “Now fuck me,” she demands.

Season two of “Sex/Life” brings us back to that exact moment, when it seems Brad and Billie will finally re-consummate their passion and initiate an actual affair. But “Sex/Life” is not a show about cheating, or anything as taboo or titillating as adultery. It’s more of a show about serial monogamy, and extremely hot skinny people in committed relationships having mind-blowing missionary sex while bathed in fuchsia light.

And so season two takes Billie on a journey out of the depths of monogamy and into its shallows; she separates from her husband, immediately meets another handsome man who immediately becomes her boyfriend, occasionally works on her Columbia psych dissertation (it’s about how girls just wanna have fun), and allegedly spends half the week in Connecticut with her children. We also follow along as her embittered ex, Cooper, develops a sex and alcohol addiction that blows up mildly compromises his finance career. Meanwhile, her bestie Sasha has become a Goop girlboss and an icon of single-by-choice feminist girlies — and has once again fallen for her college boyfriend. Brad, Billie’s music executive ex, has met a model named Gigi and is finally really to settle down… maybe. In just six episodes, the season hurtles toward its fairytale ending at breakneck speed, cramming entire seasons’ worth of unhinged plot twists into single, underbaked episodes.

“Sex/Life” is a show about people who are rich, beautiful, and having abundant satisfying sex. They have charming children they love, careers they’re passionate about. And somehow, their lives seem absolutely miserable. Their lavish homes somehow appear bleak onscreen; their forlorn children are entrusted to nannies who appear to be unfamiliar with the concept of a day off. The best thing that ever happens to these people is a night at a fancy restaurant or party, sampling fine vintages while wearing sequins. Even all the sex, as in season one, is somehow both graphic and bland. The season is packed with slow-mo, blue- and pink-lit montages of the various couples banging in various standard positions (missionary, cowgirl), all of which left us vaguely bored.

In this episode, we sort through all the absurd storylines that make up this season, analyze the quality of the sex scenes closely (some might say a little too closely), and examine the show’s attempt to present a bland vision of monogamous marriage to one’s first love as daring, edgy, and revolutionary — even, dare they say, feminist. Also we literally cannot stop laughing. We hope you enjoy this episode half as much as we enjoyed making it. xo

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