Why Can't I Stop Thinking About the Sex Scenes on Sharp Objects?

Updated on 8/28/2018 at 1:10 PM

I've been happily clearing my Sunday nights to watch Sharp Objects, the TV adaptation of a book I loved very much — and boy, has it been worth it. Watching Gillian Flynn's creepy page-turner come to life with the magic that is Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson is such a joy. The show is dark, secretive, captivating, and of course, sharp. A gripping take on the complicated struggle that is "going home again," Sharp Objects portrays mother-daughter relationships so deftly and diabolically that you nearly forget there are even more diabolical crimes at its very focus. The acting is superb, the music is amazing, but the sex scenes? The sex scenes are something else. I don't know what it is about these scenes, but you guys: they are so sexy. As I write this story, there have only been two of them — but the ongoing tension and clear sexual chemistry between Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) and Richard Willis (Chris Messina) was steamy enough to count as foreplay.

In both the book and show, Camille Preaker is a journalist and recovering self-harm addict who is sent on assignment to cover a murder in her hometown of Wind Gap, MO. Also there trying to crack the case is a slick detective named Richard Willis, who is so obviously attracted to Camille the second he lays eyes on her; even though she guzzles vodka out of a water bottle all day long (while driving, I'd like to add), she somehow still has gorgeous skin and glossy hair. Unfortunately, Camille also has a history of cutting words into her skin, and her entire body is covered in scars, including words like "vanish," "dirt," and "fix" that also serve as the titles of each episode. She wears long-sleeve shirts and jeans even in the warm Missouri weather, and refuses to let anyone see them.

The two begin to trade theories and information about the case, but are still kind of keeping each other at arm's length. You know they're going to hook up eventually, and in the show's fourth episode, "Ripe," things get physical.

Camille and Richard walk deep into the nearby woods to an old shed where the two little girls murdered in Wind Gap used to play. By this point they've nearly finished a bottle of whiskey. Camille comes up to Richard, and when he tries to kiss her, she turns away, drops her bag on the ground, and murmurs "No." Before I could even yell "What the f*ck?", Camille starts unbuttoning her pants and shoves Detective Dick's hand in there! She still won't kiss him (hot!) and won't even make eye contact (HOT!). As Richard is fingering her, Camille is also having flashbacks of herself running from the shed after a traumatic experience. She wraps her arms around him and bites down on his shoulder as they both scream out. It was almost completely impersonal, while also being scarily intimate.

In the fifth episode, "Closer," Camille and Richard get exactly that. After a particularly ugly conversation with her mother Adora (Clarkson), Camille packs up, flees her house, and bangs on Detective Dick's motel room door. This time, she goes in for the kill, kissing Richard and demanding to see him naked. His underwear came off, and my jaw dropped (then, so did Camille's). At first, they agree to masturbate in front of each other. But something seems to come over Camille; she decides that it needs to go further.

It was almost completely impersonal, while also being scarily intimate.

Again, Camille is running the show. In an effort not to let Richard see her scars, she turns off the light and takes her pants halfway down. Richard tries to pull them off, but she won't let him. He pins her arms above her head to try again, and Camille says breathily, "My way. We'll do it my way." They start having some of the hottest pants-half-down sex I've ever seen, then the camera flashes on the scar on Camille's upper thigh reading "closer."

Bruh.

So far, the sex scenes in Sharp Objects have been that weird kind of sexy that's almost painful to watch. Camille's inability to show her scars — both physical and emotional — makes her dalliances with the detective that much more intense and heartbreaking. There's also the other possibility: that Camille is so traumatized by her past, so disconnected, that she isn't even feeling the detective like that and is instead weaponizing her sexuality to get more information for her articles. I'm fine with either one, honestly. I love watching broken, complicated women on screen because it makes me feel a little less so. I appreciate when a character can make my crazy feel just a tiny bit normal by comparison. Whatever ends up happening between Camille and Richard in the end (it could vary from the book, you never know), I am completely here for more achingly sexy scenes between them.