Before we go any further, minor spoilers ahead. If you haven't already seen Bodyguard (streaming now on Netflix) get thee to some Wifi and go to town.
Netflix knows so much about us. It knows that some of us (okay, me) have the viewing habits of a 16-year-old boy which is why it keeps suggesting I watch Designated Survivor and Shooter (check and check). It also knows that we, the insatiable viewing public, love nothing more than a good sex scene. They know we will keep coming back if they offer us some good licentious cavorting and so from Jessica Jones to Orange is The New Black, the streaming service is chock full of erotic offerings to titillate and tease such that they would make EL James and LS Hilton blush.
Which is what makes one of Netflix's newest and most hyped series such a standout. Bodyguard, the political thriller and psychological drama from British TV producer Jed Mecurio, is your classic binge fare - you start an episode while lazily eating a bowl of pasta and four hours later your dinner sits, cold, congealed and utterly forgotten as you paw at your computer to hit 'Play next episode.' It is utterly compelling viewing. However, one of the things that makes this production so remarkable is the sex scenes.
When Home Secretary Julia Montage (Keeley Hawes) and her bodyguard PC David Budd (Richard Madden) finally give in to the positively crackling sexual chemistry between them, they are hungry for one another- voracious in fact. "I'm not the Queen," she tells him as she implores for him to make a move, "you can touch me." Having waited for what feels like ages for them to yield to their deep-seated desire to buck convention and class rules and police protocol and to rip each other's perfectly tailored suits off one another, we are finally treated to the passionate romp we have been waiting for. Huzzah! But what the producers offer up defies conventional sex scene wisdom and it's quite wonderful.
Instead of shots of thrusting bottoms and naked bodies, we are offered sexy shot after sexy shot of them kissing. Yep, good old-fashioned smooching. From the first, tentative moment when Julia reaches up to touch his bottom lip to the hungry way they devour each other's mouths, snogging is unquestionably the seductive star of the show.
Basically, Netflix (and Jed Mecurio) have made kissing great again.
As Julia and David to get it on over the course of the series, their bedroom scenes continue to prominently feature more close-up shots of them smooching (which veer from the tender and the vulnerable, to the positively carnal) than anything else. All of which renders the show far more erotically charged than a bare-breasted frolic ever could be.
This is all quite the turn up for the raunchy books. While say Outlander or Game of Thrones' sex scenes might offer long, lingering wide shots of heaving twosomes, boobs and bottoms on delicious display, Bodyguard remains resolutely focused on all that very sexy snogging. (There is one exception in a lovely shot of Richard Madden's derriere.)
Kissing is normally the amuse bouche of sex scenes, a tasty morsel before the main event when it's time for clothes come off and for the various characters to get down to risqué business. But not in Bodyguard where kissing is the entree, main course and dessert. Far from feeling prudish and retrograde, it is both undeniably sensual and somehow novel.
But don't take my word for it. I'd recommend going back and re-watching the series (definitely the first three episodes anyway) and see for yourself. In fact, just to make sure, there are some scenes you might want to enjoy for a third or fourth or fifth time - we promise we won't judge.