That sharp dip in air quality across the nation Sunday night? It was likely due to audiences across the country collectively lighting up cigarettes following what was one of the steamiest, kinkiest, dirtiest sex scenes on TV, airing during an episode of… The Good Wife?
Yes, jaws dropped and cheeks blushed as Archie Panjabi’s Kalinda and her estranged husband, played by Marc Warren, got X-rated at an ice cream parlor early on in Sunday night’s episode. Viewers’ gasps could be as much attributed to the scene’s raciness as it could to the shock that it wasn’t being played out on HBO, Showtime, FX, or another cable network—certainly, explicit sex is de rigueur for series on those channels. This was CBS, the channel so often derided for being watched only by stodgy old folks, and in the middle of primetime. It’s a surprise it even squeaked through the network censors.
Of course, it’s not like network TV has always been entirely prudish. Settle down and prep a cold shower while viewing this survey of some of broadcast television’s most scandalous sex scenes. (WARNING: Some videos NSFW.)
The Good Wife Goes for Ice Cream
Kalinda—The Good Wife’s sexually ambiguous, bed-hopping, leather-clad investigator—has always been one of TV’s more progressive characters. Still, most viewers weren’t prepared when her estranged husband began pleasuring her at a counter in an ice cream parlor during the show’s recent episode. When he fails to make Kalinda, um, melt, he sticks his fingers in her vanilla cone and tries again.
Ally McBeal Gets Her Car Washed
“Why are you so wet?” The first line of this Ally McBeal sex scene is dripping with innuendo, as Peter MacNicol’s John Cage encounters Calista Flockhart’s Ally after she returns from the unlikeliest of trysts: in a drive-through car wash with a complete stranger. As a flustered Ally regales the encounter, a flashback reveals the entire, surprisingly explicit soap-and-squeegee affair. It wasn’t making love, she assures John. It was “that other word…that vulgar verb.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Brings Down the House
It’s David and Maddie with more martial arts. And destruction. And a vampire. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michele Gellar’s slayer Buffy and James Marsters’s vampire Spike are sworn enemies who fight through their sexual tension. During a particularly acrobatic fight in the episode “Smashed,” the two become so aroused that they begin making love—as a house literally falls down around them.
Scandal Gets Scandalous
“Go in your room,” Tony Goldwyn’s married President Fitz instructs Kerry Washington’s strategist Olivia Pope at a hotel when it became clear that their sexual tension became too much to deny. So cue the “OMG!” exclamations when Pope instead boldly walks herself over to his hotel room. The next instruction we hear from Fitz: “Take off your clothes”—which we then see them do, right down to the pair of lacy panties that get tossed onto the floor.
NYPD Butts…er, Blue
Butts on TV: Considering how commonplace it seems these days, it’s hard to imagine a time when there were hardly any tushies shown at all. Credit, then, NYPD Blue creator Steven Bochco for being a trailblazer. He reportedly required all actors who joined the program, which first began its parade of rear ends in 1993, to sign a nudity clause, allowing him to show their goods at his whim. Among the illustrious actors to show their backsides on the show: David Caruso, Charlotte Ross, Dennis Franz, and even Zack Morris himself, Mark-Paul Gosselaar. But it wasn’t just all exhibitionism. As this clip shows, NYPD Blue may be the most erotic shows about cops to ever air.
The Good Wife Listens to NPR
Forget 50 Shades of Grey. For The Good Wife’s Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and Peter (Chris Noth), all it takes to get in the mood is some easy-listening NPR music. With some jazz playing in the background, Peter surprises Alicia in the bathroom, shocks her, really, as his kisses travel further and further down, leading to one of the most blatant broadcast oral sex scenes to make it to air.
Read full article at The Daily Beast