Sex Education
セックス・エデュケーション
Discussed in the Journal
JournalA Yes Already Given Is Not a DebtStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
A sex therapist's son runs an underground clinic at school; every episode is a lesson someone in Japan never received.
Otis Milburn, a sixth-former at Moordale Secondary, is the son of Jean, a sex therapist, and knows everything about sex except how to have it. When he talks the headmaster's son, Adam, through a crisis, Maeve Wiley, clever, poor and treated as the school's outcast, sees a business: a secret sex clinic, Otis giving the advice, Maeve taking the money. It works. Otis waits for Maeve after her abortion; his best friend Eric, who is gay and from a devout Ghanaian-Nigerian family, is beaten by strangers on his birthday; Maeve dates Jackson, the head boy. By the end of the first series Otis has fallen for Maeve and started seeing Ola, and Maeve, taking the blame for her brother's drugs, faces expulsion. Eric and Adam, who has bullied him, have a secret encounter before Adam is sent to military school.
In the second series a chlamydia scare forces the school to hire Jean to teach sex education. Maeve's mother, Erin, a recovering addict, turns up with a small daughter, and relapses; Maeve reports her. Aimee, Maeve's friend, is sexually assaulted on a bus and slowly realises how deeply it has marked her. Eric falls for a new student, Rahim, until Adam declares his love for him at the school musical. Otis leaves Maeve a message saying he loves her, but her neighbour Isaac deletes it.
In the third series a new head, Hope Haddon, tries to impose order, and the students rebel. Jean has a baby, Joy, and a paternity test shocks her. Otis and Maeve at last come together just as she is offered a place on a programme in America, and Aimee persuades her to go. Eric ends it with Adam, feeling he is losing himself, and the school is sold.
The fourth series moves them to Cavendish, a sixth-form college where Otis has a rival therapist, O. Maeve comes home when her mother dies of an overdose; she and Otis come close, stumble over his night with Ruby, and finally say they love each other. Eric, drawn to baptism, leaves a church that will not accept him; Adam tells a new friend he is bisexual; Joanna, Jean's sister, who was abused as a child, speaks about it on Jean's radio show; Aimee and Isaac finally kiss. In the last episode Maeve goes back to America, and she and Otis agree to stop contacting each other. Otis makes up with his mother and with Eric, admits his heart is broken, and finds a note Maeve has left him.
Starring
Asa Butterfieldas Otis Milburn
A socially awkward teenager, raised by a sex therapist, who becomes his school's secret sex adviser.
Otis Milburn’s story
Otis knows the theory from his mother's books and nothing from experience, until talking the headmaster's son through a crisis gives Maeve the idea for their clinic. He falls for her, but when she chooses Jackson he dates Ola, and at a party, drunk, he insults them both. His voicemail telling Maeve he loves her never reaches her. In the third series they kiss just as she wins a place in America, and they say goodbye. At Cavendish he competes with a rival therapist, O, and falls out with Eric. When Maeve's mother dies he stands by her; they say they love each other, then she returns to America and they stop calling. He makes up with his mother and Eric, admits his heart is broken, and finds a note Maeve left.
Gillian Andersonas Jean Milburn
Otis's mother, a celebrated sex therapist who is frank with everyone except, often, herself and her son.
Emma Mackeyas Maeve Wiley
A brilliant, broke girl from a troubled family, who runs the clinic with Otis and falls for him.
Maeve Wiley’s story
Maeve sees a business in Otis's gift and takes the money while he gives the advice. She has an abortion with Otis waiting for her, dates Jackson, and takes the blame for her brother's drugs, which puts her out of school. Back on a programme for gifted students, she takes in her mother, Erin, and her little sister; finding Erin using again, she reports her, and Erin swears never to forgive her. Isaac deletes Otis's message of love. In the third series she and Otis kiss just as she is accepted to study in America, and Aimee persuades her to go. When Erin dies of an overdose she comes home, buries her and tells Otis she loves him. Then she goes back to America to write, and they agree to stop calling. A publisher gets in touch.
Ncuti Gatwaas Eric Effiong
Otis's openly gay best friend from a religious Ghanaian-Nigerian family, working out how to be himself and believe.
Eric Effiong’s story
Eric is Otis's loudest ally until the night Otis misses his birthday and Eric, alone in costume, is beaten by strangers. For a while he dresses plainly and lashes out, then goes to the school dance in drag. In detention a fight with Adam, who has bullied him, turns into a secret encounter before Adam is sent away. Eric falls for Rahim, but when Adam declares his love at the school musical, he chooses Adam. Adam still calls him a friend in front of his mother, and on a family trip to Nigeria Eric kisses another man; forgiven, he ends it anyway, feeling that he is losing himself. At Cavendish he is drawn towards baptism, then leaves the church that will not accept him as he is, and makes up with Otis.
Connor Swindellsas Adam Groff
The headmaster's son, a bully out of self-loathing, who comes to love Eric and struggles to say so.
Aimee Lou Woodas Aimee Gibbs
Maeve's cheerful best friend, who is sexually assaulted on a bus and slowly finds her way back to herself.
Why it matters
Sex Education imagines a school where teenagers finally get the information adults keep failing to give them, and it is funny about that before it is serious. The issues are the ones a curriculum skips: consent, abortion, pleasure, a sexual assault on a bus and the long aftermath, coming out to a religious family, asexuality, disability, a mother's addiction. The series' own legacy is partly practical: it was Netflix's first production to use intimacy coordinators to choreograph its sex scenes, and it has been cited in discussions of how intimate scenes should be filmed. Netflix said it was on course for more than 40 million viewers in its first month. Aimee Lou Wood won a BAFTA for the second series. The question it leaves is simple and, in most places, still open: who teaches young people about sex when the adults around them are too embarrassed to.