REVIEW: ‘Sex Education’ Season 4 Reminds Us High School Isn’t Forever
5/5 talks with Otis
Sex Education filled the gap of British shows like Misfits and Skins, giving us teenagers trying to find their way through school and relationships with mishaps and struggling to talk to each other and their parents all at the same time. Starting with Otis (Asa Butterfield) starting a sex talk business at his school after his mother Jean’s (Gillian Anderson) sex therapy business and his friendship with Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), the show really came into its own with the students of Moordale Secondary School.
Slight spoilers for season 4 of Sex Education lie ahead.
Otis meets and falls for Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey), who works with him on his therapy work. Throughout their time together, they struggle in their feelings for each other, Otis struggles in his own ability to talk about his own sex drive and ability to have sex given his mother’s job, and he often refuses to open up to his friends. But it all comes to a head throughout the first three seasons to lead to season 4, when he heads to a new school without his girlfriend Maeve and with his friend group divided.
Season 4 of Sex Education is completely new territory for fans but is still a fitting send off fans of the series who have come to love these characters and watched them all grow throughout the short run of it. Through Otis’ therapy work, Maeve’s growth outside her life with her mother and her writing, and Eric’s acceptance of himself and his willingness to share his sexuality with his family, the show has let each of its characters grow with it. We’ve seen Aimee (Aimee Lou Wood) understand her pain and grow through it, watched as Adam (Connor Swindells) made choices that were better for himself and not for his father.
What it all lead to was a perfect closure for Sex Education with season 4.
Overcoming your trauma at your own time
Since season 2 of the series, Aimee has struggled with getting close to anyone since she was sexually assaulted while on the bus. The women in her life came together with her to help her cope with taking the bus but it has still weighed on her, making it hard for her to trust the men around her to any degree. What we see throughout most of season 4 is Aimee coming to terms with what happened to her in a way that is healthy for Aimee.
From the start of the series, Sex Education has continued to show us that coping with what has happened to us is completely up to the individual and what they need. For Aimee, it was that she needed time and the ability to bring her trauma to life through an art that she could understand and while it isn’t perfect and she’s not “healed” by any stretch of the imagination, she is making the moves to begin to understand herself again and throughout the season we see her really begin to trust herself.
Which is a theme throughout the whole season, all of these characters are on their way to their lives outside of school and each other and they’re getting ready to leave the confines of what their upbringing brought around them.
Beating the odds
At the end of season 3, Maeve was gifted the ability to go to America to study English under a program that covered her schooling. While it’s not a perfect program for her and it does come with its challenges, this season shows Maeve that she’s not someone who has to be confined to the trailer park that used to color the painting of her days back at Moordale Secondary school. All of our favorite teens have changed greatly throughout the show, growing and encouraging each other to be better than they were before but Maeve has really continued to just challenge what others saw her as.
This season was all about letting herself shine in the midst of even this new school trying to push her down. She might always be the girl who grew up in a less than stable home but Maeve never let that stop her and she wasn’t going to let it ruin her chance at a new life in America and this season showed us just how much Maeve wants this and how much she’s grown from the girl who barely applied herself while at Mooredale.
Finding your people
The biggest change in season 4 comes with Eric. At the new school, Eric finds a group of queer students who invite him into their circle with open arms and for the first time in Eric’s time on the show, he has a group of people who understand him. Otis was always there for him in his own way but he was a straight white boy who didn’t fully understand what Eric was going through. For us, getting to see Eric happy and embracing his sexuality in a more open way in every aspect of his life without having to hide parts of who he is to make someone else happy was refreshing.
It shows a look into who Eric can be. Who he will be as he continues to grow long after the show. Eric has always been unapologetically himself but he still had to hide parts until he could slowly reveal them to those closest to him. It’s why Otis was so important to him but seeing him around other queer people and to see Eric get to celebrate those parts of him was a special aspect of season 4.
Not letting people keep you back
Adam hasn’t always had the easiest go of it. Struggling with the fact that he’s bisexual and not really ready to tell people, he let it ruin his relationship with Eric at the beginning until he thought they were happy. It wasn’t his fault in season 3 that Eric cheated on him and Adam made a decision for himself to not go back to school so throughout most of season 4, we see him taking care of himself and just trying his best to find what works for him.
Separated from everyone, we get to spend time with Adam by just seeing him working on himself and it is nice to just see someone working on who they are and what they need. While everyone else is still in the midst of school and dealing with the school thing and those almost childish aspects, Adam is calm when we check in on him and it’s a nice palette cleanse in the season.
New voices, new obstacles
When Otis heads to this new school, he’s confronted with a much more open school than Moordale. Which means that there is already someone at school who is their sex therapist and there cannot be two at school. Otis struggles to deal with this battle and doesn’t know what to do and the season comes to a head mainly with his struggle to deal with his own problems at home when his mother Jean refuses to deal with her own problems with Otis’ new sister and the responsibilities she puts on Otis.
O (Thaddea Graham) provides Otis with a new challenge and also isn’t really someone who cares whether or not he is having an easy time at school. To see this rivalry play out throughout the season is fascinating and it really does show how the Moordale kids fit in, especially since Otis has to rely a lot on some interesting former classmates he wasn’t really close with to help him.
Friends we all will miss in the end
While the friendships weren’t always perfect and season 4 challenges them more than most, the show always reminds us why we love them so much. It started with Eric and Otis trying to make it through school together and yes, they grew and changed and maybe weren’t always the best for each other. But why we loved Eric and Otis and everyone who crossed their path was because they cared about each other.
Sex Education will be missed and these characters are ones we grew with. In the end, high school can’t stay with us forever but this is one show you will definitely want to revisit.
(featured image: Samuel Taylor/Netflix))
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