*Series premise spoilers.*
I’m settling in well to this show. Some of the humor veers a bit too cringey for me, but I’m enjoying the plot as it unfolds and how the characters are starting to gel. This episode puts a different spin on a timeless premise for shows about teens.
After learning that Otis’s upbringing has caused him to absorb some of his mom’s talent for sex therapy, Maeve envisions a business where Otis provides therapy to other students about their sex problems. Otis regrets agreeing and gets in over his head, and his first official session is a predictable disaster. He’s ready to give up then and there, but between Maeve’s enterprising nature and Eric’s tenacity, they hit on an ideal spot for Otis to advertise the business with “free samples”: a Friday-night party.
Quick side note: I know the show is set in the present day, because the kids all have phones and viral videos spread like wildfire, but I keep fooling myself into thinking it’s a period show set in the ’90s or early 2000s. These kids write notes to each other in class. What is this??
Before I get into the stuff with the kids, I want to touch on Otis’s mom Jean. Sure, it’s an obvious plot for the expert sex therapist to have a sexually-awkward teenage son with all of the book knowledge but none of the game, but I like that it’s not just Otis being immune to Jean’s incisive analysis. Jean is genuinely flailing here, unsure of herself in a way that wouldn’t seem possible when she’s coolly rebuffing a one-night-stand who got a little too attached. When she can’t figure out what Otis is thinking/feeling, it frustrates her, and she makes some sloppy mistakes in her floundering to get it right.
I enjoy seeing Otis’s timid dive into the world of unlicensed sex therapy. It’s completely believable that he’d offer excellent counsel in the pilot without realizing it but then choke when he was expected to do it on cue. Clearly, Otis is a guy who overthinks things and worries too much, and it’s both entertaining and painful to see how badly he fumbles. It’s quickly becoming apparent that he needs to connect with his “clients” and focus on their problems. When he’s not thinking about himself, he doesn’t have time to get self-conscious; he just does what needs to be done.
Every show about teens has to have at least one party episode, and I like Sex Education’s take on it. Otis and Eric being at the party is itself an additional trope, the “loser” kids struggling their way through a popular kid’s party, but for starters, Otis does not want to be there. He has no desire to be popular, or be noticed by anyone popular. Whenever anybody pays too much attention to him, he makes like a turtle retreating into its shell. The other twist, of course, is that, irrespective of each character’s reaction to being there at the party, their ultimate purpose there is business, getting the word out about Otis’s sex therapy and trying to drum up some clients. It’s fun to watch Otis, Maeve, and Eric each try to work the room in their own way.
As is shaping up to be typical, Eric is a study in contrast with Otis. While Otis dreads going to the party, Eric is thrilled to be there, and he analyzes every move for maximum effect: his look (monochromatic in orange,) his arrival (you do not show up to a cool-kid party early,) and his conversation starters (there’s blow-job advice involved.) His excitement is infectious, but at the same time, he gives off a whiff of desperation in this episode. He’s trying way too hard because he really wants to impress these kids, but popular teens can smell desperation as well as they can smell fear. This won’t end well for him.
There are moments in the episode where Eric’s scenes get a little butt-monkey-adjacent, which bums me out. He had some embarrassing moments in the pilot too, but it gets considerably worse here. I suppose this is twofold: 1) unlike Otis, he really cares about this stuff, and 2) also unlike Otis, he continually puts himself out there. Eric takes risks, which can place him in the path of embarrassing himself, but he’s eternally hopeful for a possible pay-off.
Ncuti Gatwa’s performance feels really honest and naturalistic, even in moments when the writing doesn’t. Early in the episode, Eric says both “take a chill pill” and “fake it until you make it,” but Gatwa’s delivery keeps either from sounding clichéd. And as psyched he is about Maeve hanging out with them (“She’s better than popular because she’s cool,”) he’s able to stay on his toes. I love how neatly he BSes an excuse when Maeve notes that he missed a button on his shirt, insisting, “It’s a new look! It’s like normcore, but with buttons done up wrong.” Gatwa gives off a breezy, unbothered air on the line even as you can feel part of him willing her to buy it.
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