*A few spoilers for the end of season 1.*
We’re rolling right into season 2 of Sex Education here. This season kicks off with quite the horny bang and gets into all kinds of wild stuff, while still maintaining a nice focus of character.
At the end of season 1, Otis had what you might call a “wanking breakthrough.” After managing to masturbate for the first time, he basically hasn’t stopped, as everything seems to set him off. At the same time, he’s tentatively venturing into officially dating Ola, where they’re taking things slow. Otis has given up the sex therapy business, but schoolwide panic over a chlamydia outbreak has everyone clamoring for guidance. Meanwhile, Jackson deals with athletic pressure and Maeve has an unexpected run-in with her mom.
First of all, kudos to Asa Butterfield for his willingness to make all sorts of embarrassing-looking orgasm faces on camera. Otis’s big breakthrough last season has left him no less sexually awkward, and he struggles with 1) ill-timed erections and 2) getting the excitement of his alone-with-Ola time to match his alone-alone time. Side note, though: when Otis and Ola get together for a makeout-and-maybe-more session, I like that we see them explicitly ask each other, “Is this okay?” at each step of the process. Nice normalization of affirmative consent.
When Otis arrives at school and a bunch of people were wearing face masks, I thought for a moment we were in the pandemic, even though I’d been pretty sure that season 2 was filmed earlier. And I was right—the masks are due to a lot of freaking out and misinformation about how you catch chlamydia, and the visuals are just eerily prescient. I like that, rather than the actual chlamydia, the story is more about stigmas around STIs, as well as inadequate sex education that leads to confusion.
While Otis handles the sex side of the plot, Jackson and Maeve both have more serious things to deal with. Last season, Jackson was chafing under his swimming-champ status, especially given how one of his moms continually pushed him to follow a strict training regimen, but now, he’s really struggling. Things in his personal life have taken a hit, and he’s less compliant, less willing to go along with what others tell him to do. And Maeve’s family has always been a sore subject for her. Her mom unexpectedly turning up bears some resemblance to her plot with her brother last season, but her particular issues with the two are different, and so the stories play out differently. Also, Maeve’s mom is played by Anne-Marie Duff, who I’ll always remember as Fiona from the U.K. version of Shameless.
Not a ton of Ncuti Gatwa today—Eric is more in best-friend mode, so he doesn’t have much plot of his own. Still, Gatwa makes the most of it. As usual, he has some expert line readings, including telling Otis, “You’ve discovered the wonders of your own penis, my friend!” and, “You have the untapped sexual knowledge of a tantric master!” And not for nothing, Eric has the best, most infectious laugh.
What little plot Eric does have deals with late-stage developments from last season. While serving detention together, Eric and Adam wound up having sex, not long after which Adam was sent to military school (unrelated to the sex.) This was the plot I was unsure about last week—the “bully who torments the out gay kid is closeted and secretly into him” is such a cliché, and Adam spent much of last season actively frightening Eric. Why should I be rooting for them to be a couple? But now, Eric is missing Adam and wondering when he’ll see him again.
There is a hunky new student, though, one Eric refers to as “the hottest man [he’s] ever seen,” so we’ll see. Maybe he’ll find someone better for him than Adam.
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