*A few spoilers for the end of season 2.*
And we’re onto season 3! There’s a lot going on in this first episode, and to be honest, I’m a little lukewarm on it. Numerous plot points are getting set up here, and while some intrigue me, others feel kind of tired.
It’s the start of a new school year, and the campus is dogged by the media—Jean has written a frank, informative book for teens based on her time there last year, and news crews are eager to learn more about what goes on at “the sex school.” Otis is no longer doing his sex therapy, in part because Jean found out about it last season and in part because things are strained between him and Maeve, but when he finds out that another kid has started his own “clinic,” he worries about what to do. Eric and Adam have officially started dating, but Adam has his guard up about people making fun of him for being bi, and to put it mildly, he doesn’t handle the gossip well.
Last season opened on a montage of Otis wanking. We get another montage here, a really fun sequence of most of the characters experiencing gratification. Now, a lot of that is partnered sex/sexual activities, with couples like Lily/Ola and Eric/Adam fooling around together, but we also see kids masturbating, watching porn, and engaging in cyber sex, as well as some who are having a wonderful time without sex at all—Aimee and Steve are exercising together, while Rahim is enjoying a night in with some poetry. I like this a lot. It’s very joyous, it shows that sexual behavior can encompass a wide variety of things, and it doesn’t downplay non-sexual forms of pleasure—awesome!
The rest of the episode, in my view, doesn’t really live up to that opening scene. The stuff with the new clinic is interesting. The self-proclaimed “Sex King” doesn’t have any of Otis’s practical knowledge or sensitivity, and while Otis has his own reasons for not wanting to get involved, he worries that the Sex King’s ignorant advice and misinformation will lead to kids getting hurt. I also like how easily Otis tosses out the statement, “Hands jobs is sex, virginity is a construct,” Jean naturally has no patience for interviewers who titter over her “racy” new book, and I’ve enjoyed seeing Ola and Adam become genuine, odd-couple friends over the last season.
A few guest stars are introduced here. After Headmaster Groff was ousted in the season 2 finale, the kids meet their new head teacher, a former student named Hope. She’s young, she’s “cool” (but I like that the nerdier kids at morning assembly, like Eric and Viv, are the ones who are most charmed by her,) and she promises a more relaxed environment, but she quickly reveals there’s more to her than meets the eye. Also, when Jackson and Adam are both sitting outside her office, she totally assumes the (white) Adam is “Jackson Marchetti, famed head boy.” It took me a minute to place her, but she’s played by Jemima Kirke, who I remember as Jessa on Girls. And since Groff has also been kicked out by his wife, he’s been staying with his brother, an obnoxiously successful lawyer and amped-up alpha male type played by none other than Jason Isaacs. So far, the character seems way too clichéd for me, but since it’s Isaacs, I’m willing to see where they’re going with it.
I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of Eric and Adam getting together. In this episode, as Eric watches Adam threaten a kid for (potentially) making fun of him, he does start to realize that dating his former bully might not be an awesome idea. On the whole, though, this plot is more about Adam than Eric, who’s put in more of a reactive role
Ncuti Gatwa’s best scenes are his more humorous ones. I love Eric’s eagerness to be on the news, vamping dramatically about last year’s chlamydia outbreak. When Hope dances onstage at morning assembly, his mouth literally drops open and it’s adorable. And there’s a great moment while Otis is revealing the details of a big secret to Eric, but Eric gets more caught up in the details than the secret itself—there was a costume party involved, and Gatwa has terrific delivery on Eric’s perplexed, “Wait. Why were you macaroni cheese?”
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