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Sex Education is back with a bang. Several, in fact. The Netflix hit’s third series starts with an epic sex montage. There’s sex in a car; in a living room; in a variety of teenage bedrooms. There are casual encounters, committed relationships, sex together, alone, virtually, playing the drums and with a sci-fitheme. It is a symphony of shags, an opera of orgasms, all set to the thumping beat of the Rubinoos ’ I Think We’re Alone Now. As the old saying goes, there’s nowt so queer as folk, and Sex Education is determined to prove it.
The Netflix comedy-drama only began in 2019, but thanks to its cross-generational, multinational appeal, it already seems like part of the cultural landscape. The funny, frank, flamboyant show about teenage life, sex and identity is an awards magnet and has made stars of its young cast, who now front fashion campaigns and appear regularly on stage and cinema screens. Gillian Anderson and Asa Butterfield star as mother and son Jean and Otis Milburn, who live in an enviable, chalet-style house overlooking the gorgeous Wye valley on the English-Welsh border.
Jean is a sex therapist and, at the beginning of the series, Otis follows her into the family business, starting a bootleg counselling service run from the abandoned toilets at his school, Moordale secondary. Over the course of the first season, Otis and his unrequited crush, Maeve, Moordale’s resident bookish bad girl with a soft centre, team up to solve the sexual and romantic problems of their classmates. Season two broadened the show’s horizons, delving further into the adults’ complicated sex lives. Throughout, its story lines were peppered with a smart, cool, matter-of-fact gaze at identity, race and class. Despite the complications of filming through the pandemic, the third series is as fresh as the first two, as Moordale gets a new headteacher who is set on teaching abstinence.
“It does feel like we’re back at school because we’re having fun with each other and hanging out.
