SEX EDUCATION

Otis and Maeve haven’t much in common. They don’t hang out together at school. Until one day: Maeve sees Otis giving sex advice to another student. And she also sees something else : a business opportunity. She convinces him that he has a gift. He knows how to listen to people, and to help them, especially when it’s about sexuality. And teenagers do have a lot of questions/issues related to sexuality. Maeve and Otis decide to create some kind of underground ”sex clinic” in the school: Maeve will find people (clients) who have ”sex issues”, and Otis will help them.

This storyline will help the audience get to know the other characters connected to Otis and Maeve (their classmates, their families, their friends…)

Maeve needs the money. Otis likes to help people. What started as a business relationship quickly becomes a great friendship. They then start to develop feelings for each other.

Because we are not in a typical rom-com, but in a very realistic portrayal of teenage years, they will both make mistake after mistake, and don’t know what to do about what they are feeling. During the whole show, you might think their relationship is the classic will they/won’t they we’ve seen in many TV Show. Like Ross and Rachel in Friends.

But because we are not in a typical rom-com (and we’re in a smarter TV show than Friends), and because Sex Education knows how to handle emotions, feelings and romance better than any other TV show, this TV show is always trying to be as complicated as we all are. So, in the case of Otis and Maeve, instead of being only defined by their romance, we will follow them sorting out their own problems, sorting their lives out, in order to become the best version of themselves: Otis has things to fix with his parents (so does Maeve), and has to understand his own sexual awakening. Maeve has to start trusting other people, believing that she won’t end up alone and that she has the potential of doing amazing things in life.

This ”couple” is the perfect example of what the show is about :

 All characters face real and tough challenges. And most of them, because they are teenagers, don’t know how to handle their problems.

They all have to learn how to love themselves before being able to love others

Two examples: the popular head boy is always under pressure from his mothers (they want him to succeed in literally everything); he suffers from anxiety, and it gets worse and worse in the first two seasons (he even goes as far as to self-mutilation).
The high school bully, Adam (played by Connor Swindells), comes from a dysfunctional family. He hates everyone because he thinks everyone else hates him and think he’s stupid. Adam seems, in the first season, to particularly enjoy bullying Otis’s best friend, Eric, because Eric is gay. Ironically, Adam will eventually find out that’s he’s gay himself. This will make him, at first, even more, lost in life than he was before. Only because he finds it hard to accept himself for who he really is
(N.B : Adam is maybe my favourite character overall surprisingly, because of his character development and the amazing performance by Connor Swindells)