Dhruv Trivedi
‘Sex Education’ is a British comedy-drama set in Moordale Secondary School where hormones run high and Otis, a socially awkward student who happens to have a mother who is a relationship and intimacy counselor, decides to start giving out sex advice to his classmates for money. The plan is an instant success, but the fact that his secret flame and class pariah Maeve is also his business partner begins to make things awkward. It seems to Otis that everyone around him is embarking on their sexual journeys, and he is quite right.
The show details in all its awkward glory the love lives of the students of Moordale while also exploring the doubts, frustrations, and painful moments that come along with them. Otis has come a long way in the show’s first two seasons, but sometimes following one’s own advice is the hardest thing to do, as our insecure leading lad repeatedly finds out. Let’s take a look at what goes down in seasons 1 and 2 of ‘Sex Education.’ SPOILERS AHEAD.
Sex Education Seasons 1 and 2 Recap
Otis lives with his mother Jean, a sex therapist who regularly mortifies her son with her open discussions of sex. As a result, her socially awkward son remains perpetually fearful of the act, and season 1 opens with him discussing with his best friend Eric how he has never masturbated. We are then introduced to Maeve, the moody and streetsmart class outcast who realizes that Otis — possibly from years of overhearing his mother’s therapy sessions — is surprisingly good at giving intimacy advice as well, particularly to their clueless teenage classmates.
Strapped for cash and hailing from a troubled household, Maeve starts an underground counseling business with Otis, who is only too happy to be interacting with the most unpopular (in a badass kind of way) girl in the grade. He, however, frantically hides his true feelings for her, certain in the knowledge that a boy like him would never have a chance with someone like Maeve (who he describes as a lioness when compared to his mouse).
As business booms, Otis’ best friend Eric has his own monsters to fight, particularly the one in the form of the class bully Adam, who terrorizes the boy every chance he gets. However, it is soon revealed that Adam, the son of the school headmaster Mr. Groff, is insecure and acts out as a way of rebellion against his domineering father.
After multiple warnings for his outrageous mischief — which includes exposing himself to the entire student body during recess — Adam is finally expelled by his father and sent to military school. By the end of season 1, Eric too begins to embrace his sexuality and finally stands up to his own conservative family and expresses himself with his flamboyant dressing sense at the annual school dance.
Maeve and Otis become increasingly close, but things remain friendly, with neither of them sharing their true feelings. Finally, when Maeve finds out Otis has been helping the school jock, Jackson, in wooing her, she breaks off their friendship. Otis, though not completely over his sullen former business partner, and after a failed experiment with the quirky, sex-curious Lily, begins to date Ola, who has recently joined the school.
To his horror, his mother — notorious for her non-committal lifestyle — then begins to date Ola’s hunky father, Jakob. A visit from Jean’s ex-husband, Otis’ father Remi, makes things all the more stressful in season 2, and Jean and Jakob eventually break up. Ola, too, realizes that Otis is not over Maeve and breaks up with him, leaving the teenaged high school sex counselor more confused than ever.
Now, in their senior year, pandemonium reigns as the students of Moordale begin to explore their sexuality in earnest. A schoolwide chlamydia scare forces the school administrators to employ an advisor to guide students in such matters, and to his horror, Otis finds the job offered to his mother. However, Mr. Groff takes issue with Jean’s open-minded approach and, in the throes of his own collapsing marriage, sabotages Jean’s job by stealing her notes about the students and secretly leaking them. Soon, all the students’ deepest secrets from their sessions with Jean are out in the open, and the counselor is fired. Unfortunately for Otis, she also learns about the underground counseling business her son is running in school.
Sex Education Season 2 Ending: Do Otis and Maeve Get Together? Does He Finally Lose His Virginity?
As season 2 begins to wrap up, things get increasingly chaotic. In a bid to prove a point, Otis throws a house party that snowballs into a rager and practically destroys their home, much to his mother’s horror. She confronts her son about his unethical counseling at school, which leads to an argument between the two. Recently fired from her post as school counselor, missing Jakob, and now not on talking terms with her son, Jean’s calm and collected demeanor finally crumbles, and she experiences symptoms of what she thinks is the onset of menopause. However, a visit to the doctor holds a surprise as she is told that she is, in fact, pregnant.
Season 2 closes with the annual school play — a futuristic and scandalously erotic rendition of Romeo and Juliet that all the parents and aghast school administrators attend. During the performance, Mr. Groff has a meltdown and publicly blames Jean for the students’ lewd behavior. Otis, however, defends Jean, and mother and son reconcile, though the former doesn’t reveal her pregnancy and impending half-sibling to the high schooler.
Mr.Groff, too, finds himself suspended for his outburst, and his son Adam, emboldened, finally announces in front of the shocked student body his love for Eric. Otis also finally leaves Maeve a voicemail, apologizing and confessing his love for her. However, when he goes to meet her at her trailer, she isn’t home, and he walks away without being able to speak to her face to face.
Therefore, Maeve and Otis’ impending relationship, once again, remains tantalizingly out of reach for both of them. Bad timing and missed opportunities seem to define their dynamic, and the season 2 finale only cements that notion further. Otis misses Maeve by just a few minutes when he arrives at her trailer and happens to tell her neighbor about the emotional voicemail he’s left her.
The neighbor, who is revealed to have feelings for Maeve as well, then secretly deletes Otis’ voicemail from her phone, removing all traces of the awkward boy’s heartfelt apology and proposal to the girl he loves. Maeve, therefore, remains embittered towards Otis and seems to have given up on the two of them ever getting together.
Otis, however, does manage to finally lose his virginity in season 2, though it is when he least expects it. After getting blind drunk at his house party rager, our hero wakes up the next morning to find himself naked next to Ruby, one of his grade’s snobbiest, most popular girls. The moment of panic, coupled with a heavy hangover, only gets worse when they can’t remember whether they used protection and leads to an awkward visit to the pharmacist. However, they finally talk over a soda, and though there is clearly no love between the two (Ruby claims to fancy “nerdy” boys when she’s feeling sad, which is what she attributes the encounter to), Otis does finally do the deed.
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