Before even beginning to watch, one thing is immediately apparent: season four of Sex Education is faced with the mountainous task of tying every loose end that was left at the end of season three. These include the birth of Jean’s daughter, Joy, and Otis and Maeve finally getting together, only for Maeve to move to the U.S. for a writing program. Coming off the heels of season three’s chaotic leftovers, it’s clear that there is significantly more to be said.
The show’s writers also had a considerable challenge in the mass exodus of cast members after season three, with Simone Ashley (Olivia), Patricia Allison (Ola), and Tanya Reynolds (Lily) all departing, despite their characters having relatively large roles and being popular among fans. The absences of these main characters, along with Anwar, Erin, and Jakob, Ola’s father, are explained with varying levels of success. Perhaps the most easily justified, Anwar and Olivia are simply attending a different school following the shuttering of Moordale Secondary School at the end of the previous season.
Conversely, the show doesn’t even attempt to explain the disappearance of Jakob, and by association, Ola — the only time viewers hear of it is in a passing comment from Otis to Jean about how they are now gone. This lack of an explanation demands an unreasonable suspension of disbelief from the viewer — it simply doesn’t make sense. Not enough time has elapsed between the end of season three and the beginning of season four to explain their sudden disappearance, even though the show does provide an explanation for why Jakob is no longer a part of our protagonists’ lives.
Season four attempts to give every single character an in-depth plot, making it feel too heavy-handed. It seemed to me that every single character who had been introduced to viewers prior to this season received a full-fledged storyline, while newly introduced characters were relegated to side plots and supporting roles.
Compared to season one, where main characters Jean, Otis, Eric, and Maeve were the focal point of the show, season four is a marked departure. This offers its benefits. First and foremost, it allowed for a significantly more diverse array of stories to be told and a much larger variety of issues to be discussed. However, in season four, there are three seasons’ worth of storylines that have been added over time. As a result, the entire season feels rushed, each storyline receiving only a few minutes per episode and each episode cramming in major plot points.
Another issue I had with season four was with the new school our beloved characters attended. Simply put, it was incredibly unrealistic. I, an Oberlin student, found this liberal school to be unbelievable and, at times, even performative. I understand that it was likely meant to be a safe haven or utopia for several characters, but it was presented as such an idealized environment that it came across as sterile.
The school’s environment was so markedly different from that of Moordale that it almost felt like season four was a different show entirely. The whole premise of Sex Education was that sex was too taboo to talk about, resulting in problems in the characters’ lives. A school having a student sex therapist was shocking, but proved helpful by providing students with an important resource they were missing. How did the show change so much that suddenly its school has two sex therapists and almost every character has sex on screen?
That said, I was quite happy when Maeve and Otis finally decided to date. For me, it has been clear since the very beginning that the two of them had to end up together in some way. As much as I enjoyed the brief moment of romantic bliss that they got to experience, I found their ending as a whole to be unfulfilling. It felt that the other characters got the ends of their stories tied neatly into bows — Jean’s resolution to come clean about her child’s father and be the best mother she can be, Eric’s incredibly brave decision to put what he wants over what his community wants, Aimee’s long path of finding herself. The question of what would happen with Maeve and Otis is left ambiguous.
For whatever reason, I found myself expecting a time jump to several years in the future at the end of the final episode. Something about the montage of resolutions that was presented made me certain that Otis and Maeve not being together would have to be addressed or resolved. I was crushed when it wasn’t. I’ve been watching this show since I was 16 and have always thought that they would end the show as a couple.
There’s something very powerful about how watching the ending of season four made me feel like a high schooler again, desperately hoping for them to kiss. Sex Education was a crucial piece of media that made me feel safe as a teenager. That comfort never wavered, and over the past five years, I’ve derived incredible joy from curling up in bed to watch it — whether I was holding a mug of hot chocolate or a glass of wine.
