Sex Education Season Three Review

You’d be hard pressed to find a show more open and frank about sexuality than Netflix’s excellent high school drama Sex Education. And its third season offered up more of the same: serious conversations about teenage sexuality (where the teenagers are all portrayed by twentysomethings, but the intent stands), family, friendship, love, and whether or not the needs of the young outweigh the needs of the old when it comes to discussing such complex and thorny topics. After a second season that often veered a bit too deep into melodrama, this season offers a return to form, with the focus firmly on the topic in the show’s title, allowing its vibrant cast of characters to expand and grow in meaningful ways.

Season three brings the focus more tightly on the interconnected relationships within Moordale Secondary – which, as you might recall from the end of season two – is trying to recover from the scandal of Lily’s sex-forward adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. To that end, a new Head Teacher (a great Jemima Kirke, playing against type as the uptight and rather horrific Hope Haddon) has been brought in to bring the students to heel. Naturally, this means the open and free discussion of sexuality is estopped, and the school begins to espouse the value of abstinence – along with instituting a gender-based school uniform, which doesn’t sit well with the school’s gender non-conforming members (including new cast member Dua Saleh as Cal, who is a wonderful new addition to the very talented cast).

While the character of Hope provides the characters a common enemy to fight – and provides the catalyst for most of the high school characters to band together by season’s end, tying their stories off nicely – there’s still plenty of interpersonal drama to address over the season’s ten episodes.

The Maeve-Otis-Isaac triangle remains front and center for a good chunk of the season, although I couldn’t help but wish the show allowed Maeve to simply tell both boys off and focus on herself rather than try to choose between two immature young men who are often wholly self-absorbed. Faring better is the drama within the Eric-Adam relationship, as the pair navigate the complexities of being together while one remains in the closet to their family. After two seasons of being allowed to slowly build their characters, both Ncuti Gatwa (Eric) and Connor Swindells (Adam) shine as they are allowed to carry arcs of their own in season three. But the real star of the season is Aimee Lou Wood’s Aimee, who was given a solid dramatic arc in season two, but who gets to balance her strong comedic chops with some of the series’ most heartbreakingly beautiful scenes in the third season. Who would have thought that Aimee would become the emotional center of the series the way she has thus far, but seeing her growth from the ditzy young woman who didn’t understand her strength and power to the strong, emotionally mature young woman we have in season three is just a delight.

In fact, while I certainly have some quibbles with how long it takes characters to come to their key realizations within the story, on the whole, the characters grow a fair bit more than they have in past seasons. Some of that likely has to do with the writers not knowing for sure if the series would get a fourth season (it was announced over the weekend that the show will be coming back – breaking the recent spate of Netflix cancellations of shows following their third season), but this season’s storytelling feels richer and much more complete than in previous seasons. We watch as these characters slowly grow beyond their youthful immaturity (and for the handful of adult characters, begin acting their age and become willing to be open with themselves and others about their wants and needs), and start to enter adulthood.

But the one key element of the series – that sex education isn’t simply something for the young, but something one deals with and learns about throughout their life – stays true this go-round. There’s something to learn within the stories for all viewers, and characters to emulate and relate to (and characters who might reveal some hard truths to you as well – I know I found a bit of that in season three). When a series is this well written and acted, well, it’s absolutely worth your time. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be energized to see what’s to come next.

Sex Education’s third season is streaming on Netflix.