Sex Education Season 4 on Netflix review: back with a bang

Buying and selling off the UK training system’s woefully insufficient PSHE classes (who else remembers being taught to place a condom on a banana?) when Intercourse Ed launched in 2019, it dared to think about a world the place teenagers might really get dependable recommendation for the problems that plagued them – even when that recommendation got here from an underground ‘intercourse clinic’ run by one of many pupils buying and selling information for money.

That is Skins reimagined by Gen Z. Gone is the gritty realism and informal sexism of the Noughties; instead are pastel partitions, Fifties Americana interiors and a wholehearted embracing of each type of sexual and gender expression.

And it actually took off, turning into considered one of Netflix’s hottest comedy dramas. It’s straightforward to see why, with brilliantly humorous and transferring writing about loveable characters. From reformed bully Adam coming to phrases along with his bisexuality, to Cal’s nonbinary id (to not point out their struggles to be taken critically by Moordale’s uptight headmistress), this was a secure area for teenagers and adults alike. Hell, there was even a storyline about marital breakdown and melancholy for Alistair Petrie’s forlorn Headmaster Groff.

However with the arrival of sequence 4, the present has reached its climax, and the creators have cheerfully described it as a “banging remaining season”.

Whereas season one began with Otis and Eric as social pariahs at Moordale, this time round they’re getting into their remaining 12 months of sixth kind on the brand-new and decidedly extra liberal Cavendish Sixth Kind School.

They’re in for a little bit of a shock. The uptight Otis (Asa Butterfield) is harbouring goals of restarting his intercourse clinic however is in for a impolite awakening within the type of Thaddea Graham’s O: an expert intercourse therapist who guidelines the Cavendish roost with an iron fist.

Whereas they feud, there’s a spaghetti junction of storylines and all method of recent arrivals to familiarize yourself with within the meantime: it’s daring, given there are solely eight episodes left to wrap up greater than 10 character arcs.

Which is a disgrace, as a result of there are some implausible storylines that ought to actually have been given extra space to breathe. The ever-fabulous Eric (Gatwa) all of the sudden turns into one of many standard children after falling in with Cavendish’s it-couple, Abbi and Roman (Anthony Lexa and Felix Mufti); Ruby (Mimi Keene) struggles with the lack of her Queen-Bee standing; Cal (Dua Saleh) begins their journey to transitioning and Jean (Gillian Anderson) turns into the host of a brand-new radio present.

For essentially the most half, these storylines are deftly juggled, bringing characters collectively in new and attention-grabbing methods to see what sort of sparks fly: the most effective instance of this is able to be Isaac (George Robinson) putting up a friendship with the scatterbrained Aimee (she of the remedy goat and vulva cupcakes, ably performed by Aimee Lou Wooden). Sadly, the sheer quantity of narrative threads inevitably imply some additionally fall to the wayside.

Emma Mackey’s Maeve is considered one of these casualties: she is banished to America for the primary half of the season, learning on the distinguished writing course she bought onto on the finish of season three. Disadvantaged of Mackey’s fizzing, off-kilter presence, the remainder of the present struggles barely – regardless of Dan Levy making an amusing cameo as her snobbish writing tutor.

And what’s occurred to Jakob (Jean’s hunky Swedish plumber love curiosity) and daughter Ola (Patricia Allison)? Regardless of being a pivotal a part of seasons one via three, they don’t even make an look, for causes which can be solely hinted at and really feel fairly shoehorned in.

On this kaleidoscope, Gatwa’s Eric might be the largest scene-stealer: magnetisingly watchable, making an attempt to reconcile his religion along with his id as a proud homosexual man (which provides rise to a number of the sequence’ most off-the-wall moments), and coming to phrases with the truth that maybe he and Otis are rising aside. In the event that they ever managed to persuade Gatwa to do a solo spin-off, I’d watch the hell out of it – as it’s, I’ll must accept his upcoming star flip within the new season of Physician Who.

This being Intercourse Ed, no subject is off limits. Over the course of 4 years, the present’s producers have mentioned all the things from assault (Aimee, in one of many present’s most transferring storylines) to being caught masturbating in a father or mother’s automobile (Otis, in a scene we’d in all probability all fairly neglect).

In that vein, each significant and eye-watering moments will be discovered on this season too. Whereas Jean (Anderson, magnificent as ever) is fighting post-natal melancholy after the traumatic start of daughter Pleasure, Otis by accident shows considered one of his dick pics to the whole college, in a scene that made me bodily wish to rip the plug socket out of my tv.

All of it feels just like the present is working on warp pace: ticking off incidents of significant development, romance, the concern and pleasure that include rising up into maturity.

Happily, there’s greater than sufficient chemistry left to make issues work. The solid are all on prime kind, and it’s unattainable to not root for them, and (pleasure of joys) Intercourse Schooling resists the temptation to accept the best endings. As a substitute, it properly chooses to embrace change – Intercourse Ed could also be gone, however the classes it taught will stay.

Intercourse Schooling Season 4 is streaming now on Netflix