Sex Education Season 4 Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Painful

Sex Education season 4 hit our screens last week with a highly-anticipated finale. It's been just over two years since season three's end and the uncertainty of what was to come drove hype for the final season. Of course, as the show has been out foe over a week now, this review will contain spoilers. You've been warned! 

Credit: Netflix

Season four returns a little bit after where we left. Maeve (Emma Mackey) is now studying over at Wallace in America, Jean  (Gillian Anderson) is getting used to motherhood for the second time with newborn Joy, and the crew from Moordale are getting used to the unfamiliar surroundings of the ultra-progressive and modern college, Cavendish.

Of course with a new school comes many new faces who are colourful characters, to say the least. You have social media sex-positive influencer and therapist O (Thaddea Graham), or Sarah, her real name. Then there is the introduction of the popular group The Coven, and three members who are adored at Cavendish.

We have Aisha (Alexandra James) who is a self-confessed astronomy expert who happens to be deaf. Then there is Cavdenish's couple, Abbi (Anthony Lexa) and her boyfriend, Roman (Felix Mufti). A part of the Milburn family, we have Joanna, Jean's younger, free-spirited sister, Joanna (Lisa McGrillis) who comes to visit after an important family call. Lastly, there is the minor character and Maeve's bestselling author and teacher, Thomas Molloy (Dan Levy), who pretty much covers every stereotype about a pretentious writer that you could think of. 

To start, season 4 continued with its myriad of storylines, some of which were done well, and others not so much.

Our favourite goofy and sugary sweet Aimee (Aimee Lou Wood) continues her self-discovery journey as she gets into photography and becomes close to Maeve's brief ex, Isaac. Wood performs flawlessly as Aimee once again, and the scene of Aimee burning the jeans she was assaulted in is nothing short of magnificent. As an audience, we are satisfied that Aimee's journey of self-acceptance and overcoming her trauma from her previous assault is finished, as she orchestrates the photoshoot of the jeans on fire. Of course, there is a sweet romance that Aimee engages in which is much-needed, considering her previous partners on the show have never measured up to her level of good-heartedness or quirk personality.

Another satisfying arc this season is the redemption of Adam Groff which has been crafted since season two. The writers have certainly fleshed out Adam from his bad-boy-bully persona in season one to a confident and kind young man with a knack for teaching people to ride horses. (You'll have to watch season 4 to see that play out!) 

Yet, Adam is also reduced to a background character this season. In seasons two and three, his romance with Eric was central to his growth in accepting his bisexuality. The romance was also a fan-favourite and ended pretty poorly for the two. Season 4 does a poor job of closing out that storyline, as they only share one measly scene together which doesn't offer closure to Edam fans at all.

Onto our adults, Jean Milburn is no doubt the matriarch of our show. She is an icon and she is the moment, but she's more than her hypersexual and avoidant nature with men. She's more than just the catalyst for Otis starting his clinic, too. 

The writers explore Jean's wave of emotions after giving birth to Joy this season and coping with motherhood as a much older and single mother. In 2023, this is becoming the increasingly normal family dynamic. According to data from the Labour Force Survey 2022 analysed by Ginderbread, the percentage of single parents aged between 45-49 in the UK was 17% in 2022. 

To see an older single parent struggle and battle with post-natal depression is a brilliant decision by the writers. Anderson plays it beautifully as she tearfully confesses to admitting that 'everything is not alright' and begins to deal with her feelings of depression and make changes to cope with a newborn. 

Another great if not brief story of conflict is Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) and his increasing doubt about staying in his church. We've seen brief glimpses of Eric's struggle with his faith in previous seasons, but not in this depth. It is a great conversation to be had about being openly gay in the church and the conflicts with what the Bible may say, or whether God will accept you as you are. Eric battles with this all season until he makes the decision, only to seemingly have that decision disregarded by the writers in episode 8. 

Now, onto the bad.

Season 4 has an issue with its flow and time frame to start. It was hard for me to understand how much time season 4 took place. As we switch from character to character and from scene to scene very quickly, it was hard to keep up with the storylines.

The introduction of the new characters caused a disservice to the storylines of the original characters. Cal (Dua Saleh), for example, has a strong bout of gender dysphoria in season 4 after taking testosterone as it doesn't work as it should. While the premise is good, the execution barely scratched the service, because Cal did not have nearly enough scenes to explain the intense reality of what having GD is like. There is a nice conversation here and there, one with Otis and with the new character Roman about top surgery, but that's it. Cal does at one point run away and goes missing, but it doesn't feel significant because once they are found, everything seems magical again. 

Consistently a theme of season four is forgetting the significant relationships of the main characters. Cal and Jackson, who have a thing briefly, don't ever talk to reconcile, even though Jackson (Kedar Williams-Stirling) tells Viv  (Chinenye Ezeudu), early on in the season that he's 'Not over Cal', yet we never hear about it again. Irritatingly, Jackson is then seen with an unnamed girlfriend episodes later and has a weird subplot about what it means if he likes certain things sexually, which again, is never brought up again. I don't know if this is because Jackson had another main story this season that was more important or if the show is trying to tell us sexual likes and kinks do not have to be a big deal, but either way, they failed miserably.

Perhaps the worst storyline this season is Viv's sidelining for the new characters and her brief romance with the emotionally abusive, Beau, a poessive student she develops a crush on at Cavendish. The storyline has no nuance, or subtlety and just appears in a scene where the show decides that Beau is crazy and is an abuser. Again, this story gives mixed messaging because it isn't portrayed with the sensitivity and nuance that such a storyline needs. There is a maximum of two scenes that showcase Beau's behaviour, which do nothing to convey the seriousness of the matter. 

The story is hard to take seriously because Beau is a character that viewers don't care about. We know nothing about him or his personality outside of him being controlling and possessive. Yes, you don't have to waste time humanising an abuser, but at least show a relationship of significance if you're going to run an abuse storyline. Viv and Beau have hardly any scenes which take out the emotion and the satisfaction for the scene when she tells her friends, and when she finally ends things with him.

Even our OG characters are victims of the overcrowding that the writers subjected us to. As a whole, The Coven is a boring group of friends. They all rely on stereotypes and 'relatable' personality traits to seem real. Yet, they all seem like caricatures in a show that wants to be fake-inclusive by creating last-minute characters for everyone. 

Yes, Sex Education has always been progressive in the conversations of gender, sex, and sexuality, but you can do this without throwing your main characters to the wayside. Diversity needs to feel natural and make sense to the story, whereas these characters didn't. Aisha's two character traits are that she's deaf and loves astrology, and that's it. Abbi and Roman also seem to be just two-dimensional diversity token characters that don't add much to the show at all.

Abbi in particular is painfully boring and annoying. She complains about Roman and when the two have sexual issues, the show makes it a comedic thing, when Abbi reveals the real reason she and Roman aren't having sex. The show had a real opportunity here to explore something about sex between trans characters, and how it can feel for them, but instead, they just make it into something comedic.

As for Otis and Maeve, their story this season was mind-numbingly boring. It felt like the magic and chemistry the two had from seasons 1 and 2 disappeared. While it is interesting to see Maeve studying and on her mission to become an author, separating our two protagonists for the duration of the last season of the show is a bad move.

Otis and Maeve were what made the show and started up these conversations about sex in the first place. Yes, their story closes and ends with a satisfying ending, but it's bittersweet because Maeve is the only one who grows. Otis doesn't seem to change at all. The writers have made his character go through these two-dimensional, temporary changes, but then he goes back to being selfish and whiny. With Maeve, for example, he jumps to conclusions about a guy in her writing class whom she is friends with without even asking her first.

For the audience, it makes it seem like Maeve deserves much better (which she undeniably does) - and doesn't make us root for their endgame at all. In the end, a lot of the show's plots end abruptly without the necessary closure and it feels rushed. Ruby (Mimi Keene) undergoes the same storyline as last season, pining after Otis will he is in love with someone else. Keene's talent is wasted as she is able to humanise Ruby and show us a real, raw side to her. I will give the writers Kudos for developing Ruby's past with one of our new characters this season, but the two definitely should've had a longer reconciliation to finish that story.

You have to take the last season for what it is: a lacklustre, but somewhat decent cluster of episodes to close out a series where everyone gets a happy ending.