Sex Education Season 2
Netflix, now streaming
Sex Education is set in a fantasy world. The British school at the centre of the action is like a dream vision of every American high school movie mashed together. Then, there’s the house where main character Otis (Asa Butterfield) and his therapist mum Jean (Gillian Anderson) live. Like something out of Grand Designs, it’s a massive wooden creation perched atop a mountain with stunning valley views. Dr Jean’s counselling business must be going really well. And yet, somehow the weird unreality of the setting works to underline the show’s spectacularly honest depiction of young people and their sex lives.
Season two, which dropped in full on Netflix last Friday, outdoes the full and frank tone of the first series with an opening three-minute masturbation sequence to reintroduce the characters, and episode one revolves around a chlamydia outbreak. Other topics tackled are sexual assault, dirty talk and pretty much every type of adult activity you can imagine. All this is handled with the show’s wit and lightness of touch, helped no end by the brilliant cast. The friendship between Otis and his best pal Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) feels deeper this time around, and Eric’s newly busy love life is one of the most beautifully modulated storylines.
As for the new characters – Isaac, a newbie at the caravan park, smart girl Viv who helps troubled swimmer Jackson, and hot French student Rahim – they’re all instantly engaging and fully formed, making the show’s amazing ensemble feel even more authentic and rounded. Two seasons in and Sex Education is already one of TV’S alltime great teen series. Long may it continue.