Returning to school
Netflix series Sex Education is back with even more teen antics
Hit Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education is back for a third season with lead character Otis Milburn “sassier” than before thanks to a secret affair.
The hugely popular show about teenagers trying to figure out their love lives returns to the fictional Moordale Secondary School five months after the end of the second season, where a new headteacher is seeking to restore order.
Otis, the awkward teenager turned school sex therapist, is secretly seeing fellow student Ruby after a party hookup last season.
“Otis has really unfurled his petals this year, and much of that, thanks to ... Ruby, whose really brought out a side to him we haven't really seen so far,” said actor Asa Butterfield, who plays Otis.
“Older, yes, wiser — a little, sassier.”
While there are plenty of laughout-loud moments in the show, Mimi Keene, who plays Ruby, said this season's message is about shame around sex and other aspects of life.
“It's really important because it's one of the worst things to feel,” she said. “We're really moving forward ... in getting rid of a lot of stigma around certain things, obviously sex ... But just in general, about being who you are and ... being able to be comfortable in your own skin.”
The show features plenty of intimate scenes and the cast, who have worked together for several years and have an intimacy co-ordinator on set, say they are no big deal.
“The intimate scenes for me are the least that I worry about,” said Ncuti Gatwa, who plays Otis's best friend Eric. “The intimate scenes to me now are a bit water off a duck's back, I think for all of us.''
While the show is centred around teenagers, the adult characters — including Otis's sex therapist mother (Gillian Anderson) — also have their own share of dilemmas.
“Whether you're a teenage girl or whether you're an adult,” Butterfield said, “in the next season we've really demonstrated that the grown-ups are just as messed up as the teenagers.”