WARNING: Spoilers ahead for season 2 of Netflix’s Sex Education!
The first season of Netflix’s Sex Education explored a variety of different relationships on the sexuality spectrum and the results were enlightening and hilarious (as well as eye-opening; teenagers in the UK bone a LOT).
For season two, there’s more of the same. More relationship stuff, more teens boning, and more, well, sex education. But over the course of the eight-episode season, the best relationships that emerged proved to be the ones that involve no sex at all.
Sex Education puts Jackson through the ringer during season two. He’s still getting over Maeve, he’s under pressure from his parents to swim, he breaks his hand (on purpose), he’s trying to figure out a life beyond the pool, and he’s forced to study with a straight A tutor, Viv, because he can’t coast on swimming skills alone.
It’s a hell of a loaded story arc for Jackson and seeing him extricate himself from his mothers while discovering a love for horny recreations of Shakespeare is as gratifying as anything we’ve seen on Sex Education. But the most rewarding development for the jock is how he develops an actual friendship with Viv.
Both are initially paired with each other against their will and it almost seems like we’re going to get another typical case of “the jock gets paired with the nerd.” However, things take a turn for the wholesome when they both gradually open up and let each other into their lives. As important as it is to show how important sex education is for teenagers, it is equally important to show the value of platonic relationships.
For all the horny hilarity Sex Education throws our way, the show is at its best when it digs into its cast of well-developed characters. Seeing Jackson and Viv tell express how they missed each other during the season two finale is as satisfying as any montage of Otis jerking off or Aimee doing Aimee things.
Speaking of platonic relationships and Aimee, she too gets one of the most intense storylines we’ve seen on Sex Education so far: Some creep jerks off on her on the bus and the incident traumatises her, so much so she is unable to ride on buses or get intimate with her boyfriend.
It’s heartbreaking to see such a happy-go-lucky character be subjected to such a disgusting thing, but the Netflix show handles her trauma beautifully and it culminates in arguably the best sequence we’ve seen on the show so far.
Towards the end of season two, six of Sex Education‘s main female characters, Maeve, Ola, Lily, Olivia, Viv and Aimee are given detention and are given a near-impossible task by their teacher: define what unites them as females.
After much bickering and far too many on-the-nose Breakfast Club references, they gradually get talking and when Aimee finally opens up about her bus assault experience, all of them start sharing their own experiences involve gross men. (The group ultimately agree that they have nothing else in common “other than non-consensual penises.”)
Watching these six young women bond over their shared trauma is peak Sex Education: heartfelt emotion mixed in with just the right amount of levity. While this storyline doesn’t end on a Bender-esque fistpump in the air (thankfully), it does end on Aimee facing her fears with the help of her squad.
For all the emphasis Sex Education places on the horny tribulations of teenagers, the exploration into platonic relationships by the Netflix show proves that it isn’t a one-trick pony. After all, not everything is about sex.
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