'Sex Education' Season 2 finale’s unbridled adolescence sees Otis realize he loves Maeve, Lily’s erotic play
'Sex Education' Season 2 Episode 8 is all about the expression of unrestrained adolescent life. Sexuality, sex, passion, dreams, relationships, and above all -- high school. The finale episode of season 2 of the show centers on portraying each character overcoming their struggle and how that influences their lives.
The episode begins with Ola (Patricia Allison) and Lily (Tanya Reynolds) trying to get intimate, but vaginismus comes in the way. Then we see Otis struggle to understand why his mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) is finding it so hard to move past his sex clinic.
He and his mother have always talked through conflicts and moved on before, so when she begins to shut down conversations with him until he accepts that he took money for sex advice, Otis finds it unacceptable. He even tries to therapize his mother but is at a loss for words when Jean tells him that she had tried to bring up a son who would take responsibility for his actions.
Instead, everything that Otis has recently done reflects a behavior that is quite similar to his father's. For the longest time, Otis has tried too hard to be good, too hard to be a person that is not like his father who abandoned him.
This has been his longest struggle. Now, Otis is not sure what kind of man he wants to be and the only one who can help him find the answer is the one man who has been absent from Otis' life the longest.
Otis arrives at his father's book signing to have a heart-to-heart conversation unhindered by lies. In a way, he wants to affirm that his father Remi is an "ar******". This brings about a sense of clarity in Otis, who realizes that he has taken his mother's undivided attention for granted and even abused it when he put her through a tough time while she dated Jacob.
This realization also helps him understand that he has always been in love with Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey). Maeve, on the other hand, has just found that her mother has slipped again and has been using.
He gets her neighbor Isaac to help her find out if her hunches are right, and just before the Quizheads finals, she calls social workers to raise an alarm about her mother using drugs in the presence of a minor.
While she does win the quiz, her mother promises Maeve that she will never be forgiven and yet again, Maeve finds herself alone. While she rose beyond the struggle of deciding if it was right to leave a minor unmonitored in the presence of her mother who has begun using again, she is still unhappy.
We also see Adam, Aimee, Jackson, and Lily move past their problems in the episode. Adam finally understands why it is important to hold hands in public, he understands that if he doesn't move past the fear of losing someone he loves, he will never experience the full extent of what it means to be in love and this pushes him to confess his feelings to Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa).
This very public confession is possibly the greatest callback to season 1. Only then, Adam had made a confession about his huge penis, and this time, he came out of the closet.
Aimee, who has been wary of being touched by her boyfriend Steve has also gotten better. She is now ready to be hugged and the girls who helped her get back on the bus in the previous episode play a big part in Aimee's fight.
We also have Jackson, who has moved past the fear of being mocked for playing a part in a play by the jocks in the school. Vivian helps Jackson through his stage fright and all of this culminates with a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet directed by Lily.
It is an erotica set in a fictional city and the creative piece strips away the inhibitions that adults hold dear. What is acceptable in a play? What is not? Why shouldn't postmodern interpretation that comments on literature from the past be allowed on stage in school?
These are things the show also addresses through Lily's 'Romeo and Juliet'. By stripping away the judgment, prejudice and preconceived notions that come with speaking openly about sex, 'Sex Education' has portrayed unbridled adolescence.
Also, Lily has finally found a way around the vaginismus and she seems ecstatic about it. What we would like to know is where Otis and Maeve are now headed.
'Sex Education' Season 2 can be streamed on Netflix from January 17.