Sex Education: Season 3, Episode 3

 “Yes, Jeffrey, you sex god!”

This episode is bloody eventful, and bloody good. On the other hand, it made Mrs Llamastrangler cry.

There's some strong use of humour tomundercut a lot of the real darkness here, from the cat that was killed by shagging to the way Aimee unburdening herself to Jean about her sexual assault (and how to love her vulva) is swiftly followed by the goat having a poo on the floor.

It's an episode with Jean and Otis adjusting to Jakob and Ola as new members of the household, and making compromises. It's about Maeve reconnecting with her mum, and forgiving Isaac after his heartfelt and rather lovely speech. It's about Hope dragging the school into the rip off industry that is the school uniform, an institution that exists only to extort money from parents. 

It's also about Viv abandoning all principle in pursuit of power and Jackson's disgust, as well as his anxiety now he's no longer a swimmer, an actor or head boy. And he seems to get on rather well with the ambiguously queer Cal... and their weed.

It's about the double date, and Adam not yet feeling ready to say to his mum that Eric is his boyfriend... and his concern at Eric's forthcoming trip to horribly homophobic Nigeria. Already that's a lot going on, but we also haveLily's obsession wth alien conspiracy theories driving a wedge between her and Ola... and Otis being allowed into Ruby's unglamorous but sweet home life. Sweetly, we gradually learn how Ruby is more besotted with Otis than she lets on... but when she declares her love, he doesn't say it back. Ow.

So much going on here- but the episode doesn't feel crowded. This is a real leap of quality that gives me real hope for this season.

Sex Education: Season 3, Episode 2

 "You're not going to paint over the Wall of Cocks, are you?"

Things are getting interesting this episode. The casual sex thing between Otis and Ruby is increasingly hilarious as Ruby becomes increasinly controlling, but we end with the two of them as a proper couple. Eric and Adam have an equally sweet virginity-losing subplot, as a spat turns out simply to be because of a top/bottom misunderstanding, although it'd rather fortunate that Eric should happen to be a top. Actually, I've always wanted to know how gay male couples sort ut the whole top/bottom thing, but it's not the sort of thing one can easily ask.

Equally sweet is how soon Jean and Jakob agree to get together, and that Jean so readily agrees to help Aimee recover from the sexual assault. It's also good that Isaac confesses to Maeve- still upset about her mother's stupid blaming her for everything- what he did at the end of last season, and suffers the consequences, as Maeve quite rightly doesn't trust him.

There's a lot else going on, though. Adam is trying todo better at school. His dad seems to be in the midst of a redemption arc- living with Colin will be good for him- while Hope is turning out to be frighteninglyauthoritarian, leading to Jackson being sacked as head boy and replaced by the crafty Vivienne. Ooh.

Oh, and Aimee had a poo which came out "like a gigantic orgasm". Which is nice.

I'm enjoying this. Lots going on already.

Sex Education: Season 3, Episode 1

 “Sir, I need to take the goat out for a wee..."

So it's back, beginning with a rather well-shot sex-themed montage of all the characters we know up to all sorts of mainly sexual hi-jinks, although the highlight is without a doubt "The Colin Hendricks Experience".

And a lot has been happening. Eric and Adam have been rather sweetly seeing each other as a couple. Jean is now very pregnant indeed. Otis has been having secret sex with... Ruby. Yes, Ruby. And there's a new headmistress in town, one who seems quite cool on te surface but shows hints of evil peeking through. Mr Goff, increasingly desperate, is living with his rich wanker of a brother, played by him off of Harry Potter with less hair.

This episode is cleverly metatextual, based on a fraudulant new sex advisor whose silliness is brought to an end by Otis, leading to the demolition of the old toilet block, symbolically destroying the original format of the series. And there are some nice charactermoments all round. Yet it never really seems to catch fire.

Still episode one.Plenty of stuff to happen before the arcs get moving.

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 7

 "You don't have a vagina, Sir..."

Yes, it's been a while. That's because it's nearing the end and Mrs Llamastrangler can't bear it to be over, Hence the, er, three months' delay since the previous episode. I look forward to probably blogging the finale in March, when we're all celebrating the first anniversary of this lovely plague.

This is, of course, a superbly crafted bit of telly, a penultimate episode which both points forwards to the finale and is the hangover after the party in the episode before, where there was much drama, and Otis was a total dick. Some characters receive a kind of closure to their arc at this point. Jackson has an hoest and open chat about swimming and much more with his mum, who is insecure about not being his biological mother, in a lovely scene. Aimee gets a kind of closure as all the girls in detention (Incidentally, said detention is collective punishment- making a load of suspects stay in detention until the miscreant confesses. This may be more trivial than, say, Israel's blockade of Gaza, but the moral principle is the same) help her with her trauma following the sexual assault through female friendship and solidarity. This also brings a lot of the main female characters together, and Lily finally decides to accept Ola as her girlfriend, which is cute. Thse are all elegantly completed arcs.

But the other characters have much to resolve in the finale. Groff's cowardly revelation of Jean's notes causes all kinds of suffering, and he cynically arranges to fire Jean. The massively hungover Otis, it seems, had sex with the untouchable, icy Ruby at the party, and there is much ensuing hilarity over the morning after pill and the absurd bureaucracy around obtaining it. Yet Otis begins to make amends from being a dick by being considerate, and hey connect. Ruby, it seems, has her own problems, with her dad's MS.

Then there's Eric and Rahim, with Rahim casually and matter-of-factly mentioning his atheism in church, not something I'd be comfortable doing. We also learn that his parents had to flee an unnamed country because of their atheism- and the two of them declare their love. Yet Eric's mum is right; there's no spark, and Rahim is not the One. I think we, the viewers, know who is.

But the ending is a cliffhanger that's been building since the very beginning as Jean confronts Otis about his sex clinics. This is top stuff, and I can't wait until the finale.

But I'll have to...

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 6

“ If you’re not ready to talk about douching with your boyfriend, you’re not ready to have his cock in your ass.”

Well, if it seemed as if last episode was the one where everything went wrong, this episode ups the ante. We k of its going to happen all the way through, as Otis formulates plans for a “gathering” and we just know hordes of people are going to arrive and trash the place, because that’s how the trope always goes.

And the episode is obviously centred on Otis’ drunken speech in which he’s as absolute dick to both Ola and Maeve, burning his bridges with both of them as well as humiliating himself. The moral high ground, to the extent he had it at all, is well and truly surrendered.

Also, the house is trashed. And, worst of all, lots of horrible bottled lager is drunk, with no real ale or wine in sight.

We also have Jean and Maureen having a few drinks and bonding, over terrible nightclub music, about the ambivalence of their newfound mutual singledom. Maeve bonds further with Isaac who, it now seems clear, is like a version of Otis with a similar background.

Interestingly, Jackson has a massive anxiety attack at the party about the pressure to swim again now his hand had healed, and it’s Viv (who finally realised the dullness of the bloke she fancies) who takes it upon herself to tell his parents. This is going to be interesting: let’s hope it’s resolved happily. But for poor Amy, still very much suffering from the sexual assault, there’s no happiness.

This is a superbly done ensemble show, with believable characters who drive the plot rather than vice versa- and I applaud the decision to allow Otis, the main protagonist, to behave like a dick. This is very good indeed.

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 5

"Is the bike in question your vagina?”

It’s the middle episode, and a watershed for the season, in the form of an ill-advised camping trip taken by Otis and Eric with Otis’ wayward father, Remi, whom we get to know a bit more. And it’s an episode in which most of the relationships go horribly, horribly wrong so that we can spend the rest of the season seeing what results from all this.

The love triangles, being unstable, come apart. Last episode Ola gave Otis an ultimatum to stop talking to Maeve or loses her, and he does- and she dumps him anyway, leaving him with no one. Meanwhile Ola, exploring her sexuality, finds herself dreaming not about Otis but about Lily, particularly in a superbly done dream sequence. Alas, as soon as she kisses Lily, she faces rejection.

Others are struggling too. Aimee is still recovering from the sexual assault, and can’t let her boyfriend touch her. Jean finds it impossible to cope with Jakob’s being everywhere, being unused to the ever-present intimacy of relationships. These scenes are funny, and Gillian Anderson is superb (I love the pans cupboard scene), but she ends by confessing to Jakob that Remi kissed her- and we don’t see the fallout.

Remi, meanwhile, is revealed as a pathetic, self-pitying, womanising man-child, perhaps intended as a warning for what Otis could potentially become. Maeve connects a little with her very human, recovering addict mother- and receives an unexpected love interest in cheeky bastard Isaac. I suspect that Otis, should he try to pick up the pieces with Maeve, May have a love rival.

Jackson, still hiding his theatrical doings from his mum, co to yes to bond with the nerdy but likeable Viv as he helps her to woo her beau: there’s definitely a spark between them. And Maureen Groff finally gets an orgasm after at least six years courtesy of Jean and a little bullet between her legs... and announces her desire to divorce her come husband. Of all the decouplings this episode, that’s the one with the feel good factor.

On a more ambiguous note, Eric chooses to be with Rahim after discussing his own triangle after a discussion about Adam with Otis, who doubts the old bully’s motives. Poor Adam, I suspect, has some more redemption to do before he's worthy of Eric.

This is well-crafted, character-driven, believable stuff. This second season may well be eclipsing the first.

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 4

“Otis, you're gonna be deflowered!"

Well, a lot happened in this episode; must be mid-season. And relationships are getting complicated now. There are more triangles in this episodes than you'd see in a game of Kensington, to use a cultural reference that probably isn't appropriate to a programme featuring characters born mainly in the 21st century. Yes, I'm forty- three. I feel old.

This is all cleverly plotted for maximum angst, and even the farce about Otis looking after a toddler goes horribly wrong. So many awful things happen. Maeve is horribly let down by her useless mother and horrible quiz teammates... and, to make things worse she confesses her feelings to Otis, mere tens of minutes before he's due to have sex with Ola, whom he's not sure he loves.

But Eric is also horribly conflicted between the sexy Rahim and the very human, and extremely depressed, Adam. Yet it's not just the kids who struggle with relationships. Even Jean- a sex therapist, no less- is beginning to be annoyed by some of Jakob's habits. And when her ex Remi arrives unannounced we get uncomfortable undercurrents of snobbery to her new plumber boyfriend... and eventually a slightly tipsy kiss between the ex-spouses. That's three triangles.

Still warming up is Jackson's interesting plot thread about treading the boards and acting as sex advisor (another one!) to Viv. And we learn (with Jean) that Mr Groff hasn't shown any sexual interest in his wife Maureen for six years. Ouch. There's something going on there.

This may not be quite top notch drama, but it's elegantly scripted and very good indeed.

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 3

"Cum is kind of like a penis having a sneeze..."

This is a rather more serious episode than usual, focusing on Aimee as she suffers a sexual assault on a bus. Realistically, she dismisses it at first but is persuaded by Maeve, a wonderful friend using her birthday to accompany her to the police station, to report the crime. She seriousness of it all slowly sinks in until we see her break down in tears having been unable to tell her mum. It's a sobering reflection, in these post-#MeToo times, of the shit women and girls are expected to put up with, every day, by people who are the same gender as me.

Like last episode, there's a fair amount of bad sex via miscomunication this week as Olivia puts a pillow over her boyfriend's face while she cums because she has an "ugly cum face". How very teenager. I love how this series, so very often, is Marshall McLuhan with tits and willies. We also, rather bravely, get to see Otis being very immature indeed with the long-suffering Jakob, who ends up taking a staggeringly graceless apology with good grace. Meanwhile, Eric has a wonderful date with Rahim, who kisses him... only to randomly run into Adam, who is understandably very depressed indeed. Love triangle alert. And, on that front, and despite Aimee's advice, Maeve yet again fails to tell otis how she feels.

Touchingly, though, the very vulnerable Jackson has a bit of a crush on his tutor Viv as opposites- the athlete and the brainbox- seem to attract. He auditions for the part of Romeo- and nails it. I love where this is going.

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 2

"Baba ganouche!"

This second episode is, on one level, setting up the actual character dynamics and plot arcs after last episode- hence we have Eric realising that Rahul actually likes him, and Marvel admitting- at least to Aimee and herself- that she isn’t over Otis. It’s also nice to see a couple of the more sympathetic teachers- Emily and Colin- shown as human beings with sex lives. But what makes this episode particularly great is that it’s all about one thing: communication.

We’re not great, in this country at least, about actually talking about sex, and what the other person wants. There seems to be an expectation, among far too many people, that there’s some magic trick that will please the other person without realising that the only secret of good sex is to find out what the other person likes, by talking to them, and doing it. Hence Colin’s problem with dirty talk, and even Otis’ rubbish fingering of Ola. (I love how Lily tells him!) Hence, perhaps, the culture of repressed gay sexuality at poor Adam’s cruel military school.

Part of the problem, I think, is how we Brits see sex as a joke, as “smut”, and not about an enjoyable and emotionally important part of life that is certainly fun and playful but also deadly serious, and important. It can, and often should, be silly, but it should never be treated as a joke- the excruciating scenes of Jean at the assembly and the equally cringeworthy sex education lesson (with Rahim as the voice of continental common sense; Brexit is even bad for our sex lives).

This is just what I like from telly- good characterisation and juicy subtext. Good stuff. And don’t forget, folks- ask about her orange.

Sex Education: Season 2, Episode 1

“You have discovered the wonders of your own penis, my friend...”

A new season dawns, so we have a first episode with a lot of exposition, that necessarily feels as though it exists to move the pieces into place. So yes, we have a sex advice client who is falsely accused of spreading chlamydia, and a hysterical STD scare with everyone running around in masks and worried about a plague- in a programme released in January 2020, which is creepy. We also have the usual wit, humour and character, not least with a hilarious opening sequence with Otis having learned to masturbate successfully and now doing it all the time like, well, a teenage boy. And there’s a hilarious conversation with Jean.

But there’s a lot of change to the status quo. Jean and Jakob are now an item- a fact accidentally revealed to their respective children. Ola is now at the school. Adam is not. Maeve isn’t, then she is, due to her cleverness and her favourite English teacher, Shabnam from EastEnders. There’s a new, handsome boy who is probably gay. And we meet the new Chair of the Board of Governors, a familiar face if you saw the excellent Years and Years.

Most tragically, it’s clear that Jackson is only working his arse off at swimming to stop his parents arguing. His self-inflicted injury is a cry for help, and should be seen for what it is: self harm.

Oh, and Jean is going to be teaching sex education at the school. I’m sure Otis will love that. And Ola has just found out about the sex clinic. Then there’s the love triangle with Maeve..

It’s all looking promising. It’s fair to say this first episode still managed to be fun even with all that exposition to do, but I’m glad the pieces are in lace.

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 8

"My vagina has betrayed me!"

Wow. After last episode seemed to raise the bar we have an extraordinarily accomplished finale, which brings a satisfactory closure of sorts to a lot of threads while using the characters in a satisfying way. And, as ever, the way it’s all structured is a marvel and a complex plot is made easy to follow- this is a show with very good writing.

So we have Lily’s fury sexual experience ruined by her sex slamming shut, making her an unofficial client of the week, but her fear of losing control and enjoying sexual pleasure is a direct parallel of Otis’ own issues, and ultimately they help each other to get over them- and it’s all rather cute. Lit is a wonderful character, wonderfully portrayed.

But we also have Goff getting a stupidly wrong end of the stick and accusing Maeve of dealing illegal drugs, leading her to take the fall for her brother and to be at serious risk of expulsion- something which, despite Jackson’s protestations, is very much up in the air, and not looking good, as the episode ends.

More positively, Eric and Adam end up in detention- and, after a little of the usual bullying, Adam throws himself on Eric and they have sex. Wow. The thing is, Mrs Llamastrangler predicted this, and I pooh poohed her. She always thought Adam’s bullying looked suspiciously as though he fancied Eric- and he does. But he goes straight into denial mode, and the closet, afterwards. That last sight of them sitting awkwardly together in the science lesson, not holding hands, is so very sad. And Adam, it seems, is off to some horrible military school. I hope Goff gets his comeuppance: he’s a baddie you love to hate, and Alistair Petrie has been consistently superb.

We end with apologies to Otis, and a kind of wisdom, from Jean, who has admitted to Jakob that she wants more than sex. And, in another elegant parallel, he makes up with Ola and they kiss... which leads to a splendidly and necessarily figurative final shot of Otis’ first ever masturbatory orgasm.... to the sounds of Sigurd Sigue Sputnik.

This finale, and in hindsight the whole season, has been superb.

Sex Education: Season 1: Episode 7

"Sometimes the people we like don't like us back, and it's painful, but there's nothing we can do about it."

This penultimate episode is extraordinary- full of depth in terms of both theme and character. It seems to have shifted gear into something more serious and philosophical. The comedy hasn't gone, but by this point it's just a natural part of the drama.

And the drama is about very deep feelings and passionate longing, beginning with Liam, client of the week, who is being a bit creepy about unrequited love- and quite rightly gets the "no means no, so back off" talk from Otis. Interestingly, though, we get a lot of ironic banter about the innate stupidity and sexism of the upcoming school prom- very much an American import and not so big a thing in this country: I never went to mine in '95 and nor did many of my friends. But a reluctant Maeve is persuaded by Jackson, and a similarly reluctant Otis is persuaded by Ola, in both cases rather sweetly.

Also sweet is how Jean and Jakob are falling for each other, with Jean teaching for ever more transparent excuses to see him... but, when they stop shagging and start talking, the sex therapist proves to be utterly like insight. She tells him she thinks of him as divorced and bored of monogamy. But she is describing herself; Jakob is a widower, Jean is the first person he’s slept with since the bereavement, and he wants more than just the physical.

But the ball is awkward; Maeve isn’t fully happy with Jackson, and there are in resolved and mutual feelings between her and Otis that are very much lampshaded by the case of the week- Otis’s speech to a suicidal Liam at the end is very much heard by Maeve. It seems our two leads may get together.

But, of course, it is not to be, as Maeve is disgusted when a drunken Jackson reveals the confidential advice Otis gave him. And Jackson himself is far from a bad bloke, with one of his parents living her dreams of sporting glory through him. It's a terrible burden for one far too young. And, to complete our triptych of things going wrong, Oris stupidly upsets Ola, seeming to lose her. This is nicely structured storytelling. And throughout the episode we have Sean, Maeve's very human but dodgy drug dealing brother, as a worryingly damaging catalyst.

Eric has a better time this episode, however, starting to reconcile his very Christian, African family background (let's hope it doesn't remain just generically African, which would be dodgy) with his sexuality- and there's a lovely conversation with his concerned but caring dad. He arrives at the party looking fabulous, and gets cheered (yay!), finally accepting Otis' frank apology. But we can't have a happy ending to a penultimate episode; Otis sees the book his mother has been writing is... about him.

This is superb; it's extraordinary that a short series in its first season should develop it's characters so well by this point.

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 6

“I’ll bring the condoms. You bring the lube...”

A lot happens in this episode, and it happens to a lot of characters. And yet, by this point in the season, we know the characters and are invested. It’s complicated, but it doesn’t feel it. That’s good writing.

We start with a flashback as a very young Otis sees his father have sex with someone else- and it was him, as a little boy, who innocently told his mother and caused so many arguments and so much drama. It’s not hard to see him blaming himself. Especially when, desperate to lose his virginity, he agrees to shag Lily (Tanya Reynolds is both brilliant and perfectly cast)... and a flashback to that moment prevents him doing it. There are issues there, which are without a doubt going to be explored. This is all paralleled, of course, with his mother’s curiously cute and old fashioned courtship of the handyman.

Eric is in a dark place, alienated not just from Otis but from everyone. It’s a superb bit of acting from Ncuti Gatwa here as a very different and suddenly much angrier Eric- culminating in a pinch at Anwar. And he and Otis are absolutely no closer to reconciling. Yet Eric’s relationship with his traditionally African yet well-meaning father is interesting. I like the nuance here; the father may not be from a background where being gay is easily accepted, but he’s nevertheless trying to do right by his son, and obviously cares.

Maeve, meanwhile, has issues of her own as her unreliable and mercurial brother is back, no doubt up to something, while Jackson is feeling real conflict between the demands of swim training and the demands of having a girlfriend. You feel for her as a young swimming widow, but you feel for the lad too. And, of course, Maeve’s essay written for Adam wins a prize, leading to undeserved praise for someone who blatantly didn’t write it. And yet, interestingly, Mr Goff seems determined to ignore all signs of this and pretend his son wrote the thing. There are seeds of real conflict here, and corruption. I suspect this will develop.

This week’s sex therapy case is interesting- Aimee, in a nice little microcosm for how she always lets herself be walked on, has never orgasmed and is struggling to accept the idea that sex should be about her pleasure, as her nice new boyfriend exists. And after discovering the pleasures of wanking she’s a a very satisfied customer.

But we end, interestingly, with the intriguing Ola asking Otis out on a date, but he continues to show real chemistry with Maeve, and we end with her smelling his jumper, showing she does have feelings...

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 5

“It’s my vagina!”

Another interesting and multi-layered episode here, about friendships and reputations.

It’s a mid-season eventful episode as Otis is forced by the plot to choose between Eric’s birthday tradition and a sex therapy linked to Maeve who, a month later, he still fancies. But is he choosing her needs for the right reasons? Complicating the choice is the fact the therapy job consists of working out who send round a naked pic of school bitch Ruby (young Cindy off of EastEnders) and that this echoes for Maeve, whose own reputation was stained years ago by similar childishness. She l owe this sort of thing sticks, and it’s personal. And yes, for the parent of a daughter, this is terrifying.

A nice twist I’d that the culprit is Ruby’s friend Olivia, and that she sort of redeems herself at the end in a heartwarming scene of genital “I’m Spartacus”. But less heartwarming is the position of Eric- robbed and beaten up by homophobes as a result of Otis’ negligence. Interestingly, though, his old-fashioned dad is portrayed as uncomfortable with his son’s sexuality but nevertheless caring and not an outright bigot. That’s nicely nuanced. Also nuanced is Aimee’s continued exploitation by her friends, although she seems to have a handsome, clean cut love interest.

Maeve has a bit of a disaster meeting Jackson’s two very middle class mothers, but all is not as it seems: when she later invited him back to her caravan, though, he’s nice- and reveals that he takes medication for anxiety, and is not as perfect as he seems. It’s an interesting writing choice here: Jackson is nice, vulnerable and likeable, but he’s the love rival to the protagonist. It’ll be interesting to see where this plot line goes.

There is, perhaps, a bit of uncalled-for mocking of nerds (the wargamer kid is called Tom Baker, incidentally!), and the character arcs are perhaps a little obviously subject to the plot, but this is very good stuff.

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 4

“Why don’t you start by telling me your earliest memory of your scrotum.”

Another fascinatingly well-structured episode here, which hints at the likelihood that this series won’t be taking a “case of the week” format but with have much more of an emphasis on season arcs, but also seems to be still setting up the pieces. We meet two new characters here- an unnamed Swedish builder who seems to be set up as a possible love interest for Jean and his daughter, who will have some connection (romantic?) with Otis.

The A plot is very well done, of course- Otis really likes Maeve, but I adverts it ends up giving advice to Jackson which ends up with her agreeing, against her general principles, to be her boyfriend. But Jackson isn’t a bad guy, and is genuinely in love. And it’s not much consolation to Otis to get a random proposal of mutual cherry- popping from the quirkily likeable Lily.

Incidentally, these teenagers are young enough to be my kids. So why do they all like the same bands as me? We get Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Joy Division and others all name checked- even Bikini Kill. It’s interesting that there seems to be no clear cut generation gap.

Meanwhile Adam gets even more desperate because of his authoritarian wanker of a father. And Eric seems to have similar problems, if both less clear and apparently less intense. There’s a lot going on, but it feels natural and easy. This may not be top drawer, but it’s very, very good.

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 3

“It’s better not being a mum at all than being a bad one.”

Interestingly, this episode doesn’t take the formulaic, “case of the week” approach that might be expected: perhaps that’s not the sort of series this is. Instead we get a focus on the fascinating Maeve, whose life is tinged with sadness and deprivation that belie her intelligence, her cut-glass vowels and (as we see here from a very ITV television quiz) that she is well read and cultured.

Bravely, the episode focuses on Maeve having an abortion following the events of the previous episode. The whole process is shown with realism, including the horrible nutters shouting inhuman abuse outside at women who really don’t need it. We get to know her, and Otis even tries to dispense some sex advice, but they’re not nice people and they shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

Emma Mackey is superb at showing us both Maeve’s tough exterior and the vulnerability that lies beneath. And there’s a brief moment of joy when she realises that Otis actually came through and waited for her. She seems to trust him, and even shows him the caravan park where she lives- and that her absent mother is an addict. We last see her staring at childhood photos. This is all wonderful character stuff.

We also meet Otis’s father for the first time, and and get to laugh at his guilt that his first wet dream should be about Maeve and that he’s “objectifying” her. I think it’s clear that the two of them are going to get together.

But there’s more, too: we see Jackson swimming, and how his pushy mum is urging him to train further. Meanwhile we see how the headmaster is seemingly more fond of this successful substitute son than he is of his own. And we see Eric’s large family, with real homophobic undercurrents, as he makes a rather touching friendship with the delightfully eccentric Lily.

This is all quite gripping.

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 2

“Is it weird that I always think about the Queen when I cum?”

Perhaps this episode, a little more obviously than the first, blatantly exists to fulfil a plot function- to create the demand for Otis as an informal sex therapist for the school as he helps a couple with their problems at a party he attends in the very hope of doing so. This plot function is fulfilled rather neatly. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t another fifty-odd minutes of good characterisation and laugh-out-loud lines.

I like the way that the gloriously eccentric Jean and Otis are realistically made to clash without either of them seeming unreasonable or unlikeable: they’re both shown as nice, if flawed, characters. The contrast with Adam and his authoritarian dick of a dad is clear. Aimee, too, is interesting: a superficially popular girl who is paddling rather frantically, and being exploited somewhat by her friends, in order to remain so.

More urgently, the mysterious and fascinating Maeve appears to be pregnant by Jackson- whom she hadn’t told but is continuing to shag. And she appears, despite her cut glass vowels, to live in desperate trailer park poverty. No wonder she’s keen to make money. And poor Eric may be the comic relief character, but the humiliation he is constantly made to suffer by bullies is dark indeed.

This is excellent. But hopefully by now the set-up is over and we can actually see the format in action.

Sex Education: Season 1, Episode 1

“Ejaculation. Jizz. Spunk. Man milk.”

Mrs Llamastrangler and I have settled on this as our new Netflix series to binge after a glimpse of the promising trailer. We’re rather glad we did.

A good first episode is always an impressive thing, as it has to do double duty in being a good piece of telly AND introducing the premise, characters and tone. This episode does both very well indeed.

So we have Otis, a teenage boy who is having trouble masturbating- and his highly amusing and extremely cool sex therapist mother Jean, a superb and unrecognisable Gillian Anderson in a truly amazing and charismatic performance. Otis’ best friend Eric is witty, gay and unpopular- and played by an impressive young actor with superb comic timing.

Eric is being bullied by Adam, who is in turn being tyrannised by his total bastard of a father, who happens to be the headmaster and should know better. He in turn is having trouble climaxing with his girlfriend Aimee, who is herself being more subtly bullied. Meanwhile we have outcast Maeve, ostracised as women and girls seen to enjoy sex do often are. All these characters are clearly established and interesting and it is plausible how, at the end, Otis sets up an unofficial sex therapy business with the rather interesting Maeve, who is clearly far more intelligent and interesting than her stereotype.

This is, indeed, a wonderful bit of telly. It’s gloriously quotable (“Marjorie, how are you getting on with your penis?”) and fun. It’s also refreshing to see a TV drama that treats sex as a real, nuanced part of our lives rather than just titillation- and it’s particularly refreshing to see women and girls who are shown as actively sexual in individual ways, as in real life, instead of all that whore/virgin dichotomy bollocks.

This is very promising indeed. Here goes the binge...

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

"Polite persons do not take their supper in the nude!"

 Well, there's a surprise. Oddly enough this is quite a departure from Tim Burton's usual directorial style, even if the subject matter is very him, but it works. The very English early twentieth century fantasy feel- never mind it's based on a series of American novels whose author is younger than I am- is a perfect fit for him and is done well, even if it doesn't necessarily feel very Tim Burton. And it's most odd to see neither head nor hair of either Helena Bonham Carter or Johnny Depp.

The cast is superb, though. Eva Green is the obvious highlight but Samuel L. Jackson deserves particular praise for portraying a fantasy villain very much out of his normal kinds of parts, and doing it with aplomb. Even the many child actors are at least ok, but Ella Purnell is a revelation.

Mostly, though- and I haven't read the novel and so cannot comment on how it's been adapted- the film succeeds because of the superbly imaginative and original fantasy world it presents to us from the pen of Kick-Ass' Jane Goldman, a kind of wartime X-Men with magnificently imaginative powers, extra timey-wimeyness ( I love the loops) and some particularly fearsome monsters and fantasy creatures that are superbly recognised, in some cases by mock stop motion. Very much an enjoyable film and one much better than its puzzlingly mixed reputation.