‘Sex Education’ season 2: Less insightful but just as spunky

Comedies set in high school measure the world through cliques. The cool, the athletic, the nerdy, the dull…. Everyone is a type, and some entry-level anthropology is essential to navigating these odd, unpredictable and frequently cruel waters. However, as we learn from shows like the affectionate British series Sex Education, first impressions are never accurate. On closer examination, the most popular girl on campus is also a scared youngster, sad about her father’s battles with multiple sclerosis, not to mention the unacceptable fact that her eyebrows happen to be uneven on the evening of a party.

When Sex Education first appeared on Netflix last year, it was an unexpected delight. It was a series where the great Gillian Anderson strode around in pantsuits talking about vaginas while her repressed son charged money for giving sex advice to his classmates. There was humour, there was romance and there was an alarming, but ultimately inevitable, amount of kink—the young really are curious enough to try anything. More than anything, though, the show demonstrated genuine empathy and insight, taking its time over 10 episodes to display affection for those we might not have liked at first glance.

A second season of the show arrived on 17 January, and while characters, charm and good-natured snogging escapades are all in place, this time nearly everyone appears to be part of a love triangle. Much of the show’s lovely weirdness has been replaced by clichéd logic, and there is disappointingly little consistency in the way characters behave: The season opens, for instance, with young protagonist Otis uncontrollably aroused by everything from Brie cheese to corduroy trousers, but this dilemma is dismissed all too conveniently by the end of the first episode.

Comedies set in high school measure the world through cliques. The cool, the athletic, the nerdy, the dull…. Everyone is a type, and some entry-level anthropology is essential to navigating these odd, unpredictable and frequently cruel waters. However, as we learn from shows like the affectionate British series Sex Education, first impressions are never accurate. On closer examination, the most popular girl on campus is also a scared youngster, sad about her father’s battles with multiple sclerosis, not to mention the unacceptable fact that her eyebrows happen to be uneven on the evening of a party.

When Sex Education first appeared on Netflix last year, it was an unexpected delight. It was a series where the great Gillian Anderson strode around in pantsuits talking about vaginas while her repressed son charged money for giving sex advice to his classmates. There was humour, there was romance and there was an alarming, but ultimately inevitable, amount of kink—the young really are curious enough to try anything. More than anything, though, the show demonstrated genuine empathy and insight, taking its time over 10 episodes to display affection for those we might not have liked at first glance.

A second season of the show arrived on 17 January, and while characters, charm and good-natured snogging escapades are all in place, this time nearly everyone appears to be part of a love triangle. Much of the show’s lovely weirdness has been replaced by clichéd logic, and there is disappointingly little consistency in the way characters behave: The season opens, for instance, with young protagonist Otis uncontrollably aroused by everything from Brie cheese to corduroy trousers, but this dilemma is dismissed all too conveniently by the end of the first episode.

Read More here