Sex Education Series 3

[SequinsandStiIettos]

Conor Swindells still the best thing in this (Adam).
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/17/sex-education-season-three-review-laurie-nunn-netflix
Do not always agree with Lucy Mangan but think here her review is fair.

My ear worm today is 'fuck the pain away'. Thankfully I've kept it in.

Didn't enjoy the Maeve /Otis/Issac stuff much and I really wanted to wash her face.

I quite liked the Jackson/Cal stuff (was his mum Rebecca from Ted Lasso?). Felt quite reasonable for Jackson to be a bit thrown off but then be fine with it.

I did find Jakob very fine this series.

Overall faves were Aimee and the vulvas, Ruby and the fact her friends were actually real mates and Adam and Eric. Surely Adam and Raheem are a dead cert for next series? I think they do have some proper chemistry whereas whilst I loved Adam and Eric together it was sweet not hot iyswim.

@RoyKentsHairyBack agree about Eric and Adam, they were what each other needed at the time and in their coming out journey to support each other, but not right-right for each other.

Still on series 2 but found episode 7 to be so heartwarming. The morning after pill and the girls solidarity.

Just finished Series 3.

I agree with the comment about Gillian Anderson being just too much sometimes. I am one of the few who doesn't love Jakob, because he reminds me of my Swedish uncle who I don't get one with.

I have loved seeing Adam and Isaac develop more this series. And Ruby at home and her insecurities, seemed very realistic.

Adams real life Dad doesn't look as much like him as Daddy Groff.

The ‘smashing’ episode? I cried. It was magnificent.

I watched a few old episodes and honestly Adam's dad was so so vile to him, he is vulnerable and a bit messed up cos of his dad, glad his mum didn't take him back.

I’m just watching series 3!episode 6 and I’m fuming. There’s no way that head teacher would be allowed to do that. Shaming students. It’s made me really cross! Haven’t finished that episode yet but I’m worried about Eric too. Just gonna keep watching and hoping headteacher gets her comeuppance. Utter bitch. Sorry but I work in a school and I’m fuming about what she did. I’ll stop ranting now.

[spoilers sorry, look away if you don’t want to know!]

I watched the last few episodes the other day, and for a series that was so sensitive and nuanced in S1&2, I just couldn’t help notice how stereotyped the final episodes were, especially in how it collapsed all the older women into caricatures of the good or bad mum.

Jean, who used to be interestingly complex, turns into her Earth-mother wise advice mode at the close of ep 8. Maureen is the perfect mum, silent and unobtrusive and smiley with a lovely hug. Emily (who has been disappointingly written into just a comic character this season, ends up also in the position of surrogate mum, coming to watch Adam’s dog show.

Erin is a Bad Mum (overlaboured yet again), but it’s okay because she’s also a caricature of a Tart-With-A-Heart straight from the Eastenders scripts of the 2000s, and she ponies up the cash for Maeve, and anyway now Elsie and Maeve have surrogate Good Foster Mum Anna, who is also quiet and smiley and makes tea. Meanwhile Hope is Bad, so naturally, she is punished by the fact she can’t have children (bit of an obvious narrative move there). Eric’s mum lied so is also Bad, but she gives him a hug so that’s all okay. And Lily’s mum appears in a downtrodden quiet voice and a 1960s tweed coat and Morris Minor for all the world like a character from Call The Midwife, just in case we don’t get the point that Good Mums should be quiet and wise and selfless. Even Jackson’s hot lesbian sports bootcamp mum, one of the now interesting older female characters in previous seasons, just appears in only one scene, to offer him some wise platitudes and smile a beatific mumsy smile.

Is it just me or was anyone else just a bit at all these caricatures of the Good Woman/Good Mum who is always smiley and quiet and wise? Seems to go completely against previous seasons where the older female characters had a depth and complexity to them. I like the series, but I really hope they can do a bit more in S4.

On another note - Gillian Anderson clearly hadn’t quite shaken off her Maggie T voice this season Jean was really slipping into PM mode a few times here and there!

I really liked this series but YES. Jean was very much Maggie Thatcher in this series at times 😂

Adam was standout for me. Genuinely interesting character. I’m not really that keen on Ruby or Isaac, unpopular though by all accounts!

Yeah I adore Gillian A, but Jean’s voice was much higher in S1&2 - this season some of her Wise Therapy Advice sounded far too much like a Cabinet meeting circa 1986

I didn’t like Anna. Bit too Other Mother from Coraline. And I don’t think I agree that Eric’s mother was characterised as Bad. Still, interesting analysis, foxgoosefinch.

You could say that about the male characters too although tbf apart from Adams Bad Dad and Olas Good Dad, can't think of any more dad's on the show.

Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s all about the mothers - not the dads. Even Eric’s dad wasn’t there this season!

Though I also have the join the select club of the Jakob non-fanciers - he just doesn’t do it for me. But he was a lot more Good Dad last season. This season I felt like the writers felt like they needed to come up with some dramatic tension, and so they basically turned him into Wallander lite

I love the show but did find series 3 a bit too woke at times. It felt like they were really trying to educate the audience, and I don’t like it when it switches into that mode.

Adore Adam. I could watch his scenes over and over, he just nails them all and either got me grinning or crying.

A question for anyone - what’s the deal with the black characters sticking to relationships with other black characters? And the Asian girl (not sure of her name) in Ruby’s friendship group has an Asian boyfriend. For such a progressive show I don’t understand why in this season it’s sticking to no ‘colour’ mixing (for want of a better way of describing it). I found it a bit unsettling and they didn’t do it in previous series. They’ve increased the number of BME characters - good, but it seems they’re only allowed to interact with other BME characters.

@ButterflyBitch

I’m just watching series 3!episode 6 and I’m fuming. There’s no way that head teacher would be allowed to do that. Shaming students. It’s made me really cross! Haven’t finished that episode yet but I’m worried about Eric too. Just gonna keep watching and hoping headteacher gets her comeuppance. Utter bitch. Sorry but I work in a school and I’m fuming about what she did. I’ll stop ranting now.

I found the punishment in this episode very ironic. A show filmed in Wales, where children up to 1940 where humiliated for speaking their native language in a very similar fashion.

Google "Welsh not".

As a fluent Welsh speaker, it made me upset because I recall my great grandmother telling me how her older sister (my great great aunt) was often punished like this.

Thanks for the reply Shiny I will look that up.

I asked the same thing a few days ago Tiddlerslate

Worse - the very worst - for some inexplicable reason they completely isolated three black characters - two of whom had interacted with everyone in the first two seasons, one of whom is new - and had them pretty much only interact with each other. Stupidly and pointlessly and - it completely ruined my appreciation for the show. It was as if they decided to kowtow to US sensibilities. I Don’t Know Why.

Im really late to the party. Watching S1E(1. Cant get my head around it.

Is it based in the UK? as the house/school looks American but everyone is very English. And the era-new £1 coin and a new £20 note.

Just throwing me a bit