The Open Day
Episode 7 of Sex Education Season 3 begins with Lily taking time off from school. With her Mum heading off to school and calls from Ola being ignored, Moordale is certainly having its effect on her. Meanwhile, tensions between Jean and Jakob continue to be felt across the family. As Otis so eloquently puts it “everything you do turns into a mess.” There’s a whole series of other messes too, including Elsie still missing, Maeve conflicted over her feelings toward Isaac and Otis, along with Eric feeling guilty for cheating on Adam. However, news of Maeve and Otis’s kiss is enough to kick the latter into action. At school, the Open Day immediately sees Viv, Cal and Jackson work together to try and oust Hope from her totalitarian regime. Otis and Eric are in on the action too, although it doesn’t take long before Cal finds themselves locked inside Hope’s office. As the presentation gets underway, Hope hands the stage over to Viv…who in turn hands it over to Jackson. Game on. With a projector coming down slowly and a video being played, the students completely humiliate and upstage Hope, who can only watch in horror. Hope does try to turn the video off, pulling the plug multiple times, but it’s Ruby who shows and stops her in her tracks. Each of the students have their own placards, with their personal “shames” – and there’s even a new school anthem. And what is it? It’s Colin the music teacher’s song about sucking on breasts. Classic. The one player here who’s not involved is Lily, who spends the duration of this flamboyant and triumphant display in her room, throwing away everything that makes her unique. Another subplot developing – and which fizzles out just as quickly – comes from Maeve and Aimee heading down to the coast to stop her Mum taking Elsie away. They soon find them on a bench, with Maeve convincing her Mum to give the girl up and let Elsie head back to stay with Anna. As they walk away, Maeve’s Mum is left a sobbing mess on the floor. Anyway, back in town Jean finds herself going into early labour. While she’s rushed to hospital, Jakob ends up heading into therapy alone. There, he opens up about his past and speaks of his first wife. They were in love but things changed when the duo had kids. His wife wanted to leave Jakob and then ended up getting sick. He stayed with her through it all, making it work until the end when she passed away. Jakob grieved for her death but through this, didn’t have time to process his wife’s betrayal. It seems Jakob’s issues stem from trust – or a lack thereof. After school, Otis heads over to check up on Lily. The pair connect over their similar way of shutting things out and not speaking up when needed. Otis is great at this therapy gig, and manages to talk her round. Speaking of talking, Eric heads over to see Adam. He admits to kissing Oba in Nigeria which completely breaks Adam. He clenches his fists and struggles to process this news. In hospital, Jean gives birth to a tiny baby girl, just as Jakob shows to congratulate her and see the birth of his daughter. Only, there’s a problem. As blood oozes through the sheets, nurses rush to the scene. All of this is unknown to Otis though, who heads over to see Maeve. He admits he wants to do the clinic again but only so he can be close to her. Just as it starts raining, Maeve admits she too wanted to be close to him. And once again the pair kiss, as Otis ignores a phone call from his Mum.
The Episode Review
So it looks like Maeve and Otis will end up together by the end of the season after all. Of course, Otis’s phone check at the end there may come back to haunt him, especially given what’s going on with Jean right now. And will Jean be okay? It’ll be a pretty big kick in the teeth if she ends up passing away by season’s end, and in many ways the show has had a lot of subplots to deal with. While most have been handled pretty well, a few have sort of just fizzled out. The Maeve subplot of going on a road-trip down to the coast, along with the whole Isaac issue has felt a bit undercooked, while Ruby has just dropped off the scene completely these past few episodes (minus her interjection with Hope of course.) That’s to say nothing of Jackson and Cal’s will they/won’t they romance and Aimee’s emotional issues. There’s been a lot to work with this year and while Sex Education has managed to handled a lot of this quite effectively, there are also moments where the show struggles under the weight of so many characters. With a big cliffhanger ending, it remains to be seen exactly what will happen in the finale.
