Sex Education Review
I just got done watching the new Netflix show 'Sex Education', so here is what I thought of it.
The first two episodes paint the series as a fun, quirky coming-of-age story about the whacky hijinks of two teenagers who set up a 'sex clinic' to help their peers as they collectively endure puberty. One is the stereotypical rebellious genius, a feminine firebrand who is wholly apathetic to the thoughts and opinions of others. The other is the awkward, nerdy-but-nice guy who stares at the floor when girls talk to him and hands in all his homework on time but only gets slightly above average grades. He's the son of a sex therapist and regurgitates his mother's advice to her clients in place of her own, while his counterpart handles client acquisition and cash flow.
Initially the stakes are low, and I assumed I was in for a lighthearted, feel-good adventure with these two misfits and their assorted stereotypical friends. As it turns out, the writers had cunningly lulled me into a false sense of emotional security - Sex Education has claws.
The show deals with a variety of social issues and makes its point in several raw, visceral scenes. Some of the plot points were very close to home for me, and I suspect that everyone who watches it will have been personally affected by one of the subjects raised. I cried at a couple of the episodes. The plot is obviously shaped in such a way as to serve the writers' agenda, which usually I would be highly critical of, but in this instance I will forgive it because of how well executed it was, and how much emotion it succeeded in eliciting from me, despite potentially being contrived.
The show illustrates a reality of life that I found compelling. Sometimes, human existence can be difficult and painful for everyone, for kids, for parents, for women, for members of the LGBTQ community and PoC, and even for straight white cis-gendered men like me. But conversely, there are always moments of pure beauty and love to be found - often close at hand, if you look hard enough. It doesn't sugarcoat anything, nor shy away from showing the brutality of life (or male genitalia - I would definitely like to commend the show for having parity in this regard). Unlike a lot of other series, Sex Education evokes the whole spectrum of emotions - sometimes it'll put you on cloud 9, and sometimes it'll leave you a sobbing mess. I think that's what's so great about the show - that is exactly what real life is like.
8.5/10, recommended assuming you have a box of tissues to hand.