With in classic tragedies, plot always took precedence over characters, or any other characteristics of the genre, our present-day stories have become synonymous with characters more than ever, and even more so, with the actors who play those roles. Any TV series is as good as its cast, which often becomes an enticing and inviting factor for the fans to join in on the fun, and the same trend has been followed by Netflix’s Sex Education created by Laurie Nunn.
It first opened up an intimate conversation around sex, sexuality and gender identities in 2019 with its first season, which was followed by the second and third seasons in consecutive years. The fourth season was also confirmed consequently as the third season concluded by bringing us a step closer to fulfilling the Maeve-Otis ship agenda. Conversely, the fifth season hasn’t been green-lit at the moment, but talks and speculations around the same have started circling around even before the fourth instalment’s premiere.
Major developments around the show include the eventual exit of two of the most prominent characters in the show – Maeve and Eric. Ncuti Gatwa bid his loving character – Eric, through, whom we witnessed a heartfelt arc as a Black gay character, – farewell by uploading a post on his Instagram, announcing the upcoming season to be his last run on the show. Similarly, in a recent interview, Emma Mackey, who’d been helming Maeve’s character since the beginning, won’t be coming back for the fifth season either. This has further endangered the future instalments of the series, because alongside Otis (Asa Butterfield), it was Maeve and Eric who completed the titular trio of the series.
The series started off with both Maeve and Otis becoming business partners and imparting the students of their high school with much-needed sessions on sex-ed anonymously. The eventual plot development saw Otis’ mother, i.e. Jean Milburn (Gillian Anderson), a famous sex-therapist, stepping into this role as an official counsellor at Moordale High.
What Would Sex Education Look Like Without the Two Actors?
The road ahead is an uncharted pathway which only fills us up with dread the more we think about it. Imagine a world where two out of The Three Musketeers hung up their capes. Were you rendered speechless? That’s how the show would be like without Maeve and Eric in it. While an outsider looking in can reduce the two characters to being Otis’ love interest and best friend respectively, the old watchers of the series know better.
Even with all the explicit happenings on the show, its storyline has stayed true to building its characters, not just as an extension of another person, but by establishing them as rounded personalities that can stand tall on their own. Eric comes from a traditional Ghanaian-Nigerian family, yet he came out to them when he was 13 years old. This brings out one of the few open and unapologetic representations of a gay character in the show. He’s had several flames over the seasons but his character arc began with him standing up to his bully – Adam, and ever since then, he’s exhibited his loud personality with pride.
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He eventually started dating Adam in the third season, while the latter was still coming to terms with his sexuality. Eric is one of the most loved characters on the show, but there’s no denying that he rushed Adam to come out of his shell out of his own accord. While this has received its own share of criticism, it only further humanises the character and reminds us that they’re all supposed to be high school-attending teenagers, who still have much to learn about the world and themselves.
If Season 5 is indeed confirmed, we will miss out on these parallels between how two characters of different tendencies, but similar sexualities deal (although Adam is bisexual) with their identities. It proves that sexuality is a spectrum and can’t be singled out or held in place by stock stereotypes. If there are characters who are more open about their non-cisgender identities, then we also have those who are more reserved about it, but are still a part of the spectrum nonetheless.
Ncuti and Asa’a on-screen chemistry as best friends has worked wonders for the series since Day 1. Eric was never meant to be Otis’ side-kick, but a best friend who never left his side. Without this dynamic playing out on the screen, the series would instantly become flavourless. And, especially in a show that’s so vocal and uncensored when it comes to sex awareness, theirs is an equally balanced platonic bond that foregrounds one of the most crucial elements of a coming-of-age plot – friendship.
On the other hand, Emma Mackey’s Maeve has, on the same wavelength, provided that ever-supportive platonic shoulder to her best friend – Aimee. Without her, there wouldn’t have been a sex therapy clinic in the first place. She started out with her leather-adorning ‘bad-girl’ image, but over the seasons her nuanced layers have been peeled off, revealing just as much of a vulnerable teenager as any other.
Her dysfunctional relationship with her mother had just started to lay itself out there, allowing us to see more of each of the characters’ dispositions, and illustrating what all has led Maeve to grow mature (emotionally and mentally) faster than friends. Her character arc in the last season proves that one can spread out their wings if given a push in the right direction. Not only has she grown emotionally while fending for herself and her younger sister, Elsie, in her mother’s absence, she’s also taken a leap in her academic pursuits.
Without her, there’s no moral centre of the storyline, because her own trajectory charts a success story unlike any other. She’s one of the leading positive feminist forces in the show that has tried to bring a lot of people together despite her own fragmented life. All in all, Otis is a lost cause without his two Musketeers, who together make up for the unit that’s been the prime reason of this series’ success. Without them, whose cackling laughter will resound in the corridors, and who will make our love for literature and music feel validated?
Both Emma Mackey and Ncuti Gatwa will be starting a new chapter of their careers as they’re set to star in the upcoming Greta Gerwig blockbuster, Barbie, coming out in theatres in July 2023. Additionally, Ncuti’s eventual absence from Sex Education is also credited to him being promoted to the ranks of the fifteenth Doctor on Doctor Who Season 4.
While Season 5 is yet to be confirmed, and Season 4 still doesn’t have an official release date on the calendar, the first three seasons are streaming on Netflix. Ideally there shouldn’t be a fifth season at all if these two are leaving the show, but let us know if you think there’s a possibility of the series making it work somehow.
Do you think the Netflix series can stand the test of time without 2/3 main characters of the show in it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.