Fans Are Disappointed With Sex Education's Final Season, But There's One Scene They Could Get On Board With
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Spoilers for Season 4 of Sex Education are ahead. If you aren’t caught up, you can stream the final season of the series with a Netflix subscription.
Giving us four seasons of the hilarious and beautifully diverse sexual escapades of teens in the fictional town of Moordale, the hugely popular Netflix show Sex Education finally came to an end with Season 4 dropping on September 21. One of Netflix's darlings, it was always going to be difficult to wrap up such a beloved Original, and unfortunately many fans and reviewers alike were left underwhelmed and, rightly, a little bit frustrated. Yet there was one scene in particular viewers agree was pretty special.
With the introduction of so many new characters, Season 4 of Sex Education felt like it didn't give enough airtime to the characters we have come to know and love so much. The absence of characters like Tanya Reynolds as Lily, Patricia Allison as Ola, and Simone Ashley as Olivia also certainly distracted from what has become a cozy, comical watch.
Beyond the question of whether or not Otis and Maeve would be endgame (or whether he would end up back together with Ruby, something that has certainly left fans split), many viewers were also waiting on another key event: Otis' mom Jean and Maeve, as portrayed by Gillian Anderson and Emma Mackey, would finally meet.
Fans In A Frenzy Over Gillian Anderson And Emma Mackey Sharing A Scene
There were plenty of adorable details in Sex Education Season 4 and parallels from previous seasons that emotionally destroyed us, and the events that led Mackey and Anderson to finally work alongside one another in Episode 5 was one such instance.
After attempting to finally have sex in the abandoned (and drained) pool of the since-closed Moordale Secondary School – where, in Season 1, Otis realized his growing feelings for – Otis ends up admitting that he fell asleep in ex-girlfriend Ruby's bed while he and Maeve were in a fight.
One way to kill the vibe, their potential first time is interrupted anyway when they are busted by the cops. Jean is called to pick the two misfits up, with Otis prompting a perhaps long-overdue introduction with a sheepish: "Mum, this is Maeve."
Bearing in mind much of what Jean has heard about Maeve and the knots she has tied her son in, leading him astray and breaking into their old school wasn't exactly the best first impression, and Jean's delivery of "Hello, Maeve" is cool at best, frosty at worst.
Though their first meeting was less than ideal (for the characters, anyway), it was the reminder for many fans that perhaps the most important women in Otis' life had never actually met before this point.
Naturally, fans were sent into a frenzy, whether or not they realized this was something they'd been waiting for all along – or, like me, hadn't realized the significance of this scene until the penny dropped this was the first time they were meeting ever.
In fact, it may very well have been the biggest plot twist of the new season, not least because both Anderson and Mackey are incredibly talented and have carved out iconic roles in Dr. Jean Millburn and Maeve Wiley respectively.
The Scene Between Maeve And Jean That Saved Season 4 of Sex Education
While a significant arc in Maeve and Otis' relationship, though, that wasn't the scene that has got everyone talking. Rather, it was a prelude for the scene in the penultimate episode that may have very well saved Season 4 of Sex Education.
Following their awkward first run-in, Jean attempts to extend an olive branch and invites Otis and Maeve over for dinner. However, Otis ends up trapped in a lift with his nemesis, Cavendish College's very own student sex therapist, O, leaving Maeve alone with Jean.
Initially, the atmosphere is quite fraught between the pair, but it isn't long before Maeve opens up to Jean about her scholarship at Wallace in the States and her fears of not being a good enough writer.
In the scene, Jean offers Maeve some advice:
It seems to me you're the kind of person who has raised herself from a very young age, and from what I can tell, you're doing a very good job. But sometimes when we haven't been parented securely, we can suffer from low self-esteem. Now you've taken quite a knock, and that kind of rejection can be very painful. I would say, you were good enough to get into that course in the first place. I reckon that you are just as worthy as succeeding as anyone else there.
Fans found the scene super emotional and also quite healing.
"It's a crime they only had three scenes together," TikTok account random_fangirling stated in the caption of their edit, in which a compilation of the scene plays out with the Billie Eilish track "What Was I Made For?" from the Barbie soundtrack over the top. "However, this is all I ever wanted for Maeve – to meet Jean and have that parent figure for the first time in her life."
Another fan on X (formerly Twitter), was also moved by the scene between Anderson and Mackey's characters, pointing out the significance of Jean's own childhood in the conversation shared with Maeve – another plot line that was explored in Season 4 with the introduction of Jean's younger sister Joanna, as played by Lisa McGrillis.
And many other social media users felt the same:
It's hard to imagine any other way these characters would have met and bonded, subsequently having a significant impact on one another. It's even harder to believe that Gillian Anderson may have never become Dr. Jean Millburn in the first place, having initially thrown the Sex Education script in the trash.
While there were certainly things that were lacking in the new and final season, it feels like Jean and Maeve's scene got something very, very right in exhibiting the ways in which our upbringings intrinsically influence our relationships in the future, both with other people and ourselves: The importance of having people in your corner.
