There is no more hallowed tradition in the genre of teen drama than the epic drunken house party, so it’s almost shocking that it’s taken 14 episodes for Sex Education to get around to showcasing a real rager. Of course, it’s not Otis’s plan to have an emotionally and physically destructive night; he just wanted to cook a roast chicken for a small low-key gathering of friends. But these things have a way of getting out of hand.
The reason Otis wants to host a “gathering†is to prove, at least to himself, that he’s capable of being spontaneous and relaxed, things Ola accused him of not being able to do as she was breaking up with him. And he even gets Jean to agree to leave him the house that night, which she reads as a sign of him asserting his independence.
Jean herself is dealing with the aftermath of breaking up with Jakob — mostly the loneliness — though the specter of old relationships lingers: At school, Jean gets a call from Remi’s agent, because Remi is apparently spreading the word that the two of them might be collaborating together on a book based on Jean’s experiences at the school — something Remi suggested they do a few episodes ago, but Jean is reluctant to pursue, because as she tells Remi’s agent, Remi is a “colossal twat.â€
While Jean asks Maureen out for a girls’ night of drinking and dancing (both Gillian Anderson and Samantha Spiro are very cute dancers, it turns out!), Otis’s party quickly gets out of hand, and while he initially tries to keep a handle on things, the arrival of Maeve, just after Otis asks Ola to come to the house to pick up her stuff, leads to Otis making some extremely bad decisions: First, to start drinking heavily, then to disrupt the entire party to yell at both girls, with his confession that he always liked Maeve a lot more than Ola.
“You’re an arsehole,†Maeve tells him before leaving with her friend Isaac — who calls out the fact that he and Maeve have a lot more in common than her and Otis, because they both know what it’s like to be abandoned by the people who brought them into the world.
Also, Jackson has gotten his cast off, which just means that he’s “back to prison†— and at the party Jackson nearly hurts himself again, but confesses to Viv that he hurt himself on purpose to escape the pressure of competition. Jackson tries to chase off Viv by calling her a robot, but she’s worried about him, especially given the stats she of course has memorized about self-harm, and so she goes to his parents and tells them what’s going on with him.
This episode’s sex case, by the way, is all about the particulars of anal intercourse, as popular and cool Anwar isn’t so cool in the bedroom with his boyfriend, Nick, and bails on their potential first time after Nick asks about douching. This is not a subject that Otis knows much about, so he enlists the advice of Rahim, who is more than capable of giving a lecture on the subject, and Rahim ultimately ends up giving Anwar the most important advice: “If you’re not ready to talk about douching with your boyfriend, you’re not ready to have his cock in your ass.†Fortunately, by the end of the episode Nick and Anwar aren’t just talking, Anwar’s virginity is gone.
The party ends with a still-drunk Jean staggering in to see the ruin of her house, and Otis drunk and naked with a girl in his bed, followed by a deeply ominous beat: Earlier in the episode, Otis swiped Jean’s journal of notes on her sessions, and Headmaster Groff has keys to all the school lockers. So after Maureen rejects him yet again, he comes back to the school with potential vengeance on his mind, aimed directly at Jean: Swiping the journal and making some very ominous photocopies. That’s where things end, but certainly this party is one that everyone involved will never forget — for all the wrong reasons.
All the Good Things and the Bad Things That May Be
• “Have you ever done magic mushrooms?†“I don’t think I should answer that.†The inner life of Miss Sands is one worth exploring more.
• After their aborted kiss in the previous episode, Lily totally shuts down Ola’s attempt to reconnect, and man it’s sad.
• After getting rejected by Eric yet again at the party, Adam runs across a very angry Ola, and the two of them end up smashing things. New potential couple?
• Maeve’s back on the quiz team, which is going to the finals, and Maeve asks Erin to come to the taping. The stage is set for what will probably be an epic disappointment.
• Aimee and Steve do dance at Otis’s party, which is perhaps a sign that she’s doing better, until Aimee once again has a flash of her assaulter, and ultimately tells Steve that she doesn’t want a boyfriend anymore and walks home alone, crying. Poor Aimee.