S02.E08: Episode 8

[Chas411]

5 hours ago, ahisma said:

Well... he was very dismissive of Eric’s religious beliefs. I like Rahim as a person/character, and liked that he was positive about his sexuality rather than abusively closeted, but I wouldn't say he’s perfect for Eric. 

True. But he didn’t bully Eric. I guess that’s the benefit for me. Eric and rahim weren’t OTP I can see that. I think even Rahim could. I just didn’t think he deserved to be publicly hurt like that. I also can’t get over that Eric’s mother would dislike Rahim but yet the boy who bullied her son for years is a good match because apparently he makes him sparkle. Eye roll. 

[possibilities]

I agree, except that I don't think mom knows about the bullying.

[Danny Franks]

On ‎3‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 2:27 AM, ahisma said:

Well... he was very dismissive of Eric’s religious beliefs. I like Rahim as a person/character, and liked that he was positive about his sexuality rather than abusively closeted, but I wouldn't say he’s perfect for Eric. 

Him being so dismissive of Eric's religion was such a false note, for me. Okay, I can fully believe he things religion is a load of nonsense (lots of people do) but he's not shown to be so graceless and oblivious that he'd comment on it in church, or that he'd make assumptions about how Eric feels.

It just felt like they wanted a quick, 'see, Rahim isn't right for Eric' moment, along with that fucking nonsense from Eric's mum - "he doesn't make you sparkle". As though Adam Groff would somehow be respectful of Eric's religious beliefs.

On ‎3‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 4:07 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

He does not really have a sense of humor either. 

He laughed at the vichyssoise confusion, and he was laughing and having fun with the dance machine. Rahim was serious, but I liked that the actor played it more like he was concentrating on understanding what people were saying, and that he took everything people told him seriously. 

Sure, there's no need for Eric to find his true love at the first attempt, so him and Rahim breaking up isn't the end of the world (though I think the writers should have given the relationship more time). But I find the whole Eric/Adam thing really unhealthy. Not just Eric's side of things, where he seems infatuated based on little more than Adam giving him his first sexual experience, but also on Adam's side. He seems to be tying his mental health to how Eric perceives him, and it's really weird. Are the writers going to pretend that he's fixed now he was able to admit he wants to hold Eric's hand? His issues go far, far deeper than that, and Eric honestly isn't equipped to fix anything for him.

[Old Man Neil]

On 3/2/2020 at 10:55 PM, possibilities said:

I am getting tired of seeing characters who are unlikable be treated as desireable.

Me too.

It's been going on for a long time. I'm thinking back to All in the Family. I couldn't stand Archie Bunker. I know the point was to make fun of him and his antiquated world view, but for me there wasn't anything funny about him. 

[Dizzychickstar]

a few random musings

Rahim’s last words for Eric were pretty ominous...or predictive given the fragile nature of Eric’s budding relationship with Adam. “Make sure he can catch you” or something like that. I guess he’s saying Eric is headed for a fall. Yeah, there’s a lot about their (Aric) relationship I don’t love that has already been covered by other posters, but generally speaking, I don’t like relationships where one of the parties has to do so much emotional heavy lifting. While it took courage for Adam to come out and proclaim his love for Eric in front of everyone, he won’t be magically different over night. He could benefit from a visit to Jackson’s therapist. Adam still has the capacity to hurt and disappointment Eric tremendously, even passively just by being so new to any kind of relationship. And when Eric has that hurt look on his face, it breaks my heart. I kind of wish Eric had talked with Rahim more about his feelings earlier. 

I cried a few times this episode, like when Ola tells Adam she considers him a friend—that was so sweet. The Girl Power Breakfast Club edition—that worked for me too. Small but powerful moments. 
I also really like Viv and Jackson together too.  I ship them as friends or something more—I can see her dating and Jackson being in denial about feeling jealous.  I need a knight to slay a dragon for Viv—she is such a great character. 

The ending?  Whew, chillay. I’ll buy Isaac not telling Maeve about Otis, yes, but I wish Maeve returns, Issac looks “off” and she says something like, “Did I miss anything?” Isaac says, “Nope.  Let’s just focus on celebrating your victory tonight.” In that way, we see that he is even more deliberately set on wooing her,  feels conflicted about withholding my information (Iron-knee lol because Otis says withholding isn’t lying) but his not deleting the vm means there isn’t the dragging out of Maeve getting his message.  That trope just bugs.  (See Anne with an E for an olde school approach to a similar trope) It also paints him as more solidly villainous, and there’s no way we’ll root for him.  It’s one thing not to mention Otis in that moment; it’s altogether something else to delete voice mails.  

Alas, I also binged this season overnight and into the morning😭

 

[Chaos Theory]

For me it’s never been about likeable vs unlikable especially when it comes to tv.   I like a good story and you can have the most honest good and true character in the world be just straight up boring.   Then you can have someone murder and entire village one day and the next have his family murdered only to be saved by a kindly whatever and be set on a path to redemption and fall in love with that guys sister.    It’s just a better story for me.    
 

And yeah Adam was an asshole to Eric in the beginning.  But his story is just better and more interesting then Rahim.  And their story is just more interesting for me. Especially since Adam is still coming to terms with who he is has little to no relationship with his own family.   It will be fascinating to see Adam deal with a mostly loving family.   

[Bastet]

On 1/27/2020 at 4:57 PM, Chaos Theory said:

I might be the only person who doesn’t care it Otis and Maeve get together.   They are both interesting as independent character but make a boring trite couple.  

Nope, you're not the only one.  I don't buy their being in love with each other, whereas when I was watching them as friends, I was completely hooked and always loved their scenes.

On 1/23/2020 at 12:17 AM, VagueDisclaimer said:

On another note, while I can appreciate Adam’s development and his want to change, I still find it very difficult to embrace the Adam/Eric relationship due to its origins. It’s part of a really dangerous and troubling trope when it comes to fictional portrayals romantic stories involving gay boys/men and I absolutely hated the Adam/Eric hookup last season. And while they kind of addressed the problem this season through Otis and while I appreciated that acknowledgement, it’s not enough and it’s possible it might never be for me. I certainly wasn’t fond of his grand romantic gesture, the end scene running to confess one’s love cliche. I hope their relationship is handled thoughtfully next season.

Co-sign.  I am interested in Adam individually, but I am appalled by the Adam/Eric "romance" the show is pushing.

This episode was really rather stupid.  I'm still looking forward to the third season, but I found this finale quite a letdown.  It was a parade of clichés with a few nice moments (e.g. Aimee telling Steve she thinks she's ready for a hug) sprinkled in.  Woman who'd have a hard time getting pregnant if she tried thinks she's going through menopause, only to find out she's pregnant with an "oops"?  Check.  Phone conveniently left behind and unlocked so dickhead can erase the message?  Check.  Grand gestures/speeches in front of the world instead of between two people?  Check and check.

And I'm supposed to think teachers would ever allow such a play in the first place, and then that all the parents would be just fine and dandy with it? 

I did like Adam and Ola's friendship hug, but that relationship seems to have progressed very quickly and based on ... I'm not sure what.  I also like Viv and Jackson's friendship.  Aimee baking Maeve (or "Maerve" because she had an extra cupcake, and since she's Aimee, she doesn't think to make it an exclamation point - or just eat it) good luck cupcakes was adorable.  And I'm glad Otis confronted his father.

I hope season three is more like the first season than this one, but I do very much enjoy this show.

[tennisgurl]

I thought this was a good season for the most part, but UGH to that contrived Maeve and Otis misunderstanding at the end. There is no other way to keep them apart? Why not just let them try to be together and see what happens, or have them not hook up for a reason beyond Jerk Neighbor wants to get with Maeve himself? 

Other than that, I liked this season a lot, and I now desperately want to see the rest of sexy space Romeo and Juliet. 

A wild Stephen Fry appears!

Edited April 23, 2020 by tennisgurl

[kieyra]

Finally binged this. I was originally saving it up for a trip I planned in March (ha), then the pandemic started and I had a hard time watching any new content. It looks like I tried back in April but got bummed out by the storyline with everyone wearing masks in the first episode and ejected.

Now that I've seen it, I really enjoyed the season, with some of the same caveats that other people have mentioned. While I would have liked to see the play in real life, it seemed way over the top (and extremely well funded) for something that would go on in a school like that. (But I'm basing this on American 'values', I have no idea what the UK is like.) 

I think I know what they were doing with Isaac--making the point that just because someone is in a wheelchair, it doesn't mean they're not a shithead. But yeah, the cellphone contrivance was contrivey. Adam and Eric is cringey. Adam needs serious therapy. I hated him crashing the musical. And  I'll be honest: I skipped most of the scenes with Maeve's mom, because I've already seen that plot elsewhere a hundred times (Shameless comes to mind) and I knew how it would end. At least they didn't (as far as I can tell?) make her drop out of school and raise a kid while she was still a kid. 

I think Lily is actually my favorite character on the show, and I would watch a whole spinoff about her and her future entertainment career. And she at least had some chemistry with Ola, which brings me to ...

I feel like there's an overall lack of chemistry with a lot of the pairings. I absolutely don't buy Otis and Maeve, and it's not just because she looks like a movie star and he looks like ... Otis. I didn't even remember them having a dangling romance thread from last season. I didn't feel like he had any chemistry with Ola, either. He actually had more chemistry with Ruby than anyone, which leaves me wondering why she didn't get any other plot this season than being Otis's first time. 

Hmm, I actually didn't set out to just complain. I do appreciate the show's message of sex-positivity (or no-sex positivity), not being ashamed of our bodies, admitting that teens are going to have sex and trying to help them not be dumb about it, etc. I loved a lot of the side characters and subplots. Like I said, I would watch a whole show about Lily and her artistic and sexual explorations, and I love her weird outfits and cosplay. I like the Jean / Jacob storyline, although the pregnancy ... yeah, no. I liked the girl breakfast club, even though I knew what the unifying theme was going to be. On that note, the bus assault stuff with Aimee was really well done, especially the part where she truly believes at first that it was no big deal, and slowly realizes that she really was assaulted. 

[possibilities]

I'm really curious about the writing team for this show. It's like they actually know something, as demonstrated by that story with Aimee and how she reacted to the incident on the bus.

[ahisma]

20 hours ago, possibilities said:

I'm really curious about the writing team for this show. It's like they actually know something, as demonstrated by that story with Aimee and how she reacted to the incident on the bus.

Kind of like ... when all the female students were talking in the library, and they all realized they’d been assaulted by men, one way or another ...

[PandaPanda]

WHat is season 3 release date? Who knows?

[Aulty]

2 hours ago, PandaPanda said:

WHat is season 3 release date? Who knows?

No release date has been set yet. The show was scheduled to start shooting the 3rd season in spring, but due to the lockdown that had to be pushed back to August. Even if they get everything in the can over the summer, I'd expect there to be quite a queue for post production as everyone will try to make up for lost time.

If its a high priority project for Netflix and there are no more delays maybe they can make for a release in January 2021 (series 1 and 2 dropped in January), but personally I think it will be spring or early summer.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Aulty

[Danny Franks]

On 5/25/2020 at 8:21 AM, possibilities said:

I'm really curious about the writing team for this show. It's like they actually know something, as demonstrated by that story with Aimee and how she reacted to the incident on the bus.

Most, if not all, of the show is written by Laurie Nunn and she was definitely drawing on her own experiences, and probably the experiences friends have told her about, for those scenes. For Aimee's, in particular, she used a specific incident that happened to her:

https://mashable.com/article/sex-education-aimee-assault-storyline/

Quote

"The inspiration for Aimee's storyline in series two came from a personal experience that I had myself," said Nunn in the video. "This thing happened to me about five years ago where I was on my local bus and I was on the way to King's Cross station." It was early in the morning when someone got on the bus and sat next to Nunn, despite the bus being completely empty except for one other woman at the back. "This man got on and he just made a beeline straight for me and came and sat right next to me. Which was just so weird, I was like, you have so many seats you could sit on but you've come and sat right next to me," Nunn said. "I had my bags on the floor and he put his feet on my bags so that I couldn't move and he started inching himself toward me and then he was rubbing himself on me and touching himself."

Nunn got off the bus and burst into tears straight away, she said. "It was really strange 'cause I kind of shook it off and got on with my weekend and it just really stayed in my head and I started having panic attacks where I couldn't get back on my bus, I didn't like getting on the Tube, this lasted for weeks afterwards," she said. What helped Nunn was posting about her experience in a feminist women's Facebook group and hearing other women say "that happened to me," which made her feel heard, gave her solace, and made her feel "a bit braver." 

As a straight guy, I used to barely think about this sort of thing. Obviously, it's not something I've experienced so being oblivious to it was easy. It's only relatively recently that I've come to realise that a majority of women have personal experiences of harassment and assault, and it's hard to square in my head how proprietorial men are over the bodies of women, even women they don't know.

[MYOS]

Otis and Maeve better meet on that road! Creating a cliffhanger, OK. But using the "delete voicemail" cliche to keep Otis and Maeve apart is insulting for such a smart show. 

Also, let's see whether Otis/Maeve CAN become a relationship. 

Each season ("series") is either a half-term or a term, so we're supposed to be nearing Winter term. Which in Wales would mean lots of rain so not sure that'll be next season!

Why can't Adam join the college* for a BTech or any vocational qualification rather than ALevels? [*It'san FE College, meaning for students 16-19, offering first qualifications past general secondary curriculum). He seemed to like the dog so maybe there's something as a vet assistant, an animal carer, a doggie daycare attendant, perhaps with apprenticeship since he's not really into school?

Aptitude scheme = preparing for the Aptitude tests (Oxford, Cambridge, Medicine, Veterinary School, all post-A levels, sometimes for Math taken in June of SixthForm level 1.) They're very advanced, essay-based tests similar to what you'd have at colleges with Comps. Math for instance would include proof-based calculus through differential equations as well as linear algebra. Basically the class is made of students whom the teachers think are "Oxbridge material". 

I do hate the idea of Adam/Eric. Adam was abusive and terrorized him for years. Holding Eric's hand is a good gesture for Adam, shows growth and the beginning of self acceptance, but it's not about Eric. it's about Adam.

Eric shouldn't want to "redeem" someone who's got such massive issues AND bullied him. The bully has to find his own redemption path first.

I hope Rahim stays around even if he's not Eric's boyfriend anymore, and we get to know more about him. If he's French, how come he had to leave his country due to religious persecution? Or do they mean French speaking country which his family had to leave due to civil strife (Algeria, Libya) or avoiding becoming political prisoners (Morocco)? There's an interesting back story here.

Do you think Jean will keep the baby? Will Otis have a little brother/sister? What about Maeve, will she know where Elsie will be placed, will she be able to visit her?

Edited July 7, 2020 by MYOS

[Aulty]

7 hours ago, MYOS said:

Otis and Maeve better meet on that road! Creating a cliffhanger, OK. But using the "delete voicemail" cliche to keep Otis and Maeve apart is insulting for such a smart show. 

Also, let's see whether Otis/Maeve CAN become a relationship.

Yeah, I hope the writers used the lockdown well and made sure the scripts for series 3 are not all about keeping Otis and Maeve apart under very shallow pretenses.

Each season ("series") is either a half-term or a term, so we're supposed to be nearing Winter term. Which in Wales would mean lots of rain so not sure that'll be next season! 

I think the show is that it will always be set during Spring/Summer - it has that utiopian setting of California weather and Welsh countryside. And as I said yesterday, they will shoot it in August.

Do you think Jean will keep the baby? Will Otis have a little brother/sister? What about Maeve, will she know where Elsie will be placed, will she be able to visit her? 

Otis is gonna take that one well, won't he?

If they got him and Maeve together with Jean keeping the baby it could put a few bumps in the road for everyone. Maeve without a family and Otis getting worked up because he has to share his little prince status?

[possibilities]

I would think Otis would be happy to have Jeanne distracted enough to stop interfering with him, to be honest. I don't really see him as pining for her attention. He's done everything he can to get her to leave him alone and she's only messed up his plans whenever she's gotten closer. He hated having her at school, for instance.

 

[MYOS]

Otis will likely be conflicted. However there'll be all the uncomfortable moments when Jean explains that she's pregnant, then the pregnancy. That's assuming she decides to keep the baby, now that she's broken up with Jacob.

 

 

[DoctorAtomic]

I hope she doesn't. That could really be a bold narrative. 

[Bastet]

I hope they don't think oh, we already did an abortion storyline with Maeve and thus rule it out for Jean.  There can be more than one per show!  It would be nice to show the reality that women in a huge variety of life circumstances choose to abort, not just poor, young, abandoned girls like Maeve.  I'd quite appreciate seeing a mature (and then some; how the hell old is GA supposed to be playing that Jean can even accidentally get pregnant in the first place?), stable woman who's already about through raising a child decide I had no desire or intention to become pregnant at this time, so I am choosing not to remain pregnant.

[possibilities]

I'm quite certain that Jean would be pro-choice. But the writers might think it's more drama to add a baby to the show. I hope not.

[DoctorAtomic]

I assumed Jean was 40. GA is 51. I think a good story would be Otis wanting her to keep it, but she decides not to. 

On 7/11/2020 at 2:27 PM, Bastet said:

There can be more than one per show!  It would be nice to show the reality that women in a huge variety of life circumstances choose to abort, not just poor, young, abandoned girls like Maeve. 

Precisely because of this. Jean is well off enough and doesn't seem to have any problems with access to health care. You never really see this side of these kinds of stories. 

[OtterMommy]

On 7/11/2020 at 5:44 PM, possibilities said:

I'm quite certain that Jean would be pro-choice. But the writers might think it's more drama to add a baby to the show. I hope not.

I can actually see how Jean keeping the baby would work into the show.

Jean is clearly having a lot of trouble with Otis's maturing process growing older.  She clearly wants to be involved in his life as she likely was when he was younger.  This pregnancy can give her the chance to be involved in someone else's life.  It's not what I would consider mentally healthy and I'm sure it sets up that child for a life of neurosis, but I also see it as being completely in Jean's character to keep the child for that reason.

[Happytobehere]

 

On 1/27/2020 at 7:57 PM, Chaos Theory said:

I might be the only person who doesn’t care it Otis and Maeve get together.   They are both interesting as independent character but make a boring trite couple.  

 You are not the only person. Otis and Maeve hold zero interest and appeal to me. Literally every other coupling on this show holds my attention but them.

[BingeUntilTheEnd]

On 1/20/2020 at 11:00 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

Otis and Ruby isn't going to be a thing. She said she hooked up because she was feeling sad she that guys like Otis are easily manipulated. She may hit him up to hook up again but that's it. 

Well looky looky over a year later… my boy hit the big leagues 🙌🏽 

[oliviabenson]

Otis really grown up, looks like a man now. Before he looked like a skinny boy now he is all grown up. 
 

Rahim is the handsomest man on the show!