Sex Education Season 4 Ending Explained: Do Otis and Maeve Get Their Happy Ending? Who Wins the Elections?
The 8 episodes that makeup Sex Education Season 4 were uploaded to Netflix on September 21, 2023, so let’s find out together how the season and the TV series end: spoilers and a summary of the finale. Before seeing how Sex Education Season 4 ends and what happens in the finale of the TV series, let’s quickly summarize what happened during the episodes. The fourth and final chapter practically picks up where we left off. Four and a half years after the show’s debut on Netflix, we have reached the finale of Sex Education, which closes its successful journey with a fourth season (of which you can find our review) absolutely up to par with the previous ones. The series created by Laurie Nunn achieved incredible success on an international level, soon becoming one of the flagship products in the streaming giant’s catalogue, and effectively entering the cultural imagination of the new generations. But what happens in this fourth and final season of the show? After Moordale High closes, Otis (Asa Butterfield), Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), and their friends begin a new school year at Cavendish Sixth Form College, a much more progressive and queer high school than the previous one, where all the students are extremely kind and practice yoga in the shared courtyard.
Meanwhile, Maeve (Emma Mackey) is attending a course for gifted students in the United States, while she tries to carry on a sort of long-distance relationship with Otis. Everything changes, however, when Maeve’s mother suddenly passes away due to an overdose and the girl is forced to return to the United Kingdom, abandoning what was her dream. But even at home things are not so simple: the group of friends seems to have disintegrated and the story between Otis and Maeve fails to gel despite their newfound closeness. Proceeding with the viewing it is therefore normal to wonder if, in the end, the couple will be able to have their happy ending and if the old friends will have the opportunity to get closer after having completed their journey to find themselves. If you have reached the end of the eighth episode, you will already know what the epilogue of the series will be, and these questions will no longer be a mystery. But it’s still worth analyzing all the latest events of the season in our explanation of the ending of Sex Education Season 4.
Sex Education Season 4:The Story Plot “The New School”
Returning to the school, Cavendish generates a real culture shock in all the former students of Moordale High. It looks like a dream place. Inclusion comes first, at least among students, and gossip is banned. While Eric quickly makes friends with some new companions, Abbi, Kent, and Aisha, Aimee grows closer to Isaac, Vivian finds love with Beau, Jackson faces a potential health problem while trying to discover who his father is, Ruby struggles to integrate and Cal, who has started the transition, experiences very complicated moments. What happened to Adam instead? The young Groff, hurt by the end of his relationship with Eric, has decided to drop out of school. Instead, he finds work with horses on a farm and slowly recovers his relationship with his father. Otis intends to be the school’s sole counselor. He thus makes himself available for an official election. In this way, he gets closer to Ruby, who takes care of his campaign. The girl wants revenge on O, who bullied her as a child. But let’s move on to find out how Sex Education Season 4 ends.
Maeve Returns to Moordale?
Milburn thus slowly distances himself from Eric, who spends more and more time with his new friends and tries to understand how to reconcile his religion with his identity. Things between the two come to a head when Maeve is forced to return to town and Otis dedicates himself completely to her. The girl is informed that her mother ended up in hospital due to an overdose. Returning home, she discovers that the woman is dead. She therefore tries to do everything possible to organize her funeral, unfortunately without the help of her brother Sean, who has instead started taking drugs. Luckily, he can count on Aimee and Otis. She also has a first date with the latter, which however ends disastrously: a drunk Maeve tries to have sex with the boy, who at a certain point stops and reveals that he has slept with Ruby. Only slept. A rift is therefore created in their relationship. But the girl also has other things to think about. She has to write a eulogy for her mother.
On the day of her funeral, she has Aimee, Eric, and Otis next to her. Sean seems to have disappeared. At a certain point, before the service, all the old friends from Moordale and some neighbors from the caravan park show up. It was Aimee who called them. After an initial moment in which everything seems to be going wrong due to Sean, who then shows up, the atmosphere at the ceremony turns to the tune of With or Without You by U2, Maeve’s mother’s favorite song. The difficult day ends with Otis and Eric deciding to take a break; Otis and Maeve making peace and Aimee slowly finding her confidence again, thanks to Isaac and art. Back home, Otis and Maeve try to have sex again, but the young man freezes again. He then realizes that he has not overcome his problems with sex, as he thought. Thanks to O, his nemesis, he understands that the problem is the fear of being hurt like his mother after her husband abandons him.
A Focus on Jean!
In Sex Education Season 4, Jean also has a central role. We first find out that she had a terrifying childhood, with a terrible mother. Both she and her sister Joanna were constantly exposed to at least one man with terrible intentions, which traumatized them. While Jean, by going to therapy, managed to overcome that period a little, this was not the case for Joanna. But thanks to the help of her sister, she is now ready to deal with what happened as a young girl. We also learn that Joy’s father is Dan, the motorcyclist with whom her sister also unknowingly dated. Furthermore, she understands that she alone cannot get out of depression so she decides to get help. In all this, she has also taken on a new job in radio.
Maeve Decides to Return to the United States?
Eventually, after recovering a bit, Jean also manages to help Maeve. Otis invites the girl to dinner for the first time but is late as he gets stuck with her in the school elevator. The two have a lot of time to talk. After a somewhat chilly start, things evolve between Maeve and Jean. The girl confides to the woman about the difficulties she encountered in the writing course and the opinion of her tutor, who advised her to dedicate herself to something else. Jean tries to make her understand that she can’t base her future on the opinion of just one teacher. Maeve thus decides to return to the USA. Once Otis arrives, after having dinner, he tells him his decision. The two know that it will therefore be a goodbye for them, but they decide to be together and this time there is no problem. The following morning, Maeve says goodbye to the boy and then spreads her mother’s ashes together with Aimee and Isaac, whom she invites to hang out. She then leaves, agreeing with Otis not to hear from her for a while.
Sex Education Season 4 Ending Explained: Do Otis and Maeve Get Their Happy Ending?
At the end of the seventh episode, Maeve tells Otis that she has decided to return to the United States to complete her studies: after speaking with the boy’s mother she realizes that she has the right to create her dream of becoming a writer, despite never having had the support of a family behind me. Maeve would like to try to maintain a long-distance relationship with Otis but the boy knows that it wouldn’t be possible. However, the two declare their love for each other and finally manage to have sex, after all the difficulties encountered during this last season. The following morning, the boys say their final goodbyes and Maeve leaves; but not before.
Who Wins the Elections?
It’s Connor who comes out on top, but he doesn’t want to hear of it: there’s too much work at Cavendish! Otis, who came in second place, refuses the position because he feels that it would not be fair to the work done by O. The latter when she goes on stage, is booed by the audience, and it is Ruby – the very one who was once bullied by or – to come to his rescue, speaking of second chances. The icing on the cake is the pastor of Eric’s church who wants to learn to make his community a more respectful and welcoming place towards all subjectivities. As for Aimee, the young woman has finally managed to overcome her intimacy problem (due to the abuse she was a victim of), and – after cathartically burning her infamous jeans – she enjoys the beauty of sexuality together with Isaac.
Jackson discovers that his father is Jerome, a married man with whom his mother had an extramarital affair. Jerome rejects Jackson and the boy understands that the fact that his mother invented the sperm donor story isn’t so important: they only did it to protect him. Adam and his father Michael Groff make peace and the latter seems to be intent on returning to his ex-wife Maureen. Adam also confesses to Jem, a girl he likes, that he is bisexual and asks her if she wants to go out with him. Eric decides not to get baptized: not as long as the church he belongs to continues to be homophobic. His mother remains at his side, but the congregation is silent in front of Eric’s touching speech.
Upon leaving the church, Eric meets… God (remember the homeless woman he helped a few episodes earlier), who leads him to Cal, who has run away from home, worrying his parents. Cal is fine but struggles to come to terms with his gender identity and fears that no one will ever accept him for who he is. Cavendish decides to raise money for Cal’s top surgery, but he doesn’t feel like attending the event when Aisha tells him the good news. As for Viv, the girl finally manages to keep that manipulator Beau away and threatens him: if he doesn’t let her go, she will report him. Abbi and Roman find sexual chemistry again thanks to Otis, who helps them overcome the impasse they find themselves in. Roman makes strange noises when they make love, and the natural toothpaste he’s using leaves him with terrible breath. Or he apologizes to Ruby for what he put her through, and the two seem to put the past behind them.
Who is the Father of Joy, Jean’s Daughter?
At the end of the series, Jean decides to tell Dan that he is the father of little Joy. During the fourth season, Jean had to deal with the difficulties of being a single mother, the sense of emptiness left by Jakob, and above all the arrival of her sister Joanna, who arrived at the Milburn house to help Jean with the baby. During her stay, Jo does all sorts of things – including ending up in bed with Dan – with her, but the real moment of reconciliation between the two occurs when Jo admits, during Jean’s program, that she was abused by one of her mother’s boyfriends. It doesn’t end there: Jo decides to put an end to her constant running away to move on and start a new chapter in her life. This phone call is also what pushes Aimee to let go of what has tormented her up until that moment.
What Happens to the Other Characters?
Eric decides to reconnect with his community and get baptized. Once he arrives at the church, however, he discovers that the council has rejected his donation made possible by the Cavendish Sixth Form College fundraiser: the parish does not support the queer values promulgated by the high school. The boy thus renounces his baptism, explaining that he is Christian but also proudly gay, in a difficult position that requires him to choose between being himself and being part of the community. Those present, in fact, except his mother, demonstrate that they have no intention of supporting him. After leaving the church and discovering Cal’s disappearance, a hooded figure steals his phone: once he reaches him, he discovers that he is, in reality, the personification of God that he had already seen in a dream. She tells him this: “Today was the beginning of a long and hard journey but I will always be with you every step of the way. You will change hearts and minds and let everyone know that I love them for who they are. This will be your calling; it will be your life’s work“. After the vision, Eric notices Cal’s presence, sitting on a rock nearby. The two talk and Cal explains to Eric that he feels trapped in his body and that he feels rejected by the world.
Cal, increasingly troubled by her dysphoria, runs away from home and everyone at school starts looking for her around town. Thanks to the security cameras, Ruby manages to identify Cal’s movements inside the mall, discovering that she has thrown her backpack into a garbage dumpster. However, it is Jackson, who knows him better than anyone, who has an intuition about where he is: he then reaches him in the woods where he already finds him together with Eric. The two then escort Cal home.
Adam continues to work passionately at the riding school and finally receives the support he so desires from his father Michael (Alistair Petrie): the two embrace to establish, after four long seasons, the rediscovered father-son relationship. Michael also decides to try his son’s first riding lesson and, at the end of it, Adam – who has realized he is bisexual – accepts his new colleague’s invitation to go out.
Jackson tracks down his biological father (who he thought was just a sperm donor) but, once he knocks on the man’s house, the man slams the door in his face and orders him to leave. Confronting his mothers, they confess to him that, before they met, mother Roz (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) had had an affair with a married man, Jerome, becoming pregnant with Jackson. The man had never wanted to know anything about him, even though the woman continued to send him letters; but after meeting Sofia (Hannah Waddingham), things changed and their beautiful family was born. A truth which, however, infuriates Jackson, who has always been kept in the dark about everything.
Otis’s mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) decides to resume her sex therapy podcast, Sexology, with the condition that she can bring the little girl to the studio whenever she has to and that she has a private room where she can express milk. Right during her first episode, she calls her sister Joanna on the radio, finally ready to talk about the abuse suffered by her mother’s boyfriend when she was only 12 years old. She also explains that she needs to move constantly in an attempt to never let this pain reach her. For her part, Jean admits to suffering from significant postpartum depression. Thus, the two finally manage to reconcile.
Things seem to be going well between Aimee and Isaac but, while they are organizing their first art auction, he asks if he can kiss her, and she backs down: the girl is still upset at the thought of having physical relations with another person. After finding Cal, Aimee explains to the new boyfriend that she still feels a lot of discomfort in intimacy after the abuse of her. As a final act of her healing from the trauma, Aimee decides to take photos of herself in front of that bus platform where she had been a victim of harassment two years before, finally setting fire to the jeans she was wearing that very day. day.
Maeve, while at college in the United States, receives a phone call from Goodhart Books telling her that her piece, Southchester, was well-liked, thus opening the door to a possible working collaboration. The girl then has a meeting with the professor who had discouraged her, Thomas Molloy (Dan Levy), who compliments her on the success of her article and apologizes to her for having told her that she would never become a writer. She explains to him that, having grown up without being able to count on anyone’s support, she managed not to let herself be discouraged; but she reminds him that, as a teacher, her words have great power over the students.
Viv realizes that her relationship with Beau (Reda Elazouar) is toxic: the boy has turned out to be violent and possessive, starting to show suffocating jealousy. During the fundraising evening at Cavendish College, she then finds the courage to confront him, definitively ending their relationship and threatening to report him if he tries to contact her again. He then rekindles his relationship with Jackson, after Beau attempts to push them apart.
Otis and Eric Reconnect?
At the beginning of the last episode, Otis had texted Eric asking if he could talk; in fact, he was starting to miss their friendship terribly. However, having received no response from his friend, after finding Cal, Otis goes to visit Eric at home. The boy explains to him that he feels uncomfortable about some of their differences, but that he never talked about it because he was afraid of doing it in the wrong way. The two thus make peace and Eric invites him to take part in the fundraiser he is organizing with Abbi, Roman, and Aisha (Alexandra James).
What is the Fate of Otis’ Sex Therapy Clinic?
During the fundraising evening at Cavendish College, the winner of the election to become the student sexual counselor is announced: Connor Pearson triumphs, a boy who had taken advantage of the constant arguments between Otis and O to run for office. The boy, however, refuses the assignment because he does not feel capable of committing; he had only applied in the hope of being able to participate in Otis’ mother’s radio program. Once he is called out, therefore, it is Otis who wins, second place. He too, however, decides not to accept: the role of sex therapist at the Cavendish has always been O’s and he has no intention of taking it away from her. Either she is not welcomed with enthusiasm by those present, who accuse her of bullying; but Ruby goes on stage and admits her faults, rehabilitating her O’s reputation, which therefore summarizes the assignment. Otis then seems to give up on having his clinic, at least at school, although he promises O to think about his proposal to work together.
How Does Sex Education Season 4 End?
The fundraising evening at Cavendish College turned out to be a real success. After the winner of the elections for the sex therapist is announced, members of Eric’s parish community show up and tell the boy that they are open to discussion. This makes the boy understand his life mission: to become a shepherd. Otis, meanwhile, approaches Ruby to apologize for his ambiguous behavior recently and asks her to be friends but she refuses, while Aimee, with the excuse of showing her new photographs to Isaac, takes him into the darkroom to kiss him. The storm (obviously metaphorical) that had hit the town of Moordale therefore seems to have finally passed: Adam returns home with his father and suggests to his mother that they all watch TV together, Otis and Eric spend the night playing video games like old times and Jackson makes peace with his mothers, forgiving them for always lying to him. On the final of Sex Education Season 4, we see Otis find on his bedside table a letter left by Meave before leaving, in which the girl praises him for possessing the rare ability to make people feel understood and confesses that, having met him, he helped her to find the courage to open his heart to other people. The fourth and final season of Sex Education ends with Maeve’s words on the night of Let It Be.
Will The Fourth Season Of Sex Education Be The Last?
Sex Education Season 4 has long been confirmed as the fourth and final season of the show. This does not mean – even if there is no news on the matter – that spin-offs dedicated to individual characters could not be made. It would be interesting for fans to find out what the fate of their favorites will be after the end of high school.
