Sex Education Season 4

Letting go and moving on from the beloved characters of Moordale

By Jillian Nelson

The fourth season of Sex Education centers on distance, raw severings, and goodbyes with only partial closures. Opening new plot lines that it doesn’t completely sew shut, this bittersweet final installment serves as a reminder of perseverance and finding contentment during life moments where we must unexpectedly let go and start again.

It shockingly becomes clear that several characters will not return, withholding a chance to say goodbye from fans. Each remaining character struggles through individual new beginnings. New schools, parenthood, jobs, artistic pursuits, gender transitions, and religious paths. Although it causes a bit of whiplash, viewers quickly adapt as the characters adjust to their new lives and hardships. Their season arcs are a realistic portrayal of the difficulties of releasing the past and restarting.

The episodes still contain their fair share of the series’s classic unapologetic sexuality, gender, and identity explorations. The show excellently touches on how even in open, progressive spaces, such as the new Cavendish College, marginalized identities can still be left behind in a performance of, rather than commitment to, diversity.

The finale leaves viewers with half-endings, but in a way that allows the characters to breathe and float away from the screen. As the final credits roll, with pride and grief, they become their own entities in viewers’ imaginations, taking shape in what their futures could be. If you’ve followed along with this series as I have, prepare to have a good cry and experience a beautiful ending that will leave you mournful in goodbyes, yet satisfied.