It’s her futile way of coping with the grief of losing her cat, the pet that was almost like a child to her - but it’s too much for poor Jeffrey, who gravely steps outside and declares, “I can’t have sex again.” In this case, Cynthia and Jeffrey’s wild sex causes their microwave to fall and crush Jonathan, and Cynthia retreats to her most reliable defense mechanism: Sex.
But in “Episode Three,” Sex Education does what it does best, using a low-key sex conflict to deepen our understanding of the minor characters. Besides knowing they argue a lot, fuck a lot, and have a cat named Jonathan, we don’t know that much about them. The episodic sex case this time around is a rare one focused on adults: Cynthia and Jeffrey, Maeve’s neighbors and landlords. Cal also explains their discomfort changing in front of the mean girls, adding new context to their mournful look at the destroyed restroom block in the premiere. After an anxiety attack that leaves him lightheaded, he goes hiking and smokes weed for the first time with Cal, who suggests he just be himself, Jackson Marchetti, for a while. But even a character like Jackson, typically Moordale’s biggest conformist and ideal student, has no idea what he’s doing now that he’s no longer swimming or head boy. The move to school uniforms has already begun to exacerbate these students’ identity crises. But the coldest line from that office scene, to me, is Hope’s response to Ola explaining the importance of her badge: “Of course it is, but I hope that your values aren’t so fragile that a little badge is all that supports them. At least Hope lets them stick with trousers, citing her apparent feminist bona fides, though the trousers can’t be baggy the way Cal wants them (and Hope’s insistence that “she gets it” seems to imply she’s still thinking of Cal as a tomboyish girl, not someone outside the binary). The stakes might be highest for Cal, for whom the idea of wearing a skirt is unthinkable in a time when they’re still regularly misgendered, even by progressive kids like Viv.
These different forms of self-expression vary in degree, but the embellishments have become part of who they are for all four students. They’re Maeve (purple hair dye), Lily (hair ties, clips, and funky makeup), Ola (LGBTQIA+ badge), and Cal (loose-fitting trousers). But the people who end up in Hope’s office for dress-code violations in “Episode Three” aren’t the popular kids, used to getting all the attention.
Of course they’d be upset: To them, being stylish and coordinating outfits is central to their everyday lives. It’s no surprise that when a school uniform mandate is put in place, the first real reactions of devastation we see belong to kids like Ruby, Olivia, and Anwar.
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