Many relationships are in turmoil in Sex Education season 3 but Lily and Ola’s romantic conflict stands out as a weak and underdeveloped story. Created by Laurie Nunn, Sex Education stars Asa Butterfield, Emma Mackey, Gillian Anderson, and Ncuti Gatwa and follows the trials and tribulations of high schoolers as they navigate relationships and sex lives. The newest season of the British teen dramedy came out on Netflix the weekend of September 17th. It brings in several new characters, and as usual, the romantic drama between Moordale’s students takes center stage.
Sex Education season 3 sees a lot of changes in its main characters’ lives and relationships. Moordale Secondary School has a new headmaster, Hope Haddon, who proves old-fashioned and overbearing. Protagonist Otis Milburn has a tumultuous fling with popular mean girl Ruby, while Maeve begins a romance with her neighbor, Isaac. Eric and Adam’s relationship develops before suffering from Eric’s infidelity and the insurmountable differences between the pair. Aimee and Steve adopt a goat as their “commitment animal” in an attempt to bring them closer together as a couple. While Sex Education explores the complexities of these connections, Lily and Ola’s relationship remains stagnant and gets little screen time.
Lily and Ola got together at the end of Sex Education season 2, shortly after Otis and Ola broke up. Throughout the series, Lily’s character has revolved around her obsession with aliens and passion for writing about her sexually explicit outer space fantasies, with the season 2 finale even centering around a school musical that she designs in this genre. Season 3 continues to focus on this aspect of Lily’s character: her alien sex adventure story is published in the school newspaper and she looks forward to a rumored alien landing event called “The Eighth.” However, the show makes the mistake of denying Lily, and her relationship with Ola, any development or conflict outside of this trait. In fact, most of Sex Education season 3’s new characters have more complex and authentic storylines than Ola and Lily – including the goat.
As Jean and Jakob combine their families, Ola deals with conflicts at home and misses her mother more than ever, but Lily’s preoccupation with the Eighth causes her to ignore her girlfriend’s plight. Ola tells Lily that she would like to have normal sex sometimes and refers to their constant alien roleplay as “strange,” which hurts Lily’s feelings. Lily also goes through some problems of her own, as Hope punishes her for her story and the other students make fun of her, causing her to consider changing her personality in order to fit in. At the center of all of these problems is Lily’s alien obsession. This has always been a prominent trait of Lily's, but in season 3 of Sex Education, it is increasingly becoming her entire character.
Although in the past many have considered Maeve and Otis the most boring Sex Education couple, Lily and Ola’s season 3 relationship proves far less interesting. Even when the couple reconciles at the end of the season, aliens still manage to take center stage at the cost of meaningful dialogue between the two. The Eighth scene includes a few sweet lines in which Ola recalls her mother, and she and Lily support each other, but their resolution is frustratingly brief and simplistic after weeks of disagreement and miscommunication. Hopefully, Sex Education season 4 will bring Lily and Ola’s love story into focus in a more meaningful way.