Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’ Renewed for Season 2

Sex Education

Netflix Netflix's "Sex Education" will return next year for an eight-episode second season.

Netflix’s delightful dramedy Sex Education has been renewed for an eight-episode second season.

In the show, Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) is an inexperienced, socially awkward high school kid whose world turns upside down after he starts his own sex clinic at his school. Surrounded by his sex therapist mother’s work (played by the incomparable Gillian Anderson) and her non-stop sex talk, Otis becomes a reluctant expert on the subject. He teams up with Maeve, a whip-smart bad-girl (on the surface), and together they open the underground clinic to help their classmates with their weird and wonderful sex problems (and also to make a little money on the side). Each episode starts with a student’s sex-related dilemma which Otis eventually helps solve. Thanks to its setting, the show has a wide web of characters to explore in its second season.

According to the streaming service, an estimated 40 million households watched the first season within the first four weeks of its premiere. Cast members confirmed to return include Anderson, Butterfield, Emma Mackey, Ncuti Gatwa, Aimee-Lou Wood, Connor Swindells, Kedar Williams-Stirling, Tanya Reynolds, and Patricia Allison.

With a killer soundtrack, messages of sex positivity, and lots of humor, Sex Education handles teenage issues like abortion and homophobia with lots of heart, while balancing its heavier moments with lighter bits that focus on young love, orgasms, and everything in between. The show dives deep into the pulsating hormones ruling the characters’ worlds, investigating sexual issues that are very real to the teenage human experience.

Series creator Laurie Nunn said in a statement that “the reception to series one has been so exciting. Seeing how people across the world have connected to characters that began as ideas in my head is incredible. I’m hugely grateful to every person that has taken the time to watch the series, and I can’t wait to continue this amazing journey.”

“Laurie Nunn has captured the awkward teenage experience with a lot of heart and humor in Sex Education,” said Netflix vice president of original content Cindy Holland. “Along with the Eleven team and executive producer and director Ben Taylor, she’s created a universally relatable series that has resonated with our members around the world.”

“Series one is very much Otis’ journey,” Nunn told Thrillist shortly after the show’s launch. “If we’re lucky enough to get a series two we will always come back to Otis. He’s a fantastic leading character but the fact that we’ve got this great ensemble and these amazing young actors who have also just brought so much to those characters. It just feels like they could go anywhere.”

Since its debut, the eight-episode first season has been certified 91% Fresh, with critics praising it for its woke comedic raunch, refreshing diversity, and ability to subvert teen sex-romp tropes.

Production on Season 2 is scheduled to begin this spring. The show was created and written by Nunn and executive-produced by Eleven Film’s Jamie Campbell and Ben Taylor, and co-executive produced by Sian Robins-Grace. Taylor also served as a director on season one along with Kate Herron.

Season 1 of Sex Education is streaming now on Netflix.