Real Characters and Cheap Drama

A Review of Sex Education Season 1

Sex Education sounds just like your average teen comedy about teens being horny. And while this isn’t wrong, it does manage to be better than the average. The story follows two students as they start a sex clinic for their peers as a way to make money. It follows a diverse cast as they navigate school, sex, and sexuality. And what I think this show does well is despite featuring many prominent queer characters, it’s not a show about being queer. While their sexuality may be part of their identity, it’s never a character’s single feature and their stories are more complex than just a coming out.

The characters are complex and they all have to navigate the ups and downs of their teen years to varying degrees of success. And sure, sex might be front and center to the comedy, the characters are more than just dicks and vaginas. They each have their own motivations and interactions that go beyond being horny. And this keeps you watching, because you want to see the characters grow.

However, what I’m not particularly a fan of is the drama aspect of the show. Despite being a sucker for mutual pining, I don’t see Otis and Maeve as romantic partners. The emotional closeness they experience doesn’t require romance. While Otis may have a crush on Maeve, he respects her enough not to make it her problem. And Maeve’s romantic feelings for Otis seem forced. Emotional closeness doesn’t require romance and a close friendship is equally valid. 

While drama can definitely be engaging, I don’t like most of the drama of the show. It feels cheap and based on poor communication, misunderstanding, and ignoring boundaries. Maeve and Otis seem to miss each other because they can’t talk about their feelings and instead date others, except it’s mostly them denying their crush, which can only hurt their dates. Eric and Otis have their falling out, mostly Otis’s fault, because Otis leaves Eric out of his adventures with Maeve and needs to prevent someone’s nudes from leaking. Maeve’s brother shows up, but everything he does seems to cross a line with Maeve, which eventually results in Maeve taking the fall for her brother.

tldr; Sex Education does characters and comedy well, but I’m not here for drama for the sake of drama.

It’s a Title and a Review in One

An Opinion on Superbad (2007)

Without knowing pretty much anything about the movie, I had three main assumptions:

1. The whole plot will be about sex.

2. The dorky boys will get with the hot girls, who have no other qualities besides their cup size, they’re lusting after.

3. The gay romance between the dorky boys would be a much more believable ship than canon. 

I would argue that I’m right about all three counts. 

Firstly, the whole movie is just about two best friends lusting after pretty much anything with breast. The opening scene involves them talking about which porn site Seth wants to subscribe to. Pretty much all of the dialogue is crass conversations about sex, and when they’re not, they’re about getting alcohol to get sex. There are no female characters, there are just sex toys who can throw parties. 

The second assumption isn’t much of an assumption, as it is a given. As the protagonists of the story, it’s obvious that the writers wanted them to succeed, and if you’ve got the writers behind you, how can you fail. And while I didn’t dislike Seth or Evan, every time Evan said a line about respecting women, it felt disingenuous. Not because it was out of character, but rather, that the writer’s crafted these lines specifically to make the canon romance more palatable. Evan is a nice guy, who doesn’t want to take advantage of Becca’s inebriated state and likes her as a person (though there’s not that much evidence between their actual interactions), therefore he gets the girl in the end. Meanwhile, Seth gets the girl because he’s the other protagonist. 

For my third point, this romance would at the very least be more believable because while they don’t have boobs, they’re the most fleshed out characters and all the women have one dimension and two boobs. A second argument being that Seth doesn’t like girls, as evidenced by liking to see penis’s in his porn because he doesn’t like straight vagina and his dislike of Becca. (It could be because of his story, but it could also be because he’s jealous that Evan’s crushing on her and Seth is repressing his crush on him). Their heart to heart at the end of the movie, where they admit they miss each other could have just as easily resulted in a romance between them (ignoring the fact Seth has some toxic masculinity and maybe internalized homophobia to work through). Which is why the ending scene needed to be there, just in case anyone thought they were getting a little too cozy, they’re straight and the only possible happy ending is with girlfriends. 

Their story line also follows the rom-com formula of two people go from friends to crushing, or some variation thereof, followed by drama, i.e. Seth and Evan’s fight about going to different colleges and such. And in the end, the protagonists have a heart to heart and they’re magically back in love. And overall, while Seth and Evan’s relationship isn’t overtly gay, what really sells it is hat they’re also the only two characters that are both close and have a personality. 

What I didn’t expect, and did enjoy was McLovin’s escapades with the cops, which was funny because of the increasing absurdity of each scene and the friendship between him and the cops. However, in the end, he gains to confidence to talk to the girl he creeped on in the hall so he could have sex. Because in the end, the only goal in this movie is to potentially have sex with a girl. Character development is measured in personal growth, it’s by how likely you are to have sex with a girl. 

tldr; all the boys are horny and all the girls are just hot boobs that are dtf (because how else would the protagonists have a happy ending) and there’s some cops with a kid who calls himself McLovin.

In The Dragon Prince, there’s a big difference in how Claudia and Callum treat the creature’s they come across. This is highlighted when they each meet the adoraburrs. Callum thinks they’re adorable and enjoys playing with them, and in the end a few sneak off into Callum’s bag. Alternatively, Claudia also thinks they’re adorable, but she immediately bottles one up, which scares the adoraburrs.

I think this highlights a key difference between primal magic and dark magic, and why magical creatures are so averse to it. Primal magic relies on understanding the primal source, which also ties into respecting it and the creatures that are connected to it. With dark magic, creatures are just means to an end. While Claudia thinks they’re cute, she immediately bottles one up and wouldn’t hesitate to use it as a means to an end. For a dark mage, the value of a magical creature’s life is determined by what magic they can squeeze out of it. 

So, I’m only at like episode 4x8, but I loved the Scorpia episode, and I want her to feel a connection to her family’s crystal and learn more about her past and the Horde’s actual history with the Scorpions. 

In the throne room, she spoke fondly of her family’s legacy, but I also wonder how much of her actual family history she knows. She’s not much older than Catra and Adora, so she was definitely raised by the Horde. Some of her family history was definitely rewritten by the Horde, but I wonder how much is true. Scorpia definitely feels she has a great family legacy to live up to, which is why I don’t think it’s all a narrative, but I doubt the surrender was as peaceful as Scorpia believes. Also, Scorpia’s insistence on loyalty being a family trait could just have easily been added in by the Horde to keep her in line, but it could just have easily been twisted. 

I want her to reconnect with her actual legacy and learn how much is true and what the Horde reconstrued to fit their own narrative. I think and I hope that definitely involves reconnecting with her family’s crystal, which it was alluded to in the throne room. But I also realized, that since Shadow Weaver was probably siphoning the crystal’s energy for herself, there wouldn’t be much left for Scorpia, but now that Shadow Weaver’s gone, Scorpia can go on a quest (like Glimmer did) to find Entrapta. 

In Legally Blonde: The Musical, the opening number starts with Elle looking for the perfect engagement dress. When describing the ideal outfit, she says that it can’t be overtly engagement-esque because “[she’s] gotta leave Warner his pride.” Alternately, by the end instead of worrying about Emette’s pride, she proposes to him during graduation. 

While there’s nothing overtly wrong with Elle’s initial thoughts, but there’s still a stark contrast between her two relationships. Warner wasn’t terrible, but he didn’t respect Elle’s intelligence. And Elle learned her whole life that her brains were never valued as much as her beauty. Emette helped her see her worth beyond just beauty, and she doesn’t need to curb herself as any man would be lucky to have her (and not just for her body). Emette knows and loves all of Elle. He sees no shame in having a strong, capable wife, and Ellle won’t be held back for any man

I like that Le Chevre and El Topo were concerned about hurting Black Sheep in the Boston Tea Party Caper. It definitely shows that Carmen’s whole VILE class learned and became closer over their year of studies. 

But I also realized that Carmen wasn’t holding back half as much as they were. Part of this is that Carmen wants to do the right thing, and won’t back down from a fight to get that done, but it also highlights a difference in their fighting style and motivations. Carmen went all out in that fight because regardless of who she’s fighting, her purpose is never to injure or maim. She just wants to be able to do what she came to do. 

Meanwhile, VILE holds no such reservations, so when Le Chevre and El Topo were faced with a fight, where they could potentially hurt their friend, they hold back and Carmen has little difficulty beating them. They’re almost going through the motions of the fight. But it begs the question, if Carmen had fallen in the water, would they have thrown her a life saver? Because if she had fallen in the water, there’s no doubt she would’ve been fine. As would El Topo and Le Chevre, but the fact that she takes the time to throw them each a life saver shows her commitment to her refusal to steal lives. 

One thing I appreciate about Carmen Sandiego is that they didn’t have any weird power struggles when Shadowsan joined. He didn’t come in to usurp Carmen because she might be young and inexperienced and what not. Instead, he immediately deferred to Carmen’s leadership, and when he did go off on his own or keep secrets, Carmen reprimanded him and Shadowsan acquiesced. 

Similarly, Carmen wasn’t insecure with Shadowsan joining the team. She understands his strengths and utilized them. She backed him up, and listened to his suggestions, even if it did take her time to agree to an HQ. There was never a point where she had to prove herself, as she’d already done so, but also she never felt like she had to out do or put down Shadowsan to keep herself in charge. The only times she asserted herself was when Shadowsan was clearly keeping secrets, which wouldn’t be good for the overall team dynamic. 

Imagine, when Carmen steals the drive in season 1 and instead of running away, she brings it to the faculty lounge. Like, the island is on lockdown and panicking because the drive is gone. The faculty are going on about Black Sheep’s betrayal and how much trouble she’s in, but then she just walks in with a clever quip and hands the drive over. I think at that point, they’d pass her and let her go on missions for VILE. If they weren’t already, the faculty would prepare her to rise up the rank’s and eventually becoming faculty herself. And it’s not like she doesn’t already have the skill to be one of VILE’s greatest operatives.  

It’s 100% out of character, but the power move. She fails Stealth 101, so she successfully steals the drive that contains all of VILE’s plots and secrets for a year. 

Team Carmen vs. ACME

Why Carmen Shouldn’t Work with ACME

In the African Ice Caper, Carmen reaches out to ACME to help in a caper to stop another VILE plot. While Chief and Carmen still don’t fully trust each other, they do continue to evaluate each other. However, the dynamic and interactions between Carmen and Chief struck me as odd. This was highlighted when Chief said, “Snafu’s do not make Chief a happy hologram.” 

This line showed that Chief is still looking to recruit Carmen, while Carmen reached out to Chief as an ally. While Carmen has the skills and knowledge that ACME would definitely be looking for, ACME also needs to realize that Carmen and her team successfully foiled several of VILE’s plots. Carmen may be young, but she has her own team, which ACME should definitely be aware of considering the number of times they’ve also run into Zack and Ivy during their hunt for Carmen. 

Not only does Carmen have her own team, but she doesn’t need ACME. While their resources would definitely be a benefit, especially with VILE increasing their efforts to stop Carmen, she’s so far had great success with her team and she doesn’t need ACME’s intel. In fact, I doubt ACME would utilize Carmen and her team to their full potential. 

Carmen’s not a gumshoe who needs to earn her suit, she’s already done more damage to VILE than ACME has in 20 years (as shown by Cookie’s charts). Chief should recognize Carmen as a knowledgeable and valuable ally, not a potential recruit. It’s not how Carmen operates, and it’s not how she leads her team. 

Conversely, the dynamic between Shadowsan and Carmen is different than that between Carmen and Chief. While in the beginning Shadowsan may have decided to go his own way and save Carmen the trouble, she immediately pushes back. Shadowsan understands Carmen’s skill and success. He respects her leadership and while he may disagree, he defers to Carmen when necessary and eventually joins with Team Carmen. 

Shadowsan and Carmen make a great team because they understand each other and play to each other’s strengths. Shadowsan not only trusts Carmen’s judgement, but understands the situation that prompts her decision. Good communication and operating with all the knowledge is what Carmen emphasizes throughout. I don’t see ACME immediately trusting Carmen with all the information, but rather expecting her to follow orders before proving herself all over again. 

tldr; Carmen sees ACME as a potential ally, while Chief is testing Carmen as a new recruit, but Carmen doesn’t need ACME.