Just days after Season 3 aired on Netflix, the streamer announced that Sex Education Season 4 is coming during the TUDUM global fan event on Sept. 25, 2021. The news was shared in a teaser showing the Moordale High crest appearing on the screen in front of a photo of the school before a breaking news bulletin appears, announcing a fourth season is heading our way.
While we speculate what’s next for Otis and the other students of Moordale High, here’s everything we know about Sex Education Season 4 so far.
Sex Education Season 4 Release Date: When will Netflix air the new episodes of its comedy hit?
Since Netflix released Sex Education Season 3 in Sept. 17, 2021, and filming was not expected to begin until July 4, 2022, it’s likely that Season 4 will air in 2023. We initially thought that Sex Education Season 4 will debut in 2022, but after finding out that the upcoming season isn’t slated to begin production until April 2022 and last all the way until November 2022, it’s likely that the new episodes won’t be released until 2023. It’s highly-unlikely that Season 4 will be released by the end of 2022 with this production schedule, because the show will still have to go through post-production before Netflix can officially release it. Just like previous seasons, Season 4 will likely have eight new episodes, but Netflix hasn’t confirmed if this will be the final season. Star Gillian Anderson shared a cast photo with the message, “I guess I’ll be seeing you for S4”.
As of July 2022, there are no production updates from the cast and crew, but it’s likely that they will start filming Sex Education Season 4 soon. According to the list of movies and TV shows coming to Netflix in November 2022, Sex Education Season 4 will not be released that month.
Sex Education Season 4 Plot: Will Otis and Maeve get back together or will Otis love Ruby back?
Warning: Spoilers from Sex Education Season 3 ahead The finale of Sex Education Season 3 ended in a huge cliffhanger, with many of the characters’ fates left hanging in the air, now that Moordale Secondary has shut down due to lack of funding, thanks to the sexually-driven students’ rebellion. Season 3 also made it complicated for the show’s core couples. Even though Maeve and Otis finally confessed their feelings to each other, Maeve had to leave for a study-abroad opportunity in America. After Eric realized that he wanted to explore his self-identity by himself, he broke up with Adam. Aimee also broke up with his boyfriend, and it’s unclear if Lily and Ola would still agree to roleplay with alien themes after Ola’s request to tone it down. Jean also discovered that Jakob is not the true father of her baby after a season of trying to make it work with him. With all these cliffhangers, Sex Education could take the storylines in unexpected ways in Season 4. With Otis and Maeve thousands of miles apart, Season 4 might feature scenes of Maeve studying in America while Otis is trying to deal with issues at home. Fans are also wondering if there’a a chance Otis and Ruby will get back together after they broke up in Season 3. As for the time constraints of Sex Education, the ex-students of Moordale started their final year of secondary school in Season 3, but the finale suggested that they still have time to go before they graduate, so it’s likely that Season 4 will cover the final summer before they head to the university, or follow them as they’re separated in different schools. Fans are also wondering how Jakob would react if he finds out that he’s not the biological father of Jean’s baby, Joy. And are we finally going to ever see that tree house completely built? On the possibility of a Sex Education spin-off, Asa Butterfield told Cosmopolitan UK, , “A spin-off would be good but it has to be well-thought out and really unique and not just for the sake of doing a spin-off.”
Sex Education Season 4 Cast: Who will return and who are the newcomers?
It’s likely that the key cast members of Sex Education would return for a fourth season, including Asa Butterfield as Otis, Gillian Anderson as Jean Milburn, Ncuti Gatwa as Eric Effiong, Mimi Keene as Ruby, Aimee Lou Wood as Aimee, Connor Swindells as Adam, Kedar Williams-Stirling as Jackson, Dua Saleh as Cal, Alistar Petrie as Mr. Groff, and Mikael Persbrandt as Jakob Nyman. According to Variety, Ncuti Gatwa is confirmed to return despite being recently cast the latest iteration of the Doctor on the the long-running BBC sci-fi series, Doctor Who. However, it’s still unclear if Emma Mackey, who plays Maeve, will return in Season 4. Speaking to Hunger, Mackey said that she has mixed feelings about continuing to play a teen in Sex Education as she approaches her late-twenties in real life. It seems likely that her character flying off to America will have consequences for her screen time in Season 4, which may see Otis forced to get over his love for her once and for all “It’s a complicated thing to me. Sex Education is so momentous as a concept, as a show, and the cast are phenomenal. I genuinely care about them all a lot and I made lifelong friends. We’ve kind of grown up together,” she said. “But the bittersweet nature of it is that I also can’t be 17 my whole life.” It seems logical that Season 4 would explore how Otis will cope in Maeve’s absence.
In July 2022, Patricia Allison, who plays Ola in the show, revealed that she will not be returning for Season 4. “I absolutely have loved being on Sex Education so, so much … but unfortunately, I won’t be joining the team for Season 4,” the 27-year-old actress said during a Tuesday, July 5, episode of the U.K. radio show, Breakfast With Yinka and Shayna Marie. “Some other opportunities have come up. I’ve been doing it for three years, and I’ve genuinely loved it.” Tanya Reynolds, who has played Lily since the launch of the show, won’t be returning for Season 4. “I’m not [returning], actually, which is sad, very sad,” Reynolds told the Radio Times. “It’s just the natural progression of these shows – when you have such big ensemble casts and so many characters, I think you have to let a few older characters go to make way for newer ones, which is absolutely the right thing, the way it should happen.”
As for newcomers, since production hasn’t started yet, Netflix hasn’t announced any new cast members returning for the fourth season. It’s also unclear if Jemima Kirke will reprise her role as head teacher Hope since Moordale High has closed its doors in the finale of Season 3. In early August 2022, Rakhee Thakrar, who plays the teacher Emily Sands, confirmed that she will not be returning for Sex Education Season 4.
She told the Daily Star Sunday: “I’m not part of the new series. I can’t really talk about why. “But I’m so proud of the show and grateful to have been part of something so important. There is nothing bad about Sex Education.”
Sex Education Season 4 Trailer: Is there one already out?
No, since filming hasn’t started yet, the trailer for Sex Education Season 4 probably won’t be released anytime soon. Fans might have to wait until Summer 2022 before get more information about the upcoming season. For now, you can watch the trailer for Sex Education Season 3 here:
Sex Education Season 4 Photos
Ncuti Gatwa, who plays Otis’ flamboyant queer best friend Eric, has shared a few behind-the-scenes photos with cast members of Sex Education. The images were shared on Gatwa’s Instagram account, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at Sex Education and the upcoming Barbie movie. The photos sho Gatwa with his co-stars Asa Butterfield, Aimee Lou Wood, and Emma Mackey, and a “mirror selfie” with Jeff Goldblum.
No official photos from Sex Education Season 4 have been shared yet, but we will you here once Netflix releases them.
