A Sex Education season 3 time jump will benefit the season 2 cliffhanger involving Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield ) and Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey). During a January 2021 interview, Butterfield confirmed that the third installment won't pick up directly after season 2, but will rather move forward to show a new and hopefully improved version of the character at school. As a result, Sex Education will mature as a series, along with its central leads.
In Sex Education season 2, Otis develops a romantic fling with Ola Nyman (Patricia Allison), and also loses his virginity. The teenager subsequently develops as a young man, but his experiences complicate relationships with other women in his life. For example, Jean (Sex Education season 2 finale, prompting the teenage boy to analyze his actions and the consequences. Otis reaches an epiphany and its his true feelings for Maeve via voicemail, but the final cliffhanger shows that Maeve's iring neighbor, Isaac (George Robinson), deletes the message while she's away.
According to a recent interview (via Maeve and Otis will feel more viscerally impactful for viewers, as both characters will have grown and become more confident about their wants and needs.
The Sex Education season 3 time jump allows for organic storytelling, which will presumably involve an exploration of Maeve's friendship with Isaac, and thus further develop both characters. Isaac will naturally want to help his neighbor deal with various sources of stress in Sex Education season 3, but he may inadvertently increase her anxieties by saying too much about Otis. Because Maeve has enough intellect and emotional intelligence to interpret cryptic statements, she's likely to have a confrontation with Isaac, which will then set up her reunion with Otis. The Sex Education season 3 time jump suggests that the character personas for Maeve and Otis will essentially be swapped. Meaning Maeve will now have an awkward demeanor because of her continued anxieties, and Otis will appear as the more perceptive one.
Sex Education season 3 can't entirely ignore a Maeve-Otis romance because it's been teased over the course of 16 episodes. So now is the time to transform the series from a raunchy teen comedy into a more progressive tale about the realities of adult romances. Maeve and Otis seem ready to explore their feelings, and the time jump teases a reawakening for both characters. In Sex Education season 2, Otis learned the painful lesson that he's been giving people his "worst," and now he can redeem himself by taking a more proactive approach with Maeve, and making sure to prioritize their friendship before anything else. From there, a romance can develop naturally in Sex Education season 3.