A teenager whose mother is a sex therapist starts an unlicensed advice clinic at school. The premise sounds like a one-joke show. It is not.
The unusual thing about it
It is generous. Almost every character who appears to be a stock type — the bully, the popular girl, the headmaster’s son — gets an episode that complicates them, and the show does not use those reveals to excuse behaviour.
That generosity is a deliberate design choice, and it is why the show can go to genuinely difficult places without feeling exploitative.
The setting
Deliberately unplaceable. The school looks American, the uniforms are British, the cars and phones do not settle a decade. The effect is that the show reads as slightly mythic rather than documentary, which buys it room.
What it handles well
An assault storyline in the second season that is among the best-handled on television — it stays with the aftermath rather than the event, and it resolves in a scene involving a bus that does more than any speech could.
The caveat
The later seasons expand the cast beyond what the writing can carry, and some arcs get abandoned. The first two are the reason to watch.
Content note
Explicit, as the title implies. Also deals with assault, abortion and mental health. Warm, but not light.
Commitment
Four seasons, hour-long episodes. Seasons one and two are the strongest.
Newsletter
Growing up, one season at a time
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