Characters / Sex Education Main Characters

Sex Education Main Character Index
Main Characters | Students and Teachers | Other Characters

---

Teenagers

In General

• Bittersweet 17: Everyone's either 17 or turns 17 over the course of the series and they all experience large amounts of character development around the same time.
• Coming Of Age Queer Romance: Adam with Eri. Jackson and Cal seemingly had a good thing going, until Cal decided they should just stay friends out of concern that Jackson only sees them as a girl.
• Dating Do-Si-Do: Maeve was with Jackson, who later moved onto Cal. Otis was with Ola and later Ruby while Ola moved onto Lily. Eric was with Rahim and Adam. Adam was with Aimee, who later moved onto Steven and eventually Isaac.
• Opposites Attract:
  • Dorky Otis with punky Maeve, glamororus Ruby and outgoing Ola;
  • Camp Eric with demure Rahim and thuggish Adam;
  • Ditzy Aimee with academic Steven and droll Isaac;
  • Flawless Jackson with delinquents Maeve and Cal.
• Percussive Therapy: The second season features a junkyard. Adam comes here to smash things as an outlet, which he shows Eric. Following the Detention Episode, the other girls come here and wreck things In-Universe Catharsis for their shared experiences of sexual harassment.
• Troubled Teen: Everybody is dealing with their own personal issues.

Otis Milburn

Otis Milburn

Played By: Asa Butterfield

"It shouldn't matter what anyone in the school thinks. You are who you are. Don't let anyone take that away from you."

An awkward wallflower and son of Dr. Jean Milburn, Moordale's local sex and relationship therapist. Using his remarkable gift for psychotherapy, Otis befriends fellow outcast Maeve and starts an underground sex therapy clinic for the students at Moordale Secondary School.

---

• Anorgasmia: Otis suffered from this due to his negative history with sex, but once he starts mastrubating he swings to the opposite extreme.
• The Big Damn Kiss: When Otis and Maeve are stranded in France, the two talk out their tensions with each other, which leads to Otis telling Maeve the love confession that she never got to hear. Maeve responds by finally kissing Otis.
• Birds of a Feather: With Maeve; both are intelligent outcasts who share a similar sense of humor and academic interests.
• Blended Family Drama: When Jakob and Ola move in, Otis is the most agitated by the arrangement, mainly because not only does he have to share his mother with someone else after years of it just being the two of them, but Ola had already broken up with him and they weren't able to have time apart to recover from it.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: A talented sexual psychotherapist, but struggles with his own debilitating sexual neuroses at first. He goes from being scared of sex and masturbation in Series 1 to eventually doing both over the course of Series 2.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: An understated example, but throughout the series he catches the attention of Ola, Maeve and Lily. In season 2, he finally loses his virginity to Ruby of all people, and in season 4, he also gets to make love with Maeve.
• Did Not Get the Girl: As of the end of the series, Otis remains alone after his breakups with Ola, Ruby and sadly, after everything they have gone through, Maeve when she has to go back to USA.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Downplayed; a few characters comment on his pasty complexion. Ruby compares him to a Victorian ghost and Maeve's landlady mistook him for a sickly child.
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets: Has his first wet dream in the third episode of season 1, which he unsuccessfully tries to hide from Jean.
• Endearingly Dorky: Being an unpopular teenage boy, awkwardness is a given. He starts giving sex therapy sessions to his peers despite being inexperienced himself. And it turns out his awkwardness also carries a definite charm that attracts both Ola and later Maeve. (Maeve especially is considered a cool and aloof girl who previously dated the school golden headboy.)
• Flower Motifs: The bittersweet, which symbolises truth and healing, befitting Otis as a voice of reason.
• Freudian Excuse: Walked in on his father having sex with a client when he was very young; that incident led to his parents' marriage falling apart. This has made it extremely hard for him to even visualize having sex with someone.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Otis tries to sabotage Jackson's relationship with Maeve upon realising he doesn't get her. He also gets hostile towards Isaac once he starts dating Maeve.
• Has a Type: Otis’s love interests (Maeve and Ruby) are both mean to him at times and tend to keep emotional walls.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Otis can hear his peers out about their truly... unusual sexual problems without judgment. However, he still feels ashamed about his own sexuality, even fairly mild things like nocturnal emissions or sudden erections.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: He's best friends with Eric, though Eric is gay. They've been friends since they were 9 years old.
• In Vino Veritas: In season two, he gets more than a little drunk and starts spouting hurtful things about both Maeve and Ola to a group of rowdy high schoolers. It doesn't bode well for him.
• It's All About Me: Eric accuses Otis of this when they fight in Episode 5. From what we've seen, Eric isn't totally off the mark: previous episodes show that Otis has a tendency of disregarding Eric's interests and personal life when he becomes too focused on his own problems.
• Jerkass Ball: Otis is usually a good guy, but he can get a bit hostile when he's stressed out. He chews out his mother repeatedly, drunkenly slags off both Maeve and Ola when they both turn him down, gets territorial when Ola and Jakob move in with them, uses Maeve's missing sister as an excuse to have a dick-measuring contest with Isaac and demands that O cede her own sexual therapy sessions for his benefit, even though Otis was clearly on her turf.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He had a very good reason to be angry with Ola when she moved in his house for taking or using his stuff without asking him.
• Like Father, Like Son: Although he doesn't seem remotely like his father Remi at first, Series 2 shows he might be at risk of developing his father's narcissistic and manipulative tendencies. Both Otis and Remi seem aware of this, to which the latter pleads with Otis to not follow his example. His issues with women rear their head again in Series 4 when Otis finds out that Cavendish has a Distaff C Ounterpart to himself, whom he immediately treats as an inferior without trying to hear her side.
• Nice Guy: A total sweetheart, and one of the main reasons he is such a good therapist. Otis is a good listener and possesses a tremendous amount of empathy towards his friends and the people he treats. While he has a few jerkish moments, Otis does realise his mistakes and tries to be better.
• Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality: Otis is extremely uncomfortable when it comes to his own sexuality, which is ironic considering he is a budding sexual therapist. Otis has trouble masturbating and has panic attacks when he attempts to. He has a particularly bad one when he tries to have sex with Lily and is forced to call his mum for help. The majority of his phobia seems to stem from seeing his father cheating on his mother with a patient, and the fighting his parents went through after Jean found out.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Not only does his mother talk about sex for a living and tries to "therapize" him, she's constantly having sex and has filmed at least one video on sexual technique which is readily available online. All of this is a lot for Otis.
• Playing Cyrano: In the first series Jackson comes to Otis asking for help in getting Maeve to like him more. Otis refuses, then accidentally helps anyway by not being able to shut up when he talks about her.
• The Pornomancer:
  • Subverted. He's never had sex, or even brought himself to orgasm until the Season 1 finale, for the latter. But his clinic work has given him this reputation: Aimee nicknamed him "Pleasure Master" and Maeve seems genuinely surprised when he spills to her that he's a virgin.
  • When he actually has sex for the first time, Ruby tells him he wasn't great but wasn't terrible, but thanks him for repeatedly checking in to see if she was okay, something most guys don't do with her.
  • In season 3, as he's became sexually active, it's commented that he's very good at it. When having sex with Ruby, she outright states it's the only thing about him that's attractive to her, and she'd never date him otherwise.
• Practically Different Generations: Otis is 17 when his half-sister Joy is born.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Eric's red. Otis is a quite introvert while Eric is loud and proud.
• Retargeted Lust: Attempted with Lily as a way to get over his budding attraction to Maeve. It doesn't work.
• Safe Word: Sets one up during FOREPLAY with Lily, just after they kiss, which doesn't even end in sex.
• Selective Obilviousness: He calls Jean a hypocrite for telling him that is unethical for him to give advice to people at his school when she tries to give him advice about Maeve. He completely ignores the fact that it was unethical for him to give advice due to his own sexual inexperience and the fact that he was charging people for advice.
• Sex God: By season 3, him becoming sexually active combined with his sexual knowledge has made him incredibly good at sex, a fact Ruby reluctantly admits.
• Shrinking Violet: At the start of the series. Otis hates parties, large crowds and was initially happy being the guy in the corner who nobody knows or talked to. He grows out of this mindset as the series goes on, coming to enjoy connecting with the other students and using his talents for something positive.
• Teen Genius: He's a prodigy at sexual therapy, with (so far as we see) a 100% success rate at helping his peers. Downplayed after Season 1, where it becomes obvious that he has some pretty big shortcomings- assuming he can learn a special "one size fits all" fingering trick on the internet, apparently having little or no knowledge of asexuals or how to counsel them, etc.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • He does display a manipulative side and egotistical tendencies in Season 2 with his relationship with Ola and how he responds to Maeve messing with his head. It all comes to a head at a drunken party.
  • It only gets worse in the third season where he doesn't have the balls to break up with Ruby properly and he hounds his mum for being bad at relationships, even though she's had way more sex than him. Thankfully after Jean Milburn has a near-death experience, Otis apologises profusely and rethinks his actions.
  • He gets back to this by Season 4 by taking both Eric and Ruby for granted, lashing out at his mum and acting insecure in his long-distance relationship with Maeve.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Otis had a mundane upbringing with a single case of childhood trauma that has left him a shrinking violet and he's smitten with Maeve, who has an acerbic attitude and lives in a caravan because her parents are deadbeats.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Not to the same extent as Eric but he does dress in drag to go with him to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Otis is perhaps better at these speeches than he is at sex therapy.
  • In season 1 he talks a drugged-up classmate out of suicide (or at least serious self-injury) by arguing that, even if he can't have his own idealized form of love, he is good enough to find someone someday.
  • In season 2 he passionately defends his mother's ability as a therapist after Groff's attempts to publicly defame her.
  • He also reassures Hope that her emotional breakdown over her inability to conceive doesn't make her weak, because expressing her vulnerabilities shows a certain level bravery.

Eric Effiong

Eric Effiong

Played By: Ncuti Gatwa

"No! You can't hate musicals! People who hate musicals have no soul!"

Otis's best friend, and one of the only two openly gay students at Moordale Secondary School.

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: Initially this to Anwar, the other openly gay student at school who is transparently uninterested. Done away with when Eric hooks up with Adam instead.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Eric enjoys wearing feminine beauty products like makeup and press-on nails. While he has no problem being referred to by male pronouns as he sees himself as homosexual, he could easily be gender-fluid.
• Break the Cutie: Series 1 puts Eric through the wringer when he's attacked for wearing drag. The trauma causes him to lash out at Otis, Mr Hendricks and eventually punching out Anwar.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Eric acts as the Gentle Girl to Adam and Anwar's Brooding Boys.
• Butt-Monkey: The whole school treats him like shit, which in the first few episodes is used for a couple of laughs. A Deconstructed Trope in Episode 6, when this is shown to have created a lot of built-up anger and resentment that's brought to the surface after his falling out with Otis, where he ends up lashing out at Anwar as a result.
• Camp Gay: Out, loud and proud (emphasis on the loud, especially when it comes to his wardrobe). Eric definitely checks out the major hallmarks of this trope: effeminate, flamboyant, sassy, dresses in vibrant colors and genderfluid apparel (though this last example is only in private, initially). Additionally, the trope is discussed- while many people feel the "camp gay" trope is exaggerated, gay men who act like this in real life are being their truest selves. The depiction isn't making a joke of his sexuality, but rather makes a point about presentation, especially as it relates to being both black and gay.
• The Chew Toy: Constantly picked on by Adam, has the unfortunate nickname of "Tromboner", and isn't treated very seriously by much of the school. Played for Drama in Episode 5 and 6, where he is ditched by Otis on his birthday, attacked while dressed in drag and tries to 'toughen up' by yelling at his music teacher and punching Anwar, resulting in him being suspended.
• Drag Queen: Eric loves to crossdress. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is his favourite musical.
• Dreadful Musician: His inability to play the French horn properly is a Running Gag.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After the trauma avalanche he's put through during the first serie, it mostly ends on a high note for him. He reconciles with Otis, his father, Adam and is at least tolerated by Anwar. He's back in the band. He feels confident enough to bring drag elements into his school attire. The only minus point is that Adam is shipped off to a military school.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Tromboner," after getting an erection while playing in front of the whole school. "It was a semi!" Also makes less sense considering he plays French Horn.
  Adam: "Tromboner" sounds funnier.
• Flower Motifs: The protea, which symbolises transformation and courage. As a homosexual with a Nigerian background, Eric's coming out is especially difficult.
• Gay Best Friend: Eric is definitely a more layered version of the trope, and as the series goes on he gets his own storylines outside of being Otis's best friend, we get a more in-depth look at his home and personal life and even gets a love interest in Adam of all people.
• Happy Ending Override: Season 3 opens with Adam back from military school in a happy relationship with Eric. However, Eric's confused feelings over a kiss he had with a guy in Nigeria lead to him and Adam breaking up at the end of the season.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Otis. They've been friends since they were 9 years old. The two even share a dance.
• Immigrant Parents: Eric comes from a strict and religious Nigerian family. Eric's father is particularly concerned about blending in English society; he is thus worried (but ultimately supporting) of his son being so shamelessly himself.
• Jerkass Ball:
  • While it's true that Adam put him in a diffuclt position, breaking up with Rahim in front of the entire school was still pretty insensitive.
  • In season 3, he kisses another guy in Nigeria, despite the fact that Adam told him that he loved him.
• No Indoor Voice: Quite loud at the best of times, but whenever he and Otis are discussing anything private or sensitive he can get overexcited and shout about it at the top of his lungs.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The vivacious, extroverted Red to Otis's shyer, more low-key Blue.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Is the flamboyant and effeminate Camp Gay guy to Adam's tough and laconic Manly Gay.
• Shipper on Deck: A strong proponent of Otis and Maeve getting together.
  Otis: I... had a sex dream. About Maeve.
  Eric: THAT'S BRILLIANT! [entire auditorium goes quiet and stares]
• Spiteful Spit: Eric and his bully Adam are in detention together and are supposed to clean one room at school. Adam keeps annoying Eric and then they start wrestling. As Adam holds Eric down, Eric spits at Adam's face. He immediately says sorry but Adam spits back at him. However, their fight turns into kissing...
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Enjoys wearing make-up and feminine clothing, though at the beginning he only does this in private. He eventually is encouraged to be more open with it, when he starts sharing it with other people like Lily and eventually makes it a part of his regular wardrobe.
• Wrong Guy First: Gets his first boyfriend, Rahim, in season 2. Though Rahim is lovely, caring and open about his sexuality (all the things that Adam is not) and Eric does have genuine feelings for him, ultimately they don't have enough in common with one another. In the season 2 finale, Eric leaves Rahim for Adam. Right in front of Rahim and the entire rest of the school.

Maeve Wiley

Maeve Wiley

Played By: Emma Mackey

"The students at this school need your help Otis. And we need their money."

A social outcast at Moordale Secondary with a reputation for being a slag and bad girl. In actuality, Maeve is a whip-smart girl who befriends Otis and has the idea to start a secret sexual therapy clinic.

---

• Actually Pretty Funny: When Maeve unceremoniously returns to Wallace University and enters her dorm room, she walks in on her roommate Ellen and her boyfriend Chris having sex, which disgusts her and quickly shuts the door. But after a brief moment, Maeve quietly chuckles at this.
• Affectionate Nickname: Her brother and mother both call her "Froggy" or "Frogface", which is clearly an endearing family pet name from Maeve's childhood. Maeve isn't too fond of it, though, especially when her mother first appears.
• Animal Motif: An odd one with frogs. Both her brother and mother call her "Froggy" and "Frogface" as an Affectionate Nickname, and growing up, it's shown local boys used to call her "Kermit" when sexually harassing her.
• The Big Damn Kiss: When Otis and Maeve are stranded in France, the two talk out their tensions with each other, which leads to Otis telling Maeve the love confession that she never got to hear. Maeve responds by finally kissing Otis.
• Birthday Hater: She claims she hates her birthdays, which has lots to do with her bad luck in the family department, her sad childhood and tough life as a teen. She however looks fairly pleased when Aimee brings her homemade cake or when Otis wishes her "happy birthday".
• Bittersweet 17: Shortly after her 17th birthday in season 2, life doesn't seem to go well for her. It improves by the end of season 3 however, when she's on good terms with Otis, reconciles with her mother, and gains a scholarship in America.
• Brainy Brunette: From Season 2 onwards: she has dark hair and she's one of the smartest characters in the show.
• But We Used a Condom!: Maeve and Jackson had sex and used a condom as protection, but Maeve becomes pregnant. She doesn't spend any time agonizing over it, simply getting an abortion. She never even tells the father.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: When her mother comes back, she exclusively refers to her as "Erin". Her mother doesn't like it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Throws around withering remarks at the rest of the student body, especially the Untouchables.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: In general has a guarded personality, but shows her nicer side with her friends - notably Aimee, Otis and Jackson (and also Eric to an extent). Maeve tends to put up emotional walls and usually doesn't let people get too close to her.
• Delinquent Hair: In the first series, she has dyed blond hair with pink shades and dark roots. Combined with her punk clothes, earrings and a ring in her nose, she looks rather tough and intimidating.
  • From Series 2 onwards Maeve keeps her hair dark with purple tips.
• Disappointed in You: Romantic example. This is how she feels towards Otis after he humiliates her at the party.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Her Berserk Button is others taking pity on her. This comes to a head when she finds out Aimee paid her fees for the school trip to France, and leads to their first serious argument in the show.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Called "Cock-Biter" around school, due to a rumor that was spread about her giving a classmate oral sex and accidentally biting his penis. This turns out to be a lie - what actually happened was that a guy tried to kiss her but she refused. Angry, he made up the "cock-biter" story as vengeance.
• Emo Teen: Dresses in a stereotypical emo fashion and listens to punk rock. That being said, she does have a pretty good reason for being gloomy.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Early in season 2, she dyes her hair. She goes from platinum blonde with pink tones and dark roots to dark brown hair. She dyes her hair shortly after her mother notes she sported similar hair when she was Maeve's age.
• Flower Motifs: The blessed thistle, which symbolises bravery and strength. Maeve refuses to take crap from anybody and is unambiguously virtuous.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Sean's foolish.
• Freudian Excuse: After a long series of personal abandonments, she started cutting off personal ties out of fear of being let down again.
• Friends with Benefits: She is this with Jackson, at least until he starts wanting a proper relationship with her. They date in the second half of season one, only to break it off over a disagreement in episode eight.
• Good Bad Girl: Under the punk rebel aesthetic and stony exterior, Maeve is emotionally insightful, nice and does remarkably well in her studies.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: When Maeve becomes pregnant, there is little debate on the subject. The clinic worker asks whether she has considered adoption, to which she jokes that no one would want a pregnant teenager. Aside from some anti-choice protesters in front of the clinic, no one else tries to dissuade her.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's a good person, but she often tends to hide it under a tough demeanor.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Maeve gets jealous of Ola and Ruby when either is with Otis, though she's better than Otis at controlling her jealousy.
• Guile Hero: She blackmails her headmaster into letting her come back to school and has no issue threatening people into doing what needs to be done.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Her and Aimee eventually graduate to this.
• Hidden Depths: Is academically gifted, which she struggles with being more open about, and reads feminist and philosophical literature.
• High-School Hustler: She used to accept commissions to do people's homework. And then in the first episode she gets the idea to do back-alley sex therapy. Deconstructed, as it's not just pathological anti-authoritarianism; she's an emancipated minor who lives in poverty, and needs the money.
• Hypocrite: In season 3, she states that she didn’t talk to Otis about the voicemail due to his unpleasant behaviour towards her in season 2 and claims that an apology doesn’t get him off the hook. Yet when Isaac tells her that he deleted said voicemail, she accepts his apology soon afterwards.
• I Will Wait for You: Inverted Trope: when she leaves for America at the end of Season 3, she implicitly asks Otis - now finally promoted to boyfriend - to wait for her to come back.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's generally cold and aloof, but has far more empathy towards women than most of her peers, as seen by her helping Ruby despite the latter never being anything less than awful to her.
• Leaving You to Find Myself: Maeve finally admits she loves Otis back, but she also has to travel to America for a scholarship. It's uncertin how their relationship will go from here.
• Lower-Class Lout: Appears to consider herself this in the first season, at least in comparison to her clean-cut boyfriend Jackson. She gets over it.
• Malicious Slander: Her reputation as the school slag and her nickname of "Cock-biter" originated when she was 14, a classmate tried to kiss her and she declined. To cover, he invented the cock-biting story whole cloth.
• Meaningful Name: In the Irish epic The Cattle Raid of Cooley, Queen Medbh (same pronunciation) is a powerful queen with a reputation as a man-eater, who insisted on having wealth equal to her husband's. More mundanely, "Wiley" hints at Maeve's intelligence and her willingness to play outside the rules.
• Misery Poker: When Otis complains about the overbearing nature of his mother, Maeve one-ups him by revealing that hers is an addict. That being said, she doesn't seem to have meant it maliciously, as she quickly smiles and tells him not to apologize.
• Nice Girl: Underneath her cold and aloof exterior, she's a pretty sweet and morally healthy young woman. Lampshaded by Otis.
• Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Maeve has naturally dark hair, and in the first season it's dyed blonde with pink streaks. She's the school's surly, rebellious outcast from a Trashy Trailer Home, and an outspoken feminist with a (slanderous) reputation for being promiscuous. As she becomes more integrated into Moordale and begins to strive for legitimate academic recognition, she goes back to her natural brown hair.
• Not So Above It All: Usually very scornful of soppiness and excessive sentimentality. But she also falls for Jackson after he makes a very public grand romantic gesture towards her. When Eric accidentally garners attention during an assembly and tries to play it off by giving a small lecture on how menstruation is normal and it's "good to have a nice cleanout", Maeve is noticeably biting down on her lip to keep from cracking up at his antics.
• Not So Stoic: Her "screw you all" persona slips several times in the series. Otis hypothesizes that she puts the whole thing on as an act to stop getting close to people and gets a firsthand demonstration when he drunkenly shares his hypothesis with about a hundred people, reducing Maeve to tears.
• Odd Friendship: Her and Aimee classify as this. They are basically polar opposites of each other but it doesn't stop them from becoming best friends.
• Parental Abandonment: Maeve's home life is extremely lonely. It is eventually revealed that her Missing Mom is a drug addict, her father is dead, and her brother — labeled "Idiot Brother" in her phone — is a criminal with no time to spare for her. She has serious abandonment issues as a result.
• Parental Substitute: At the end of Season 3, her and Aimee declare themselves to be each other's "mothers" to cover for the respective absence of a mother figure in their lives.
• Pet the Dog: Her scenes with her little sister are nothing short of adorable, considering Maeve barely knew of her existence and wanted nothing to do with her in the beginning but steadily grows to love her and want the best for her.
• Really Gets Around: Maeve has a reputation for sleeping with just about anything with a penis. This is definitively proven untrue. During her abortion, she only lists one current sexual partner (Jackson — the one who got her pregnant), and is not shown to have any others over the course of the season.
• Rebellious Spirit: Though most of the rumors about her are greatly exaggerated, she's still pretty defiant in reality.
• Rejected Apology: Played with. When Maeve intends to enroll at Cavendish, she bumps into Ruby, the latter having bullied her for years. While Ruby doesn't directly apologise, she expresses condolences for her mother, suggesting she wanted to make amends. Maeve doesn't seem to forgive her however, and responds by calling her out on her bullying.
• Riot Grrrl: A fan of classic feminist literature and punk rock.
• Senior Year Struggles: Maeve is the most driven to get a good education and escape her lower-class environment. In series 3 she considers a scholarship in the US, but struggles to find the funding to carry this through.
• Smarter Than You Look: She's quite adept when it comes to schoolwork, a far cry from her troublemaking reputation.
• Strong Family Resemblance: When Maeve looks over a photo of her toddler self with family, we notice that she looks a lot like her young mother.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tough, sarcastic, rebellious Tomboy Girl to Aimee's naïve, sweet and popular Girly Girl.
• Trashy Trailer Home: Maeve is a teenager who lives alone in a caravan park, the UK equivalent, which is indicative of her horrible family life: she has a brother and a mother, but neither are there for her regularly. She's ostracized by much of the school and seen as promiscuous trailer trash.
• Trying Not to Cry: Heartbreakingly, she tries to stay tough during her abortion. And later when Otis verbally trashes her at his drunken party in the second season.
• Tsundere: The harsh type. Her attitude is cold by default, which pushes others away, but it masks her kind and empathetic persona, which comes out when she gets close to others and when helping Otis deal with therapy.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: With Otis throughout the show, with them both taking it in-turns to pine over the other, only to then decide to move on with someone else. A similar and obviously non-romantic dynamic happens with her mother, who spends much of season 2 desperate for Maeve to forgive her and welcome her back into her life, only for, when Maeve begins to trust her again, she discovers Erin is taking heroin again and calls the police. After this she tries desperately to rebuild a relationship, but Erin refuses to forgive her.
• When She Smiles: Brooding outcast that she is, Maeve is slow to a smile, but when something goes her way—usually Otis doing something nice for her—she often can’t help but show a small smirk. It’s one of the few times we get to see her walls come down.

Adam Groff

Adam Groff

Played by: Connor Swindells

''"Headmaster Groff is my dad, which is weird because I'm quite shit at school. And this? This is my dick."

A known bully, slacker and stoner, as well as the headmaster's son.

---

• Amicable Exes: With both Aimee and Eric
  • He’s amicable enough with Aimee to go to Maeve’s mothers funeral when she asks him to. He even carries Erin’s coffin.
  • At said funeral he bonds with Eric telling him he came out to his parents which Eric is happy to hear. Eric even gives him advice. The two part with a hug.
• Animal Motifs: Dogs.
  • He’s vocal about his affinity for dogs, and it’s a trait quite a few characters seem to know about him. He cares very much for his own dog (fittingly named Madam), scolds Eric about proper dog care, and eventually vandalizes Abeo’s car with dog feces when Eric causes Madam to run away. It suits his personality well: he’s aggressive and slow to trust others, but also loyal to a fault and mostly just seeking affection and approval.
  • His Season 2 arc continues this via his brief stints in boarding school and the convenience store, which are his father’s attempts to teach him discipline and obedience (as one would a dog). He also manages to train his boss’s previously untrainable dog.
  • In Season 3, Adam mentions his love of dogs to Rahim and is disgusted to hear Rahim is a cat person. He also ends up finding his passion participating in dog shows with Madam. Additionally, the season’s “flowers” promotional material associates him with the dog rose.
• Anorgasmia: Adam has to fake an orgasm when he's having sex with Aimee. It's initially chalked up to his self-esteem issues.
• Armoured Closet Bisexual: He frequently bullies and harasses Eric for being gay, even calling him a "fag" in one episode, but is later revealed to have feelings for Eric himself.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: The rumor is that Adam's penis is the size of two Coke cans stacked together (length and width). It is one of the major reasons he has trouble climaxing during sex, because the pressure of this reputation causes him to fret and second-guess himself. He ends up flashing the rest of the student body to put to rest the rumors about its size, exclaiming it is only actually above average in terms of national statistics.
• Bi-Wildered: Adam is initially troubled by his gradual transition away from girls to boys. He doesn't officially come out untl the end of Series 2.
• Boomerang Bigot: Calls Eric homophobic slurs and pokes fun of his open homosexuality, despite being a closet bisexual himself. Overlaps with You Are What You Hate.
• Book Dumb: He doesn't do well in school.
• The Bully: Picks on numerous characters, especially Otis and Eric. He has a particular animosity with Eric and even vandalizes Eric's father's car with dog shit when Eric inadvertently causes Adam to lose his dog.
• Butt-Monkey: Nothing goes Adam's way, and if there's someone who's going to be the victim of physical comedy it's usually him. To be fair, a lot of this is self-inflicted due to his own recklessness and flagrant stupidity.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Appears to be aware of how much of a bad person his father is. A shocking example comes in episode seven, wherein he grabs Mr. Groff by the throat and screams about how much he hates him.
• Character Development: Season 2 is a big one for him. He drops his bullying ways with everyone, he faces the fact that he is bisexual and he hates himself, also accepting he is in love with Eric, asking forgiveness from him for all the pain he caused him and publicly announcing that he is in love with him. He also develops a friendship with Ola which helps him improve as a person, which indirectly helps the girls bond.
• Dumbass Teenage Son: His academic inepitudes are one of several reasons his father is so hard on him.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Even at his worst and most unruly, Adam was pretty close with Maureen.
• Flower Motifs: The dog rose, which symbolises ferocity and honesty. Adam's not a friendly guy, but he's straightforward and desperate to earn the trust of others.
• Hidden Depths: Cares deeply both for Aimee and his mom's dog Madam. Dog care is something he's pretty good at. He manages to train his manager's otherwise untrainable dog while working at a convenience store.
  • He also struggles with his reputation being the headmaster's son who is shitty at school.
  • He mentions to Miss Sands that he likes to pretend that he's Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.
  • Season 3 also reveals that he watches Keeping Up with the Kardashians with his mother, which he ends up bonding with Ruby over.
  • He tries his hand at poetry towards the end of Series 3. Rahim notes that it's fairly decent for his first attempt.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: More like a heart of rusted bronze, buried very, very deep down. He's most certainly an arsehole with redeeming moments that a sprinkled very few and far between. This heart is shown more and grows in season 2, where he really starts growing and improving as a person. He makes serious efforts to improve himself and make amends with those he has hurt, particularly Eric.
• Loving Bully: After bullying Eric throughout season 1, they end up hooking up. Season 2 shows that he genuinely has deep feelings for Eric, and they become a couple by the last episode of the season.
• Maybe Ever After: Adam and his boss Jem, the farm owner's daughter, agree to go on a date, and a possible relationship between the two is not out of the question.
• No Social Skills: Most (if not all) of Adam's issues and poor decisions stem from his inability to express himself in a clear or healthy way. Some of this is due to his father's treatment of him but some very possibly comes from some mental disorder that has most likely gone undiagnosed and untreated. He does come a long way in the second and third seasons.
• Performance Anxiety: Has difficulty ejaculating when having sex with Aimee. This is caused by his fear of not living up to his reputation as the headmaster's son and worry he's not a good enough boyfriend for Aimee. This dysfunction ends up making him the first patient of Maeve and Otis's secret sex therapy clinic.
• Poor Communication Kills: Eric and Adam nearly break up in season three because their initial attempts to have sex for the first time go poorly, and Adam (a fairly uncommunicative person in general) can only say, "I don't want this." Eventually Adam manages to say what he really means: he wants to be the receiver, not the giver. Eric is quite OK with that.
• Odd Friendship: With Otis's mum. They share a joint in one scene and later when Jean shows up at Aimee's party looking for Otis they have an in-depth conversation about Adam's love life.
  • He also warms up to Otis when they double-date with Eric and Ruby.
• Pet the Dog: Literally; one of his few redeeming points is his affection towards his family dog Madam.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He discovers an innate ability for dog agility training in Season 3 and starts writing poetry.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The tough and laconic Manly Gay to Eric's flamboyant and effeminate Camp Gay.
• The Slacker: Doesn't do well in school, and pays Maeve to write his papers.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Adam's disdainful of his own father and acts like a prick towards everybody, but he's also riddled with insecurties ranging from his bisexuality to feeling like he doesn't measure up as a boyfriend to Eric which turns out to be true when Eric cheats on him.
• The Stoner: Often seen smoking a joint.
• Troubled Abuser: His bullying of Eric in the first season is framed as this, as there was a lot of reasons behind it. He himself was horribly bullied by his father, he has horrible self-esteem issues that results in explosive bouts of anger, he has trouble communicating, which he's greatly frustrated by and it often causes him to become aggressive, and more directly, he's a closeted bisexual man with a crush on Eric, which he's trying very hard to repress. This is Deconstructed as while he has sympathetic reasons for being the way he is, Otis believes Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse and calls Eric out on dating him, and is nothing but critical of the relationship when Eric pursues it.
• The Un-Favourite: His father doesn't make any secret of the fact that he's a disappointment, and is openly warmer and more paternal with his star pupil Jackson, a golden boy athlete. He also directly asks Adam to his face why he isn't more like his hard-working sister.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: It's understated, but he wants his father's approval. But due to his father's extremely exacting standards and Adam's own limitations, that's not about to happen anytime soon.
• When He Smiles: Though certainly not unattractive, Adam is very dour and frowny most of the time. This makes the times when he does smile all the more lovely.
• Why Can't I Hate You?: In spite of the tension between Adam and Rahim regarding Eric, Adam takes a bullet for him for no reason at all. When Eric reveals that he cheated on Adam, the latter confides with Rahim and it's hinted that they're now friends.

Jackson Marchetti

Jackson Theodore Marchetti

Played By: Kedar Williams Stirling

"I feel like, like I'm suffocating. Like I'm living in somebody else's body. Trapped in somebody else's life!"

Moordale Secondary's popular Head Boy and the swim team's star athlete. He is secretly having sex with Maeve at the beginning of the series.

---

• The Ace: He's beloved, he's capable, one of the best swimmers, he's friendly and above bullying others and although his reading feminist authors starts as a ploy to get closer to Maeve, he actually becomes interested in them.
• Alone Among the Couples: Alongside Otis, as of the end of season 4.
• Becoming the Mask: He starts out reading feminist authors to become more attractive to Maeve, but then finds he really likes them.
• Big Man on Campus: He's the handsome, popular star athlete of Moordale. His introduction as Head Boy is met with cheers.
• Book Dumb: While his academic performances are not touched upon, he is significantly less cultured than Maeve, part of his scheme to woo her (inadvertently suggested by Otis) is to catch up on her favorite authors.
• Broken Ace: Later episodes reveal some shards of this. His parents are close to divorcing, he feels enormous pressure by the school and one of his moms to succeed and he's just a little too eager to be corrupted by Maeve's brother. And then of course there’s what he does to his own hand in season 2.
• Class Representative: He's the Head Boy, and at first appears to be quite a stereotypical one.
• Drama Club: In season two, he plays Romeo in a sexually-themed production of Romeo and Juliet at school.
• Flower Motifs: The cape jasmine, which symbolises peace and emotional support. Jackson's much more sensitive than he lets on.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Jackson puts on a massive performance with the school's band as a way of asking Maeve to go steady with him. It works, but they break up soon after.
• Hidden Depths:
  • As a competitive swimmer in training, he is under a lot of pressure from one of his moms and his trainer. In reality, he resents the intensity of his training and wishes he could have fun like a regular teenager.
  • His attempts to woo Maeve result in developing some additional ones on-top; while implied to be a Ladykiller in Love, he quickly finds himself engrossed in the feminist reading he initially takes in just to impress Maeve and it seems to rub off on him, to the point he's the first male to stand up during the "that's my vagina" I Am Spartacus moment.
  • In Season 2, he attempts to get into drama so that he has something in his life other than swimming. Unfortunately, nobody's very understanding of his reasons for doing so, putting more pressure on him. However, people are genuinely surprised that his acting and delivery of Shakespeare's line is decent.
• If It's You, It's OK: He's a straight cis-male, but he finds himself being incredibly attracted to the non-binary Cal. Deconstructed though, as he's still wired to think of romance and sexuality in a cis-het manner, which unfortunately makes things a non-starter with Cal who feels Jackson still views them as a "her". Jackson for his credit tries to be open-minded, scolds himself for using gendered compliments, and is mostly OK with the idea of being in a queer relationship even if that's not how he identifies.
• Kick the Dog: Snaps at Viv calling her a robot when under stress in Season 2.
• Lovable Jock: Moordale's premier swimming champion, and is very affable despite being at the top of the popularity food chain.
• Love Cannot Overcome: Jackson's relationship with Cal fizzles out once it becomes clear his attraction to them would be non-existent if Cal was assigned male at birth.
• Nice Guy: He is nothing but friendly to everyone he interacts with. Even after breaking up with Maeve, he still goes out of his way to help her stay in school by threatening to quit the swim team if she is expelled. He's however shown to have some aura of the popular kid who doesn't see the less popular crowd, but he becomes a genuine friend to Viv, a super smart girl who tutors Jackson and is a member of the quiz team.
• The Promposal: He asks Maeve to the school dance, which eventually becomes the kiss of death for their relationship.
• School Idol: Seems widely liked. Headmaster Groff clearly likes him much better than his own son.
• Self-Harm: In Season 2, he finally snaps from the pressure and deliberately smashes his hand with weights to get away from his athletic responsibilities for a while. Viv and his parents intervene before it progresses into a full-blown habit.
• Stepford Smiler: Privately, he suffers from severe anxiety issues. He has panic attacks and is worried his parents will get a divorce (he believes his athletic career is one of the only things keeping them together).

Aimee Gibbs

Aimee Gibbs

Played By: Aimee Lou Wood

"I think I'm gonna stick with baker. I do really like toast!"

A former member of the Untouchables, the most popular clique in school, who strikes an unlikely friendship with Maeve.

---

• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. She's surprisingly open about her bodily functions.
• Brainless Beauty: A sweet girl, but not the brightest.
• Break the Cutie: In the second season, she's sexually assaulted on the bus by a stranger. Despite initially waving it off as just a ruined pair of jeans, she soon finds herself unable to use the bus or have sex without panicking.
• Broken Bird: She loses a lot of her idealism after being sexually assaulted by a stranger in season two.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She's an odd girl, to put it mildly. She doesn't seem to have a filter so she'll constantly over-share, she tends to forget to look forward when driving, she becomes fascinated by the oddest things, and upon discovering there are "different types of vulvas", she becomes inspired to make "vulva cupcakes".
• The Cutie: She's sweet, bubbly, and absolutely adorable. Even Maeve - who appears to be disdainful of The Untouchables at best - has a soft spot for her. Unfortunately, this turns into Break the Cutie in season two, when she is sexually assaulted on the bus.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Aimee adopts a goat and names it "Goat".
• Dude Magnet: She's beautiful, popular and has dated three objectively good-looking guys over the course of the series.
• Extreme Doormat: A people-pleaser and tends to let others push her around, especially boyfriends and rest of the Untouchables. This becomes a problem in the bedroom with one of her boyfriends is put off by her faking enjoyment and her inability to put her own sexual needs above his.
  • Comes up again in Season 3, when Maeve angrily accuses her of being such a people-pleaser that she won’t break up with Steve even though she doesn’t have feelings for him any more. During her therapy sessions with Jean, Aimee even wonders if her smiling at the man on the bus is what led to her assault, which Jean immediately shuts down.
• Flower Motifs: The hardy geranium, which symbolises friendship and protection. Aimee is the one person that sticks by Maeve for no reason other than kindness.
• Friend to All Living Things: She loves animals including less loved ones like bats and spiders.
• Gasshole: She farts when she's scared.
• Good Bad Girl: She's a sweet and innocent girl with a highly active sex life.
• Grew a Spine: By the end of the first season, she chooses Maeve over her popular "friends".
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Aside from having long, blonde and wavy hair, she’s one of the sweetest and bubbly characters in the show.
• Hates Being Alone: And as such she's gotten too used to going along with other people, without developing real desires of her own.
• Love Cannot Overcome: With her sexual anxiety not blowing over any time soon, Aimee eventually decides she needs to break up with Steven rather than subject him to a sexless relationship.
• Meaningful Name: Aimee (from the French meaning "loved") is a kind-hearted, sweet girl.
• Ms. Fanservice: She's naked and having sex in her very first appearance.
• Nice Girl: Significantly kinder than the rest of the Untouchables. She's from a wealthy family, but she's kind, and a loyal friend to Maeve.
• Odd Friendship: A somewhat dim, pretty, popular girl who is good friends with Maeve, a tough, sarcastic, studious social outcast.
• Really Gets Around: She hasn't been without a boyfriend for more than a few days since... ever.
• Shipper on Deck: Frequently encourages Maeve to tell Otis that she likes him. Subverted in the Season 3 finale where, though she is happy that the two are finally together, she tells Maeve not to waste an opportunity to study in America just to stay with Otis.
• Spoiled Sweet: A wealthy and socially active girl who is nonetheless very kind and considerate. At worst, she's not very understanding about Adam flashing everyone at lunch, though to be fair, who would be?
  • Played for Drama in Season 3. Aimee has her mum pay for Maeve to go on the school trip to France, which rankles her as she hates depending on others or receiving pity. This conflict escalates into their first proper argument in the show.
• Stepford Smiler: Aimee brushes off her sexual assault, but once she's alone she bursts into tears. She also struggles to hide the fact that being touched by Steve now triggers her. Eventually she blows a fuse and lets out her pent-up angst.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: After failing to attract Steve's interest with flattery, they bond over their love of making mind maps.
• Sweet Baker: In Season 2, she decides to become a baker (due to her fondness for toast). Although at first she is terrible at it, by the next seasons, she improves and has made delicious yet bizarre-looking cakes.
• Token Good Teammate: She's the only nicest member of the Untouchables. As of the first season finale, Aimee becomes fed up with their poor treatment of Maeve and turns on them out of loyalty to her friend.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The naïve, sweet and popular Girly Girl to Maeve's tough, sarcastic, rebellious Tomboy Girl.

Ruby Matthews

Ruby Matthews

Played By: Mimi Keene

---

• Alpha Bitch: Ruby is the clear leader of the pack and by far the meanest, though this doesn't mean there is no dissent in the ranks, as seen below.
• Ambiguously Brown: Her best friends are both South Asian and she's lighter than them, but also more tanned than the white characters. Her white dad is shown, but her mum (while confirmed to be alive) is never shown — until Series Four, that is. Her flashback scenes in Season 4 confirm that she is also of South Asian origin, with her younger self being played by a visibly brown actress and her mum also clearly being brown.
• Ascended Extra: Gains a much more major role in season 3 as Otis' love interest, though after they break up, she becomes less prominent in the second half. Season 4 also shows her struggle to fit in at Cavendish and trying to remain friends with Otis, as well as giving some depth into her childhood.
• Betty and Veronica: In season 3 she becomes the Veronica in the Love Triangle with Otis and Maeve, as she's the "sexy and mean" Love Interest.
• Betty and Veronica Switch: In season 4, Ruby has decidedly taken on more of a Betty role, while Maeve is now the edgy and unattainable Veronica.
• Big Damn Heroes: For a certain value of "hero", but in the seventh episode of season 3 she springs into action and successfully prevents Hope from interrupting the students' video presentation during the Moordale open day, wrestling her and spraying her perfume in Hope's eyes to dizzy her.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths She's introduced as a seemingly shallow Alpha Bitch, but grows into a more complex and vulnerable character as the story goes on.
• Break the Haughty: She's introduced as a snobbish and mean Alpha Bitch who acts like The Bully to Maeve and even mistreats her own friends. Then :Olivia gets tired of Ruby's mistreatment, and leaks nudes of Ruby, causing Ruby so much stress she had to beg for help from Maeve, the girl she often Slut Shamed.
• Brutal Honesty: She's known for not mincing her words and just telling people whatever's on her mind.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Arguably, this occurs over season 3. Ruby's dad makes it clear she's become warmer and happier since dating Otis and she tells him she loves him, something she had never done before. By the end of season 4, she's absolutely defrosted as she's no longer a bully, has become a much nicer person, and even shows genuine kindness towards Maeve.
• Eating Lunch Alone: In season 4 she ends up doing this, when attending a different school to Olivia and Anwar, and insulting a popular clique of students, who later reject her.
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets: As a young girl, she wet her bed at camp, due to a medical condition. She was bullied by the other girls, after O gossiped about it, in a never have I ever game.
• The Fashionista: This applies to some extent to all the Untouchables, but Ruby in particular always stands out. Even when Hope institutes school uniforms, Ruby notably alters hers to make her skirt shorter and the fit more flattering as well as accessorizing extensively
• Freudian Excuse: Towards the end of season 2, we learn that her father struggles with MS, and in season 3, she reveals to Otis that she is not wealthy like she makes out. And in season 4, a flashback shows she was bullied for her wealth when she was 10, as well as her bed wetting problem, which O told everyone about in a never have I ever game, after promising to keep it a secret.
• Give Geeks a Chance: Variation; Ruby admits that she goes after nerdy guys when she feels down. This accounts for Warhammer Tom and eventually Otis.
• Head-Turning Beauty: She is considered by many to be the prettiest girl in school.
• I Can Change My Beloved: When she starts to officially date Otis in season 3, she attempts to mold him to be more like a "popular kid" like her.
• Incompatible Orientation: In season 2, Ruby gets one look at Rahim and decides immediately that he will be her boyfriend. She continues her attempts to seduce him even after he starts a relationship with another male student, even flirting with him while he and Eric are standing in front of her, literally arm-in-arm.
• Magnetic Girlfriend: Ruby tries to enhance Otis' sex appeal once they start dating.
• Mock Millionaire: As Alpha Bitch of the school and The Fashionista, she gives off the vibe her family has a lot of money, but it's revealed in season 3 she comes from a humble household. She's so insecure about it, she never invited anyone over, even Olivia and Anwar.
• Odd Friendship: She bonds with Adam over the Kardashians which he watches with his mother. She keeps in contact with him so they can talk about the show more.
• Proud Beauty: She's very proud of being considered one of the hottest girls in school.
• Questionable Consent: She remembered her first drunken sexual encounter with Otis, Otis due to being way more intoxicated than her ...... didn't.
• Sex for Solace: She often ends up sleeping with nerdy boys due to stress over her father's health issues, which is how she and Otis first end up sleeping together.
• Ungrateful Bitch: She still mistreats Maeve after she tried to help find out who spread her nude pic around school.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had she not stopped giving Aimee rides to school, Aimee likely wouldn't have been sexually assaulted on the public bus she's forced to take after she stops being friends with Ruby and the rest of the Untouchables.
• Tragic Villain: In Season 4, it's revealed that Ruby is a tragic Alpha Bitch due to her bullying from Sarah O when they were ten. Her dad's MS and family poverty doesn't help matter.

Vivienne 'Viv' Odesanya

Vivienne 'Viv' Odesanya

Played By: Chinenye Ezeudu

"Listen, my schedule's organised for optimum time management. Take it or leave it."

An incredibly bright and driven girl who is one of Moordale's best students. She’s tasked with tutoring Jackson in Season 2 and forms an unlikely bond with him.

---

• Black Boss Lady: Deconstructed. She's a dark-skinned black girl tapped to be the new Head Girl of the school by the (white) headmistress, who freely admits that it projects an image of progressiveness and diversity.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Has a crush on a fellow Quiz Head but turns into a babbling idiot whenever she tries to talk to him. Jackson decides to help her out; she's grateful but eventually realizes her crush is a bit of a bore and cuts ties.
• The Corruptible: She has a lot of immediate affection/hero worship for Hope, the new headteacher in season 3, so much so she jumps at the chance to side with her against her peers.
• Courtly Love: A modern variant. Viv and her boyfriend send each other sexy messages, which he insists on spicing up with Medieval/Renaissance roleplay.
• Everyone Has Standards: Though she jumps to follow Hope's hoops, she draws the line at outright ratting on people, and tries to find a balance between the draconic policies and finding a way to make them accommodating for Cal and other queer students. Also, while she might not take too much issue with Hope's indirectly anti-LGBTQ+ policies (which, to Viv's credit, it's plausible to assume she believed Hope was merely not taking queer issues into consideration rather than being outright unsympathetic), when Hope privately admits to some racist views, it's enough to break the pedestal. It's firmly broken when she then outright admits how much she outright detests the "identity politics" of the current generation.
• Extracurricular Enthusiast: She's planned her life around her academics and extracurriculars to get ahead in life.
• Flower Motifs: The amaryllis, which symbolises scholastic success and passion. Viv is ambitious to a fault, emotionally solid as a rock and still freely indulges in her sexual desires.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: She's the smartest kid in her grade, but doesn't have friends and has trouble getting a date.
• Jerkass Ball: In Season 3, her obsession with improving her CV (and with Hope) causes her to blindly enforce Hope’s increasingly fascist policies. This puts her at odds with the rest of the school, but especially Jackson, whose Head Boy position she totally hijacks when Hope offers it to her.
• Kick the Dog: She already heard Cal's pronouns are they/them, which makes Viv's decision to accost them over wearing the "wrong" uniform (Cal wore the more gender-neutral boy's uniform), and aggressively demand they put on the girl's uniform, humiliating them.
• Les Collaborateurs: When the new headteacher asks her to be the new Head Girl, relieving Jackson of his duty, she immediately says yes because it'd be good for her academic career.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: What makes her ultimately betray Hope is when Hope, casually, admits that Viv's only real use to Hope as Head Girl is that her ethnicity makes her a good Token Minority to show investors.
• Nerdy Bully: She's a bit hostile towards Maeve when she joins the Quiz Heads, and a bit disparaging of Jackson's reliance on his athletic accomplishments. At first.
• Not So Stoic: The first crack in her uptight facade comes when her crush walks past and she immediately turns flighty and giggly, to Jackson's extreme amusement.
• Odd Friendship: With Jackson. What starts as a forced peer tutoring relationship between a lonely nerd and the Big Man on Campus becomes a genuine friendship.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: What leads to her betraying Jackson; she really wants to excel in school, to the point she's willing to take Jackson's place as Head Boy.
• Schedule Fanatic: Has her life meticulously planned out to optimize her chances of getting into a good school.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Her loyalty to Hope finally ends after Moordale introduces ritual humiliation, and she allies with Jackson and Cal in their plan to take back control of the school.
• The Spock: She is accused of being unemotional and prone to rattling off statistics about the situation at hand.
• Teacher's Pet: Viv goes into extreme brownnosing mode when her school's new headmistress Hope shows up. One especially cringey moment is when Hope debuts the new school song to a thoroughly unimpressed student body, and Viv claps with a big grin, futilely trying to get other people to join in.
• True Companions:
  • She's good enough friends with Jackson to help him with his self-harm habit, even doing the right thing by alerting his parents knowing he might never forgive her for it.
  • She also bonds with Maeve, Aimee, Ola, Olivia, and Lily while in detention together, over shared experiences of sexual assault or harassment.

Cal Bowman

Cal Bowman

Played By: Dua Saleh

"Here's the thing, i'm still figuring out so much shit about myself. I can't carry you too."

A rebellious non-binary student from America introduced in Season 3, who becomes Jackson's new maybe Love Interest.

---

• Air-Vent Passageway: How they escape the classroom in which Hope locked them in order to prevent them to "disrupt" the Moordale open day.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: At first, until they clarify they identify as they/them. Despite their identification, it seems others are confused/dismissive, as Hope and Viv both insist on treating them as simply a tomboyish girl. Jackson too has trouble wrapping his head around his attraction to them, and Cal fears he still shares Viv and Hope's perspective of their identity. In season 4 Cal has started using testosterone and is planning on getting top surgery, but still goes by they/them pronouns.
• Arch-Enemy: Hope Haddon. Of all the students, Cal is the most open about how much they hate Hope, and Hope in turn makes it clear Cal is the one they dislike the most. Cal is non-binary and Hope's new policies directly harms them more than any other student, and Hope finds Cal's repeated urgence of these matters to be increasingly annoying, especially Cal's refusal to simply bend to her rules. When Hope is finally fired, Cal cheers.
• Big Entrance: During the students' open day presentation against Hope, an air vent section crashes on the stage. Out comes Cal, who used the vent to escape the classroom Hope had locked them in, and flips the bird to the headmistress.
• Flower Motif: The coleus, representing individuality and acceptance.
• Foreign Exchange Student: They're from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• Mentor in Queerness: At the end of season 3 they become one for Layla, the other non-binary student in Moordale.
• Shower Shy: Well, changing room shy. Because they're non-binary, they don't like being in public changing rooms, especially as Moordale only has binary changing rooms for girls and boys. Destroying the abandoned toilets is devastating for them, as it destroys the only place they were safe changing in.
• The Slacker: They tick off most of the boxes: skateboards everywhere, wears baggy oversized clothes, frequently clashes with Hope, and gets high off weed and mushrooms on the France trip with Jackson. That said, some of these behaviours are justified: They wear baggy clothes because wearing otherwise makes them feel uncomfortable with their body, and they clash with Hope because she keeps using her position to undermine their gender identity.
• The Stoner: Not as much as Kyle, but they'll smoke a joint and take some mushrooms for fun.

Parents

Jean Milburn

Dr. Jean Milburn

Played By: Gillian Anderson

Otis's mother and renowned sex and relationship therapist.

---

• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Otis is deeply ashamed of his mother's profession and petrified of anyone finding out about it, and Jean is a lot more open-minded about sex than Otis would prefer her to be.
• Amicable Exes: Subverted. She and her ex-husband can have conversations with each other rather easily, but once those are over Jean tends to explode into Cluster F Bombs.
• But We Used a Condom! : She's revealed to be pregnant at the end of season 2, even though Jakob had a vasectomy (and she's pre-menopausal).
• Cool Old Lady: She's not that old, but she's a savvy middle-aged woman who Otis's teenage classmates occasionally experience attraction to.
• Everyone Has Standards: As much as she tries to be supportive of anything Otis does regarding sex, she is understandably quite squicked when she catches him masturbating in the car, in public. Though she later tries to focus purely on the logistics, that the car is a shared space and that exposing yourself in public is a crime, at-the-time she was visibly grossed out to see his semen ejaculated onto the window.
• Flower Motifs: The cowslip, which symbolises women and birth. Jean's sex therapy is primarily focused on the female gender and she gets pregnant in Series 3 despite her age.
• Ladykiller in Love: Gender-inverted. After a long string of one-night stands, she realizes that she's fallen for Jakob, who makes it clear he's only interested in having a committed relationship.
• My Beloved Smother: The main source of conflict between her and Otis. Jean has trouble respecting Otis's boundaries both by invading his room on a regular basis and constantly prying and getting him to discuss his sexual problems when he's clearly uncomfortable about it.
• Nice Girl: An Open-Minded Parent who is non judgemental and is a strong force for good when it comes to sex education openness in schools.
• Open-Minded Parent: Has no problem with letting Otis drink, do drugs or have sex, just as long as he remembers to buddy up (for the former two) and offers him condoms before leaving for a party.
• Parents as People: Jean tries to be a good mother to Otis, and struggles in creating a balance between wanting to help him and giving him space to grow up and let him deal with issues on his own. She also hides a lot of loneliness and fear of being left out of her son's life.
• Power Hair: Jean has short stylish hair in the first two series, but once she gets pregnant she lets it grow out.
• Really Gets Around: As could be expected from a sexually-open attractive single woman, Jean has a series of one-night stands, which embarrasses her son.
• The Shrink: An interesting combination of the Awesome and Ineffective Shrink. There's no doubt she's talented in her vocation; she unknowingly gives Otis helpful advice and he channels her when counselling his own clients. But Jean also blurs the boundary between treating Otis as a patient (and later the unwitting subject of her new book) rather than as her son by prodding him to open up and discuss his problems even when he's unwilling.
• Single Mom Stripper: Is perceived as such by Adam, who thinks she's a prostitute at first.
• Stacy's Mom: Definitely has this vibe going on. Jean attracts quite a few younger men throughout the show. Adam points out that she's like a "sexy witch".
• The Stoic: In both her personal and professional life, Jean tries to keep herself emotionally distant and not let her feelings get the better of her. Though, this being a comedy there are moments when she's Not So Stoic (see Jean cursing her ex-husband when he sends numerous copies of his new book to spite her and getting stuck in a driveway after following Otis to a party).

Michael Groff

Headmaster Michael Groff

Played By: Alistair Petrie

Headmaster of Moordale, and Adam's strict father.

---

• Abusive Parents:
  • His affection for Adam is entirely contingent on his academic performance...so, basically nonexistent. Comes to a head in Episode 7, when Adam snaps, grabs his father's neck, and screams "I HATE YOU" in public.
  • A flashback to his childhood reveals that his father was this by forcing him not to cry or show emotion.
• Alas, Poor Villain: After being fired, Season 3 brings pity to Groff by showing just how miserable and humiliating his life is after. It's all his own fault, but still.
• Being Good Sucks: After 2 series of being a Dean Bitterman and suffering the consequences over the course of series 3, Groff rediscovers himself and embraces his sensitive side. This manages to win over Maureen, but she still won't take him back because she's worried that Adam might still have issues with his father. However, he did manage to experience joys that he was blind to for a lifetime using his newfound introspection, and he doesn't seem too deterred by his failure to reconnect with his family to make further progress.
• Big Bad: He becomes the closest thing the show has to one in Series 2. While he had always been sort of a thorn in the side of Maeve, he goes above and beyond when he prints the diary of Jean and publishes all across the entire school.
• The Bully: He is one in general, particularly to his son. Season 3 shows how his older brother Peter and his father bullied him as a child, and how he’s unintentionally carrying that behaviour on.
• Dean Bitterman: Crabby and stern, and so concerned about his school's public image that he blatantly plays favorites with students.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Michael is publicly disowned by his son, gets divorced, is kicked out of his home and loses his job soon after, but this is all his own fault. By the end of Series 3 he's realised the error of his ways and tries to be better. In Series 4 Michael is more openly affectionate to Adam and Maureen, who welcome him back home once more.
• Freudian Excuse: A session with Jean and a flashback reveals that his father and older brother bullied him as a child, along with his father forcibly telling him "boys don't cry" is the reason why he is cold and unemotional.
• Generation Xerox: Much like his son, Groff has some pretty obvious insecurities and self-loathing, which he takes out on others via bullying, and both have a tendency to cause their own misfortune through completely avoidable mistakes. They even both struggle with intimacy with their partners. Of course, it's entirely because of Groff's bullying that Adam is the way he is, but it's notable he deals with it the exact same way his father did.
• G-Rated Drug: He has a huge stash of chocolate bars in his desk, possibly ones confiscated from students. Sean knows about it and implies it's something Groff doesn't want getting out.
• Hidden Depths:
  • For all his negative qualities, he does have a keen eye for noticing details. He finds the drugs of Maeve's brother, and he sees Jean's notebook when Otis puts it in there. He also leaves the house when his wife asks him for a divorce, instead of making her leave, and does seem to love her despite all that happened.
  • Invoked - after admitting he doesn’t know how to feel joy or any emotion, Jean advises him to seek something that brings him pleasure. He takes up cooking and proves to be a very competent chef.
• Jerkass: A very rigid and uptight person, both as a teacher and parent. Most notable is his treatment of Adam and Maeve, the latter he assumes is part of a drug ring with her brother Sean and Otis and when she is caught it's obvious his mind is made up in his decision to expel her despite the pleas of Maeve and Mrs. Sands.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Despite showing extreme favoritism towards Jackson and promising him not to expel Maeve if he wins his swimming competition, he responds that he "doesn't take bribes" when Jackson does win and tells him to forget her.
  • Copying pages from Jean's diary and spreading them around school in an attempt to discredit her
  • The general treatment of his son.
• Large Ham: Some of his monologues fall into this category, particularly when he's lecturing Maeve over the drug ring he inaccurately presumes that she runs.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In season 3, he's been fired and the publicity of his mismanagement at Moordale has made him virtually unemployable in education. He's living with his much more successful brother, whose upbeat nature unintentionally makes him feel so ashamed by his own failures he ends up lying about getting a job and finding a new place to live.
• Never My Fault: Instead of just accepting he was a bad husband and parent, and facing his own fears and insecurities, he blames his failing marriage on Jean's influence. Subverted in Season 3, where he owns up to his flaws and actions in conversation with Maureen and Jean.
• Pet the Dog: He's quite courteous with Eric upon finding out Adam was bullying him. He also hugs Jackson when he wins a swimming competition. It goes to show that in spite of his frigid attitude towards his family, Michael does in fact have a kindly side buried underneath it all.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Bows and scrapes at any attempt to boost his school's reputation. Picture Basil Fawlty as a school headmaster.
• Sexless Marriage: He hasn't has sex with his wife in years and shuts down any attempt she makes to initiate. She's getting a bit desperate over the whole thing.
• Stern Teacher: Principal technically, but is an austere educator nonetheless. This bleeds into his personal life, especially when dealing with his delinquent son Adam.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After spending all of Season 3 being mocked and ridiculed by his brother, he finally snaps and gives one during a dinner party when Peter insults his cooking.
  My life is a failure. My wife’s left, I’m quite sure my son hates me, and I’m unemployed. But I’d rather all those things than be a pumped-up shit of a man like you. You’ve been a shit since you were a child, and I think you’ll be a shit until you die, probably because our dad was the biggest shit of all, and you learnt to bully me so he wouldn’t bully you. And that is such a great shame, but I am too old for it to be my problem any more. Goodbye, Peter.
• Took a Level in Kindness: It takes a series of events, but he finally seeks to improve himself, getting at peace with his inner demons and making amends with his wife and son. At the end, he's in much better terms with everyone and as a substitute teacher in Cavendish, he's much more reasonable and patient towards his students.
• Villainous Breakdown: Starts cracking throughout season 2 with his wife leaving him and Jean undermining his authority, and finally has one at the end of the season when he goes on a tirade at the school play, humiliating himself in public and being suspended from his job.
• "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: In Series 4 Michael finally overcomes his strict attitude towards Adam and shows him far more sympathy and affection in spite of his son's screwups and resentment. It comes to a head when Michael asks to hug Adam, who allows it and the Groff family's arc ends with the three of them watching television together.

---