girls don’t want male leads or second male leads to bring them an umbrella they want heedo to float an umbrella from a rooftop in the middle of a down pour
“there was this moment last term where i thought maybe you liked me…”: an examination of maeve’s understanding of her relationship with otis
part one: “i’m not inviting you in,” said the liar
there is no one pov character in sex education, but otis is the first to really hold the baton. for this reason, it’s glaringly obvious to the audience that he’s interested in maeve, even if you could debate the exact moment his interest turns romantic. he’s certainly attracted to her from the start, as evidenced by his “they look the same to me” response when eric comments on the size of maeve’s boobs (been staring at them a lot, have you?), as well as his heightened awareness of her in english class and the steadying breath he has to take when labeling a vagina diagram with her ends up being too erotic for him to handle. and, of course, by the fourth episode he’s in deep enough that he’s become “cupcake otis”.
maeve, unlike the audience, doesn’t have access to all otis’ conversations with eric pointing out just how much otis’ behavior is uncharacteristically moony, though - or the ability to rewind and watch especially telling reaction shots that do the grunt work establishing just how deep otis’ affection for maeve runs. as a result, she ends up questioning whether he likes her at all (see: the title of this piece).
still, since otis’ jumpy nervousness makes him anything but subtle, it’s hard to accept that our sharp, astute maeve could make such an egregious error in judgment. which is why i’ve taken it upon myself to track her relationship with otis as she sees it through the series.
episode one lays all the groundwork we need to understand maeve’s character in the form of her constant isolation. she feels alienated as a result of her peers’ bullying, certainly - take the rumors eric guilelessly regurgitates during his “everyone’s blossomed sexually but you” monologue for otis and the way the untouchables address her as she enters school - but it’s also important to note that a lot of her loneliness is self-inflicted. see the moment jackson offers to drive maeve home and she shuts down even this minimal attempt at getting to know each other better, as well as all her snippy comments directed at otis meant to keep him at an arm’s length.
reading ahead, we know that this hyper-self-reliance is a result of maeve’s deep-seated trust issues, brought on by the fact that her family is full of flaky - if usually well-intentioned - people. she hasn’t been able to count on anything in her life for stability, so she approaches every interpersonal relationship through several layers of protective anger. getting attached is how you end up hurt, after all.
otis - bless his heart - does end up being her exception. it doesn’t take long for her to start letting her guard down around him, and i think we can track the start of this accidental attachment of hers to this moment here.
though he doesn’t understand the reason behind her front, otis still cuts to the quick of things: you don’t have to try so hard to push me away, he’s basically saying here, i have identified that as your intention so mission accomplished. and you can see how maeve appreciates his observation (maeve/otis + significant eyebrow raises my beloved).
we build on this small submission to the mortifying ordeal of being known firstly with maeve being impressed by otis knowing his way around a vagina diagram, and secondly by her bearing witness to his thoughtful handling of adam’s sexual anxieties.
it’s more fitting than otis knows that he calls the abandoned toilet block the “four walls of trust” because in the above scene, we see otis speak to some of maeve’s greatest insecurities in a way that touches her deeply and positions him as someone safe and trustworthy in her mind. his words dismantle her defense mechanism of choice and, instead of an angry loner, we’re left facing a young, vulnerable woman who’s been yearning for reassurance and connection while trying to convince herself she’s above needing it.
her view of otis as someone worth leaning on is extended even further in the second episode as they set up their sex clinic. maeve is in desperate need of income to pay her bills, and she views the clinic as a golden opportunity dropped in her lap, a way to make the money she needs to subsist. so even though she doesn’t tell otis her true motivation for wanting to get the clinic up and running, she’s still trusting him to take care of her. and this willingness to rely on otis for financial support contrasts with her choice to avoid emotional support from jackson by not telling him about the unwanted pregnancy.
of course, it would be easy to read maeve’s plan to use otis’ skills to educate the students of moordale in exchange for cash as straight exploitative - sympathetically so, but still - if it weren’t for the little moments of fondness we see creep up on her again and again throughout the episode.
respectively, they have the same literary/philosophical interests, she’s charmed by his relationship with his best friend, she appreciates the bumbling way he attempts to respect her privacy, and she’s pleasantly surprised by his willingness to use sarcasm to defend himself. so, yes, at this point in their relationship, maeve is using otis. but along the way, she’s finding genuine friendship with him, as well.
the third episode closes out this first chapter in their relationship by cementing otis as someone maeve can go to for emotional support, as well financial. sure, she does try to find someone else to take her home from the abortion before she goes to otis (her brother, amy, and - it’s ambiguous - but she even seems to consider asking cynthia), and, sure, she isn’t upfront about why she needs him to meet her after school, but she has only just struck up this friendship with him. this is a huge leap of faith for her, all things considered.
and if we need further convincing that maeve’s acting against her nature by taking so quickly and so intensely to otis, we have this exchange with the other person she lets slip past her emotionally steely front this episode to drive the point home.
otis rewards maeve’s uncharacteristic openness by hanging around even after she’s snapped at him to leave and by attempting to pamper her with get-well-soon presents. and, though she calls him weird for them, the fact that she puts the flowers on display in a vase and otis’ text about the sandwich makes her smile points to the way she actually appreciates the gesture, to the way it validates her choice to trust him.
the true climax of maeve accepting otis into her life as friend and confidant, though, is this moment.
before this, we know very little about maeve’s familial situation. and by design. maeve doesn’t want anyone to know how alone she is because the inevitable pity she’ll receive in exchange is no good to her and because she feels unstable enough as it is without having to worry that someone might interfere in her living situation on the grounds that she’s a minor whose only source of income is a paper writing business and a sex clinic. but in the few seconds depicted above, we see her make the choice to share with otis. she’s not asking for his help without revealing why she needs it this time. she’s simply allowing herself a moment of vulnerability.
investing this much of her fragile heart into her relationship with otis is something that obviously carries a lot of weight for maeve. and though it’s clear that, at this point, she doesn’t intend for the relationship to be more than platonic, we’ve already established that maeve gets more than she bargained for when it comes to otis. over the next couple episodes and in part two of this essay, we’ll grapple with just how much more she actually wants.
