The Big Picture
Season 4 of Sex Education provided satisfying resolutions for many characters, but Ruby’s storyline was disappointing and lacked proper development. Ruby’s character arc was undermined as she barely had a friendship with Otis, who treated her selfishly throughout the season. Ruby’s storyline with O, her old nemesis, felt inconsequential and failed to provide a meaningful resolution for her character. She finishes the season feeling diminished and lacking personal growth.
The final season of the cheeky, eye-opening, and genuinely heartwarming Sex Education gave us some wonderfully healing resolutions for characters both returning and new. From the returning character Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) deciding that his purpose is to forge a new and accepting path within his religion, to the new character Joanna (Lisa McGrillis), addressing childhood trauma with the help of her sister Jean (Gillian Anderson), almost everyone is portrayed as bravely confronting crucial aspects of their lives. Each character managed to receive a satisfying ending, even those for whom that ending was heartbreaking, like Otis (Asa Butterfield) and Maeve’s (Emma Mackey) inevitable parting of ways — every character, that is, except for everyone’s favorite diva, the indomitable queen bee Ruby Matthews, played with a striking blend of confidence and vulnerability by the talented Mimi Keene.
The previous season of Sex Education saw the unexpectedly lovable duo of Ruby and Otis, a relationship which enabled her to grow as a character in a way that was thoroughly enjoyable to see. However, this inspired character arc eclipsed anything attempted in Season 4, which allocated her little time and attention, despite the fact that her journey was just beginning. While a proper send-off was rightly awarded to all the other characters, here’s why Ruby deserved much better in the final season of Sex Education.
Sex Education
A teenage boy with a sex therapist mother teams up with a high school classmate to set up an underground sex therapy clinic at school.
Release Date January 11, 2019
Creator Laurie Nunn
Genres Comedy , Drama
Rating TV-MA
Seasons 4
‘Sex Education’ Season 4 Ruined Ruby’s Character Arc
During this season, we see Ruby begin as a high school student whose main priority is to secretly have lots of casual sex with Otis, despite being ashamed of him due to her “hot and popular” status compared with his “creepy mustache.” She then makes a gradual transformation, from the uncompromising head of a popular trio, to someone willing to open up about their vulnerability. First, she makes a proud public display of their relationship, and while she pushes things too far when telling Otis how to dress, and instructing him to change his name and walking style, her icy exterior begins to melt. She invites Otis to her family home, introducing him to her dad, whom she helps to care for, and later admits to Otis that she loves him… only to receive “that’s nice,” in return, which eventually dooms them. She has some brilliant interactions with her popular group members Olivia (Bridgerton’s Simone Ashley) and Anwar (Chaneil Kular), and overall, is set up as a wholly complex character for the start of Season 4, complete with a will-they-won’t-they love triangle including Otis and Maeve. However, where Ruby is concerned, Season 4 proved to be a disappointment.
Despite the hints that were dropped at the beginning of the season regarding her unfinished business with Otis, Ruby ends the season without him, and in fact, they barely have a friendship, which the show could have written so eloquently, and which she could benefit from since being excluded by Olivia and Anwar. Furthermore, Otis just treats her selfishly for the duration of the series, enlisting her help in his campaign against rival sex therapist O (Thaddea Graham) and leading her on when staying the night at her house. His apology at the end of the series is lukewarm too, contributing to her frustrating ending.
Related The Best ‘Sex Education’ Pairing Isn’t Romantic Our two favorite OGs.
Ruby’s Storyline With O Was Pointless
Image via Netflix
Alongside her one-sided partnership with Otis, Ruby also has dealings with an old nemesis throughout Season 4. Realizing that O was the faux friend who had outed her for wetting her bed when they were both younger, she pledges revenge and makes tactical moves to thwart O’s success as a sex therapist. However, this only takes her so far and still leaves her feeling alone and dissatisfied. At one point, O even adds insult to injury by taunting Ruby about her unrequited love for Otis. Ultimately, Ruby receives a weak apology from O, who had ironically previously delivered a far more heartfelt and meaningful explanation to Otis while they were trapped in an elevator together. O should have tapped into this authentic place when making amends with Ruby, but when she failed to do this, she left Ruby without a meaningful resolution, as Otis had also.
Furthermore, Ruby’s backstory of being a bullied and isolated child had great potential but was ultimately underdeveloped. She alludes to the fact that her upsetting experience led to her cultivating a formidable exterior and an impeccable dress sense, but this is only briefly alluded to during a conversation with Otis, and quickly moves on to focus on his problems with Maeve. We were given hints of her childhood and origin story and were left wanting much more, ultimately making her storyline with O feel inconsequential.
Ruby Finishes ‘Sex Education’ as a Diminished Version of Herself
Most significantly, we were also cheated of Ruby’s burgeoning complexity as a character that Season 3 had started to explore so masterfully. With less dedicated screen time, she is only given a few moments to shine and thus experiences limited personal growth. Whilst she does develop by transitioning from her loneliness at the beginning of the series to building new friendships by the end, she doesn’t seem to share much in common with her new friendship group, thus making this seem like a superficial way to tie up loose ends, and leaving her feeling like an echo of the powerhouse she once was. She does briefly tap into her potential when she acts as Otis’ shrewd campaign manager. However, this momentum is soon lost when he loses interest, and she switches to representing another student.
Perhaps it was due to the need to devote time and attention to so many other characters that Ruby ended up being overlooked, but it felt as though her story was rushed, and that her conflicts with other characters were tied up half-heartedly. Furthermore, it is frustrating that her final storyline seemed to be entirely dictated by other characters’ mistreatment of her, and whilst her speech in the final episode was hilarious in its dryly sarcastic delivery, it does not act as convincing evidence of her supposed conversion to her new school’s ways, or as proof of a new self-accepting identity. Mimi Keene certainly did her character justice, but it’s sad to admit that Season 4 did not.
Sex Education is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
Watch on Netflix