Great news, Sex Education fans: Ncuti Gatwa will reprise his role as Eric Effiong in the upcoming fourth season of the hit Netflix series.
As first reported by Variety (opens in new tab)some astute programming has ensured that Gatwa – who has recently been cast as the next Doctor Who – is able to return to the hormone-laden halls of Moordale for the 4th season of Sex Education, which recently began filming.
The news follows a troubling series of exits from the Netflix series, with Rakhee Thakrar (Miss Sands), Simone Ashley (Olivia), Tanya Reynolds (Lily) and Patricia Allison (Ola) among those who have confirmed they will not reprise. their respective roles in the next season of the show.
Gatwa’s Eric, however, will be returning for more high school shenanigans, which should lift the spirits of Sex Education fans worried that the show has lost its luster.
Best friend of series protagonist Otis (Asa Butterfield) and love interest of Connor Swindells’ Adam, Eric has become arguably the most important character in the series, regularly pushing the narrative forward while delivering emotion and humor in equal measure.
Spoilers for seasons 1-3 of Sex Education follow.
Eric’s involvement also seems crucial to the plot of Sex Education’s fourth season. He and Adam decided to go their separate ways in the show’s third season finale, with the former kissing another man in Nigeria serving as the nail in the coffin for a relationship that always felt oddly balanced, given Adam’s ongoing journey to understand his own sexuality.
But we also saw Adam getting closer to Eric’s ex Rahim in later episodes of season three, hinting at a potential romance between the two that once seemed impossible. Naturally, both storylines involve Eric, and it’s hard to see how the Sex Education producers would have tackled these topics if Gatwa couldn’t participate in new episodes.
There’s still been no official word on when Sex Education season 4 will hit Netflix, though we do know (thanks to a recent production listing (opens in new tab)) that filming began on July 4, 2022. As such, we don’t expect the show’s fourth season to arrive anytime this year. Our best guess for the release of the new season is the first half of 2023, especially since the first and second seasons of Sex Education were released in January.
We’ll share more details about Season 4 as we get them – our dedicated hub contains everything we know right now. For more Netflix TV content, check out our roundup of the best Netflix movies, as well as our breakdown of Stranger Things season 4 and its failure to snatch the Squid Game viewership crown.