Mooredale Students | Mooredale Staff | Other Characters | Cavendish Students and Staff
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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, her son's classmate, 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).
Mr. 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 season 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Mr. Hendricks
Mr. Colin Ray Hendricks
Played By: Jim Howick
Science teacher and conductor of the swing band at Moordale. Something of a minor mentor figure for Eric.
- Big Fun: He's very high-energy for a middle-aged teacher that lives out in the sticks.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: A traumatized and angry Eric accuses him of being this- a wealthy upper middle class geek who thinks he understands swing jazz. In fairness to Hendricks, his home life is mediocre at best and he actually does seem to know musical theory well, which you can't say for Eric.
- The Bus Came Back: Naturally, Hendricks doesn't have a major role after Moordale Secondary closes forever, but he briefly returns along with Miss Sands to attend Maeve's mother Erin's funeral after Aimee contacted them. He even gives a piano rendition of Erin's favorite song "With or Without You" by U2.
- Butt-Monkey: He is fairly put upon.
- In one episode, he horribly flummoxed by his partner's request for dirty talk; his frantic attempts wind up spoiling the evening.
- He has to teach sex ed even though he knows he's not qualified. This gets him involved, very much to his dismay, in the feud between Jean (who wants to handle that department) and Groff (who refuses to let her).
- Chaperoning the school excursion turned out to be above his capacity. Jackson and Cal take drugs, Kyle steals and Rahim chucks a sock full of poo out of the bus window, which almost caused a collision.
- Cool Teacher: His attempts at being friendly mostly come across as him trying too hard. However, he does encourage Eric to get out of his comfort zone and is understanding of Eric's explosive anger following a traumatic experience, so he is pretty cool in his own way.
- Endearingly Dorky: He's an awkward science teacher and conductor of the swing band with cheerful demeanor which is pretty endearing. He dates Miss Emily Sands who is a very Hot Teacher.
- Jerkass to One: There's only one student Mr Hendricks doesn't seem to like; this kid in drama class named Quentin. Whenever Quentin shows up, Mr Hendricks will chew him out for next to no reason.
- Large Ham: He's a sweet guy, but some of his antics come across as this.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Though he's not always the most clued-in, he's not a bad person and he does seem to genuinely care for Moordale's student body.
- Stepford Smiler: Eric mentions his alcoholism and Maeve can guage his personal despair by the loudness of his Hawaiian shirts.
- Totally Radical: He tries to connect with the students by speaking with casual familiarity. It needs some work.
Miss Sands
Miss Emily Sands
Played By: Rakhee Thrakar
English teacher at Moordale. Something of a mentor figure for Maeve.
- The Bus Came Back: She briefly returns in season 4 to attend Maeve's mother Erin's funeral with Mr. Hendricks after Aimee contacted them.
- Casual Kink: She loves dirty talk. While Hendricks is uncomfortable with it at first, for her it's simply something she happens to like because she feels like a dowdy schoolteacher all day.
- Cool Teacher: Very supportive of Maeve and later Adam.
- Not So Stoic: She giggles when Maeve makes a wisecrack about Mr Hendricks' Hawaiian shirts.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Practically the only one Moordale has to offer, and arguably her defining character trait. Emily is a fair and levelheaded instructor who is always willing to listen to her students and their perspectives. Her treatment of Maeve is demonstrative enough: she assists her in applying herself scholastically, helps her return to Moordale, urges her to join the aptitude scheme, and (fairly) demands that she be more of a team player in the quiz tournament. She also helps Adam when he wants to work harder in school and later encourages the Untouchables to seek out sexual health advice that Hope’s curriculum fails to cover.
- Secret-Keeper: Figured out about Maeve's fake essay-writing ring, and hasn't told anyone yet because she thinks Maeve getting expelled would be a waste of her talents.
Hope Haddon
Mrs Hope Haddon
Played By: Jemima Kirke
The new Headmaster, replacing Mr Groff in Season 3. She seems cool, but it turns out she has a very controlling and conservative view on education and school culture.
- 0% Approval Rating: All of the students under her authority come together to bring her down and when the plan is enacted the teachers just cheer them on.
- Alas, Poor Villain: While Hope's public humiliation can be seen as just desserts, her later breakdown over her inability to conceive helps make her sympathetic.
- Arc Villain: Of Season 3. Her desire to get Moordale "back on track" combined with her out-of-date views leads her to become more of a tyrant than Groff, turning the school into a borderline dictatorship that punishes and shames students for being themselves.
- The Baroness: Halfway between the Rosa Klebb (the main antagonist of the season, utterly opposed to casual sex and self-expression, and a Hate Sink) and the Sexpot types (attractive, revealing a hidden vulnerable side).
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She's introduced as a Cool Teacher who dances in an Endearingly Dorky way to introduce herself to the student body, but it becomes clear she's as bad as Mr Groff.
- Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: A young, smart, attractive woman with an impressive CV in a position of power? Check. Forcing her conservative values upon her subordinates? Check. Blonde? Check.
- Broken Ace: Hope comes with an impressive CV - former Head Girl at Moordale, two degrees, teaching positions at the best schools in the country, and becoming the UK’s youngest headteacher at only twenty-eight - but despite her charismatic and ruthless persona, the show makes clear she’s barely holding it together trying to please Moordale’s private investors, while also trying for IVF. The latter is particularly painful for her, as she sees being a mother as “the one thing my body is supposed to do”.
- Dean Bitterman: Even moreso then Groff, surprisingly. While Groff was an outdated, bullying arsehole with a classist attitude, Hope is a barely restrained fascist who is so desperate to control the students she begins openly humiliating them as a form of punishment.
- Evil Is Sterile: She's a very conservative woman who oppresses her students, especially her non-binary ones, because they have functional ovaries - that, her Freudian Excuse reveals, she doesn't, because she's sterile, which is behind her conservative ideals.
- Faux Affably Evil: She's can appear personable enough that her cruelty isn't clear at first, but she has a very conservative view on what school culture should look like, including rigid binary uniforms, displeasure with any degree of self-expression, and a condescending attitude towards students, and is openly dismissive and unsupportive of queer students, to the point of punishing Cal for being non-binary and using their choice to present masculine in clothing (or, "sloppy") as an excuse to ignore their simple request for gender-neutral spaces.
- Female Misogynist: Downplayed for the most part, but Hope does have some pretty regressive beliefs regarding the purpose of the female form.
- Foreshadowing: When she meets Jackson and Adam for the first time, knowing only Jackson's name and status, she warmly greets Adam, assuming he is Jackson. While subtle, it shows a degree of racial bias in just assuming that Adam, the white kid, is the Head Boy and star student. Once she realises Jackson is black, her attitude towards him immediately shifts to dismissive. This then reflects her socially conservative nature as she soon forces a gender-based uniform and scoffs at LGBTQ+ positivity.
- Freudian Excuse: Hope's attitude towards sex is given some clarity in her last appearance when she tells Otis that she's unable to conceive. With sex having no utility for her, she develops a bitterness that she takes out on the students, especially the non-binary ones that have perfectly functional ovaries.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Essentially, she wants to rid Moordale of the "Sex School" reputation, and she does so primarily by punishing anything even remotely indicating sexual deviancy, but mostly this just affects the queer students. She's not openly homophobic or queerphobic (nowadays, being so would likely get her fired), but she makes a lot of dog whistle gestures, like criticising Cal's "sloppy" uniform (because Cal, who's non-binary, chooses to wear masculine clothing instead of the "proper" girl's uniform), and using that as an excuse to ignore any basic request for better treatment for LGBTQ+ students. This gets so petty as to telling Ola she can't wear a LGBTQ+ rainbow pin, and dismisses the implications by accusing Ola's beliefs of being "so fragile they rely solely on a pin" rather than acknowledge what the pin represents. She gets even more explicit in-private with Viv and later Otis, admitting to having some genuinely bitter views on their generation's "obsession with identity" and how they "don't know how to stay in line".
- Hidden Depths: Despite being a bigoted asshole, she genuinely encourages Maeve to apply for the Gifted and Talented Program, to the point she offers to try and find funding for her (though she later threatens to rescind her offer when Maeve disagrees with the new sex education course for girls). She's also desperately trying to have a kid, but is unable to conceive, which is contributing to her assholery.
- Ironic Name: Comes off as extremely laid back and more open-minded and understanding than Groff, only for this to be the complete antithesis and make Groff look far less worse in comparison
- Jerk Ass Has A Point: While she should not have punished Lily or Cal at all, she was as far as she knew punishing Adam for throwing feces out of a bus window which endangered his fellow students, teachers and a small family. She was right to discipline him with the knowledge she had, but her approach to it was wrong. Ironically she did end of giving suspension which was a more a proper punishment to the real culprit Rahim, though it was for vocally opposing her punishment of Adam, Lily and Cal.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: While the school is on a school trip, she gets some character focus that shows her sadder personal life, namely her inability to conceive a child even after IVF treatment and how she desperately wants to be a mother. However, just before you begin sympathising with her, the doctor asks if she's thought of adoption, and she scoffs at the idea because she's "not ready to give up on having a child that's actually [her's]", which is a pretty cruel thing to say about adopted children. She also demands to speak to a different doctor after her current one (a black woman) refuses to recommend continued treatment for her. Pushes this to new heights when, in another attempt to establish her control, she introduces ritual humiliation at Moordale - forcing misbehaving students to wear signs around their necks and banning them from talking to their classmates.
- Kick the Dog: Hope solidifies her nastiness when she drags Cal off by the arm and locks them in a storage room as punishment for not dressing like a girl.
- Pet the Dog: She seems genuinely upset at not being able to help get the funding for Maeve joining the gifted and talented program.
- Putting the "Pal" in Principal: Subverted. She's a hip young woman who initially charms the Moordale audience, especially in contrast to Groff (who was a straightforward Dean Bitterman), but she quickly reveals herself to be an insidious bigot.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Subverted; she seems to be this at first, even seemingly approving of Otis and Maeve's sex clinic when she's informed of it, but when Jackson argues in favour of keeping the Wall of Cock because of its artistic and historic value, she fires him as Head Boy and promotes Viv to this role, because her butt-kissing personality and similar views make her more agreeable to Hope.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Ironic considering she was replacing another tyrant, but Hope manages to be even worse than Groff.
- Uncanny Valley Makeup: Hope wears heavy amounts of lipstick and mascara that do not compliment her face. Instead it makes her look Obviously Evil. Her fashion sense is so sloppy that Otis can see she's got lipstick on her teeth.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: She's trying to rebuild Moordale's reputation after the sex scandals from the previous season. However, her method of doing so is to crush any and all personal expression and instill rigid, somewhat outdated school culture. It becomes clear as time goes on, she's got a lot of pressure from the school board to rid Moordale of it's "Sex School" reputation, but her method of doing so is pretty much the exact opposite of what it needs. As time goes on, it crosses well into something you'd expect a school in a dictatorship to enact.
- You Are a Credit to Your Race:
- Her attitudes towards Jackson and Viv indicate this. She racially profiles Jackson and, upon learning "Head Boy and Star Athlete Jackson Marchetti" is actually a black kid, she goes from warmly welcoming him to dismissing him with a forced smile and being much more critical, until using his dissenting opinion to demote him from the position. Viv, who she promotes in his place, is much more conforming to Hope so she takes advantage of that, but then privately between them acknowledges that she only keeps her around as a Token Minority gesture to show Moordale is progressive to the press.
- Well, replace "race" with "gender identity". She takes advantage of Layla being a much more submissive non-binary student (and thus, one who is willing to just conform to her rules) to prop them up as a "good example" of what a non-binary student like Cal should do. Cal calls her out on this immediately. It’s also arguably significant that Layla is white, whereas Cal is black.
