Sex Lives of College GirlsShowrunner Justin Noble Has No Plans for 'Any Big Time Jumps' Despite Delays in Show's Release (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Reneé Rapp, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur in ‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ season 2.Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max

The great minds behindThe Sex Lives of College Girlsare in no hurry to get Essex College’s fabulous foursome into graduation caps.

Ahead of the long-awaited premiere of season 3 of the Max comedy series, which starsReneé Rapp,Pauline Chalamet,Alyah Chanelle ScottandAmrit Kaur, showrunner Justin Noble tells PEOPLE that they’re “slow-playing it for a reason.”

“I don’t want to commit to a four-year show. Yeah, this is a hit, we got to keep it going,” Noble says.

Still, though, he knows that the two-year wait between seasons 2 and 3, which premieres on Nov. 21, was less than ideal. “It has been in the making for so long,” he says, due to the four-monthwriters' strike.

“Once the strike was over, it was of course like, ‘It’s been too long. Go, go, go, go, go,’ and we had to kind of sprint. So we’ve kind of been in a sprint since the end of the writers' strike to get it all done.”

Amrit Kaur, Reneé Rapp, Alyah Chanelle Scott and Pauline Chalamet in ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ season 3.MAX

MAX

Despite the unexpected delays, which were out of their control, Noble, who created the show alongsideMindy Kaling, says their plan going forward is still to make the show “at the pace that feels creatively [appropriate].”

“I don’t want to make any big time jumps, because I think, at this stage in their lives, their lives change so quickly that a time jump would feel fake,” he says, referring to the fact that the core four are just beginning their sophomore year when season 3 picks up. “And so, I’m kind of inclined to just let it play out.”

“If it ends up being 35 seasons of television before they graduate, I’m fine with it,” Noble jokes.

Amrit Kaur in ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Season 3.MAX

As for what fans can expect from this upcoming season, theBrooklyn Nine-Ninewriter says the girls “really start to figure out little itty bitty things that are about who they’re going to be as people.”

“A lot of those [realizations] come towards the end of the season,” Noble continues, before teasing what’s to come for each character, starting with Scott’s soccer star Whitney, who he says will “start to draw some firmer boundaries.”

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Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Alyah Chanelle Scott and Reneé Rapp in ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’.Katrina Marcinowski/HBO Max

Katrina Marcinowski/HBO Max

Kaur’s scene-stealer and comedy hopeful Bela “made a series of mistakes for two straight seasons and was starting to feel the ramifications, of that,” Noble says. “So we knew that we wanted to start telling a Bela redemption arc, where she at least tries — as best as Bela Malhotra can try [to] do anything — to do something for someone else’s benefit.”

Season 3 alsosees Rapp, 24, exit the show, which was confirmed last summer. As for how her fate is explained, Noble keeps tight-lipped but says he and Kaling, 45, “knew” what they were going to have Leighton’s future look like very quickly, though he does tease that her exit was “deeply emotional” both onscreen and off.

Noble adds of how Rapp’s character’s story ends, “I’m really glad about the way it came across on the show.”

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Season 3 ofThe Sex Lives of College Girlspremiered Thursday, Nov. 21 on Max.

source: people.com