Every generation that teaches the current one seems to struggle with understanding how young people operate. FX’s workplace comedy “English Teacher” explores the relationship between teachers who try to be traditional and their clever, yet distracted, students. The result: a hilarious and engaging series that reveals how everyone, at every age, is right and wrong at the same time.
The show’s second season released on Sept. 25. It uses sharp satire and workplace chaos to highlight the important and underappreciated responsibilities of teachers in modern-day Texas. Parents, politicians and administrators don’t shy away from using their power as adults to enforce ideologies and practices upon students. As a conservative state capital and liberal city, Austin provides the perfect backdrop for the show’s conflicted political compass.
The show’s protagonist, Evan Marquez (Brian Jordan Alvarez), embodies the dichotomy between a conservative Texan education and personal convictions about society and acceptance. As an openly gay and Latino teacher at the fictional Morrison-Hensley High School, Mr. Marquez empathizes with his students’ desires for expression, but battles his own authority as he attempts to dictate how their expression should look. In the opening episode, he fights with his students for choosing to write an original musical about their experience with COVID-19 over performing “Angels in America,” a play about the AIDS epidemic.
Throughout the season, the show tackles concepts so current that the jokes land with a familiar sharpness. In the next five episodes, “English Teacher” confronts mistrust with technology, the spectrum of sexuality, DEI and the military-industrial complex. Fast-paced humor from the supporting characters like Gwen (Stephanie Koenig), Coach Markie (Sean Patton) and Principal Moretti (Enrico Colantoni) uphold every episode’s themes with varying personal and political perspectives on each subject.
In 10 roughly 20-minute episodes, “English Teacher” subverts the workplace comedy genre by delving further into the intimate lives of its characters, especially creator Brian Jordan Alvarez’s. Yet, the characters see little growth in season two’s second half because the show favors comedic misfortune over moral conclusions. Understandably, each character needs more seasons to be fully fleshed out, but their jokes and delivery keep them lovable and watchable.
The majority of the series explores interpersonal relationships between staff, but scenes with students excel at affirming the show’s connection to real life. Season two uses its Gen-Z artists, Aliyah’s Interlude, Ivy Wolk and Savanna Gann, more than the first season does, but they still deserve more screen time. The younger actors perfectly capture a special type of disorder only present in a modern American high school.
“English Teacher’s” versatility is its strength and its weakness. While tackling so many themes at once, it manages to reach a successful conclusion only some of the time. It’s either an intentional and existential take on the impossibility of fixing the American education system, or a missing piece in the show’s moral compass. Episodes end abruptly, and plots tend to focus on short-term actions rather than long-term repercussions. The show is effective, but ultimately needs to refine its moral stance and unique sense of humor.
4 parent-teacher conferences out of 5
