‘The English Teacher’ Is the Best New TV Show of the Fall

This week:

You Need to Watch This New Show

It is almost unspeakably refreshing to discover the next great show.

With FX’s The English Teacher, which premieres Sept. 2, the joy is twofold: The knowledge that the new comedy series is objectively, undeniably great, but also the realization—and ensuing comfort—that the sensibility and humor is directly for me. That’s to say that I am completely obsessed with the show and have spent all summer telling people to look out for it when it premieres Monday, and, even if I’m a bit fanatical about it, I can’t imagine a huge swath of TV fans not loving it, too. The key is: Everyone needs to check it out.

Brian Jordan Alvarez created the show, writes, directs, and stars in it. He plays Evan Marquez, a gay high school English teacher in Austin navigating his students’ coming of age in today’s unrecognizable, tumultuous world while experiencing his own “coming of self,” so to speak.

He’s passionate about his job and dedicated to his students, while also wondering how much of his life should really be taken over by work. He wants love, sex, and companionship, but also wants to be able to feel gratification and happiness on his own.

Every time he thinks he understands his students, the changing world, or even what he wants for himself, an unexpected grenade detonates in one corner, an elephant in a room starts a stampede in another, and a wrecking ball comes swinging through the wall. How can Evan, or any of us—let alone young students—steady ourselves when modern life is so rife with seismic activity?

FX

Those questions lend a profundity that complements The English Teacher’s dry, biting humor. Its “What is going on in the world? Has everyone lost their minds?” observations aren’t smug, or crotchety, or whining. They’re insightful and irreverent, just as they are exasperated and, really, just confused.

A brilliant scene minutes into Monday’s premiere sets that tone. Evan and his fellow teacher and best friend Gwen (Stephanie Koenig, who also writes for the show) are in the lunch line marveling that the new class of students have gone beyond woke to the point of being less woke: “It’s circled back around.”

“They’re for what they say they’re against.” “Right, and they’re saying the r-word again.” “[One student] said I had to teach both sides of the Spanish Inquisition, and then he started crying.” “I have kids who are showing me AI porn of Oscar Wilde having sex with women. He was gay!”

How anyone is supposed to make sense of changing social mores across generations is a major throughline of the series. A high school, with students and teachers constantly interacting is the perfect setting for those conversations, and The English Teacher adds nuance by being set in Texas.

In the premiere, for example, Evan is censured—and could possibly be fired—when a student’s mother files a complaint after her son apparently saw Evan kissing his then-partner inside the school the previous year. (Would you believe that this conservative woman’s son, who is now graduated, came out as gay when he arrived at college, perhaps motivating this retaliation?)

It’s a show that has fun with the prickliness of today’s exhausting discourse. There’s something novel about that. We could all use that lesson, to find the humor in all the messiness and uncertainty; luckily, class is about to be in session.

You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me

I have never even in my life felt more betrayed—attacked, even—than when I learned that Capri Sun is ditching its indelible juice pouches for bottles.

Just look at these monstrosities:

I am aghast. Offended. Kamala Harris: What is your plan to address this? I know Tim Walz is not going to stand for this. You call yourself a journalist, Dana Bash? Where was the question about this pressing issue during your big CNN interview Thursday night?

This is going to go down as one of the most catastrophic rebrands in history. You think generations of people have been drinking your sugar water for the taste, Capri Sun? Fools! The clumsy, borderline unfunctional bag that you stab a straw into that then squirts back at you was the entire point.

Capri Sun is an experience, not a food. Drinking it felt avant garde. “I don’t drink juice out of a box or a bottle. I drink it out of a bag.” What role am I going to serve in my nephews’ lives if they don’t need me to put the straw in their Capri Sun anymore, and can just twist the cap off the bottle themselves? You are destroying families, Capri Sun. I hope you can sleep at night.

May We All Have Such Whimsy

Here is a photo Diane Warren tweeted of herself with a tortilla chip on her shoulder, captioned, “I got a chip on my shoulder!” Enjoy the holiday weekend.

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What to watch this week:

The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power: The hugely expensive series finally woke up from its nap for a much-improved Season 2. (Now on Prime Video)

KAOS: It’s about time someone cast Jeff Goldblum as a God. (Now on Netflix)

Only Murders in the Building: Whether or not Marty and Meryl are shtupping each other, Season 4 doesn’t disappoint! (Now on Hulu)

The English Teacher: Best new show of the fall! (Mon. on FX)

What to skip this week:

Reagan: It is without hyperbole that we announce this is the worst movie of the year. (Now in theaters)

The Deliverance: Not even Glenn Close’s outrageous wig can save this one. (Now on Netflix)