{"id":36989,"date":"2025-09-22T16:57:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/36989\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T16:57:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:57:06","slug":"english-teacher-season-2-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/36989\/","title":{"rendered":"English Teacher season 2 review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formulaic might sound like a pejorative when it comes to talking about modern TV\u2014and it isn\u2019t exactly the first word that springs to mind to describe a word-of-mouth show on FX\u2014but there is something so wonderfully formulaic about English Teacher. A year after dropping its first season<\/a>, the sitcom is back, and pretty much every one of its tight, 20-minute episodes follows this recipe: There\u2019s an \u201980s hit that acts as a bookend and nicely meshes with the show\u2019s neon-pink credits and generally upbeat and lively vibe (When In Rome\u2019s \u201cThe Promise,\u201d The Bangles\u2019 \u201cManic Monday,\u201d Bruce Hornsby And The Range\u2019s \u201cThe Way It Is\u201d). There\u2019s some very funny dialogue that comes at a fast clip. There\u2019s that pivotal moment when the titular teach<\/a> Evan (creator Brian Jordan Alvarez, who, it\u2019s worth noting, was accused by a former collaborator<\/a> of assault in a Vulture feature last year<\/a>) inevitably about-faces on an issue he believes in the minute it becomes inconvenient. And there are several scenes that end with college counselor Rick Santana (The Bear\u2018s Carmen Christopher) dropping an out-of-nowhere observation. (Speaking of that aforementioned decade, he has this to say when someone mentions 1984: \u201cDude, the \u201980s was nuts, man. They ruined a perfectly nice wall in Berlin.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The last we saw this group of educators\u2014aside from Evan and Rick, there\u2019s Gwen (Stephanie Koenig), the former\u2019s energetic BFF; Grant (Just Shoot Me!\u2018s Enrico Colantoni), the adult-in-the-room principal; and Markie (series MVP Sean Patton), the outspoken gym teacher\u2014was a high-water mark for the show. In the season-one finale \u201cBirthday,\u201d everyone convened at a leather bar in Austin as a surprise party for Evan, and the series hit some notes that were genuinely sweet but still in the spirit of a fast-paced comedy (and filled with the jokes that are bound to arise with Markie in that setting), with the married-to-his-work teacher and his free-spirited ex boyfriend Malcolm (Jordan Firstman, who can be seen in Rachel Sennott\u2019s HBO comedy I Love LA<\/a> come November) getting together again. This new season doesn\u2019t quite hit that high\u2014that said, the last few seconds of it are quite moving, in no small part thanks to a needle drop\u2014but that\u2019s not a knock or, really, why anyone would recommend this show in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a consistent\u2014and consistently funny\u2014show. And likewise, all of these characters are pretty much where they were last time around: Evan and Malcolm are together now, but their relationship is on the rocks. Markie continues to be offensive but well intentioned (\u201cDo not look at me, dude\u2014I play Call Of Duty as a trans character\u201d) and crushing on Gwen, who\u2019s back with her unemployed boyfriend. (He\u2019s moved on from building a pool in the backyard to constructing a pickleball court.) Grant is annoyed, as always (albeit softer and more one of the gang now, to the point that he\u2019s giddy having them over to his house for dinner); and Rick is in his own little space-cadet world and looking for his next bad business idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where last season centered several episodes on Big Issues Of The Day (school shootings, drag shows, banned books) in a way that felt light, funny, and not particularly preachy, this one follows suit, with a premiere about self-expression and censorship (the kids ditch staging Angels In America to write and perform their own play, Covid In America, much to Evan\u2019s chagrin) and other installments addressing DEI, AI, and the environment. Those last two are mashed up with the arrival of \u201cFill,\u201d a robotic trashcan (voiced, excellently, by Chase Fein) that gets way into everyone in the school\u2019s personal business and provides arguably this season\u2019s biggest laughs. <\/p>\n

Zoomer students are still stressing out their English Teacher in season 2 trailer<\/a>FX’s English Teacher returns to class this September<\/a><\/p>\n

English Teacher also remains a nice platform for guest stars: Sharon (Sinners<\/a>\u2018 Andrene Ward-Hammond, a scene-stealer), the field-trip chaperone from season one who was obsessed with teens engaging in weird sex acts like \u201creverse glory hole,\u201d is thankfully back to freak female students out with more lewd lingo. (\u201cLiberty Belling\u201d involves \u201chomemade condoms filled with lead pellets.\u201d) And Kindred<\/a>\u2018s Micah Stock deserves a shout-out as the flamboyant Southern boyfriend of Grant\u2019s daughter, who details how they first met to a confounded Evan and Gwen: \u201cAnd I saw her and I was overcome by this very primal, masculine urge to be with her. They even kicked us out of the Starbucks cause I couldn\u2019t keep my hands off her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, not every joke and plot lands here\u2014a crying-quarterback gag whiffs, and the much-anticipated arrival of Evan\u2019s overbearing mother probably felt a lot funnier and like more of a payoff in the writers\u2019 room\u2014but those are outliers. To stay with the sports metaphors for a bit, this show\u2019s batting average is high, connecting far more often than not. And at this point, the comedy has the chemistry, playbook, and legs for more potential seasons (and new kids to teach, issues to tackle, and advice on work-life balance to ignore).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

English Teacher season two premieres September 25 on FX\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formulaic might sound like a pejorative when it comes to talking about modern TV\u2014and it isn\u2019t exactly the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-36989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}