Summary
English Teacher uses a classic format to get the cast out of the workplace, though the dysfunction predictably follows them.
Episode 5 of English Teacher uses a classic workplace sitcom setup: Getting everyone out of the workplace. In this case, it’s a field trip that involves most of the faculty – including Principal Moretti, for some reason – and takes the focus away from the kids and their issues to settle squarely on an odd, evolving dynamic between Evan, Gwen, Markie, and a sexpot parent chaperone named Sharon (played by a guest-starring Andrene Ward-Hammond with mania in her eyes.)
“Field Trip” doesn’t adopt the usual A-B structure of a typical sitcom episode. Instead, the main thrust of the plot situates Gwen in the middle of Evan and Markie, who are both on her case for very different reasons. Sharon is the wildcard element, and the only kid-centric issue is just a nothing argument between two characters we don’t even know that is there to show that these teachers, if nothing else, are pretty terrible at being teachers.
What we discover early on is that Gwen invited Markie and Rick to help her boyfriend dig their pool by hand, which evolved into a night of drinking, Mario Kart, and pizza. Crucially, Evan wasn’t invited.
Evan wouldn’t have attended anyway, which Gwen knows, but he kicks up a fuss about it all episode anyway since he feels left out. Gwen’s eventual confession that he wasn’t invited because he doesn’t like helping people leads to a nasty spat – in front of the students! – culminating in a terribly embarrassing solo rendition of “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals that was initially intended to be a duet.
One of the side effects of Gwen’s socializing is that Markie now thinks he has a romantic chance with her. He thinks she needed a manly man with muscles to dig the pool and is using the field trip as an excuse to display his rugged survivalism expertise which consists of, as far as I can tell, saying something about brown bears and wearing night vision goggles around the campfire.
Pictured: Sean Patton as Markie Hillridge. CR: Steve Swisher/FX
Evan and Gwen make amends thanks to Markie’s efforts at seduction, so these two plots dovetail quite nicely. Markie pushes Gwen to try on his goggles, not realizing she’s allergic to latex, and Evan has to rush to the rescue with an adrenaline shot to bring her out of anaphylaxis. All is well, except Markie doesn’t understand what happened and Gwen still has no idea that his weird comments were his attempts at chat-up lines.
But a lesson is learned. It might be hard for him to hear it, but Evan really isn’t that interested in helping people out, especially if manual labor is involved. He even rejects the invitation to Gwen’s next get-together despite all the fuss he made about this one. As it turns out, being invited is enough.
And then there’s Sharon. When she’s initially introduced overhearing a conversation Evan and Gwen are having about condoms, the assumption is that she’s going to be a militant type who attempts to get the teachers in trouble. But quite the opposite. Instead, it seems like her odd fascination with schoolyard sex games isn’t puritanism but keen interest. She spends almost all of episode 5 trying to alternately seduce Rick and Principal Moretti, the latter by force.
As usual, this is a show that excels in the rug-pull, introducing characters and elements that you think are going to be one thing but end up being another. Sharon is an obvious example; a layup for a certain archetype who turns out to be a nutter for the fun of it. I continue to enjoy how the show throws us these loops in every episode since it’s the sign of a smart sitcom that knows exactly what it’s doing.
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