Summary
“Linda” features the best guest star of the season in Jenn Lyon — and an unexpected cameo from Sharon! — but its real value is in the relevance of its subject.
The main joke of English Teacher Episode 6 isn’t that funny when you think about it. The youth of today is so sensitive, coddled, and reactionary that a teacher handing out deserved failing grades constitutes a scandal. “Linda” is named after a particular parent who is becoming Evan’s nemesis at this point, but she’s the symptom rather than the disease.
This is the point of a good sitcom, by the way. Jokes are supposed to be funny, granted, but they’re better when they’re scraping the surface of something real. English Teacher is exaggerated for comic effect, but the core issues — gun control in Episode 4, sexuality and gender norms in Episode 3, etc. — matter.
Anyway, Linda Harrison (Jenn Lyon) is the mother who reported Evan for kissing his boyfriend in the premiere. She’s the first person to report Evan for giving her youngest an F after supposedly turning her oldest gay. She’s a well-to-do restaurant owner whose business contributes extensively to the school’s coffers, so Principal Moretti insists that Evan attends the meeting she wants to have with him.
Evan and Gwen go along and the latter is immediately seduced by Linda’s charms. She is, to be fair, quite funny. But you can tell from the way she says the word “gay” in a bit of a whisper, and the fact that she’s clearly trying to bribe Evan into changing her son’s grade, that she isn’t half as reasonable as she pretends to be.
This becomes obvious when Evan turns up for work the next day and finds Linda sitting in his classroom with Dr. Doug (Jon Levine), a “teaching expert” who’s taking notes on his class. Linda has already gone above Evan’s head and got permission from the school board to be there, proving that Principal Moretti’s quip earlier about the parents essentially running the school wasn’t really a quip at all.
Grant’s answer to every question Evan asks about whether Linda is allowed to do something is “technically no, but…” or a variation thereof. Linda knows that she’s in a position of power and that if she simply shouts conspiracies loud enough, people will listen. The classroom observation becomes a town hall meeting (catered by Linda’s restaurant, the biggest and fanciest in Austin, and featuring a surprising cameo from Sharon, the sex-mad parent chaperone in Episode 5.) The more Evan tries to defend himself, the louder the aggrieved chorus becomes.
English Teacher | Image via FX
It’s worth chipping in here that there’s no ambiguity around whether or not Evan was justified in handing out the F grades. The essays were awful — one of them started with “Hey”, another was written by ChatGPT and still included one of the prompts, etc. — and the grades were deserved. This is a pretty key point since it highlights the kind of nonsense teachers have to deal with when trying to do their jobs properly.
Evan’s only recourse, according to Markie, is to acquire evidence that Linda is using her all-cash restaurant to commit tax fraud. This involves wearing a wire — the absurdity of this is acknowledged — and visiting her at home, where she takes a shotgun out hunting pheasant to calm down her army of dogs.
English Teacher Episode 6 pivots here, quite welcomely. Evan doesn’t acquire any evidence that Linda is committing tax fraud, but the conversation instead turns to Linda’s older son, the one she blamed Evan for turning gay. Linda admits that she pushes her son to hide his homosexuality in Austin because she feels that his being gay would collapse her entire social structure. Evan points out that her son, just as he did when he was growing up, feels the same way; that he’s harboring a secret that will cause him to be rejected if it’s revealed. They all feel the same thing and are acting on that feeling in different ways.
I can’t say that Linda learns anything from this exchange, although the tears in her eyes do suggest she sees the truth in what Evan is saying. But she also knows he’s recording the conversation, so some of it might have been performative. Either way, she agrees to relent if Evan allows the kids to rewrite their essays, which is reasonable enough.
Whether any of them will be able to pass is another question.
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