English Teacher (premiering its first two episodes September 2 on FX before streaming on Hulu the next day) introduces Alvarez’s distinctive sensibility to prime time, with the backing of one of TV’s most reliable comic writers. But it took Alvarez some convincing to go all in. “I had tried to make some things at this level, and I hadn’t been able to really navigate the system myself…. I was like…‘I couldn’t figure it out, and so I’m not really doing that anymore, but thanks,’” he says. “Paul was like, ‘No, we’re gonna do this. I’m gonna show you the ropes, I’m gonna guide you through this process, and we’re gonna get a show on TV.’ And he delivered on his promise extraordinarily.”
Alvarez’s idea for the show stemmed from a common theme in his work: “people trying to do the right thing, but not knowing if they’re doing it the right way…or if they’re achieving the right thing through questionable means.” The series is set at a public high school in Austin, Texas, and centers on Alvarez’s Evan Marquez as he navigates intraschool dramas, troubled students, brazenly involved parents, and the friction of living inside a liberal bubble in a conservative state. The pilot examines the fallout from a student seeing Evan kiss his boyfriend. The second episode follows a drag queen, played by Trixie Mattel, teaching a group of football players how to amp up their cheer bona fides for a politicized powder-puff game. (“Trixie Mattel was number one on the list,” Simms says.)
“People from every different part of life are basically forced to come together for a common goal, which is just to educate these kids,” Alvarez says. “What we enjoy is this idea that obviously the teachers are teaching the kids, but sometimes the kids are teaching the teachers how to live in this modern world that’s moving so fast, [where] it feels like the rules change every day.”
