This trope page contains sexual situations as well as depictions of grooming that may be disturbing. Troper discretion is advised.
A Teacher is a 2020 drama Miniseries created by FX and released on Hulu. It is based on the 2013 movie of the same name and helmed by Hannah Fidell, who also directed the movie.
Claire Wilson (Kate Mara) is an attractive young Advanced Placement English teacher who has just transferred to Westerbrook High School. After meeting a group of students at a diner, she agrees to begin tutoring 17-year-old Eric Walker (Nick Robinson) so that he can improve his SAT scores and get into the college of his dreams. As the two begin creating more and more situations to spend time together, their relationship begins to escalate.
A Teacher contains examples of the following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: Released in 2020, seventy-five percent of the story is set between 2013 and 2014, before skipping forward past the present day.
- Adaptation Expansion: The original movie is only 75 minutes long and roughly covers the events in episodes 4-6 of the series. The characters in the series have more expanded backstories - the teacher character is single in the movie and the story is told from her point of view only with Eric being an opaque character and portrayed as somewhat unlikeable. Both characters are much more fleshed out and nuanced in the series, although the basic plot structure is the same.
- Awful Wedded Life: Claire has become increasingly bored in her marriage, and begins seeing Eric as a means to escape.
- Disappeared Dad: Eric's dad disappeared before he ever got to know him. When asked about it later on, he isn't particularly concerned with ever finding out where he went.
- Distant Finale: The series finale takes place ten years after the penultimate episode.
- Downer Ending: Eric has been permanently traumatized by the aftermath of his relationship with Claire, and it's implied that he can't find comfort in a relationship ten years after it's ended.
- Dumb Is Good: Downplayed, as Eric is a capably intelligent young man, but his naturally immature naivete is what blinds him to the fact that Claire is grooming him.
- Easily Forgiven: Played with. Eric actually refuses to think Claire did anything wrong for years, then comes to view what she did as unforgivable. Claire's first and second husbands both forgive her pretty easily.
- Everything is Big in Texas: For their weekend away, Eric takes Claire to a remote inn in rural Texas, which is surrounded by vast fields.
- Extremely Protective Child: Eric is willing to run away with Claire after her husband finds out about their relationship, until his mom finds out and asks him to come home.
- Fiendish Fraternity: The plot revolves around high school senior Eric being drawn into an affair with his teacher. She's arrested shortly before graduation, which gives Eric a reputation going into college. The plot then shows how fraternities are counterproductive to recovery as Eric's housemates constantly bring up the affair to the point where they no longer see Eric as a person. Eric finally snaps when they spring a lapdancer on him for their own amusement.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Claire's father was an alcoholic who got sick when she was in high school and she married young, which leads her to feel like she wasted her adolescence and never had a normal experience.
- Eric's dad left when he was very young and he got a Promotion to Parent for his two younger brothers. Played with in that he genuinely doesn't seem to mind, and his relationship with Claire becomes a much clearer example.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Claire's brother Nate expresses this exact sentiment - when she tries to defend the affair by pointing out she had been nothing but perfect all her life as a result of having to grow up dealing with her father's alcoholism, he shuts her down and points out her childhood does not let her off the hook for all the damage she's done to everyone, especially Eric himself. It's implied Nate didn't have to bear the brunt of the worst of their father's abuse, but he's completely right that dealing with her father was no excuse to blow up her own life and prey on Eric.
- Happily Married: Claire is revealed to be married with two daughters in the series finale. She remarks that it isn't a perfect relationship, but she also expresses gratitude that her husband accepts her despite her infamous mistakes.
- Hot Teacher: Most of the guys at Westerbrook remark about Claire's looks when she begins working teaching. She doesn't have to work very hard to begin leading Eric on.
- Karma Houdini: One of the reasons Eric is so furious with Claire in his series finale "The Reason You Suck" Speech is that he thinks she got off easy, while she insists she has really suffered in the aftermath of their affair going public.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: A subplot involves Claire trying, and failing, to conceive children with her husband at age 32. Their failure to conceive negatively affects their sex life and is, therefore, part of what attracts her to Eric in the first place. This leads the viewer to think it possible that Eric could end up fathering a child with her instead. As it turns out, neither of them ends up getting her pregnant. Cut to the finale, however, and Claire, now 42, is remarried with two young daughters clearly fathered by her new husband and implied to have both been surprises. They both look young enough to reasonably conclude that Claire conceived them, one, after she had developed a complicated, awkward relationship with sex thanks to her actions toward Eric, and two, right at or after the age where female fertility is generally accepted to start declining.
- A Man Is Always Eager: Discussed a lot after the truth of Claire and Eric's relationship is revealed.
- Nice Guy: Eric Walker is a totally normal high school senior who is the most mild-mannered out of his friends.
- Phrase Catcher: "Teacher slut" for Claire after her relationship is made public and she's released from jail.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The last scene from the finale when Eric lets Claire have it and walks out.
- Relationship Revolving Door: Eric and his high school ex Alison seem to be in one of these. It seemingly ends when Eric begins hooking up with Claire, but picks back up again when they're both single at their high school reunion.
- Slut-Shaming: Claire can't go without being slut shamed in the aftermath of her relationship with Eric.
- Teacher/Student Romance: The whole series explores the relationship between Claire and Eric before, during, and after it occurs.
- Time Skip: A six-month skip between Episode 6 and Episode 7, and a ten-year time skip between Episode 9 and Episode 10.
- Unreliable Narrator: A much more subtle version than unusual. A lot of the romantic stuff between Claire and Eric seems to progress naturally, as Claire and Eric perceive it. It's only when taking a step back that a lot of her behavior appears egregious (such as when Claire encourages Eric to drink in front of her, goes to a party with him, and then continues to see him outside of school despite knowing he has a crush on her.)
- Unwanted Assistance: Eric is on the receiving end of a lot of this, with people always trying to commiserate with him about his experience, which he doesn't really want to deal with.
- In one case, not long after he goes to college, he hooks up with a girl who knows about his affair with Claire and seems to find it really hot. Later, Eric meets up with her again, thinking they're going to have sex (he sent her a "You up?" text, after all), except she actually feels guilty about fetishizing his victimization and tries to talk to him about it. Eric finds this incredibly annoying, especially when she makes it clear she doesn't want to have sex again.
- Wild Teen Party: Eric goes to one in episode 2. It does get busted by cops, Claire's police officer brother Nate among them. Eric, realizing the connection between Claire and Nate, appeals to Claire to help him evade a slap on the wrist for underage drinking.
