Week-to-Week: Critically Acclaimed Meets Criminally Accused

On the erasure of critical context in FX's controversial renewal of English Teacher

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It was in mid-December when Vulture published “Friends Like These,” an in-depth report on allegations of sexual assault made against Brian Jordan Alvarez by Jon Ebeling, his former friend and co-star in his webseries The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo. This was the first that many were hearing about this, but Ebeling had initially posted about it on Instagram when the first trailer emerged for Alvarez’s FX comedy English Teacher last summer.

At the time, Tara Ariano covered the show’s debut for Cracked, one of the few outlets to report on Ebeling’s posts at the time. Ariano consciously ignored the show in favor of writing about the long legacy of accused waiting out alleged “cancel culture” to return to prominence with few consequences, arguing in her subhead that “Some allegations are impossible to ignore. Other times, the accused just wait you out.” It’s unclear whether Alvarez and FX thought that the story would dissipate in the months after English Teacher’s critically-acclaimed debut: personally, the collapse of Twitter meant that I missed the Cracked stories and Ebeling’s posts entirely, and I’m sure the same was true for other critics. But given that FX chose not to give the series an early renewal despite the strong critical response, it seems logical to believe that they were either weighing the allegations internally or—more cynically—waiting to see if and when there would be more in depth reporting on the subject.

I’ve been following this story closely ever since, but in truth there hasn’t been anything to follow in official contexts. After earning a selection of Critics Choice and Writers Guild nominations in early December, English Teacher was shut out of the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild awards, meaning that the discourse never returned to the surface. FX remained silent after telling Vulture they had reviewed the allegations the previous summer when another outlet was pursuing the story, and had no further comment. It was also the holidays, meaning that the industry was already effectively on vacation when the story broke, and stayed there for another two weeks. Other than a stray English Teacher meme that FX posted to Instagram last week, English Teacher has effectively been gone from the public eye from FX’s perspective since the story broke, which was apparently exactly enough “waiting time” per Ariano’s subhead: today, as TVLine reported was likely yesterday, FX renewed English Teacher for a second season.

It’s a decision that will make absolute sense to Alvarez’s followers on TikTok, which is where I’ve been primarily observing this story play out over the past six weeks. Alvarez became a daily part of my For You Page in the fall when he started posting “Good Loving Daily” videos using an audio combining a scene from Gilmore Girls and Olly Alexander’s “Breathe” (gosh, this sounds crazy if you don’t know TikTok trends, doesn’t it?). I had been privy to his social presence in the past, but after missing some of the initial release of English Teacher while filming M3GAN 2.0 in New Zealand, he threw himself into self-promotion with daily dancing videos where his caption encourages the binging of English Teacher as he writhes, occasionally removes an article of clothing, and does his signature “leg lift.” He also expanded his repertoire with lipsync routines to Gracie Abrams’ “That’s So True,” another trending sound on the platform.

Alvarez’s TikToks

Notably those videos stopped on December 17, when Vulture’s article was published. However, they were back only three days later, and Alvarez has continued “posting through it” ever since (although with occasional hiatuses from the specific dance). As I documented on Bluesky, there were users in the comments trying to point his followers to the Vulture story, but their comments were subsequently erased, clear evidence of crisis comms doing their job of isolating his fanbase from the allegations. In his most recent “Good Loving Daily,” his first since January 20 and posted earlier today, the comments are full of people asking about the possibility of a second season, and the reaction to his announcement post this afternoon confirms they are thrilled a show tied to one of their favorite online personalities will be coming back later this year. If there are still those trying to bring attention to Ebeling’s allegations, they are either being erased too fast to find them or have given up on breaking through the PR barrier being enforced.

Setting aside for a second whether or not FX should have renewed the show given these allegations (my vote is no, for the record), what’s confusing to me about the situation is their choice of framing. If they want to argue that the show is a breakout success with FX and Hulu audiences, with strong uptake on social platforms, then that’s fine: FX is a crucial part of Disney’s streaming footprint, and if the show played well globally then there’s a capitalist reality to these decisions which can outweigh other concerns. Whether they should or not is another question, but I know from Alvarez’s TikTok comments that this decision resonates with demographics that Disney absolutely wants to have paying for subscriptions moving forward.

However, the press release that arrived in my inbox says nothing about the show’s performance on streaming platforms, or its connection to audiences. Describing English Teacher as a “Critically Acclaimed Comedy Series,” the release’s quote from FX president Nick Grad focuses solely on the show’s performance with critics, noting he is grateful to the cast and crew for its “creative excellence.” The release goes on to cite its performance on Top 10 lists and Rotten Tomatoes, before including pull quotes from nine different reviews of the series from its debut back in September.

Put simply, it is a press release from an alternate dimension where the Vulture story was never published. I know of at least one critic whose review is quoted in the release who would absolutely not co-sign this decision, and I have to imagine that others feel the same way. Similarly, those Top 10 lists mostly published before the Vulture story went live, and those publications might have reconsidered if they had known. While we can debate about separating art and artist (more on that in a second), FX’s press release doesn’t allow for that debate to exist: it embraces the disembodied voices of critics’ past perspectives in support of a decision that they had to have known many critics would vehemently disagree with. While renewing the show at all was going to create friction and some tough questions for the next John Landgraf TCA executive session, doing so by co-opting our past support is a discordant note I didn’t know FX (specifically) was capable of playing.

Renewing a show created by, starring, and directed by someone accused of sexual assault is by its nature a request for a knowing audience to separate art and artist. We can parse distinctions between multi-hyphenates whose projects are more autobiographical (say FX’s Louie) with ones that are a more balance workplace sitcom like English Teacher, but we can’t ignore that Alvarez has so consciously connected art and artist in his social promotion of the show. For weeks, I’ve had Alvarez on my For Your Page as a one-man promotional crew at a time when FX was very consciously distancing itself from the show, and now that the decision has been made we’re going to see how comfortable everyone is with the reality they’ve created. Will Alvarez walk the red carpet at tonight’s Critics Choice Awards? Will he and Stephanie Koenig—who also faced scrutiny in the Vulture article—show up at the Writers Guild Awards to face their peers?

As Alison Herman asutely notes on Bluesky, it’s as if Alvarez and English Teacher were “positioned to benefit from conservative ascendance in the ‘cultural counterprogramming’ way but end up doing so in the ‘metoo is over and consequences don't exist anymore’ way.” As such, in the climate we’re in, perhaps there’s a belief that time has passed, second chances are earned, and the show must go on as it did on TikTok for the past six weeks. But that’s an evaluation that the critics FX is using to justify this renewal don’t necessarily agree with, and that’s something people should keep in mind as they make their own choice on whether to re-engage with the show later in the year.

If it wasn’t clear already, let the record show season two of English Teacher is not under consideration for coverage here at Episodic Medium. And to the TikTok fans that Alvarez cites above “made this happen,” I hope they get a chance to do some reading to make an informed decision on their own future with the show.