A Teacher Season 1 Episode 6 Review: Episode 6

Claire’s stupidity has reached new heights.

While it didn’t seem possible, A Teacher Season 1 Episode 6 further illustrated just how much common sense Claire lacks.

The impulse to run away after everything that’s happened is understandable. Still, taking Eric with her, especially after Nate telling her it could be construed as kidnapping, topped the idiot meter in a new way.

From the onslaught, it was evident neither Claire nor Eric gave much thought to the long-term ramifications of running away.

Their joint decision was motivated by lust and fear, but once the adrenaline wore off and they had more time to think things through, they came to the same conclusion, albeit independently.

Claire: I was a good teacher, right?
Eric: The best teacher.
Claire: Oh well. That’s that.
Eric: Hey, you’re so fucking beautiful, and you chose me.
Claire: My entire life, gone, for you.

For Eric, he had more to lose than Claire by permanently leaving his old life behind.

He’s a high school senior with his entire life in front of him and still has plenty of people in his life who care about and love him.

He may believe he loves Claire, but that love doesn’t outweigh all he’d be giving up by running away with her.

Claire, for her part, had torpedoed her teaching career, alienated those closest to her, and found herself in jeopardy of spending time in jail.

So, of course, she decided to make things infinitely worse for herself.

A serious question needs to be asked whether Claire is just trying to get herself sent to jail at this point, or if she’s just this dumb?

Yes, she had enough common sense to turn herself into the police, but that could have as much to do with her not having anywhere else to go.

Her life is essentially ruined, as everything she spent the past 10 years building crumbled around her.

All she had left was Eric, and even though that choice came with serious repercussions, she felt like it was too late to shift gears.

Once he left, though, there was nothing to keep her going.

Her going to the police read more like a sign of defeat rather than an acceptance of responsibility, for had Eric not left the motel, it’s unclear what Claire would have done.

Sooner or later, her actions would have caught up with her, the latter of which being more likely since she and Eric were terrible at going off the grid.

The thing is, though, had Claire not run away with Eric, she may have managed to salvage some of her life.

While her relationship with Eric would result in her being fired, she could have saved her marriage with Matt — had she wanted — and most likely not gone to prison.

In Texas, the age of consent is 17, so even though Eric confirmed their relationship to the police, Nate was right in that it’s unlikely Claire would have been charged.

Now, though, she’s probably facing divorce and possible jail time.

We’ll have to wait a little longer to discover the exact repercussions, which is somewhat of a letdown.

After patiently suffering through five episodes worth of heavy exposition and poor execution, this installment seemed like it would be the best to date.

Claire: I’m having an affair. I’m having an affair. I’m having an affair.
Matt: What?
Claire: I’m sleeping with my student.

And while it was one of the better episodes, it still didn’t live up to the hype.

Things should have hit the fan, and while they did to some extent, Claire and Eric’s affair went out with more of a whimper than a bang.

There were supposed to be consequences galore once the cat was out of the bag, but the show took its sweet time in dawdling.

Even the reactions from the other characters were relatively subdued.

Matt had plenty of reason to fly off the handle, but he was relatively calm as he processed Claire’s infidelity.

There was no yelling and hardly any crying as he tried to make sense of everything.

Sandra, Eric’s mother, also didn’t appear that keyed up over the news, though that could result from the series not spending that much time with her after learning about the affair.

Ironically, it was Logan’s mother who seemed the most distressed by the news, for outside of Claire and Eric, she had the most emotional reaction this episode.

Speaking of reactions, is anyone else confused by Logan’s?

At first, it seemed like he approved of the whole relationship because of how legendary Eric will be for sleeping with his teacher.

Logan: You’re gonna be like a legend, like a fucking god, dude.
Eric: Don’t say that, man. The fucking cops came to my house in front of my mom. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her.
Logan: That’s not your problem. She’s an adult. She’s like 30, right? It’s on her. You didn’t do anything wrong.
Eric: She’s under investigation because of me. She won’t talk to me. She won’t pick up the phone.
Josh: I mean, she’s probably busy with her husband. Like fuck, dude, she’s got a fucking husband. Fuck.
Logan: Eric, look, I get it, all right. I do. Like you probably really, really like her, but she’s been having sex with her high school student. It’s like, she’s got issues, man.
Eric: You guys don’t get it.

However, in the next sentence or so, he completely changed his mind when he said that everything was Claire’s fault, and she had serious issues.

It was like the writers wanted Logan to be the stereotypical ‘one of the guys’ and voice of reason simultaneously, and it just came across as weird.

What would have been better is if Logan took one stance, and Josh took the other, instead of Logan trying to cover every possible reaction to the news.

Some stray thoughts:

• Kudos to Matt for wanting to stick it out with Claire even after everything he’s put her through. Though he’s probably changing his tune after his wife’s latest stunt, he still gets points for trying to make it work, especially after everything Claire did. Matt deserves better, so let’s hope he eventually gets it.

• While Nate said Claire and Eric running away could look like a kidnapping, does anyone else think it does? Eric is 18 and can make his own decisions. Running off with Claire doesn’t look great, so that probably won’t play well with a jury, but kidnapping still seems like a stretch.

• Why wasn’t Nate more upset with Claire? He put his job on the line when he helped Eric. Did it ever occur to him that he could get in trouble now that everything was out in the open, especially if the police kept digging? As an officer himself, it should have.

So what did you think, TV Fanatics?

What was Claire thinking?

Are you disappointed by the lack of consequences thus far?

Were the other characters’ reactions too subdued?

Hit the comments below to let me know your thoughts. If you missed the latest episode, remember you can watch A Teacher online at TV Fanatic.

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Jessica Lerner is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.