'A Teacher' Episode 8 Spoilers: Claire faces sexual predator stigma, Eric trying to see her will make it worse
Spoilers for ‘A Teacher’ Episode 8
FX on Hulu’s limited series ‘A Teacher’ follows 30-something Claire Wilson (Kate Mara), a young teacher at a suburban Texas high school, caught in an affair with her 17-year-old student, Eric Walker (Nick Robinson). The predatory relationship gets exposed after Claire accidentally slips it out to her friend, Kathryn Sanders (Marielle Scott).
In episode 7 of the show, we saw that while Eric tries to lead a normal life, his relationship with Claire continues to haunt him. While Claire is nowhere to be seen in the episode, when Eric is alone, he googles her name. He sees news reports and social media posts floating around about the charges against her and how the headlines read she pled “guilty to sex charges”.
But it’s not just Eric who is haunted by the past. It is Claire as well. In the promo for episode 8, we see Claire finally get out of prison and try to rehabilitate into the real world. But as expected, things are not easy. She has to jump through all the hoops of the legal system. But regular meetings with a probation officer, and trying to find work as an ex-convict are already bad enough without the added stigma of being a sexual predator.
In the promo, we see Claire get a job, but she faces harassment from what looks like a customer at a store -- the woman shouts, “No no no. She’s a sexual predator!” At the same time, it would seem that Claire’s marriage with Matt (Ashley Zukerman) is over. We see her moving in with her brother Nate (Adam David Thompson). Nate is an ex-military, police officer. And by the looks of it, he is not happy with her.
When Claire tries to explain her relationship with Eric to him, he shouts at her and asks her to take responsibility. He is obviously angry at Claire. And it would seem there is no one who is on Claire’s side until the very end of the promo. We see Claire surprised to receive a text message and then she looks tense.
Presumably, Eric got in touch with her. In the previous episode, we saw Eric’s mother Sandy (Rya Kihlstedt) talk to him at the dinner table about going for counseling -- and after being in a predatory relationship he would need that -- she also mentioned that Clair was getting released in a couple of days. Despite some time has passed since he last saw Claire, it is obvious that he is still very obsessed with her. And it is only likely that as she gets out of prison, Eric would want to meet her.
But that cannot be a good thing for either one of them. For one, if Nate found out, he’d definitely kick Claire out. For another, if Eric’s mother found out, she could make trouble for Claire -- what if she gets sent back to prison? At the same time, in no way is it okay for Eric to come face to face with the woman who was predatory with him. The eighth episode of ‘A Teacher’ is going to be tense.
The new 21-minute episode of ‘A Teacher’ will be available to stream Tuesday, December 15 at 12.01 am EST on Hulu. The subsequent episodes will air as follows: Episode 9 on December 22, and Episode 10 on December 29.