Add me into the chorus of praise for esper for pulling this episode together. The wild energy shifts in this one are fun, but I am a stubborn and hate change, so I will add finally that I already miss Jaffe.
I do have a fun substitute teacher story! I once had a math sub in middle school who sounds a lot like the sub Tim describes in the episode. We chatted about the news, our lives, whatever was going on at the school. It was really fun. He talked about algebra in the abstract for a bit, but that’s pretty much all the math we did that day. We were in the period preceding lunch, and as the final minutes of class ticked by he got us all quiet and told us an engaging ghost story. I can’t remember any of the details, unfortunately but the end of it implied that not only was he the person featured in the story but he himself might be a ghost. With maybe one minute left until the bell, he finished the story and walked out of class (!). Us students sat, stuck to our seats in anticipation, and when the bell finally rung we ran out and looked up and down the hall. We didn’t see him. He had disappeared!
The effect on a group of rambunctious 12 year old was quite dramatic (it was the talk among students for at least two weeks). These days I like imagine him laughing to himself as he sprints down the hall and out the back door.