The first word spoken in “John Proctor Is the Villain” is “sex,” a portent of things to come. Mr. Smith (Gabriel Ebert), a high school English teacher, has been tasked with handling sex-ed for his junior honors students; this module mostly consists of the students reading aloud definitions of words including “sex” and of course “abstinence.” They are not receiving much sexual education here, and Mr. Smith is certainly not a good man for the job. But this is the only high school in a one-stoplight town in Appalachian Georgia, so he’ll have to do. His actual job is to teach his students “The Crucible,” a rite of passage
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