In the fourth and final season, three new characters came onto the show. The first was Carmen Torres (Natalia Baron), a 21-year-old Spanish-fluent physics teacher who would clash with Steven over his insistence that she not speak and teach Spanish in the classroom. (The storyline never brought up the controversial reality that Massachusetts schools have a state-mandated English-only policy.) Carmen started a brief relationship with Jake (Milo Ventimiglia), an undercover cop who was posing as a "bad boy" teenager in order to bring down a student who was selling drugs; Jake was murdered when the drug bust went wrong. In the meantime, she helped Jenn Cardell (Lyndsy Fonseca), a student who also liked Jake and had a drinking problem. Carmen revealed her own drinking problem, but little was made of it. She also revealed her mother committed suicide. Carmen disappears in the middle of the final season with no explanation.