Considering that Quinta Brunson is
one of the greatest hyphenates working today and considering that Abbott
Elementary, among its many, many other virtues, is the current representative
of the workplace comedy, I was curious to know if when the first two episodes
premiered last night whether Brunson (who wrote the first two episodes) was
going to acknowledge the strikes that crippled the season. And of course she
did, gently.
When the camera crew entered the
school, every single member of the faculty welcomed back saying that they’d
missed them for the last five months – almost to a day how long each of the picket
lines were. Jacob (Chris Perfetti) in an aside mentioned that the camera crew
had apparently been mugged five months ago and it had taken them this long to
get new equipment. This actually became a running gag at the midpoint of the
episode. Then as the episode opened there was some rumbling about the presence
of the representatives of District. Ava grumbled and put on glasses with fake
eyes on them, clearly intending to sleep through it. Barbara, usually cynical,
said that some of these people seemed good at their jobs. Then came the
representatives of district for Career Day, and wouldn’t you know it, one of
them was Janine. Telling everybody she
worked for district now, Brunson looked at the camera and said: “You guys
missed a lot.” Yes we did and we
certainly missed Abbott Elementary.
The network season of 2024 has been
returning in a piecemeal fashion over the month of January. NBC has been moving
forward first, with the return of Dick Wolf’s two blocks of TV, one set in Chicago, the other his Law and
Order bit, along with the return of Night Court. I’ve been watching
what has been filmed of Irrational and Quantum Leap, but for my
purposes the 2024 network season began last night with the return of two of the
greatest examples of network comedy Not Dead Yet (I’ll get to that next
week, but it looks as great as ever) and of course Abbott Elementary. For
seven months we’ve been eagerly and frustratingly trying to see what would
happen after Gregory and Janine confessed their attraction and then Janine broke
everyone’s heart by saying she needed to be on her own. That hasn’t quite been
resolved yet (Brunson’s no doubt smart enough to know how long to keep the
tension boiling) but we’ve been seeing a lot in the last two episodes.
For one Ava (Janelle James, your
Emmy is waiting for you) came back from summer break having attended Harvard. Well,
she sat on the campus and took computer courses and was wearing a shirt with the
AVA section of Harvard highlighted but she came back determined to be a good
principal. It was hysterical watching Ava trying her hardest to deny her worst
instincts throughout the first half of the episode and just as funny to see her
showing us all that ‘the only thing worse than her being a bad principal was
her being a good principal). Eventually, the faculty tried everything to
get Ava to return to her old self, and hysterically it really looked like she’d
reformed. Not even the sexy appeal of Gregory’s forearms was enough to make her
resume her old ways. (Tyler James Williams reaches new levels of being
uncomfortable.) Finally, in desperation Barbara put on the one thing that could
bring her back to herself – her music. Ava naturally heard it and began to dance
wildly.
Janine seems to have spent the
summer with some of the bloom leaving the rose. Watching her in the first part
of Career Day, there was a certain resigned air to her thinking that all she
can do now is be the best teacher possible. When new representatives of
District showed up (the former superintendent had been arrested for taking
bribes) they seemed remarkably optimistic and committed to doing their best
work. As you’d expect the faculty all greeted them with cynicism, particularly
Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph). Still, it’s clear that they are committed in a way
that we have yet to see on Abbott Elementary, particularly Manny, a
young man whose mother was an educator and who spent her life complaining about
how horrid the situation was. They know what they are up against and Manny
spent the first half of the season premiere trying to woo Janine to a
fellowship at District where she might be able to make change. She spent the
first half trying to figure out whether or not to take it, and eventually after
several discussion with the group she chose to do so.
The second half was Career Day and
Janine was more than willing to bring in the people requested. Eventually it
got hijacked when Melissa’s group – a ticket seller for the Philadelphia Eagles
– managed to get Jalen Hurts to appear. And because this was Philadelphia every
single student ran to her classroom. Janine spent the rest of the day
improvising a way for this to work out and seemed disturbed it ending up not
going perfectly. But Manny assured here that being able to improvise is a sign
of a good researcher. There’s a lot of humor to be played out with these district
people; Janine genuinely seems to fit in with them in a way she doesn’t always
with the rest of Abbott (Ava dismissed them all as nerds at one point). But
there’s clearly a camaraderie between them and they have good jokes. Will Manny
become a love interest with her?
That doesn’t mean it was all fun and
games. Indeed, we had a moment of genuine heartbreak. Melissa’s boyfriend had
spent much of the episode trying to convince her to marry him and at the climax
of it, managed to get the Eagles team to give a proposal -which Melissa refused.
Melissa has been married and does not want to go down that road so when the two
of them broke up, it was like a punch in the gut. As always the moments were
balanced with humor; Jalen Hurtz was very respectful and when Janine asked him
if he’d considered teaching he told her it might be possible: “I only work on
Sundays.”
And to be sure there were wonderful
moments throughout career day. The funniest was when Jacob managed to get Mr.
Johnson (William Stanford Davis) to talk to his class. Johnson has had such a
deep backstory that Jacob wanted to hear it as much as anyone else and David
kept delivering. “Now I’m sure you wondering how I became a United States Senator?”
he says at one point. “Yes!” Jacob says. The episode also ends with Johnson talking
about a mafia experience, wrapping things up and receiving a standing ovation
from the crowded classroom. Barbara spent the episode being given makeup tips
from a cosmetologist and thanking her: “I would never have the time to do this,
but it’s good to know I can look like this” she said sincerely. And Gregory
managed to find a botanist for his class – but really for him. Gregory, it’s
worth noting spent his summer working in Camden Yards and had what seemed to be
‘an incident involving the turf’ that has since gone viral.
Janine clearly misses her job
teaching but its clear she likes what’s she’s doing. We also saw (because Ava
naturally installed cameras in the halls of Abbott) that she and Gregory had an
awkward moment together before she chose to go to district five months ago. It looks
by the end of the episode their friendship and banter is back on track, though
it will no doubt be another one or two seasons before they finally decide to,
well, you know. As always the faculty is still torn; Jacob is trying to be on
the side of ‘Team Gregory’ and Ava was watching it with popcorn.
The brilliance of the first season
of The Bear aside, I still believe whole heartedly Abbott Elementary deserved
infinitely more love than it got from the Emmys last month. How the momentum
shifted from one brilliant series to the other I still don’t know but Williams
almost certainly should have won and Brunson deserved at least one more Emmy. I’ll
get to the second season of The Bear in the weeks to come; given the
recognition it got from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice awards last month
for Season 2, I suspect that there will be a similar war to the death between
the two series for the next year. But few can deny that Abbott Elementary is
still a masterpiece and, in conjunction wit such brilliant new series as Ghosts,
Not Dead Yet and the new Night Court, signs the network sitcom is now
in full revival. I couldn’t be happier that school is back in session.
My Score: 5 STARS
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