Abbott Elementary Is Back For Season 4

I’ve Basically Run Out of Words To Say How Great It Is — But I’ll Never Stop Trying

Its seems that I am going to run out of superlatives to use on Abbott Elementary far quicker than Quinta Brunson and her merry band are going to run out of ways to make me laugh and be in awe of them. The opening of last night’s episode alone had enough material to be one of the highpoints of 2024. It starting with a meeting of the PTA which was, as seems to be the standard now, being emceed by Janine’s ex-boyfriend Tariq. Discussion began involving the building of the new golf course which started last week and is no doubt going to be a problem during Season 4. Tariq came up with what was a typically Tariq strategy — he would become Bagger Vance and find a way to win over the Matt Damon character to his side. Janine said that was a stupid strategy and Gregory added that it was a great Will Smith performance. (In West Philly Will Smith is still a legend.) There was a discussion of Will Smith’s other performances and naturally Barbara thought Will Smith starred in Elf. Janine then brought up Wild Wild West and Barbara said that movie inspired a line dance. Tariq said he was going to bang his gavel. Cut to the camera aside where Tariq says he brought this gavel to every meeting in case things get out of order. He then adds: “I’ve never gotten a chance to use it because every PTA meeting ends the same way.” Cut to the gym where the entire PTA, Abbott faculty, parents and Tariq are line dancing to Will Smith’s Wild Wild West.

I think I’ve run out of synonyms for perfection and bliss after three seasons of watching this incredible show which is shocking because usually by Season 4 any comedy, particularly a broadcast one, starts to run out of energy. And it certainly looked like things were going to get worse because as anyone who knows in the Season 3 finale Gregory and Janine finally got on the same page and have spent the summer hooking up. Naturally Janine tried to fake the viewer out but because Quinta Brunson is a kind and merciful ruler she had Gregory show up and say ‘Just Kidding’ before we could begin to believe it. Of course Janine and Gregory tried to keep it on the down-low at Abbott and of course they fooled absolutely no one as every single regular made it very clear on camera they were aware of what Janine and Gregory were doing but were being polite. Ava was the most concerned, of course, but only in the pure Ava fashion that she didn’t want HR coming down on her for this. This is a supreme delight because as we all know, Ava.

So of course Ava called the district in order to deal with this particular situation and then we saw the Janine we love — and frankly missed when she spent most of Season 3 at District. She was more concerned about her yearly plan for her new class and was worried that she’d left it at home. She was also afraid to leave the bubble and tell anyone. Gregory then became childlike in his nerves — could Janine possibly not be as committed to this as he was? This led to Janine’s typical humiliation in front of the entire faculty when she made it painfully clear about their relationship to her embarrassment and of course everyone but Ava (she never misses a chance to humiliate Janine).

Last night’s episode ‘Ringworm’ would be the greatest episode of any series but Abbott Elementary. Jacob (always superb Chris Perfetti) was teaching the Constitution and went off on a tangent on the Greek lawmaker Draco. (Naturally everyone thought he was talking about Harry Potter.) He noticed that one of his kids had ringworm and sent him home. When he casually mentioned this at the teacher’s lounge, everybody became horrified, particularly Ava who wanted to assume disaster protocols. Barbara was alarmed but boasted immunity to ringworm. Melissa was irate because she had a date with a man with a ‘built-in hot tub’. Both Ava and Janine wanted contamination protocols in place and Gregory became Howard Hughes. No I’m serious: he basically quarantined himself in his classroom, somehow managed to find locks for his doors, put buckets on his hands, and made a joke that fully justified the camera’s presence for the last three years.

Jacob refused to allow for the possibility of the problem until the child returned from his class and made it clear he was touching other people. Later on Jacob allowed the child to go to the bathroom, he then came back having not gone to the bathroom but made contact with two other students. Ava’s reaction was to call The Atlantic to promote herself and to tell her students that the Purge was in effect. Naturally it ended with every single member of the faculty getting ringworm.

To say that every single character was hysterical from beginning to end is like saying Abbott is underfunded: by this point every character has their own nuances and crisis always brings out the hysterical. It’s a toss-up to know who was the funniest during this period: every scene Tyler James Williams was in, of course or the wonderful scene where Barb and Melissa got into an argument about God and ringworm as Melissa undercut every time she disagreed with God with an aside that she didn’t mean it. She walked away muttering in Latin and crossing herself. (I swear if the Emmys don’t nominate Lisa Ann Walter this year…)

Every time I watch an episode of Abbott Elementary I am reminded why this show has, with the possible exception of Hacks, the best comic ensemble in the business. Quinta Brunson has created one of the funniest shows this past decade and yet for all intents and purposes she’s the straight woman in this cast, mainly because she’s the most earnest about her job and the most sincere about what she does. Everyone else at Abbott is to a degree but they’ve all got a certain level of jadedness to them that each character has a completely different way of playing. Janelle James’s Ava is hysterically determined to make everything all about her. Sheryl Lee Ralph is both wonderfully devout about her beliefs. Jacob is still convinced that he is groundbreaking in his truth telling and Gregory — well at this point Tyler James Williams rivals Jack Benny for being able to speak volumes by saying absolutely nothing.

And even now it keeps astonishing us: the opening scene of Season 4 had what may very well have been the first white student to enroll in the school in the memory of the institution. Ava thought she was being punked, Mr. Johnson thought they were being audited and Jacob and Melissa tried to ask very politely without mentioning why the parents were doing so her. Janine is handling it as best she can but in a very awkward scene with his drawing a picture — well, let’s just say certain crayons aren’t used and leave it at that. The issues with the golf course may very well become this season’s outstanding storyline; given the havoc it’s already wreaked on the school and the parent’s outrage at the PTA meeting this has the potential to be the equivalent of the ‘Leg — end- ary School’ storyline that caused so much struggle in Season 2. But it’s already given a chance for hysteria as the owner presented himself with polite obsequiousness and essentially donated twenty computers. “What are you doing?” Ava asked when it was going on. “Taking a bribe,” Melissa told the principal.

After little more than three years Abbott Elementary keeps crossing new boundaries. It hasn’t just rejuvenated the network comedy; it’s become such a phenomena that it draws crowds at Comic-Con. And even now it seems determined to make its very crossover with another iconic series: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There’s logic to this, of course: in addition to sharing a city Kaitlin Olson is already working for ABC on the new hit series High Potential and it won’t take much persuasion to bring the cast along for the ride. But part of me wonders if it will gel. To be sure both series involving working class folk who are struggling to survive. But Philadelphia is such a dark and often unpleasant comedy which would seem to be a contrast to the cheerfulness of Abbott. Then again given the commonalities of many of the characters, including the scheming nature of Ava and the criminal undertones of Melissa, they might have more in common then I think.

It’s now very clear that regardless of how much television has changed during this new era it is still breaking ground in comedy. And not just that but the style of comedy we got used to during the 2010s. We’ve left behind the unpleasant world of Shameless and the darker worlds of Silicon Valley and Veep. In its place is a comedy of kindness and understanding where we laugh with the characters as they struggle not because they deserve to fall on their faces. Perhaps that’s the reason the audience response to The Franchise Armando Iannucci’s most recent HBO comedy has been so lukewarm while critical reception has been (slightly) higher. We want to leave behind the world of the Selina Meyers and the Nancy Botwins. Instead we laugh not only at what happens at Abbott Elementary but the misadventures at the Arconia in New York, the struggles and triumphs of Deb and another Ava on Hacks and the brilliant struggles on Shrinking. (I’ll get to Season 2 soon.) Yes these characters are often humiliated but the laughter is somehow kinder because we are rooting for these characters in a way we just couldn’t for the Larry Davids of the world. Abbott Elementary is nothing short of sublime because it creates a world of characters who are underpaid working in the poorest of situations, who suffer the slings and arrows of just going to work every day, and not only are they not broken but they find a way to smile and laugh at the world around them. That’s something to be celebrated in any show; that it does so without becoming sappy or cynical — and has become a cultural phenomenon — well, it’s enough to make you dance in a gymnasium yourself.

Grade: A+ (sorry couldn’t help myself)