Abbott Elementary – Gregory’s Garden Goofballs

By starrymag | February 21, 2024

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

 

We start the episode in Barbara’s (Sheryl Lee Ralph) classroom where she’s greeting her students and is shocked to see Janine’s (Quinta Brunson) ex-boyfriend Tariq (Zack Fox). She assumes that he’s looking for Janine and says she’s working for the district, but that’s not why he’s at Abbott. The reason in question is he has been dating the mother of one of Barbara’s students, Nick (Christopher Robert Scott), whom he is insisting on calling “Tariq Jr.” Barbara points out that isn’t the child’s name, but Tariq is undeterred. He’s been dating Nick’s mother for a little over a month, so he considers himself Nick’s stepfather.

 

Speaking of Janine, she says her fellowship is going really well. She likes working at the district and she’s proud to admit that she just prepared their natural disaster plan. Her next project, we see, is hiring an American Sign Language interpreter. Jacob (Chris Perfetti) has a deaf student named Imani (Makenzie Lee-Foster) who is getting by, and Jacob is learning to sign as fast as he can, but someone to translate for her would be ideal. The good news is that Janine gets the go-ahead, but the bad news is she’ll have to do all the heavy lifting herself. At first this doesn’t seem like it’ll be so hard…

 

Back at Abbott Gregory (Tyler James Williams) is trying to have lunch and read when a group of 7th or 8th-grade boys come into his classroom and decide to hang out. Greogry says as little as possible, but the boys keep asking him for advice and talking and making it hard for him to read. Gregory tells the cameras that this is now an everyday occurrence since Mr. Morton is using his classroom for lunchtime couples’ therapy.

 

Much to Barbara’s annoyance at lunch Tariq makes another appearance. He has come to drop off Tariq Jr.’s lunch, which means he switches his own out for Nick’s Lunchable. Nick tells him that he’s not his father. Tariq confesses he misses Melissa’s (Lisa Ann Walter) annoyance, whom he calls “the mean Italian lady,” over Barbara’s commentary.

 

On the ASL interpreter front, Janine is still feeling optimistic. There are many steps to hiring a qualified interpreter, but Janine is undeterred. She is, however, shocked when she finds Ava (Janelle James) waiting for her in her office. Ava has decided that Janine will be her mole and disregards Janine’s insistence that she won’t be spying for her.

 

Elsewhere Gregory goes to Jacob’s classroom and tells him to keep his kids out of his classroom. Jacob points out that it isn’t class time right now, but that isn’t what Gregory means. He explains that it is lunchtime and afterschool time and generally all the time. Jacob explains that the kids are going to Gregory’s class because they like him. He’s the “cool” teacher, and Jacob would love to be the cool teacher. Unfortunately, Gregory has no interest in being the cool teacher as he misses the quiet. Yet, want it or not, the kids think he’s cool. So much so that during lunch Javon (Jecobi Swain) asks Gregory for advice about his plan to get himself a new chain as a Valentine’s Day gift. The kids think of Gregory as a ladies’ man, so they figure he’d be in a good position to know what girls want. Gregory advises them that they’re young, so they should just focus more on school than dating.

 

At the district Janine has successfully completed the paperwork to hire a new ASL interpreter. Unfortunately, it’s not the paperwork that provides the biggest obstacle, as it turns out not a lot of interpreters are willing to take a position for so little pay and no benefits. When she tells Manny (Josh Segarra) and Simon (Benjamin Norris) they admit that a lot of district protocols make good ideas die. Yet Janine is determined that she’s going to find an interpreter for Imani.

 

It’s another day at Abbott Elementary and Tariq is dropping off Nick, who is still annoyed. Tariq talks to Barbara and admits it hasn’t escaped his notice that Nick doesn’t seem to like him. Barbara says that at the beginning of the year, it takes a few weeks to earn her students’ trust and a good start, she explains, is by calling them by their actual names. In this case, she tells him to start by calling the boy by “Nick.”

 

Jacob and Janine have dinner and she admits that she’s struggling to find Imani an interpreter. Jacob says Imani’s parents got her a new speech-to-text app and he’s signing as much as he can, so they’re managing. Plus, he says he knows how the district is. The problem, Janine says, is that she is the district now and she wants it to be better. As a teacher she doesn’t want Imani to have to manage.

 

Speaking of that, when Ava is roasting Jacob we see that relying so much on the app leaves Imani just one step behind her peers. Then, Gregory comes by and we learn his advice wasn’t so great when a student named Farrah (Leiloni Arrie Pharms) comes up to him sobbing. When Barbara asks her what’s wrong she says that Gregory told Javon to break up with her. Gregory says he didn’t say that exactly and tries to explain but only upsets her further when he mentions that Javon was going to buy a new chain. Melissa approaches and says they’ve been trying to get him to replace the old one for months. Barbara asks him if any woman is safe from his incompetence  and Melissa takes Farrah away to plot their revenge. Gregory is mostly confused at how things went so wrong.

 

The next day we learn Farrah hates Javon and Gregory is out of the cool teacher and advice-giving business. The boys who’ve been hanging out in his classroom are greeted with a closed door with a “Do Not Disturb” sign on it. Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) wants to use the empty classroom to make a phone call with a likely scammer, but Gregory says the “Do Not Disturb” sign applies to adults as well. Mr. Johnson asks why he’s hiding and Gregory explains his unwanted cool teacher status. Mr. Johnson points out he didn’t exactly ask for Gregory to come up to him asking for advice but he still gives it. Although, he gets accosted by Melissa, who despite teaching elementary schoolers, has been managing a lot of tween relationships and Gregory’s bad advice has torpedoed everything. Gregory reiterates that he never asked to be looked to for advice.  Melissa points out that being here for the kids means being here for all the kids, even the ones you don’t teach.

 

Ava surprises Janine with another visit and wants to know what’s taking her so long to get Imani her interpreter. Janine said she tried her best, but it was too hard and got in the way of her workload. Ava points out that she’s made many other impossible things happen through sheer force of will, their almost-friendship included. This time; however, Janine fears there’s too much red tape. Ava says at Abbott they cut through the red tape for their students.

 

It’s the end of the day and Tariq calls Nick by his actual name. Then, he disappoints Barbara by sharing that due to the mother’s work hours, he’ll be doing pick-ups and drop-offs for the foreseeable future. Barbara says you can’t pick the stepparents or parents of the students, no matter how much you’d like to. It takes a village, she says, and sadly sometimes that village includes a Tariq.

 

Manny and Janine talk about the wall she’s been hitting. He tells her that the district never asks how you did something, but somehow you just have to get it done. So it seems it’s time to go through some less than proper channels. With that in mind, Janine gets Imani’s parents’ contact info from Jacob and makes a few phone calls.

 

We see that Gregory has begrudgingly accepted his cool teacher status, with boundaries. He is not giving romantic advice ever again. Plus, if the kids want to hang out they have to help him with the garden. An unspecified amount of time later we see Janine say Imani got her interpreter because her parents threatened to go to the media and the district couldn’t move fast enough. We cut away and see Janine having drinks with Manny. She says they don’t get paid to care, but we do it anyway.