Abbott Elementary – Mural Arts

By starrymag | March 7, 2023

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

Jacob’s (Chris Perfetti) class is all about puppets, at least the ones on TV. When he asks questions he’s more than a little confused when the kids respond in a made-up language that their favorite characters on “The Silly Sock Show” speak. It’s a show about a family of socks that do funny things and Jacob’s never heard of it. But apparently, Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) has, when he pops his head in he explains that from Adventure Time to Looney Tunes he always keeps up with the latest cartoons. He speaks the sock show’s gibberish language.

 

A little later it’s assembly time. Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) are kind of over assemblies. And we see that Gregory (Tyler James Williams) and Janine (Quinta Brunson) are still feeling awkward about their drunken kiss, but they’re trying really hard to pretend there’s no awkwardness between them. Ava unknowingly saves them with her announcement. A non-profit named Mural Arts is here and they’re going to paint a mural at Abbott Elementary. Jacob loves their work and the school’s students get to choose what the mural will be. Ava (Janelle James) doesn’t totally get the organization’s mission (or possibly doesn’t care) and tries to get the Mural Arts rep to paint her bedroom for her. That goes about as well as you’d expect.

 

Erika (Courtney Taylor) comes by at the end of the day to pick up her nephew and chat with Janine. Janine has presumably shared about the kiss because Erika comments on the fact that Gregory is her classroom neighbor, she’s dating his bestie, and they kissed. Speaking of Maurice, the best friend she’s dating, Janine tells Erika she’s going to call it quits with him. To start dating Gregory, Erika wonders. Janine says no and that they just aren’t clicking, and if they were the conference kiss wouldn’t have happened. But, Erika says they’re not married so she should just break up with him without all the details. Her reasoning is that telling him about the Gregory of it all will trash their friendship. Janine thinks she still owes him honesty. Erika doesn’t seem to totally buy it and says that for a dork Janine is messy.

 

Elsewhere, remember when Melissa’s sister/frenemy told her that there were talks about turning Abbott into a charter school? It’s worse than you’d think, Melissa looked into it and shows Barbara a petition some of the parents have signed to do just that. Barbara doesn’t understand why they’d do that. Melissa says that the folks at Legendary Charter can be convincing and probably exclude all of the negative things about charter schools in their pitch. Melissa and Barbara agree they need more info, so Barbara puts on a Jamaican accent and calls for some pamphlets.

 

We go to the teacher’s lounge and Jacob is excited and Mr. Johnson is trying to mop around him. He explains that the kids are with Mural Arts and they’re choosing the mural. He feels like they’re choosing their legacy. Janine agrees that it’s exciting and tells Jacob that she still thinks about her class’s mural every time she drives by her old school. Jacob doubles down on his belief that choosing a mural is a meaningful act, then the Mural Arts rep knocks: the decision has been made.

 

What’s the decision? Is it Will Smith? Is it a civil rights activist? Is it Jacob himself? No, it’s “The Silly Sock Show.” At first Jacob thinks the kids are teasing him, but they’re dead serious. They want a mural of sock puppets. When Jacob and the Mural Arts rep go out into the hallway. Jacob asks how this decision was made the Mural Arts rep says the, “The Silly Sock Show” was the thing the kids got the most excited about. Jacob wants to talk more about it with them and come up with something else. The Mural Arts rep says fine, but to remember that Mural Arts is leaving at the end of the week.

 

In the teacher’s lounge Barbara and Melissa are talking more about the charter school problem. Ava doesn’t see what’s so bad about them, so Barbara and Melissa explain: not all the kids from the neighborhood would be welcome, the teachers don’t get to write their own curriculums anymore, and charter schools don’t require all teachers to be certified. Ava doesn’t see the issue yet and says it sounds like less work.

 

Maurice swings by to see Janine and talks to Gregory. He asks Gregory why he’s been so M.I.A. lately, but Gregory insists that everything is fine. After Maurice goes to give Janine her surprise lunch we see Gregory swear to the camera that everything is fine. Then, Maurice and Janine make a date to go to Bone Town (it’s a rib joint.)

 

Later Jacob is trying his best to convince his kids to choose a mural about anything but sock puppets. He tells them to think about the future and if they’d want their future kids to see a mural about sock puppets. The kids push back and say that: 1) a lot will have gone wrong in their lives if their children are enrolled at Abbott and 2)Jacob told them they’ll all be dead in 20 years due to climate change. Ouch on both counts, but Jacob tries to make them see that they won’t care about “The Silly Sock Show” in 20 years and they’ll only be dead by then if they don’t act now. At any rate, he tells the kids that they’re just not going with a sock puppet theme.

 

Janine and Gregory bump into each other in the hallway and they have a needed talk. Gregory says he saw Maurice and is feeling like a lousy friend. Janine has been feeling like a lousy girlfriend-adjacent person, so she says she’s going to take Maurice to Bone Town and break up with him. Reminder, Bone Town is just a restaurant, but out of context that sounds like an innuendo so Gregory is uncomfortable and confused until she explains. Once that’s cleared up Gregory feels like as a friend he needs to tell him about the kiss. Janine isn’t so sure at first, but for no apparent reason, the two of them decide they should tell Maurice everything, together, tonight at Bone Town.

 

Back to the mural discussion, when Mural Arts is back at the school Jacob presents a sycamore tree as the mural idea. But, Ava’s there too and notices that the kids all seem pretty sad. The kids they really wanted “The Silly Sock Show” as their mural theme, but Jacob steamrolled them. This is a no-go for The Mural Arts rep because he says if it’s not the kids’ vision they can’t in good conscience do the mural, so it’ll have to wait until next year. But all the kids point out that as eighth graders they’ll all be gone next year.

 

Jacob feels guilty about the mural situation and after class in the teacher’s lounge, he watches the show and tries to understand it. But he tells Melissa he doesn’t get why his kids are so in love with it. When Melissa accuses him of having no sense of humor, he says he still loves “Ed, Edd, and Eddy” (ask a Millenial about this gem of a cartoon). Still, Melissa says that nostalgia is a powerful thing, and even if the kids do think their idea was silly in 20 years their job as teachers is to meet them where they’re at now while preparing them for the future. Janine agrees, after all her class’s mural theme was SpongeBob Squarepants.  Reluctantly Jacob comes around and wants to fix things, but Mural Arts are already gone. But never fear, Melissa, says he’s acting pretty defeatist for a third-party voter and says it’s time to go bully a sensitive artist.

 

At the end of the day we see a distraught parent come in. Why? Her son Joshua (Anthony Carr Jr.) has been kicked out of Addington because his test scores weren’t high enough. His mother Nicole (Kaycee Campbell) says he’s pretty upset about the whole thing. Barbara says they don’t see their kids as students but as test scores. But, of course, Abbott has a place for Joshua. Ava is upset by the whole ordeal and says if anyone’s going to take advantage of the kids and school district, it’s going to be her. Addington now has her as an enemy.

 

It’s time to go to Bone Town and Janine and Gregory go through with their plan to talk to Maurice. They explain about the kiss and apologize profusely. Surprisingly, Maurice takes the news pretty well. He says he’s had his share of wild work parties and if they say it meant nothing it meant nothing. So, Maurice says, he doesn’t see any reason that he and Janine can’t still date. About that, Janine says that things aren’t really working between them and that does upset Maurice. He resents the idea that Janine just wanted to break up with him in front of Gregory and tells them both to leave. Harsh, but fair enough.

 

A few carefully placed threats later Mural Arts comes back to Abbott Elementary and we see them unveil the finished mural in all its sock puppet-themed glory. The kids are really happy and Jacob is too. He honored their vision while succeeding in getting them to personalize little plaques. If you look closely each small plaque within the mural has a picture of what each kid wants to be when they grow up and Clarence (Zakai Biagas-Bey) says he wants to be a teacher like Jacob. And they even save room for Joshua to his picture in.

 

After school, the teachers hang out in the lounge and take a quiz to see which “The Silly Sock Show” characters they are. And that’s the episode.