Abbott Elementary – Principal’s Office

By starrymag | October 19, 2022

By: Atiya Irvin-Mitchell

 

 

We open with a birthday party, sort of. In Barbara’s (Sheryl Lee Ralph) class it’s one of the kids’ birthdays. Barbara goes all out with cupcakes and an extended version of the “Happy Birthday” song. The kids’ reactions tell us that she always goes a little over the top when one of her students has a birthday.

 

Later, Gregory (Tyler James Williams) is teaching about the three states of matter. At first it’s going well, but then a little boy named Micah (Mark Lane III) starts yelling “mum.” Not because his mother’s actually there, but there’s an Australian kids show about a dogs called Bluey. He interrupts class by shouting out catchphrases from the show. Gregory tells the cameras that he’s tried everything and even the other first graders are over it.

 

In the teacher’s lounge Janine (Quinta Brunson) is talking to Barbara and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) about Tariq. They’re not super interested, but that doesn’t stop her. Then, she gets peanut butter for her oodles of noodles (or ramen in some circles) which offends Melissa’s sensibilities. She says Janine eats like she took a prison cooking class. Oddly enough, her cousin who was in prison taught her to make the noodles and peanut butter dish. Long story short, her mom never taught her to cook so her ex did all the cooking. Now that Tariq is no longer in the picture Janine’s food options have become as limited as her cooking skills. So, with a sigh, Melissa decides she’s going to teach Janine to cook. She feels like she’s going to regret it, but she invites Janine over for a cooking lesson. Janine is thrilled and Jacob (Chris Perfetti) overhears and wants to come, too. Melissa says fine, just because she can’t think of a valid reason to say no. He needs help with his wine pairings, so he’s thrilled. And Melissa throws Janine’s lunch away because it’s just bothering her.

 

After that Gregory goes to sit with Jacob and does the unthinkable for Gregory…he puts sugar in his coffee. Knowing this is a cry for help from “Mr. Loves Bland Foods,” Jacob asks what’s bothering him. Gregory vents about the Micah problem because he doesn’t know how to get him to stop being disruptive. Jacob says when he had a similar issue he sent the problem child to Ava (Janelle James).  He felt all the guilt, but he’d tried everything else. Gregory decides to give it a shot.

 

Janine and Jacob show up to Barbara’s with all the enthusiasm you’d expect. Barbara is her usual no nonsense self and wants to get to work. She tells them to close their eyes and follow her voice to the kitchen. Privacy is no joke to her. Jacob and Janine snap some selfies and then Jacob has to go grocery shopping because Janine bought the wrong onions. Janine spots some more of Barbara’s pictures and notices one of Melissa with her sister Kristin. They had a falling out because she didn’t buy the ingredients to make their Nonna’s signature dish for her wake. Now, Kristin Marie (Lauren Weedman) is dead to Melissa.

 

The story really makes Janine sad. She has a sister and they’re close emotionally, but she moved away because she couldn’t deal with their mom anymore. Janine says they still talk but it isn’t the same. She wishes Barbara and Melissa could make up. The next day Janine and Jacob try to plead Kristin’s case about the substitution dish to Melissa, but she’s not hearing it. Janine asks if she’d ever mend fences with her sister and Melissa says yes, but only if Kristin Marie came to her and she’d never do that. But Janine would. She’s hatching a sister trap.

 

Gregory is trying to teach about the weather cycle and Micah starts asking his classmates about Australia. So Gregory decides to take him to the principal’s office. But first he needs someone to watch his class so he goes to Janine who disagrees with him. Janine thinks it might be too harsh for a kid that young. She’s never taken any of her kids to Ava. Gregory says it’s a unique situation. Janine wants him to explore other options. Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) walks by mostly to be nosy and Gregory is committed to taking Micah to see Ava and Janine agrees to watch the class.

 

A little while later, Gregory feels like things have been going well since he sent Micah to the the principal’s office. Then Ava brings him back, but unfortunately he’s not sorry for being disruptive. And he has a toy, so of course now all the other kids want a toy so they start misbehaving too.

 

So what gives? Remember when as a kid during the winter if it snowed or rained you’d just have recess in a classroom? That’s what Ava’s office is for kids being sent there. There are games and snacks and toys and no punishment. Gregory is not happy about this and we learn absolutely shocking things about him. We already knew he was an army kid, but father was super strict. Whenever Gregory had the nerve to act like a kid his dad shut it down and put him in time out.

 

Gregory wants to know why Jacob recommended the principal’s office to him. Because, Jacob says, although Ava isn’t punishing anyone ever you can use that time the kid’s away to regain control of the classroom. But, Gregory points out the root of the problem never gets solved and it rewards bad behavior. So then Gregory goes to Barbara. She can get Ava to do her job sometimes. Barbara agrees to talk to Ava, because she can tell Gregory is really stressed about this.

 

After this Gregory tries to do some work and gets interrupted. This time it’s not by Micah and Bluey, it’s by him being called to the principal’s office on the loudspeaker. He walks through the hall and gets “ooooohh” by Barbara’s students and she tells them it’s not nice to kick people while they’re down. Mr. Johnson apparently didn’t get the memo because he starts chanting “shame” and ringing his keys like a bell as if this were Game of Thones.

 

When Gregory gets to Ava’s office he’s confused. She’s flirty and annoyed that he’s been complaining about them. He doesn’t get why she makes what’s supposed to be a consequence like a day at Chuck E Cheese. Apparently there’s some weird beef between Ava and the Chuck E Cheese corporation. But she explains that when kids get sent to her office they’re sad, sometimes embarrassed and scared, so she makes it a place where they can calm down. After the walk of shame he just had he should be able to relate, Ava says. So she encourages him to solve his own problems and makes an announcement about how she hopes he’s learned his lesson.

 

It’s another cooking lesson at Melissa’s and Jacob is being overzealous about wine. Then the doorbell rings and it’s Kristin Marie. Janine tried to sister trap them by leaving a special dish for Kristin Marie with a note pretending it was written by Melissa. She thinks this will heal the rift between them. But when Kristin Marie shows up she’s angry and asks if Melissa is trying to poison her. Apparently the dish was very, very poorly made. Melissa says though, that if she was going to kill her she’d never be so cowardly about it. She’d want to be able to watch her die slowly. The sisters go back and forth and Jacob leaves because he’s not into conflict. After about a minute they realize that Janine wrote the note. Awkward. Melissa kicks everyone out for obvious reasons.

 

Barbara and Gregory have a heart to heart when she finds him practicing his scary teacher voice. She tells Gregory that as a young Black man he’s in a unique position at this school as they’re still aren’t a lot of them in the field. And with years of experience Barbara warns Gregory that although discipline is important, he can have his students fear him or respect him but not both. This forces Gregory to reflect. His dad was pretty hard on him and he was very obedient, but there might’ve been some adverse effects.

 

So, Melissa’s annoyed but not as ragey as Janine was expecting. She says she knew she was opening herself up to more of Janine’s meddling tendencies when she let her come over. And we get more context about why she took the dish with the wrong ingredients so hard. When their Nana was sick Kristin Marie was pretty MIA, which Melissa found hurtful. When she showed up with the signature dish with lackluster ingredients at the wake it was the last straw.  She says she’ll keep teaching Janine to cook, if for no other reason than to keep her from poisoning someone accidentally.

 

Gregory’s teaching and Micah is interrupting Aussie style. So Gregory flips his board over and reveals pictures and stickers of Bluey, the cartoon dog Micah’s obsessed with. He gets him to pay attention by incorporating the thing he loves into the lesson and it works. Then the day is over and Barbara, Ava, and Gregory are leaving together. Ava asks if the Micah situation has been handled and Gregory’s happy to report that it’s under control. Then Ava of course says he’s still welcome to come to her office and Gregory responds that that wouldn’t happen unless he was on drugs. Barbara respects the well thrown shade and they leave together.

 

An unspecified amount of time later Gregory’s relaxing in an office when he gets a phone call from his dad. He answers, “what up pops,” apparently this doesn’t go over well. Gregory straightens up in the chair and apologizes to his father who he’s only allowed to call the Colonel. That might be one of the problems with having someone fear as opposed to respect you: not a lot of room for warmth. And that’s the episode.