Photo: Gilles Mingasson/Disney
Abbott Elementary’s students and teachers may have crowned the Smith Memorial Playground outing the best field trip ever, but the episode doesn’t quite live up to its predecessors. The storyline is fairly clichéd — a petty playground competition brings out the childlike tendencies of the teachers — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for Abbott since it’s a series that fully embraces its earnestness, except there weren’t enough stand-out jokes to balance it out. Couple that with the already high expectations created by the previous field trip episodes (plus the contrast from last week, where each scene was packed to the brim with sharp writing), and tonight comes up short.
This year, Jacob facilitates a free field trip to Smith Playground, a historic park built at the turn of the 20th century as instructed in the will of a wealthy Philadelphian who, fun fact, invented a few typefaces (so random and so cool). Richard Smith and his wife Sarah envisioned the park as a memorial for their son and a safe space for young children to play. The park features a 16,000-square-foot Playhouse and contemporary playground equipment mixed in with old-fashioned designs, most famously the giant 60-foot-long wooden slide. It’s a great location as an homage to Philadelphia, yet the episode pales in comparison to the field trips set at the zoo and the Franklin Institute. The season one field trip to the zoo aired during the haze of adoration associated with the then brand-new show; it gave us now classic Abbott jokes (Tariq was on a roll) and significant character development. It also heavily moved along the Janine/Gregory slow burn, as did the second season episode at the Franklin Institute. To be fair, these were technically season finales, and while this is the penultimate episode, the bar is still pretty high.
Despite the episode not breaking the laugh meter, we do make some progress regarding the lovebirds and classroom neighbors. However, it’s not necessarily the progression shippers of the romance hoped for. But remember, we’re playing the long game here, and under the rules and tenants of sitcom slow burns, it’s not about whether Gregory and Janine are going to date — we know they will somehow, someway — it’s a matter of how and when. Spoiler alert: it won’t happen on the slide at the Smith Memorial Playground. Similarly to the events leading to Janine and Jacob’s season two agreement to pump the breaks, tonight, Jacob is the one to trigger the first domino, not that it would take much force to get things moving. At the start of the episode, Gregory and Janine share flirtatious energy when he helps drape her jacket over her shoulders. Gregory tells Jacob he intends to tell Janine his true feelings, but he’s waiting for the right time. Obviously, this isn’t enough to keep Jacob from meddling, so while on the bus to the playground, he subtly tells Janine that Gregory still has feelings for her.
After Janine asks Jacob to confirm that these words indeed came out of Gregory’s mouth and reassure her that she won’t be turned down again like earlier in the year, she coly slides into the bus seat next to Greg. During their small talk, Janine notes how their field trips usually end in disaster, and Gregory replies that maybe this field trip will break the unlucky streak — a statement that, in hindsight, was more of an omen than a prophecy regarding their relationship. Since last season, they’ve been playing a game of ping pong, with the pair never being entirely on the same page about their feelings for the other. Now, we see them fully court each other, mutually acknowledging the romantic chemistry. They have the perfect dramatic height difference for Janine to gaze upwards coquettishly and for Gregory to look down adoringly through the near-foot of space between their heads. The stakes become even higher when Gregory uses Janine’s phone to take a picture of her with her class and sees a text from Manny, asking to get dinner sometime.
Manny’s text is merely a speedbump — though it could have been a full stop if Janine meant the X-rated definition of being a “swinger” instead of the G-rated version like he briefly did. Unaware of what Gregory saw, Janine asks if he wants to swing with her. It’s giving Janine and Gregory sitting in a swing, but the kids kick them off before they get to the K-I-S-S-I-N-G part. They rejoin the teachers, and Gregory tells Jacob that the text didn’t deter him; inversely, it galvanized him even more to disclose his feelings, so it appears like we’re getting closer to real action when he and Janine venture off to the giant wooden slide. While Gregory and Janine frolic around the park, the other characters get caught up in a feud with their rival school, Liberty, led by Ava’s archnemesis and sorority sister, Crystal. The first shot of “The Soror War” (Jacob is so funny for that) is fired when one of Melissa’s students claims that a Liberty student pushed her on the playground, and Melissa approaches Miss Bronco, the other little girl’s teacher. Miss Bronco is played by Michaela Watkins, who expertly employs her distinct quick, dry humor in her snark-filled remarks, claiming the Abbott student was the aggressor.
Melissa attempts to diffuse the situation, saying both girls should apologize. With a fake smile and sardonic tone, Miss Bronco agrees with Melissa, adding a little salt as she says, “It’s the right thing to do, no matter who shoved the other one first…” The passive-aggressiveness between the two schools extends beyond Melissa’s interaction with Miss Bronco; after seeing some Liberty students cut Abbott students in line, Barbara, Melissa, and Jacob try to defend their kids. They ask the Liberty teachers to keep an eye on their kids “to keep things fair,” igniting full-on war when Miss Bronco responds, “Life isn’t fair. You have to teach at Abbott.” Things escalate when the rival teachers begin taunting them, with one intentionally hogging the water fountain from Jacob with his gallon-sized water bottle. Then, the Liberty teachers move the Abbott lunches to sit and simmer in the sun while stealing their shaded picnic spot, prompting Abbott to consider declaring all-out war.
Abbott tries one more time to be the bigger people, suggesting a no-contact pact as they take their students to the slide. Miss Bronco fires back, insisting that it’s actually Liberty’s time to go to the slide. Ava tries to tell them all to relax, unbothered because the situation doesn’t directly involve her; she’s more interested in listening to an oral history on the history of oral histories. But once Crystal emerges (until this scene, Ava had no idea the other school was under her soror’s jurisdiction), she’s ready to “fight these bitches.” To settle the Abbott vs. Liberty beef, Ava suggests a relay race between the teachers to decide who gets the first dibs on the slide. Abbott needs all the help they can get to beat Liberty, so Ava finds Janine and Gregory, bringing us back into their rose-colored rom-com. They’re giggling as they slide down the beloved Philadelphia attraction, with the bubbly energy settling into seriousness at the bottom. Gregory begins to open up while they lay on the ground looking into each other’s eyes, and before he can spit out his sentence, Ava interrupts, perturbed by the scene she encounters.
Mr. Morton stumbles upon the trio while on the phone with his ex-wife. We learn that the couple first met as teachers in neighboring classrooms, much like Greg and Janine, and Mr. Morton goes into a cautionary tale about dating a coworker. Mr. Morton wraps up his spiel with the numerous ulcers he’s developed due to his relationship, killing the mood and snapping us back into reality. Ava, who disapproves of the intimacy she witnessed, encourages her teachers to abandon whatever is going on before things implode. She breaks up the sad scene, calling everyone to participate in the relay race. The love birds are left in the cumbersome aftermath, and Gregory admits to the cameras that it’s best to hold off on his plan, putting a pin in the slow burn. All awkwardness aside, Abbott works as a well-oiled machine in the competition, successfully executing each childish playground challenge from the monkey bars to a tricycle race — though getting a head start from Ava shoving Crystal out of the way didn’t hurt.
The excitement of the competition distracts the adults from noticing that the majority of the children from both schools are no longer watching the relay race. Instead, they ignore the adults and play together in harmony. At the end of the trip, the storyline wraps up in a predictable bow, with the adults admitting that their own attitudes were more to blame than the children. There’s a millisecond of maturity before Ava says, “I’m sorry…that we had to beat your ass!” Everyone boards the bus and returns to Abbott victorious, finding a frustrated Mr. Johnson outside. In a loose B-plot, Mr. Johnson takes the time away from the students to complete his neglected To-Do list when he discovers Ava’s secret bathroom and eventually locks himself out of the school. He correctly guesses the PIN to be 6969 and marks his territory in the sacred space. It’s no season one, where he creates his version of The Breakfast Club with the students without permission slips, but at least I’ll never forget: sixty-nine percent of the time, the answer is sixty-nine.
• Jacob is the MVP this week, getting the most laughs out of me. Below are my top three.
• After Mr. Morton asks what a woman could possibly do with a grill: “You’re scum.”
• After hearing about Manny’s text: “Oh no, not the beard!”
• Unironically invoking the depressing mantra of someone trying to make life less mundane in response to Miss Bronco’s shade: “No, we get to work at Abbott!”
