Abbott Elementary: Party

May 25, 2024 11:39 AM - Season 3, Episode 14

Janine throws a very well-planned party. What could go wrong?

I have not been into the last bunch of episodes, but this is brilliant. Janine having prop vases, created messes, matchmaking, sticking people in corners with puzzles or non-engaging movies...so engineered! So brilliant! And then people start breaking out of their boxes and having such fun! Then the fuse blows. "This is why people should stay in their sections!"

I both love Janine's dress and am very distracted by having one blue-striped boob.

I'm serious when I say this show gives me Michael Schur vibes all over the place, but especially this episode because Leslie Knope would be all over this party engineering.

"Things go wrong whether you do what you want or not." Awww, Mr. Johnson.

Janine turned Manny down! Take a hint, sir.

"I am done waiting!"

GREGORY'S LOOK AT THE CAMERA BEFORE KISSING HER AWWWWW FINALLY! Love this. The show has been kind of making it sound like it won't happen the last bunch of episodes, but it finally started up at the end of S3 (very Schurlike) like I originally thought it would. Huzzah!!!!

posted by jenfullmoon (8 comments total)

I also enjoyed this a lot more than the preceding episodes. Janine micromanaging everything/everyone, and then freaking out when people start doing their own thing ("Why are people dancing? It's supposed to be a party!") was some of the funniest stuff this year.

They took so many detours with Janine/Gregory this year that my reaction is more an exhausted "yay" than true excitement. I'm sure I'll enjoy them being together next season, though.

Worldbuilding detail that only I care about: Janine says at the beginning that she's inviting some (but not all) of the Abbott teachers to the party. Somehow Mr. Morton made the list, despite being a constant bringdown with his divorce feelings, and despite no one seeming to like him that much. Did he make the cut because the other Abbott teachers are even worse? Or was he just easier for Janine to slot into her Best Party Plan Ever, while other Abbott teachers are harder to categorize?

Bits I liked:

Ava (to graduating kindergarten class): They said you couldn't do it.
Barbara: NO, THEY DIDN'T! NO ONE SAID THAT!

Mr. Johnson: Jobs come and jobs go. I've quit, been fired, been replaced on the panel by Paula Abdul right before the show blew up.

Erika (describing Simon): "Young, ethnic Adam Sandler."
posted by creepygirl at 5:10 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]

she's inviting some (but not all) of the Abbott teachers to the party.

I sort of reasonably assume a school has more teachers in it than the few that are usually featured in this show.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:21 PM on May 26

Of course, but Mr. Morton is a strange choice because clearly no one likes him and he's such a downer, except that we've seen him more than any of the other peripheral teachers. Is he the only one of those who has had a speaking part? I think he may be.
posted by cooker girl at 10:13 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]

Sea Barbara went full pirate, so you know it was a success, lol.

I think Mr. Morton is such a lonely downer, you can't risk not inviting him and having that be a Thing for the foreseeable future.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:09 PM on May 27 [2 favorites]

Also, maybe there's a divide between the teachers teaching K-3rd or so and the ones that teach the older kids. I assume Mr. Morton is in the lower grades?
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:38 PM on May 27

I took it as really just a wink/lampshade to the audience about the show otherwise treating "all the teachers" to mean just the ones with regular speaking roles (so Mr Morton included).

(But now it strikes me that the cleverer choice might have been to ignore the issue completely until the eventual series finale where, at the documentary's launch party, we're treated to the introduction of a whole slew of new compelling teacher characters who, we only then learn, simply never signed the doc crew's release forms.)
posted by nobody at 10:59 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

I have not been into the last bunch of episodes, but this is brilliant.

Yes! So many characters all coming together - I was so happy to see Zack again, I want them back together. I feel like they probably could've squeezed Tariq in there somehow, although that might have splashed cold water on the budding romance.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:40 PM on May 28

I sort of reasonably assume a school has more teachers in it than the few that are usually featured in this show.

Yeah, you see them in the library meetings in this season. I have no idea why Morton was invited but it was funny because he is such a Captain Bringdown. I loved how this was a ribbing of Janine's tendency to try to overdetermine things but it was a gentle ribbing because the party wound up being super fun. Also yes, a quiet "yay FINALLY" about Janine and Gregory.
posted by jessamyn at 2:35 PM on May 28 [1 favorite]