Do you remember the weeping exhaustion you felt studying from your room in lockdown, while I am still doing so and the fathomless disbelief and raw gratitude you felt towards those who make it their daily business to instill knowledge in young minds; the profound reverence you gained for their skills. How deeply you meant it when you lay on the floor every evening and cried to the heavens that all teachers and essential workers who make our economy run should be showered with gold and worshipped as gods before you crawled into bed preparing to begin the whole bloody thing again tomorrow?
Abbott Elementary (Disney+) will bring that time flooding back, but this time with laughs and sprinkles of the harsh reality of underfunded public schools. Sometimes painful, bitter laughs, but laughs nonetheless. The new mockumentary sitcom about an underfunded primary school in West Philadelphia was created by comedian extraordinaire Quinta Brunson, whose mother taught in the same institution for 40 years. This is a testament to the raw truth that works and connects with everyone.
Quinta Brunson as Janine Teagues/ Variety
Brunson plays a young, bubbly still-optimistic teacher Janine Teagues, always doing herself wholeheartedly and frequently bewildered best. When she’s not teaching, she is researching the best way to raise funds for school supplies, as teachers don’t have enough things to deal with and this list only gets longer with her trying to fix hallway lights, unblock toilets, or embrace new educational methods that might help her deprived students. It’s a measure of Brunson’s skill as a writer and performer that despite her palpable innate goodness, Janine is never smug or boring, but instead so desperately appealing that long before the end of the first episode you want only good things for her, forever.
Sheryl Lee Raphl as Barbara Howard/ Wiki Fandom
Janine wants to be just like her colleague — veteran teacher and a beacon of effortless authority Barbara Howard, played with statuesque magnificence by Broadway star Sheryl Lee Ralph. As another teacher, the mob-affiliated Melissa Schemmenti (Lisa Ann Walter), puts it:
you have to care so much that you refuse to let yourself burn out. “Who’s gonna look after the kids then?”
SAG Award win for Abbott Elementary
The tension between abstract ideals and necessary compromise in a deeply flawed system is what drives the show and gives it its universal beloved appeal and its award sweep.
Although for me, great teachers changed the trajectory of my career and made me choose writing, journalism & the creative arts as a career that was launched from my bedroom during the pandemic. A special mention to my middle and high school teacher, Ms. Namita who is not online but who made me fall in love and develop a genuine passion for journalism by igniting a spark for the English language. Eternally grateful. Hopefully, I will get a chance to say it in person at a school reunion.
The cast of Abbott Elementary/ LA Times
Filling up the rest of the teachers’ lounge — where they go to eat their dismal lunches if they have time, they need nutrition to function but burgers and pizzas are cheaper than nutritious fresh food but even the teachers figure it out by planting a fresh garden on school grounds— is fellow second-year teacher Jacob (Chris Perfetti, a painfully determined “white ally” and he is an actual one in the largely black school); substitute teacher sex symbol Gregory (Tyler James Williams), who also acts as a slow-burn love interest for Janine and get together already; and the principal, the colorful and breadth of fresh air, Ava Coleman( Janelle James), who pops in now while her exhausted staff looks on in silent contempt. Ava is played by comedian Janelle James, whose limitless charisma is put to fine use in her role as the gloriously self-obsessed head teacher.
Janelle James as Ava Coleman/ ABC
Originally the position was given to someone else, but … “I go to the same church as the superintendent,” she explains to the camera crew delightedly, “and caught him cheating on his wife with the deaconess. And I needed a job!”
Ava and Eddie
As far as Gregory is concerned, she is also a serial sexual harasser, but at the moment he is too paralyzed by fear to know what to do about that.
The women of Abbott Elementary/ LA Times
The women of Abbott Elementary create black girl magic of the highest order on screen every season. With its second season finale airing and capturing hearts, it's no surprise that the show will be back for season 3.
Plots are small, often revolving around teachers’ attempts to resolve the latest and most pressing lack of supplies to their school — Melissa also brings in one of her teamster buddies to help Jacob out with a lesson on the history of unionization. However, the pace never flags, the character portrayals are note-perfect, and the actors’ timing is immaculate. And the rapid-fire gag rate, even without the fleeting looks of disbelief, embarrassment, or acknowledgment to the camera that is the hallmark of the mockumentary, leaves you breathless.
What are you waiting for, do you need to know something else about the show to initiate your interest and curiosity to choose Abbott Elementary as your next binge-watch series? Let me know in the comments below.