Abbott Elementary is the rare sitcom with something for everyone
The mockumentary has two faces. Or, more accurately, the comedy format is ideally suited to showcase the multiple faces most of us need to get through certain social situations.
On “The Office,” the camera captured the employees of Dunder-Mifflin trying to create professional distance between themselves and their attention-hungry boss Michael Scott, gritting their teeth or giving the unseen TV crew periodic looks of so-that-happened behind the manager’s back to cope with his petty dictatorship.
“Parks and Recreation’s” Leslie Knope is a more benign figure, but her friends and co-workers regularly confided in asides to the camera their slightly underhanded techniques for dealing with the civil servant’s inexhaustible, and thus utterly exhausting, enthusiasm. And arguably no activity plasters a frozen smile on our faces faster than talking about our day-to-day domestic lives to outsiders — a routine (in both senses of the word) played up by “Modern Family.”
Advertisement
The mockumentary was supposed to have died sometime in the mid-2010s, when the setup seemed to have been sucked dry. But “What We Do in the Shadows” breathed new life into it in 2019 by, ironically, coating it in dust and spiderwebs; we were told by its vampires of their eternal cool and saw for ourselves how neutered and mildewy the undead actually are. The revival continues with ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which pulled off an even more impressive feat with its Emmy-winning debut season: making the network sitcom relevant once again. (Season 2 premieres Wednesday.)
On “Abbott” — named after the underfunded school where the series is set — teachers put on happy or hopeful or encouraging faces for their (mostly Black) students, and sometimes even for each other, while knowing they’re set up to fail by the larger educational apparatus. “Welcome to the Philly public school system,” says a veteran teacher in the new season, “where you never have what you need.” The jobs of educators aren’t merely to instruct, but to never let on to their young charges how powerless they sometimes feel, nor their awareness of how much students have to go without.
Receiving textbooks just a few years old is a cause for celebration in the “Abbott” universe, but the laugh-track-free comedy isn’t part of the ongoing trend of socially conscious Bummer TV. Inspired by creator and star Quinta Brunson’s mother’s experiences as a Philadelphia schoolteacher, the show is meant to be a celebration of the persistence and resourcefulness of educators, rather than a dwelling on deprivation.
Viewers are given the leeway to read as much or as little social commentary as they wish into the small-scale stakes: idealistic newish teacher Janine’s (Brunson) quest to replace the rug in her second-grade classroom with a pee-free one, for instance, or educational lifer Barbara’s (Sheryl Lee Ralph) determination to find a desk for an incoming student with a wheelchair.
Brunson came up from the world of web comedy — her memoir is titled “She Memes Well” — and accordingly, the scripts are full of sharp gags about social media and pop culture, lending the show a contemporary effervescence.
Advertisement
So many TV series, especially on the broadcast networks, strive for a four-quadrant appeal and have only flop sweat to show for it. But here, the generational divide among the teachers feels organic to the setting, and the jokes are so rooted in character there’s something for everybody.
Janine and her fellow neophytes — White guilt-ridden Jacob (Chris Perfetti) and substitute-turned-full-timer Gregory (Tyler James Williams of “Everybody Hates Chris”) — keep the references current, while the seasoned Barbara and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) laugh with custodian Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) at their younger counterparts’ romantic notions of overcoming the grinding bureaucracy that the old-timers have figured out how to work around. If there were a shortcut, the school’s doyennes probably would’ve figured it out by now.
One of “Abbott’s” three Emmys for its first season was for casting — a richly deserved distinction, considering how quickly the chemistry on the show formed among the actors. Yes, the clear standout is Ralph, who this year became the second Black supporting actress to win on the comedy side (35 years after Jackée Harry for “227” in 1987; the entertainment industry is so deeply embarrassing sometimes). But nearly as worthy is the energetic Janelle James, who plays Abbott’s hilariously unscrupulous principal, Ava — a delicate balancing act of a performance that requires that she be so riotously funny that we find her wasting of school resources on herself instead of the students entertaining, rather than enraging. (Somehow, she pulls it off every episode.) But if James could be called a scene-stealer, so could the instantly appealing Walter and Williams.
Advertisement
If you’re heading into “Abbott” for the first time, it’s well worth catching up on Season 1 first. The first two episodes of the new season (the portion screened for critics) build on the character development of those 13 earlier episodes, like Janine’s will-they-or-won’t-they with Gregory and her lessons from Barbara and Melissa on how not to burn out in a caring profession. (“More turnovers than a bakery!” laments Barbara about the school’s constant churn of inexperienced instructors.) By giving the tropes of yore such a fresh update, Brunson may have forged a new classic of her own.
Abbott Elementary (30 minutes) returns Wednesday at 9 p.m. on ABC.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZMG3e5FpaWtnYG58c3yOmpmbp6Speqa4xKacp6yRp8Zuv8SaqqimXWd6s7HVopywZw%3D%3D