3 days Ago By Meaghan Darwish, TV Insider
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Abbott Elementary Season 4, Episode 22, “Straight to Hell.”] Abbott Elementary ‘s Season 4 finale has arrived, making way for the show’s latest field trip, which happened to shoot on location at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum. While the event saw students of all grades participate, it was a particularly big occasion for teacher Janine ( Quinta Brunson ), who was meeting boyfriend Gregory’s ( Tyler James Williams ) father, Martin ( Orlando Jones ), for the first time ever.
Insisting she’d win Martin over, Janine headed into the day confident, but that began to slip as Gregory continued to warn that his father wasn’t likely to mesh well with her bubbly energy. And so, before Janine departed the school for the museum, she stole Gregory’s blazer, donning it to get into “character,” taking on characteristics of Gregory to try and impress his father. The scenario made for plenty of laughs as Janine attempted to relate to Martin by being serious, leaving Gregory confused and viewers entertained.
Ultimately, Janine’s attention towards the students eventually wins out, leading her to break her facade and get silly. In a surprising twist, Martin got silly himself, shocking his son and leading to an important heart-to-heart about taking time to be less serious. Meanwhile, Ava ( Janelle James ) was back in charge as principal, bringing her new beau O’Shon ( Matthew Law ) along as a chaperone, and even putting her fashion sense aside for a brief moment to wear some truly hideous earrings he gifts her.
As for Barbara ( Sheryl Lee Ralph ), Melissa ( Lisa Ann Walter ), Jacob ( Chris Perfetti ), and Mr. Johnson ( William Stanford Davis ), they were left wrangling the older kids who felt as though they didn’t fit in at the Please Touch Museum which is geared towards play and imagination for younger kids. When a worker at the museum suggests they put on a play based on their teachers, the older kids find a lot of interest in the idea, leaving Barbara, Melissa, and Jacob to do impressions of each other in the spotlight at the museum’s theater.
“It’s incredible,” co-showrunner Patrick Schumacker says of filming at the real-life location. “The people from the museum were so eager to have us film there. They literally shut down the museum for three days so we could take it over completely.
” As fans will recall, Janine had originally pitched a field trip to the aquarium at the start of Season 4, but that plan ultimately fell through. “We did entertain doing the aquarium in New Jersey, which is a popular real field trip destination for Philadelphia school kids,” Schumacker says. Ultimately, Schumacker reveals that after the episode’s director Randall Einhorn, who also executive produces the show, went location scouting with production designer Whetstone and production manager David Lyons , they were excited about the Please Touch Museum.
“I think it’s a place that Quinta [Brunson] has very close to her heart, having grown up in Philly and experiencing it as a kid herself,” Schumacker adds. And it was a fun time for the crew in Philly as Schumacker also reveals, “The mayor of Philadelphia came to set, Jordan Mailata, one of the tacklers for the Eagles, showed up with the Lombardi Trophy.” And while the city embraced production, Schumacker and co-showrunner Justin Halpern enjoyed crafting Janine’s mission to impress Gregory’s father, with Orlando Jones reprising his guest role.
“We like to frequently do episodes that are classic sitcom tropes where we subvert the trope and use that to our benefit,” Halpern shares. “And so in this instance, every sitcom has an episode of ‘You’re going to meet my parents for the first time!’ And we wanted to have that suddenly flip and cease to be about whether or not Gregory’s dad’s going to like Janine and instead get to something deeper, which is Gregory getting an understanding of his father that he didn’t have previously and to get a little bit of sense of what it was like to be Gregory as a kid.” When it comes to Gregory’s look at the camera when he hears his dad’s “squirrel” voice as he gets silly with Janine and the students is by far one of the funniest of the season.
Halpern credits Williams with the delivery, “We’ll definitely just sometimes toss it in [the script], but Tyler is as good at this format as anybody who’s done this format,” Halpern says. “He is also just such a thoughtful performer. We’ll talk about the scenes, and sometimes it’ll be written in, but a lot of times it’s not.
” As for the student play’s silly impersonation performances from the faculty, Schumacker admits that Jacob’s version of Barbara, “was also so courageous of Chris. I think he went for it, and to the point where I think Sheryl was like, ‘Oh my God. Yeah, okay, you did it.
You did the thing.’ And that was amazing.” And Schumacker also believes Walter could bring her rendition of Melissa impersonating Jacob to Saturday Night Live .
“I think this would be an SNL character. And so seeing her get to be big and physical..
. I loved [it] because we’re a ‘documentary,’ and so we do tend to really ground things in the show.” “By the way, you can only do this as a show if your cast likes each other,” Halpern chimes in.
“Nobody on our cast is somebody who’s just trying to grab every joke and punchline. They beautifully set each other up and know that it’s going to come back to them in another scene.” One performer who got some comedic lifting with her ugly earrings was Janelle James, as Ava attempted to pretend she liked O’Shon’s gift to cave.
While he was initially upset, he revealed to Ava that he had a backup pair she’d like better. But how did they find the earrings in question? “Total credit is due to everybody on the production and our crew, and our department wardrobe of everybody coming together to find the perfect bad earrings,” Schumacker says. “We were shown many options, and those were the worst.
And it was unanimous. There wasn’t a debate.” Unlike past season finale’s this latest episode leaves viewers without many questions or cliffhangers as things were wrapped up nicely.
And although Schumacker and Halpern haven’t begun breaking any Season 5 stories yet — they need a break after 22 episodes! — Halpern says, “There are so many stories we haven’t even gotten a chance to tell yet.” So rest assured, more laughs are on the way. Let us know what you thought of Abbott Elementary ‘s Season 4 finale in the comments section below, and stay tuned for Season 5 updates as they’re unveiled.
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