SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for “Franklin Institute,” the Season 2 finale of “Abbott Elementary.”
Will they? Won’t they? They won’t, at least for now.
Though Janine (series creator Quinta Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) finally had their first kiss at a teacher conference in Episode 16 of “Abbott Elementary’s” second season, they chalk it up to a “whoops,” bury their feelings and continue forward as friends and colleagues.
There’s a hitch of course: Janine is dating Gregory’s friend, Maurice (Vince Staples). So in Episode 17, the blushing pair head to Bone Town — Maurice’s favorite barbecue spot — to confess their mistake to Maurice and basically break up with him together.
Finally, Janine and Gregory are single at the same time and they get closer and closer as the season wraps up. But at the start of the finale, Janine runs into Maurice again, who says casually that they’re both in their “selfish eras.” That instantly complicates things. Realizing that someone thinks of her that way makes Janine reconsider whether she’s ready for a serious relationship at all. After a day of Janine avoiding Gregory, the two finally start to hash it out during a sleep-in field trip at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute.
Brunson spoke to Variety about where the almost-couple could go from here.
At what point in writing the season did you know where this first kiss would happen and that the finale would go this way?
We started mapping it out pretty early on. There’s always room for change and rearranging, but for me as a writer, the best thing to do is say, “We want to be here in Episode 9. We want to be here in Episode 15.”‘ And we have 22, which is a blessing and a curse, because you have a lot of time to make small things happen and to make big things happen. We wound up landing on like an every-three-or-four-episodes pattern for them.
In the episodes that focus less on Janine and Gregory’s relationship, the other characters are gossiping about them.
With relationships in a workplace, it’s always a thing that other co-workers see it. Sometimes shows try to avoid that, because maybe it gives away the mystery or the climax of the situation, but I just felt, realistically, with this tight-knit group in this small school, they would know. But it’s no big deal to them. There are bigger fish to fry. Janine and Gregory — the school does not revolve around them. Most of them probably look at it like, “Ugh! These kids. Y’all like each other! Grow up!” I thought that was an interesting approach to take with the characters. “We don’t care!”
Where did the idea for the sleep-in museum field trip come from?
We really enjoyed ending on that field trip last year. I probably will want to do it every season. It’s just fun! We’re all — I think about the audience as part of the show — we’re all in this school all year, and it’s rewarding to get to go somewhere else at the end of the season, just like a regular school, and look forward to that. And I’d gone on a field trip to the Franklin Institute, but I’ve always wanted to do a sleep-in and never got to do that.
We also got excited about, “Who are these people when they go to bed?” Which wound up bringing out the Barbara [Sheryl Lee Ralph] CPAP story. Last season’s finale, we had the story of Barbara being like, “Am I near retirement?” This was a story of, “Am I ashamed of aging?” Although many people have CPAP machines, we associate it with aging. I thought it was interesting to do with Barbara, who’s so put together that you’d assume she sleeps like an angel.
Parts of this episode were shot on location in Philadelphia, which “Abbott Elementary” hasn’t done before. What was that like?
So exciting, oh my gosh. Me and Tyler were the only main cast members that went to Philly. The rest of the set of the Franklin Institute was built out at Warner Brothers. But there were some things we couldn’t rebuild. We were going to try to rebuild the [room-sized, anatomically correct] heart that Gregory and Janine have their conversation in front of, but it cost more to rebuild than just flying our whole crew to Philly. We got to get some Philadelphians involved — most of the kids in the background are Philadelphia natives and we used some crew from Philly. And it was really awesome for the crew to see the city. A lot of people had never been to Philadelphia before. They were scouting the Franklin Institute and came back and told me, “Quinta! There are a bunch of kids who just look like Abbott kids! They’re in the uniforms!” Like, yeah, it’s pretty accurate! But it was exciting for them to see just how right we got it.
All of Gregory and Janine’s big moments this season happen off-campus. That makes sense, since they’re always around kids, but this time, the kids are present. How did that impact their conversation?
The writers and I naturally fall into that space. Here are two people who care about their jobs so much, that when they’re in these four walls, they almost can’t bring themselves to talk about this big thing. And as soon as they’re not in those four walls, the boundary has dissolved in a way they’re not even ready for. But the school is the main concern, and while they’re there, they can always deflect to that. “I have to do my work. This thing is a non-existent thing. I’m making it up in my head.” When they leave, they don’t really have that option anymore. I still think they struggle with it, as we can see clearly at the teacher conference where there’s no kids to keep them from each other.
At the museum, it’s interesting, because the kids are there. Their job is there. They care about the job, but they’re also out of the school. That’s what’s pushing the admission of liking each other. Jacob [played by Chris Perfetti] knows it. The cameras know it. We know it as the audience. But they’ve never really said it to each other. So this trip evokes a certain amount of honesty, because they really can’t move on — Gregory’s not gonna live in a world in which Janine is avoiding him. Janine’s not going to live in a world where she’s going to avoid Gregory.
After Gregory confesses his feelings and Janine reciprocates, she pauses things to say, “Maybe I am selfish, and if I need to be right now, then I don’t wanna wind up hurting you.” Even with the Maurice situation, Janine is such a giver and it’s hard to see her that way. What does selfish Janine look like?
What was interesting about the Maurice angle to me was, when Janine and Gregory broke up with Maurice, we get to move on in the audience and be happy that Janine and Gregory have a chance now. But what happens to that person who was broken up with and rejected by two people? That was a little bit of a selfish act on their part. And it doesn’t make Janine a bad person, but she is genuinely shocked when Maurice doesn’t wave back at her. But why would he? He doesn’t love the way that happened, so he’s not gonna go back to being friends. Maurice had been pretty open, and when that moment happened to him, it felt like Janine wasn’t as open with him. So he had every right to feel a little slighted.
Hearing to her face that someone found her selfish, because she’s such an overthinker, it immediately becomes a race to not harm Gregory, or harm this thing that she thinks is going to be very special. To me, it’s small, but it’s big to her. She looks at Ava as selfish; she doesn’t want to be there. But if she is, she needs to deal with it and not hurt anyone ever again, especially Gregory.
After bad timing has been their main obstacle for two years, they now seem to have their first fundamental disagreement. Even though he understands her position, Gregory is on the side of the audience, where he’s ready to move on. What does that mean for their compatibility?
There’s grace and a lot of care in Gregory hearing what Janine is saying. Hearing it, caring about her and being like, “Okay. I respect that as a friend, and there’s nothing left for me to do.” Janine will focus on herself on becoming ready, examining herself to try to be like, “Okay, I think I’m ready to never do that again.” And I don’t think Gregory’s the type to wait for that, but there’s room for Janine to learn that she didn’t have to be so hard on herself about the Maurice situation, either. Dating, for young people, isn’t cut-and-dry. You’ll talk to some friends who are like, “Yeah, I stopped talking to that person. I was just afraid to this, that and the other.” But that doesn’t mean you stop talking to them! You continue to communicate! Ghosting makes the other person feel horrible. That’s how messy the dating world is, and they’re in the middle of that mess. The only thing they can do is support each other through it. Whether that be dating other people seriously, or someone saying “I’m ready now” and the person saying “I’m not” or “I don’t want to do this anymore” — they have to be friends, first and foremost. I don’t know, but it’s gonna be fun to explore when we get back to the writers room.
This interview has been edited and condensed.