Abbott Elementary School

Abbott Elementary School

Season 4

Episode 9

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

Photo: Gilles Mingasson/Disney

I have a confession. Until this assignment, I never really watched It’s always sunny in Philadelphia. And for good reason! Do you have a medium that you always associate with a failed affair that you knew wouldn’t work out because the other person was annoying? However, once Abbott When I announced the crossover episode, I knew I had to watch the series again as part of my recap duties. If I miss any important references or jokes, feel free to mention them in the comments.

The first few episodes took a moment to get through – without Danny DeVito I felt robbed of a whole season – but now I’m halfway through the second season and I have to admit I’m pleasantly surprised. However, I wondered what many others did after news of the crossover: What the hell is this group of assholes going to do to our beloved? Abbott Elementary School? During the opening scene Abbott finds the infamous owners of Philadelphia’s worst bar volunteering their time, which the staff is thrilled about since everyone is overworked. But anyone watching It’s always sunny knows that neither Dee, Mac, Charlie, Dennis, nor Frank have a single altruistic bone in their bodies, and that he doesn’t give a shit about Philadelphia’s youth at all.

As Abbott employees quickly discover, the gang is there to perform 100 hours of community service by dumping 100 gallons of baby oil, 500 Paddy’s Pub T-shirts, and a Cybertruck into the Schuylkill River. Ironically, this mimics a storyline from the second season of It’s always sunny when Dee, Mac and Dennis were again sentenced to community service after an arson and forced to coach a youth basketball team. This storyline is linked to one of the original incidents of a running gag about Charlie’s illiteracy, a problem that becomes more prominent as he spends time in an elementary school. In this episode, the gang gets caught up in the competition of coaching and approaches their time at Abbott Elementary with the same passion and ridiculousness that the show has become known for.

Of course, Melissa, noting that they look familiar, is the only one who has come into contact with the owners of Paddy’s Pub, and they are enjoying what Ava calls a Caucasian cultural exchange. Melissa first recognizes them in a fight at an Eagles game – Go Eagles! – and later from the “skeeviest bar” she ever went to. She calls them villains and forces them to reveal their criminal status. Janine convinces her colleagues to let her stay, emphasizing that her crime is merely a misdemeanor and that the district will not give them any more volunteers if they send her away. Everyone forms a pair with their foil; Dee goes to Janine’s classroom; Mac supports Ava in her main tasks; Charlie repairs a vent in Jacob’s class; and Frank helps with Gregory’s garden. Dennis, on the other hand, spends most of his time behind the camera because he knows “quite a lot about filming and consent.” The crossover brings a healthy dose of adult humor Abbott Elementary Schoolsomething that the series slowly shied away from in the more kid-focused episodes (even Melissa’s funny ass-eating line felt strangely vulgar, even though we’ve heard raunchy jokes before), as each insufferable member of the gang highlights the optimism and ingenuity of Abbott staff.

It begins with Jacob noticing that Charlie can’t decipher any of the words on the board and reads “World War I: The Industrial War” as “Innovative Clothing.” Knowing that Charlie will not help the older students, Jacob brings him to Melissa’s classroom and expresses his concerns about Charlie’s reading and writing skills. Melissa offers that perhaps Charlie is as dyslexic as she is, but Charlie’s daring spelling help (he tells a student that the word “light” is spelled LIYTL) convinces Melissa that there may be a problem. They take Charlie to the library, where Barbara is forced to turn Charlie into a project since she used to teach adult literacy classes. Charlie initially denies being illiterate and hides in the bathroom to avoid the truth, but Melissa and Barbara eventually get him to admit that he has trouble reading. They help him read a children’s book about birds and show him how to say each word slowly.

In the garden, Frank uses his experience sleeping on the streets to help Gregory and Mr. Johnson ward off raccoons. They want to sprinkle chili and garlic powder in the compost to deter the pests, but Frank instead scatters old batteries throughout the garden, claiming they are full of “rare earth metals.” He then insists that the only way to catch a raccoon is to intimidate it. Therefore, they should use pelts with “alpha predator” urine to send a message. Later that day, when the raccoons manage to dig through the compost despite the off-putting spices, Frank tries to convince them with his strategy. A disgusted Mr. Johnson suggests getting a giant cage to trap the creature. After an amazing back and forth (DeVito and William Standford Davis were great at playing off each other), Gregory extricates himself from the problem, leaving the two confused men to figure it out among themselves. Mr. Johnson sets up both a cage and the urine-soaked hides and days later calls Gregory over and says they have caught something huge. Inside the cage is Frank, who it turns out was the one who ate the dumped compost and came back that night to get more before getting stuck in the trap and eventually falling asleep.

Meanwhile, Dee and Janine hit it off right away as Penn alumnae. Dee engages the students in a Benjamin Franklin cosplay, takes down the Christmas decorations that Janine is too short for, and helps with grading. Things take a turn when Gregory enters the room, his muscles bulging beneath his cardigan and searching for a pair of left-handed scissors. Dee is intrigued and makes it her mission to get to know Greg. Janine is shocked that Dee is trying to make a move on her boyfriend and hesitantly explains their relationship, hoping it will make Dee back down. Conversely, the thought of competing for a man only motivates Dee even more, so Janine storms into Ava’s office to get the gang to leave.

Ava vehemently disagrees, as Mac proves to be the best help she could ask for. Eager to complete his community service, Mac sets out to be as productive as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. So Ava will sign the paperwork and relieve him of his duties for the rest of the week. This is a gross underestimation of Ava’s ability to take advantage of people, which is why she sends him on increasingly impossible missions while promoting him to deputy headmaster. He gets her coffee with latte art of her face, steams her clothes, details her car, and brings fresh cinnamon rolls. When Janine storms into her office breathless (I love it when she makes fun of Janine’s breath), Ava denies her request and says she might even frame the gang for another crime so they have to work longer hours.

The next day, Dee shows up at Abbott’s in a little black dress and heels, ready to steal Gregory. Janine accelerates, excuses Dee into the hallway and takes off her glasses, ready to fight for her husband despite her short arms. Gregory hears the commotion and tries to stop the Philly girls from pouncing. He looks Janine in the eyes and tells her that no matter what she’s up to, Dee is the only one he wants and that he’s not interested in any other woman, “especially.” The Woman.” Relief floods through Janine, and she backs away and returns to her classroom, comforted by his reassurance. Once again, Gregory’s monogamy only stimulates Dee’s illicit thoughts even more, and she suggests that Gregory let off steam in the gym .

Finally, Charlie shows off his new skills while going through a story time in the library. As he proudly brags about reading one of the “tough” sentences at the end of the book about a protected, endangered species of bird in Pennsylvania called the loggerhead shrike, Ava gets an idea for how to refine a new school display board. Ava initially planned to acquire one through the continued agreement with the golf course’s attorney, but during a phone conversation at the beginning of the episode, she learned that she no longer has any influence now that the golf course has employed union employees. Ava has Melissa’s “egg man” lay loggerhead eggs on the construction site to give her a reason to threaten to delay construction by alerting the Bird and Game Commission.

In the end It’s always sunny’S During Volunteer Week, when Charlie can now read at a kindergarten level, he gets his own solo move-up day, complete with a cap and gown ceremony. Frank apologizes for eating the compost in the garden and offers a battery he stole from Mr. Johnson’s car as an olive branch. Gregory tells him to give it back immediately before Dee unsuccessfully tries to attack Gregory one last time (she writes him off as him). being gay, which can happen “with the little ones”). With the scoreboard installed and a week of community service behind him, Mac hands Ava his paperwork and waits for her signature. Ava is hesitant, unwilling to give up on Mac’s helpfulness, but when Mac reveals that he went to the trouble of writing thank-you letters to all the teachers, Ava angrily signs the paper, saying that her co-workers are “encountering insults” and tells him to Get the fuck out. The episode ends with this It’s always sunny Volunteers receive hilarious one-on-one interviews with the documentary camera crew detailing their time at the school. Frank said it best: “I had to work the land, I had to eat some fiber, Charlie learned to read.” Community service is great! Crime simply pays.”

• Here are my favorite lines from the episode:

Ava: “Find something useful; I already have a white guy coming here to bother me.”

Barbara, who has the best alliteration: “Please remove these unseemly people from the premises immediately.”

Mr. Johnson to Gregory after finding Frank in the cage: “Are you going to bash his brains out or should I?”