Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Abbott Elementary.
It's the little show that could. When Abbott Elementary debuted as an ABC mid-season replacement "mockumentary" sitcom in early 2022, few could have predicted it would become one of the network's biggest hits. Even fewer could have predicted it would win three Primetime Emmys and grab five Golden Globe nominations. The show works because it shines a light on a frequently forgotten group of unsung heroes — our overworked, over-stressed, and underpaid public school teachers.
Chief heroine Janine Teagues (creator, writer, and star Quinta Brunson) is Abbott Elementary's anchor, the idealistic young educator out to make a difference, thoroughly convinced she can do so, despite the wall of odds stacked against her. Janine has found an unlikely ally in colleague Gregory Eddie (Tyler James Williams), the embittered substitute who really wanted to be Abbott's principal, but who ended up getting a full-time teaching position at the school instead. From the start, Brunson and her fellow writers have teased an attraction between Janine and Gregory, and the characters do share a unique bond and kinship. In the series' December 7 mid-season finale, the two young teachers accidentally meet at a nightclub, have an intimate dance, then come close to a kiss that seals the deal, only to be interrupted by a phone call from Gregory's girlfriend. It's clear the "will they or won't they get together?" angle will continue to be played up when Abbott Elementary returns in January 2023. The question is, should Janine and Gregory become a couple? The answer is, probably not.
A Janine-Gregory Romance Could Upset the Ensemble Dynamic
The halls of Abbott Elementary are traveled by a cluster of quirky oddballs. Among them are principal Ava (Janelle James), who's more interested in her Instagram mentions than the school she oversees, tree-hugging activist Jacob (Chris Perfetti), Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), the tough broad with mob ties, and the seasoned veteran Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph), who has little tolerance for Gen Z antics. As a group, their teachers' lounge banter delivers some of the show's funniest and most identifiable moments, because in those occasions, despite each character's own personal idiosyncrasies, they all share the bond of educators struggling to just make it through another school day. Now throw a romance between Janine and Gregory into this mix. The writers could go one of two ways, with the two lovers keeping their relationship a secret from the others, or with them making a public display of it. Either approach would have potentially damaging effects on the overall ensemble dynamic. If Janine and Gregory decide to keep it all to themselves, they become isolated from the others, because now they have something to hide, and the casual fellowship among all the characters becomes fractured. Just envision Janine and Gregory uttering double entendres and tossing knowing glances to the camera, which could get very annoying, very quickly.
Even if the writers decide to let one character in on the secret, say Jacob, even that move takes Jacob out of the dynamic, too, and invites more opportunities for tiresome fourth wall breaks. Friends tried a similar approach with the Chandler and Monica romance, with Joey being the first character to discover the relationship and subsequently striving to keep it all on the down low. It disrupted the strong connections between the characters and made the show feel out of balance. Thankfully, the Friends writers made a quick correction, with the remaining characters quickly finding out Chandler's and Monica's secret and moving on to celebrating their romance. If Janine and Gregory were to make their relationship public, it could fuel some interesting storylines focusing on the other characters' reactions. Picture Barbara, whose daughter is currently dating Gregory, becoming the disapproving mother figure, or principal Ava using her knowledge to make Janine's and Gregory's lives miserable while uploading it all to social media. Sure, there could be some comedy mileage with this revelation, but again, the ensemble effect of the show, one of the keys to its success, would suffer.
Other Shows Have Tried, Few Have Succeeded
Brunson and Abbott Elementary's team of writers might want to take a look at how romances between the main characters of other hit TV programs impacted those shows. Abbott seems to be closely emulating the character arcs of Jim and Pam (John Krasinksi and Jenna Fischer) from The Office. When that show started, Pam had a useless fiancé, much like Janelle's rapper boyfriend Tariq (Zack Fox), while Jim silently pined for the woman behind the reception desk at Dunder-Mifflin. Pam eventually dumped her guy, ran into the arms of Jim, and the two ended up marrying. But their relationship soured, bringing an uncharacteristically heavy and unpleasant air to a show that was once light and hysterically funny.
The same goes for David and Maddie (Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd) on Moonlighting. Part of the fun of this smart and witty detective series was the love-hate relationship between the two characters and their Rosalind Russell-Cary Grant His Girl Friday-style of rapid fire dialogue exchange. Toward the end of the show's third season, David and Maddie finally made their love official, and audiences tuned out. The show had thrived on the sexual tension between the two characters that never came to fruition, but once that was gone, Moonlighting lost its footing and never regained it. Likewise with Sam and Diane (Ted Danson and Shelley Long) on Cheers. Polar opposites, the over-educated Diane had a strange hold over the simple bar owner Sam, and their antagonistic banter provided some of the show's best laughs. At the end of the second season, Sam and Diane finally gave into their urges and consummated their relationship. From there, it was week after week of dysfunction, friction, and mental cruelty from both characters, which became painful to watch. After Long left the series in its fifth season, Cheers' writers tried to make lightning strike twice with a romance between Sam and the bar's new manager Rebecca (Kirstie Alley), but viewers were already fatigued. The show's writers wisely made it a short-lived affair, allowing Cheers to get back on track. It stands to reason that it would take some very fresh and creative writing to keep a Janine-Gregory romance from sending Abbott on a downward trajectory.
It's the Classroom Stories that Make the Show Great
Perhaps the best argument against a relationship between Janine and Gregory is what makes Abbott Elementary so endearing in the first place — its very premise. Rarely on network television has there been a sitcom about an underfunded, underperforming inner city school (Room 222, for viewers of a certain age, came close, although it was essentially a drama, and Welcome Back, Kotter was more silly than daring), and audiences tune in weekly to watch all the hassles, labors, laughs, and love that come with it. When the show takes its focus away from this, it suffers. Sure, it's fun to occasionally get a glimpse into the personal lives of the characters (like Jacob and his relationship with his flamboyant husband or Melissa and her rivalry with her mirror image sister), but it's the teachers maneuvering the obstacles before them as they do their best for the kids in their classrooms that makes the show worth watching.
Janine's unwavering enthusiasm and optimism, despite her gross miscalculations, are priceless. When she unwittingly traumatizes her students with her disastrous egg drop event or inadvertently causes the kids to need to use the restroom multiple times a day after she lobbies for bigger juice bottles, we laugh, but we also empathize, because who among us hasn't gone into a situation with the best of intentions, only to see everything explode in our faces? Similarly, watching Gregory slowly begin to embrace his role as a teacher and bond with his students, despite his disappointment of missing out on becoming a principal, has us rooting for him. If Abbott gets sidetracked by a workplace romance between these two, the show runs the risk of losing what really makes it great.
Having spent the bulk of the second season with Janine and Gregory doing the "are they or aren't they" tango, Abbott Elementary is locked into playing out this storyline. Here's hoping Brunson and her team of writers learn from other series that have traveled this path, then navigate those choppy waters with precision, because it's too early for this groundbreaking sitcom to suffer a sophomore slump.