Note: This story contains spoilers from “Abbott Elementary” Season 4, Episode 22.
After “Abbott Elementary” shook up dynamics with Ava’s firing earlier this season, the Season 4 finale restored Ava back to her rightful place: Behind the principal’s desk.
As soon as Ava (Janelle James) returns as principal, she begins her “second term” by instituting a number of questionable executive orders, which showrunners Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker said Ava likely heard in the zeitgeist in the midst of Trump’s recent slew of executive orders and begin using the term herself. Despite getting right back to her shenanigans, it’s undeniable that some character growth happened during her time away from Abbott.
“She certainly made strides in her job and what she cares about — she made this decision to come back to the school, even though she obviously could have made more money elsewhere, so that’s certainly character growth,” Halpern told TheWrap. “She is growing a little bit, but really what’s happening is the audience is understanding of her is growing.”
Schumacker added that Season 4 has seen Ava’s “genuine confidence” grow after seeing her facade shatter and her vulnerability creep through during her firing, noting that Ava reaching out for help from the other teachers was a real moment of growth for her.
“She’s still outwardly acting the same, but I think inside there’s no hint of imposter syndrome or anything like that anymore,” Schumacker said.
Just as Season 4 put a spotlight on James’ Ava — including in her relationship with her father and newfound love interest in O’Shon (Matthew Law) — the showrunners are looking forward to highlighting some different storylines in the upcoming fifth season, including Melissa’s relationship with Captain Robinson (Mike O’Malley) and taking Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Barbara to a “new, reinvigorated place” with “new beats.”
“Seeing those scenes with Barbara in that context of … having to suffer through the shenanigans of the slightly older students getting more pushback than she ever would from her kindergarteners is a really just fun conflict to see Sheryl and Barbara struggle with,” Schumacker said of Barbara taking over the music class.
Below, the showrunners break down what Ava’s return as principal means for Gregory’s aspirations, how they crafted that moment with Gregory’s dad and tease what fans can potentially look forward to next season.
TheWrap: As Ava returns, Gregory leaves his post as interim principal. Is he happy to return to teaching or does he still aspire to be a principal?
Halpern: I don’t think in any world does he ever want to take Ava’s job — he wouldn’t want to keep her from that. He loves her as principal now, or thinks she does a good job, even if he doesn’t always love it. But I definitely think it awoke something in him. It reminded him of why he does like that position, why he originally wanted to be in that position. I don’t know if that’s something we’re going to dig into or not, but I certainly think in the episodes you saw, we wanted the audience to think, “This guy is good at this, and this is what he initially wanted to do.”
We also see Janine struggling to ensure she has a good relationship with Gregory’s dad. Why was this the backstory you envisioned for Gregory’s dad?
Halpern: We’d always been interested in what Gregory’s upbringing was like, and we’ve been slowly layering it on, because Gregory is not a character who’s just going to, in a confessional to camera, tell them how he’s feeling and tell them anything other than what they’ve asked him to say. It felt like an opportunity to take a sitcom trope, which is, “you’re going to meet my parents for the first time,” and then subvert it by saying, “Oh, actually, this isn’t a story about whether or not my your parents are going to like me — It’s a story about what I haven’t really understood about my father and what can help me get a greater understanding of who I am and where I came from?”
With Gregory’s dad coming to meet Janine is it possible Taraji P. Henson could also return as Janine’s mom to meet Gregory in a boyfriend context?
Schumacker: I think that’s absolutely a possibility. We haven’t started breaking the season. We loved working with Taraji — we would love to have her back on the show. She’s obviously an in-demand actor, so if the stars align, I could absolutely see that happening.
We’ve met a handful of family members over the years, who else would you like to meet?
Halpern: I want to meet some of Mr. Johnson’s family.
Schumacker: I want to meet Mr. Johnson’s grandfather.
Halpern: We always make jokes in the writers’ room that Mr. Johnson references his alive grandparents.
This season as a whole explore the golf course and gentrification and the consequences there. What do you hope viewers take away from this storyline?
Halpern: I hope that people watch this and laugh first — that’s always our first goal. The reason we did it this season was because it’s actually happening in the area where fictional Abbott would be — there’s a push and pull to that. Being able to do that episode where the community comes to rally to save Ava, I think is is something that nicely dovetailed with communities investing in their schools, and then people from outside the community coming in. I think one of the things about gentrification is it pushes out the people that were in that community — It makes it unaffordable for them, and I think the hope is you see that these communities have been there. They’re established and if anything, we should invest in these communities and invest in public education.
This season put a special focus on Ava and she committed to her new love interest. Will he be back next season, even though Matthew Law is a series regular on Netflix’s “Nemesis?”
Schumacker: That’s the hope — that schedules work out and all that. He’s just fantastic in the show — a lovely human [and we] want to work with him all the time as well. Hopefully it being a Netflix show, for our sake, it’s a shorter order and he becomes available for us.
Looking back, that twist really packed a punch, can fans expect similar twists and turns in the future?
We haven’t started breaking Season 5 yet, so it’s hard to say, but I really enjoyed how we ended up doing this season. Typically, we have a much clearer idea of where we want to go to at the end of the season, and this time it was a little bit nebulous, honestly, for the last five episodes, let’s say, we wanted to wrap up certain storylines, but I think we arrived at a great place. I think part of that was we had that openness to arriving at that place. I could see us attempting that sort of style again — it’s not as good for production, because when we have that North Star locked in from the beginning, we can get ahead of things and that means, more prep time for everybody in our department and all the departments, so toward the end of this season, it was a little bit more of a like, “Hey, we gotta crank.” [It’s] hard to say whether or not we’re gonna have such a giant, impactful plot point happening at the end of the season with a character like that.
This season also had the “It’s Always Sunny” crossover episode. What did you learn from that and what are your thoughts now on potentially crossing over with another show in the future?
Schumacker: My takeaway from that is never doubt Quinta’s ability to, by sheer force of will, just make something happen. [I remember] thinking, “that’s never gonna happen in a million years.” and then, through a little bit of luck and a lot of just sheer force of will on both sides with Rob and Charlie and Glenn and everybody — they just made it happen. We’re a co-production with Warner Brothers and 20th and “Sunny” is obviously part of the Disney family, so that helped ease it a little bit too. Sometimes corporate synergy leads to good things.
In terms of another crossover, we haven’t talked about anything in earnest. That was a process of making that one happen, and so [we’re] definitely open to it, not necessarily be like chomping at the bit, because we’re tired, but we will be reinvigorated in like a month when the writers’ room starts back up and who knows? We shoot right across the street from “The Pitt.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Abbott Elementary” Season 4 is now streaming on Hulu.
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