"Open House" is the tenth episode of Abbott Elementary's first season.
It's Open House Night at Abbott and there's a trio of terrific tales to be told. For starters, Janine gets involved in Barbara's ongoing conflict with her daughter Taylor over her life choices. Second, Gregory learns about Ava stealing his principal position and falls into a depressive slump. And lastly, Jacob gets roped into a deadly game of poker with Melissa and Johnson.
Tropes
- Answer Cut: After Greg asks out loud what Janine fears that her student will turn out like, Ava barges in like a dollar store disc jockey.
- Asshole Victim: Ava does not hold back with throwing jokes at the superintendent that bring up his infidelity.
- Bait-and-Switch: Janine is surprised to see Barbara warmly welcome her into her class room, even going up for a hug. It then shows she was talking to her daughter.
- The Dog Bites Back: After enduring Ava's heckling and abysmal school tour, the superintendent reveals that he married his mistress and threatens to fire her if she doesn't give a solid presentation to the schoolboard in an upcoming date.
- Family Disunion: Since Taylor lives all the way in New York, her mother asks her to come visit during Open House since no one would be around to interfere with their reunion. It soon becomes a disunion when Taylor's booze selling career is brought up which Janine encourages. Though they patch things up afterwards.
- Hidden Depths: Jacob informs his poker buddies that he used to play poker when he was involved in "Teachers Without Borders". He also reveals that their second favorite pasttime was having sex with each other.
- Innocently Insensitive: Janine tries to cheer up Barbara by offering to be her pseudo-daughter while she's having difficulties with her biological daughter.
- Internal Reveal: Greg learns that Ava got the principal job because she caught the superintendent cheating.
- Ironic Echo: Early in the episode, Janine recommended a restaurant called Barrata for her, Barbara and Taylor to go to to talk about their issues. In the end, Taylor goes out with Gregory who suggests Barrata.
- Irony: As Taylor brings up, Barbara is insistent on pushing her to be the perfect daughter when she already has one (Janine) but she keeps at a distance.
- Like Parent, Unlike Child: Despite their wholesome reunion, Taylor reveals that she wants to make her own choices in life rather then following the exact same path as her mother did which includes the same problems.
- Metaphorgotten: Earlier, Janine considers Barbara to be a saint but she regrets it after Taylor uses the title to insult her mother. The reason being because she hasn't been recognized by the Catholic church system.
- Moment Killer: Janine sneaks inside Ms. Howard's room to see her reconciliation with her daughter. She tries to leave but ends up turning off the lights which exposes her.
- Noodle Incident: Melissa mentions that she lost a kidney after letting someone else shuffle a card deck.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Throughout the poker game, Jacob passes himself as a novice to get Melissa and Johnson to lower their defenses so he can steal the pot.
- Parental Neglect:
- The episode goes into more detail with the lack of maternal love in Janine's childhood. Even in the present day, Janine still tries to reach out to her mom but is met with silence.
- Additionally, her subplot of the episode was to talk with her student's mother whom she believes is guilty of neglecting Nina which resulted in poor grades. As it turns out, the mother has a demanding job as a nurse but is more than willing to take the time to help her daughter after hearing of her problems.
- Parental Substitute: Janine considers Barbara to be her second mother and even proclaims herself to be her honorary daughter. Right in front of Barbara's actual daughter Taylor.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Greg takes shots at both Ava and Superintendent Collins over him not getting the principal job like he wanted.
- Psychological Projection: Janine vents to Nina's mom about not being there for her daughter and how it's going to negatively impact her. She says this while still feeling the pain of being ignored by her own mother throughout her life.
- Shout-Out:
- Taylor compares Janine's wardrobe to the late Mr Rogers.
- Ava sings ''Mary J. Blige's "I'm Going Down" in the last scene of the episode.
- So Proud of You: Melissa says this to Jacob after he beat her at poker.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: While her future love interest goes off with another woman and her guy friend spends time with Melissa, Janine is delighted to see Barbara offer to take her out to eat.
- Tranquil Fury: Gregory is not amused to learn that Ava swindled his rightfully earned principal position from him.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Barbara reminds her daughter that she can be using her talents for a greater good rather then just selling alcohol to the masses.
