"Mural Arts" is the seventeenth episode of the second season of Abbott Elementary.
Jacob is excited to have a Mural Arts Program allow his students to paint their own mural in front of his room only to be disappointed by their artistic direction. As he struggles with their choices, Janine plans to break up with Maurice as she still feels guilty for kissing Gregory in the fairy tale garden. And Barbara, Melissa and Ava focus their attention to an online petition that wants to force Abbott into becoming part of Legendary Charter.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Accent Relapse: During her phone call with a traitor parent, Barbara switches between a British accent to a Jamaican one.
- Accidental Innuendo: In-Universe. After Janine suggests that they go somewhere quiet for their hang out date, Maurice suggests they go to Bone Town. Which is actually a restaurant that serves delicious ribs.
- Call-Back:
- Erika brings up how Mo bought Janine an expensive bag she didn't even want.
- Melissa suggests using one of her impressions to affiliate with the parents organizing the online petition.
- Ava steals some paint for her bathroom downstairs.
- Cold Open: The episode starts with Jacob learning from his class about an online sock show that encourages them to speak via "mimis". Even Mr. Johnson is familiar with the trend and speaks sock to rip on Mr. Howard's socks.
- Comically Missing the Point: Ava tries to convince the Mural Arts coordinator to paint her apartment. After he points out that they only do murals, she settles for having them paint a blizzard on her walls if necessary.
- Comfort Food: Mo' eats his feelings away using his and Janine's ribs after the latter proposes a break up.
- Continuity Nod:
- Janine and Gregory are still awkward with each other after the Teacher's Conference.
- Melissa does research to learn about Legendary Charter's dark agenda after being warned by her sister.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: As the Mural Arts leader explains to Jacob after seeing the second design, the point of the mural was to be a collaboration where he and the students work together to create an ideal vision of art.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After getting some good advice from his senpai, who also bullied the Mural Arts team into coming back, Jacob succeeds in creating a mural that makes his students happy and has significant meaning. In this case, the mural has both sock puppets and mosaic tiles that describe each student's dreams or favorite interests.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Barbara is sickened to learn that many of Abbott's parents have started a petition to have Abbott become part of Legendary's Charter system.
- Everyone Has Standards: While initially okay with Legendary Charter's corrupt practices, Ava changes her mind after seeing a former parent reach out for help after her child was taken advantage of by the charter school system.
- Foreshadowing: The first scene involves the kids in Mr. Hill's class enjoying an online show about socks. The core conflict comes from them basing their new mural on the sock characters which their teacher greatly disproves of.
- The Generation Gap: This time the conflict is between Jacob and his students over the sock puppet mural. Jacob doesn't like their idea as he wants their mural to have significant meaning and be something that will stand the test of time rather then being based on a discardable meme. But the kids are insistent on having their sock puppets because that's what speaks to their generation and how much they love it.
- Get Out!: Maurice politely tells his ex-friend and ex-girlfriend to leave the restaurant so he can process his break up..
- Ironic Echo: Back in Attack Ad, Joshua was transferred to Legendary and was ecstatic to leave behind Abbott for something better. Then his mother comes in explaining that he was kicked out because of his inadequate test scores and was devastated as a result.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Erika implores her friend not to tell Mo' about the forbidden kiss as it'll only make things awkward between them along with potentially harming his friendship with Gregory.
- Noodle Incident: Melissa brings up a time Barbara's teacher account was hacked which led to every one of her contacts getting porn in their inboxes.
- Not in Front of the Kid: Janine tries to keep her personal romances out of the ears of her students while talking with Erika. To bad for her that her nephew, Baby Ex-Thanos, had to be there while aunt was getting the good tea.
- Not So Above It All: At first it looks like Gregory isn't interested in the Silly Sock Personality Quiz, but then he admits to taking offense at being labeled as a Toseph when he's clearly a Toesha.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: While alone in class, Janine assures Gregory that she's going to break up with Maurice after he takes him to Bone Town. She insists that it'll be alot better after she's full of meat and covered in sauce.
- Shout-Out:
- Jacob mentions that he grew up with Ed, Edd n Eddy.
- Janine's old school mural featured SpongeBob wearing a durag. Ava also brings up how Joshua, a regretful traitor, called Mr. Hill "Squidward".
- The Stinger: The last scene shows the Abbott staff taking a Silly Sock Personality Quiz and having a good laugh over their results.
- Take That!: After Ava asks if being a charter school is so bad, Melissa and Barbara are quick to give an explanation on everything wrong with charter school systems and how they'd be forced to conform to their rigid lesson plans. And for a lazy, money-hungry, selfish woman like Ava, that all sounds perfect! At first...Melissa: They don't even require all their teachers be certified!
Barbara: Yet they take our funding. Not to mention the private money from wealthy donors with ulterior motives! [...] You know, not every student in the neighborhood could count on attending Abbott if we turned charter. - What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?: In-Universe. Jacob proclaims that Ed, Edd n Eddy is so well crafted that it has sub-reddits dedicated to analyzing every fiber of the show.
