"Career Day Part 1" is the first half of the Season 3 Premiere of Abbott Elementary.
It's a brand new year at Abbott Elementary and Ava surprises everyone by revealing that she's learned some new ideas and disciplines to make her into a better principal. Too bad her new coworkers don't approve of her excessive methods which make their jobs even harder then before. Meanwhile, Janine gets acquainted with a trio of school administrators who convince her to join the Robeson Fellowship program that can turn her into an administrator with the power to change Abbott Elementary for the better.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Acquainted in Real Life: Janine and Manny previously frequently interacted on educational websites' comment sections before meeting at Abbott.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Ava tries to shut down Janine's idea for a Career Day by citing the reasons as schedule conflicts, past attempts having failed, and how it was a Janine idea.
- Cold Open: Ava and the rest of the Abbott faculty welcome back the camera crew, and the audience, for a brand new season at their school while getting ready for Career Day which is held by the school district.
- Commonality Connection: Manny mentions to Mrs. Howard how his mother was also an experienced teacher who was vocally disappointed with how her school district failed her. This revelation manages to make a dent in Barbara's defenses.
- Continuity Nod: Manny identifies Gregory as Teacher of the Year.
- Damned by Faint Praise: During the Development Day presentation, Ava refers to Janine as "one of our most.... teachers at Abbott".
- Dramatic Irony: As she describes how enlightening her college academia was, Ava openly wishes that someone could have told her sooner that she was doing a bad job as principal.
- Eating the Eye Candy:
- Melissa has her boyfriend Gary carry heavy objects into her classroom while she and Barbara watch him with awe.
- The teachers try to exploit this by having Gregory flex his arms in front of Ava, in hopes of getting her to revert back to her easily-distracted and hedonistic old self. It doesn't work.Ava: Put those arms away, Jeremy Allen Black!
- Elopement: Barbara gets into chisme with Melissa on how Mr. Morton the science teacher eloped in Hershey Park.
- Exact Words: Ava now claims that she studied at Harvard, meaning that she was physically located on Harvard's campus while she took an online course at another institution.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: After Ava openly criticizes the new school administrators as being more "annoying and unbearable" then ever, the rest of the team find them to be pretty okay. We then learn that Janine is now an administrator.
- Foreshadowing: While helping his girlfriend with moving things into her class, Gary openly brings up the idea of marriage while Melissa brushes it off and hopes that he's joking.
- Funny Background Event: As Barbara and Melissa shoot the breeze in the teacher's lounge, Mr. Johnson is reading a book about Y2K.
- Hey, You!: Via intercom, Ava refers to one of her teachers as "pony tail guy".
- How We Got Here: After the Cold Open, the story goes back in time five months to show how Janine began working for the school district.
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Barbara says this just before confiding in Janine that she actually has hope that the new administrative team will inspire meaningful change.
- I Warned You: After Jacob points out that the camera crew got new equipment, Ava butts in to tell them "I told you so" after they took an alternative route in West Philly that resulted in their old equipment being stolen.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Just like the second season premiere, Ava and the teachers greet the camera crew and the audience and fill them in on everything that's happened.
- With the season premiere being delayed until February 2024 due to the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the show explains the late start to the season as the documentary camera crew getting all of their equipment stolen and having to save up money for five months to buy replacements.
- Noodle Incident: Ava has tried to convince Barbara to sign up for The Golden Bachelorette even though she's a married woman.
- Person as Verb: Janine went to her senpai hoping to hear a "Barbara bummer". In other words, how something is trash and how she shouldn't have hope for anything.
- Running Gag: Janine trying to get into the habit of swearing, and everyone who hears her cuss being put off, is a recurring joke.
- Seen It All: In spite of Manny's friendly nature and eagerness to help the Abbott staff, Barbara initially chooses not to trust him based on her experiences of being let down by administrative staff who promise help but never commit.
- Shout-Out: Barbara manages to get the Old Ava back by having her hear "Back that Ass Up" by Juvenile.
- Starving Artist: Ava mocks the crew for needing five months to get new film equipment because they're all arts majors.
- Swapped Roles: To Gregory's discomfort, he has to be the one to make implicit moves on the new Ava who is disinterested in playing along like the old days.
- Take That!: Ava repeatedly brings up Adam Sandler when ripping on a student's appearance.
- That Woman Is Dead: The New Ava proudly declares to her coworkers that the Old Ava is dead and buried.
- Time Skip: 5 months have passed since the Abbott crew went on their field trip to Franklin Institute.
- Trying Not to Cry: Janine brings up how thinking about leaving her class for so long would make her cry. Jacob then identifies a tear falling down her eye.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: After two seasons of the cast complaining about how bad Ava is at her job, she spends a summer learning how to be a good principal and returns strict and by-the-book. The Abbott teachers are clearly not satisfied with how micromanaging and unrelenting the new Ava is, so they conspire to reset her by using her old vices.
- Wham Shot: Janine makes her first appearance in the new season not as a teacher but as an administrator.
