"Smoking" is the fourth episode of Season Three of Abbott Elementary.
After a boy gets caught smoking in the bathroom, the Abbott staff realize that their school doesn't have a rule that forbids smoking. And their attempts to rectify their mistake only results in every kid at school learning about their own substance addictions. As they try to fix their mistakes, Janine has to put up with a new teacher who's unconventional teaching methods grind up her gears.
Tropes in this episode include:
- All for Nothing:
- Janine realizes in the end that Jessca is only going to be around for a week so she was getting worked up over nothing.
- Turns out all of the teachers' worrying over Curtis was for nothing as it was his first time ever smoking a cigarette and he hated it so much he never wants to do it again.
- Armor-Piercing Question: While talking about Curtis and how he was a great kid who never smoked before, Greg brings up this question which makes them realize that they forgot to do something important.Greg: Smokes or smoked? Do we even know if he's done this before?
- Bait-and-Switch: Janine pulled some strings to bring back F.A.D.E. in an attempt to neutralize the students' understanding of drugs. But rather then Tariq appearing as the headliner, we get a lackluster replacement named Slimothy...
- Birds of a Feather: Melissa briefly bonds with the firefighter chief over how they grew up with beloved family members who smoked and drank right next to them.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Poor Curtis. Straight-A student, liked by his teachers, never been in trouble... smokes one cigarette for the first time ever, and is immediately caught. This results in a slew of ineffective and increasingly absurd anti-drug policies hitting Abbott, and Curtis himself is, according to district policy, supposed to get suspended for two days. To make it even more disproportionate, Curtis didn't even like the cigarette and wasn't planning to do it again. Lampshaded; while they certainly don't approve of what he did, all the teachers agree that a good kid getting suspended for one stupid mistake isn't fair, especially since he already learned his lesson. Luckily, Janine pulls some strings to undo the suspension.
- Cold Open: Janine explains to the audience that her class undergoes a change in substitutes every once in awhile so she goes on by to check on them.
- Compressed Vice: None of the main character's habits have come up before.
- Continuity Nod: The fire department chief isn't pleased with visiting Abbott again for another fire emergency. Barbara bitterly comments that she only lights fires at home or at church.
- Copycat Mockery: Ava takes a moment to mock Janine after she recapped the current cigarette problem.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Janine insists she does not smoke weed every day. Because she actually smokes at night.
- Drugs Are Bad: Deconstructed. The episode shows that there is so much nuance when it comes to drugs and alcohol, such as doctor subscriptions and ever changing laws regarding which substances are legal or not, that the blanket "Just Say No" policy just confuses kids and often leads to them indulging in harmful substances anyway.
- Failed a Spot Check: Barbara laments that they got so carried away with the no smoking policy that they never asked Curtis what happened that fateful day.
- First-Name Basis: Jessca encourages her students to call her by her first name. She also has them do the same to Janine.
- Foreshadowing: Melissa casually bonds with the firefighter chief over how they had family members who enjoyed drinking and smoking when they were kids. Then during the F.A.D.E. assembly, many of the Abbott kids reveal that they also have family members who use substances which makes the "Just Say No" policy to drugs and alcohol rather complicated and gray.
- From Bad to Worse: Following the disastrous F.A.D.E. performance, the school district has to intervene by making daily and mandatory inspections for the student body to catch any potential substances.
- From the Mouths of Babes: One of Mrs. Howard's students asks if she's drinking pinot grigio from her coffee mug.
- Good Is Not Soft: In spite of Jessca's mellow and hippie-esque archetype, she's pretty condescending when talking to Janine and doesn't take her concerns about classroom management seriously.
- Hippie Teacher: The new sub to watch over Miss Teagues' class is Jessca, a new-age free thinker who is willing to bend the rules of academics so the students can take an alternative approach to learning.
- Hypocrisy Nod: The teachers all know the students have a point—it is stupid that they're repeating the same old "Drugs Are Bad" line with no room for nuance, but all use substances themselves off the clock.
- Hypocrite: At first, the Abbott team take shots at each other over their respective substance addictions despite being just as guilty. But it gets worse when their conversation is leaked to the Abbott kids who openly question their stance against substance abuse.
- Hypocritical Humor: Barbara chastises everyone for their vices and declares that the only addictive goodness they need in their lives is Jesus Christ. Melissa brings up how she enjoys binging on Chardonnay.
- Irony: The school has a "No Graffiti" sign that's covered in, you guessed it, graffiti.
- Loophole Abuse: Apparently the boy who smoked in school claimed that Abbott didn't have a rule against smoking. So he took it as an opportunity to try it.
- Lovable Rogue: After Ava mentions that gambling is forbidden on school grounds, Melissa asks if that rule only applies to students.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!":
- The faculty share this reaction after Jacob reveals that Janine smokes weed everyday.
- They do this again when they discover one of their students recording them while they talk about their addictions.
- Never My Fault: Ava quickly tries to shift the blame of not getting cigarettes mentioned on Abbott's ban list onto Janine.
- Noodle Incident: Ava brings up how she and Jacob watched Saltburn together while the latter was vaping.
- The Nose Knows: Melissa was able to find identify the boy who smoked in the bathroom thanks to her acquired sense of smell.
- Not Helping Your Case: Caroline's poorly thought out Q and A session results in the Abbott students being misinformed about drugs and believing cigarettes are the least dangerous of them all.
- Not So Above It All: Everyone is revealed to have a substance addiction despite needing to maintain an image of being respectable adults. Janine practices medicinal marijuana, Jacob vapes, Ava uses a hookah and microdoses, Melissa uses CBD oil, Barbara enjoys a good Chardonnay, Gregory mixes marijuana into his protein bars, and Mr. Johnson enjoys hitting a blunt in the bathtub.
- I Reject Your Reality: Janine chooses to reject reality after Barbara reveals that she also disagreed with many of her teaching methods when she first started.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder:
- After Jacob asks out loud who still smokes cigarettes, Gregory answers with single dads and criminals. And Jacob himself answers with his arch-nemesis Mr. Morton.
- Then after Barbara openly asks what a "jubie slide" is, Jacob instinctually tries to show her how to do it.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Realizing that Curtis is a genuinely good kid who was only curious with his first cigarette, Greg convinces Janine to use her administrative powers to stop the district from suspending him. And thankfully it works.
- Stating the Simple Solution: When Janine starts to go on a rant over how Jessca runs her class, Gregory points out that Jessca is only a few feet away so she can tell her about it directly.
- The Stinger: To cope with giving up on vaping, Jacob tries an alternative solution where he's able to breathe oxygen through a straw. Ava openly points out how stupid it is, especially if he paid 200 dollars for it.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Slimothy is, for lack of a better word, the poor man's version of Tariq.
- Take That!:
- The Abbott staff criticize Jacob for vaping which they consider to be worse than smoking since it can be done anywhere and is thus done much more.
- F.A.D.E.'s abysmal performance along with the uninformative answers provided about substance abuse can be in reference to the failure of D.A.R.E.
- The overarching theme is how faculty members are unable to be directly honest with their students about substance abuse because of how restrictive their district and government policies are regarding the subject.
