A group of passionate teachers - and a slightly tone-deaf principal - are determined to help their students succeed at a Philadelphia public school.
Welcome to Willard P. Abbott Elementary School of downtown Philadelphia.
Over the course of the pilot, we are introduced to the staff of Abbott Elementary and watch junior teacher Janine try to get money for new rugs from the administration.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Brick Joke: Halfway through the episode, a toilet that explodes nicknamed "Reverso" is mentioned. During the credits, Janine is watching a Youtube video to figure out how to fix it.
- Chekhov's Gun: Schemmenti’s guy on the stadium build turns out to have access to rugs he can get for the school.
- Compliment Backfire: Ava tries to use Barbara as a perfect example of a teacher who has everything under control and never whines about anything. Barbara flat out admits that she does so because she knows she can never rely on Ava for anything.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Ava gives Janine the stink eye after Greg compliments her.
- Description Cut: Janine starts the pilot by describing how all the teachers are inspirational and incredible at their job. It then cuts to Ms. Schwartz who's unable to control her unruly classroom.
- Didn't Think This Through: Janine tries to get Ava fired by sending an e-mail to the school administrator about her recent spending crime. But as the two queens Barbara and Melissa point out, those e-mails never reach the administrator and are instead sent back to the teacher's principal.
- Disaster Dominoes: On Greg’s first day a kid pees his pants, and when he takes him to the toilet to change, the toilet blows up in their faces. Then Janine walks in without having met him and mistakes him for a pedophile.
- Dude, Not Funny!: No one laughs when Ava calls Gregory a stripper on their first meeting.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Janine manages her class but has to count to ten, not three while managing her kids, and embarrasses herself trying to make Barbara like her.
- Jacob makes a lame joke, says he doesn’t like how a guy calls him “White Boy”, mentions reading White Fragility, and then says he’ll co-sign what Janine does. He’s dorky, shy, trying to be woke, but not a big leader at work.
- Barbara rescues Janine from a situation, has excellent students, and rebuffs Janine’s attempted mentor courting.
- Schemmenti confirms that the corner shop guy is insulting Jacob, asks the film crew if they’re Sicilian, Italian, or from South, then tells them they have to say if they’re cops. And then mentions she has a guy for everything.
- Ava barges into the student lounge all cheerful - Schemmenti immediately explains that she’s bad at her job, not special at it - and then after resisting everything, uses student money to pay for a sign of herself and her hairdo. It’s only after everyone stands up to her that she even thinks maybe she was wrong to do so.
- Gregory is introduced as a newcomer who mentions he was supposed to get the principal job (that Ava reveals she stole), then struggling to handle a kid who peed his pants.
- Johnson the 70-year old janitor is introduced subbing for the teacher who just left by pointing at the word “Illuminati” on the whiteboard and saying that’s who rules the world.
- Establishing Series Moment: After their corrupt and incompetent administrator pissed away the money Janine spent most of the episode trying to get, the other teachers rally around her, give her a Rousing Speech, and come up with an alternate solution.Howard: Janine - teachers at a place like Abbott? We have to be able to do it all. We are admin, we are social workers, we are therapists, we are second parents, hell, sometimes we’re even first. Why? Huh, it sho ain’t the money.Schemmenti: Mhm. I could make more working the street, easy. Look, we do this ‘cause we’re supposed to. It’s a calling. You answered.
- Everyone Has Standards: The Abbott teachers have various ways of dealing with out-of-control kids but none of them would ever use physical violence on a kid no matter the offense.
- The Generation Gap: Barbara is initially unimpressed with the new generation of teachers she has to work with. She's dismayed over how stressed out Tina Schwartz is with her class and how Jacob needs an "herbal break" every five minutes. It also doesn't help that out of the twenty new teachers that were hired recently, only three have remained.
- Granola Girl: Jacob is a male example, wanting to be progressive and helpful, but sometimes being a bit ineffective.
- Ironic Echo: Janine suggests to Tina that she try counting the next time she feels said. Barbara sarcastically brings it up after Tina kicked a child. She does it again by bringing up her "optimism" after Ava disappoints everyone with her glorified sign.
- It's All About Me: Principal Ava is totally ignorant about how to run a school, and only has the job because she caught the school superintendent cheating on his wife and blackmailed him. She's mostly interested in using the job as a way to squeeze money out of the system and promoting her social media.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Veteran teachers and local queens Barbara and Melissa are introduced as tough, jaded and dismissive of Janine's naive optimism on how their jobs can be better. But deep down, they do genuinely care for the kids they teach and are more than willingly to help out the new generation of teachers if they prove that they have the heart for teaching.
- Kick the Dog: After finding out about Janine's e-mail, Ava organizes a mandatory faculty meeting in order to humiliate and insult her. She even brings one of her own students to criticize her teaching ability.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Schemmenti talks to the camera crew and says they need to tell her if they’re cops.
- The Mafia: The guy who gets Abbott the rug is working a stadium build and can arrange for a bunch of rugs meant for it to turn up at their school instead.Janine: What’s your name?Schemmenti: He doesn’t have a name.Guy (simultaneously): I got no name.
- Meet Cute: After their disastrous first meeting, Greg and Janine have a proper introduction where he compliments her."You got a mission - it’s cool to see."
- Mistaken for Pedophile: Greg when Janine walks in on a man she doesn’t know holding a pair of kid’s pants while the kid they belong to is in a toilet stall next to him.
- Mockumentary: Shot in this style, with cuts to interviews with the characters
- Moment Killer: Jacob tries to add his own bit to the Rousing Speech, but gets cut off."I believe it was Brother Cornell West who - ""No."
- Noodle Incident: Janine mentions that she'll be having her third meeting with Brittany's mom over what movies she should be watching.
- Not What It Looks Like: Greg’s Disaster Dominoes, see above.
- Parental Substitute: Discussed. Barbara brings up how there are times where teachers have to act as second or even first parents to the kids under their care.
- The Reveal: Janine’s secret reason for wanting new rugs? Her student Amir comes and naps on the rug every lunch time because his family’s very noisy and it’s allegedly softer than his bed at home.
- Running Gag: Janine keeps referring to the classroom rugs as like a Xanax for kids. It doesn't catch on.
- Saying Too Much: Janine has a bad habit of revealing too much of her personal life and problems to her coworkers when the situation doesn't call for it.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Discussed during the Rousing Speech. Being a public school teacher is not a money-maker."I know you guys don't have money because I overdrafted on a donut hole this morning."
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Apart from Janine and Jacob, almost every teacher who was recently hired to teach at Abbott has quit for a variety of reasons. Tina Schwartz is forced to quit after kicking a student out of frustration.
- Seen It All: As a teacher working in the Philadelphia school district for twenty years, Barbara knows not to have any hopes for her acting principals as they won't do anything to help her fellow teachers.
- Shout-Out:
- Miss Teagues' class dances to Baby Shark while she does away with their pee-stained carpet.
- Ava sings I Believe the Children are our Future while walking away in victory.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Ava would rather spend thousands of dollars on a hair-do and a poster for the school rather than spend it on things for the students.
- Also done humorously when Ava says Janine has big feet. The next time they talk the first thing Barbara says is, "Don't worry, honey, big feet are a sign of fertility."
- Soapbox Sadie:
- Janine is a positive one, campaigning for improved conditions in the school to the annoyance of others. But she's not wrong, and her passion inspires others eventually.
- Jacob's archetype is a male example as he tries to be politically aware and overdoes it when trying to be "woke" with his coworkers.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: During the credits, Barbara gives Janine some cleaner she uses for future pee stains.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Janine has a version of this with Barbara, desperately wanting her to like her.
