Abbott Elementary Season 2
Overview
School's back in session, and Abbott comes back funnier, warmer and more confident second time around. Quinta Brunson's Janine returns from summer break determined to fix everything at once — the school, her love life, herself — and mostly succeeds at making charming messes instead. Season two deepens everybody: Gregory, Tyler James Williams' gloriously stiff former substitute, starts letting his guard down around Janine in ways both of them pretend not to notice; Barbara and Melissa's friendship becomes the show's rock; Jacob gets actual storylines instead of just punchlines. There's a lovely slow-burn thread about a glossy charter-school company circling Abbott, which gives the season real stakes underneath the jokes, and the holiday episodes are the series at its very best. Sheryl Lee Ralph won an Emmy for the first season and somehow gets even better material here. It's a workplace comedy in the classic mould, except the workplace is a chronically underfunded public school — and the show never forgets what that actually costs the people inside it.
