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abbott elementary-season 3 finale-greg and janine.jpg

'Abbott Elementary' Season 3 Finale: It Finally Happened

By Kaleena Rivera | TV | May 25, 2024 |

By Kaleena Rivera | TV | May 25, 2024 |


abbott elementary-season 3 finale-greg and janine.jpg

(spoilers for the third season finale of Abbott Elementary)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: dedicated, adorable teacher attends an event alongside their fellow teacher for whom they have feelings and discovers it’s reciprocated only for external circumstances to stop anything before it can start. Yes, this was getting to be overly familiar territory at this point, what with Janine (Quinta Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) kissing at a teacher conference, then that season two finale at a field trip where Greg confessed his feelings only for Janine to turn him down, then the season three premiere where the opposite scenario occurred, resulting in him turning her down. Abbott Elementary hasn’t missed a step, but the will-they-won’t-they was starting to get a little been-there-done-that.

As of this week’s season finale, however, the dice of fate landed on ‘they will,’ with Janine and Gregory sharing a kiss and (presumably) hooking up at long last. It’s a grand sitcom tradition for this sort of romantic dynamic to be stretched out over multiple seasons—though Abbott definitely isn’t the longest any series’ fans have had to wait by a long shot—but I admit that after last week’s field trip, where Gregory came close to admitting his feelings only to be plagued by doubts (thanks, Mr. Morton), things were on the verge of becoming tedious.

It’s great that these two are going to have their story advance to new places. We’ll get to see them evolve as partners and coworkers, a relationship that can go in a variety of narrative directions. As Williams notes in an interview with TVLine:

“I’m not sure the audience has really thought about all the ways it could go right and wrong,” the actor continues. “I think we’ve just kind of been in this place of hoping that it happens. But there’s going to be unknowns that they’re going to have to explore. This is the first time we’ve seen them actually in a place where they’re accepting their feelings at the same time. We’ll be taking Season 4 to really explore what comes with that.”

I’ve been anticipating this ship since the pilot, so why don’t I feel happier? I’ve written about Janine and Gregory on numerous occasions, which means I should be over the moon right now. After some thought, it finally occurred to me that the reason why I’m less than enthused is because it feels like one rather large stone was left unturned, specifically the potential relationship between Janine and Manny (Josh Segarra).

Surely, I wasn’t the only person to root for a romance, even a temporary one, with Janine’s super sweet and very good-looking school district colleague, especially after Greg turned her down. Kind, competent, good beard, the man is a solid 10 on the attractiveness scale. More importantly, he’s steadfast in his support for her and seems like he has the potential to be an excellent partner. I can see why she decided to turn down the district job with its multiple perks to go back to Abbott, but man, we couldn’t keep the guy around? According to Brunson (via Deadline) the writers’ strike did affect the season; whereas season two was a generous 22 episodes, this season was nearly halved, 14 episodes in all. It’s pure speculation on my part, but it would be a reasonable explanation as to why ‘Manine’ never came to fruition.

This isn’t to say that the writers didn’t sufficiently lay the groundwork for Janine and Gregory’s relationship to finally take off; before Greg even knocked on her door, both of their intentions were made abundantly clear. But leaving the potential between her and Manny unexplored feels like an opportunity loss. Romantic connections are a remarkable source for self-discovery, even the ones that don’t last. It would have made for good TV. I’m 100% looking forward to season four of Abbott, as well as seeing where Janine and Gregory are going to go from here. All I’m saying is that Manny could have screwed in that lightbulb, too.


Kaleena Rivera is the TV Editor for Pajiba. She can be found on Bluesky here.