‘Abbott Elementary’ Showrunners Reflect On Season 2 Finale, Share Thoughts On Season 3 And Potential Writers Strike

After 22 episodes brimming with laughs, delightful holiday celebrations, a magical first kiss, guest stars galore, and no shortage of impactful storylines, Abbott Elementary wrapped its spectacular second season with another memorable field trip.

In the Season 1 finale, the documentary crew followed the students and educators of our favorite (fictional) Philadelphia Elementary School to the zoo. In Season 2’s final episode, Janine (Quinta Brunson), Gregory (Tyler James Williams), Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph), Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), Ava (Janelle James), Jacob (Chris Perfetti), and Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) chaperone an overnight trip to the Franklin Institute, a brilliant setting that Brunson had in mind for quite some time.

“That was in Quinta’s head before we even started Season 2. She didn’t have any details on the episode or what she wanted it to be about, but she was like, ‘I want the episode to take place at the Franklin Institute.’ And, as she says, ‘We like a field trip at Abbott,'” Justin Halpern, one of Abbott‘s showrunners told Decider. “I think that was a place that was really important to her. She puts so much time and effort into making the Philly stuff feel Philly and authentic, and that place, to her, really felt like it’s where this school would go”

Written by Brittani Nichols and directed by Randall Einhorn, Abbott Elementary‘s Season 2 finale finds Ava teaching the kids about aliens, Melissa flexing her Philly knowledge, Barbara accidentally sparking chaos, Jacob and Gregory hugging it out, and Janine and Gregory having a major heart-to-heart (near the Franklin Institute’s giant heart) that changes everything.

In honor of the eventful episode, Abbott co-creators and co-showrunners Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker (also known for Harley Quinn) sat down with Decider to break down the finale, reflect on Season 2’s viral moments, tease Season 3, and discuss the impacts of a potential writers strike.

Decider: Before we dive into the finale, for fans of the show who still might not know, how did you become creative collaborators and team up with Quinta for Abbott?

Patrick Schumacker: We met the summer of 2001, we interned together —

Justin Halpern: Me and Pat. Quinta I don’t think was born yet…

Schumacker: Yeah, Justin and I met interning together at A Band Apart, Quentin Tarantino’s production company. We didn’t really hang out until the end of the summer when we realized we were living a block apart from each other in Westwood, and we bonded one night over mutual love of Pootie Tang. We saw that movie at the theater and I think we might have been the only people in the theater. But we laughed raucously. I don’t know if the movie holds up. 

That’s OK. It was fate!

Schumacker: It was fate. And we stayed in touch and for like seven years. We were trying to make it writing stuff on spec, trying to enter writing programs, and all that stuff. We got our first multi-cam on in 2009/2010, thereabouts. Then flash forward to meeting Quinta. We cast Quinta in a pilot that we shot up in Vancouver for The CW called It’s the End of the World as We Know It, based on this YA novel that we did with Rob Thomas. So we had worked with him on iZombie, but we cast Quinta in that and it was very different. It was like this sci-fi comedy about two young women from Van Nuys, who teamed up with the space cops to hunt down a bunch of alien criminals on the loose after his ship crashes in a junkyard in Van Nuys. But we had a good experience with Quinta. We thought she was brilliant. We had never seen her before coming into the casting session, and we were like, “Who is that?” And the casting director was like, “You don’t know who that is? That’s Quinta Brunson!” But we were over 30, so yeah. I guess we didn’t know who she was. We had a big blind spot. But when we were doing Harley, she came to us with this idea for Abbott — then called Harrity Elementary — that she wanted to do as an animated show. Still like docu-style, but animated. I think it was more like a function of this is how much time she had to devote to a show, like maybe she’d voice a character. And we were the animation guys at the time, because Harley, and one thing led to another and the timing didn’t work out. And then like a year later, was it pre-pandemic?

Halpern: Yeah it was, because she pitched in August of the pandemic.

Schumacker: Yeah, so I’m on the lot and I run into her, and she doesn’t really drive very much. And I was like, “Hey do you want a ride home?” And on the ride home I was like, “Hey, Justin and I have been talking about maybe doing Harrity Elementary as a broadcast thing.” And she was like, “I was thinking the exact same thing.” And then like three weeks later we were pitching it to Warner Brothers. And so it was weird serendipity that we had this run-in on the lot. So the moral of the story is give anyone a ride home. Even the murderer on the side of the road, because they could have a really good show idea.

[Laughs] Amazing. Well jumping into the Season 2 finale, it takes place at the Franklin Institute. How did that location come about, and what was it like filming there?

Halpern: That was in Quinta’s head before we even started Season 2. She didn’t have any details on the episode or what she wanted it to be about, but she was like “I want the episode to take place at the Franklin Institute.” And, as she says, “We like a field trip at Abbott.” I think that was a place that was really important to her. She puts so much time and effort into making the Philly stuff feel Philly and authentic, and that place, to her, really felt like it’s where this school would go. We all used to take field trips here. And specifically the heart. The thing that she had always said was, “I want them to have a heart-to-heart in the heart.” Like, “I want this to be this really emotional conversation, and for it to happen in this heart.” She loves a great sitcom moment. Then as we started to dig into the episode it just lent itself to so many fun things to do at the Franklin Institute. Michael Whetstone, our production designer who is fucking amazing, recreated part of the Franklin Institute here on our stages. So really we only shot there one day. And most of what you see is actually on our stages. Only some of the stuff — like the heart and the giant Ben Franklin — we did there. 

I was going to ask about the heart. The fact that it’s beating during Janine and Gregory’s entire conversation nearly killed me. It felt a bit like the living classroom in that the show is so good at crafting the dreamiest backdrops for these big moments.

Schumacker: Yeah. Credit to Quinta and Michael Whetstone and Randall Einhorn. And also Brittani Nichols, who wrote the finale. Brittani was the one who was there in Philly on set. Justin and I had other things to attend to, so Randall directed the episode and Brittani was the writer/producer on set. But yeah, the whole slumber party element in the space-themed wing of the museum, that was all on Stage 18 at Warner Brothers in Burbank. And then basically Michael and Randall, when they went and scouted the Franklin Institute in Philly, they were able to find areas where we could marry the real thing to the one that we created on stage.

Halpern: And also huge shoutout to Brittani Nichols because so much of that was logistics. Britt was like re-writing, and re-staging, and re-writing, and re-writing up until right before the shoot. I feel like Brit re-wrote that script simply for logistics… And every time she would take the care to make sure everything was kind of meshing in the way that it had in her original draft so we wouldn’t lose anything. It was really an expert-level job of writing and producing together.

Before the Franklin Institute, Janine runs into Maurice — played by the great Vince Staples — and she walks away from that conversation feeling like she’s failed him and more aware of her own flaws. Why you think her being called selfish hit her so hard?

Halpern: There’s a thing we talk a lot about in the room which is thinking you’re a good person and seeing whether or not that is reflected in your actions. And just sort of how nebulous the idea of “being a good person” is. I think Janine is someone that, when she was in a relationship with Tariq, he was just sort of a taker, and also his life was kind of a mess and she never had to do any sort of real self-examination. Now that she’s sort of single, we always thought she thinks of herself as “I am this together well-functioning member of society who’s ready. I’m on my journey.” And we wanted to investigate that. And we looked back at what had happened over the course of the season and we were like, “Well her actions say something a little different.” And so we knew when we got to the finale — and we wanted her to have this sort of come to where she realizes she’s not ready for Gregory yet — we needed someone to wake her up to that. We never want to do one of those scenes where it’s like “Janine! You’ve been like this the whole season!” Vince is so funny and he’s got such an unusual comedic rhythm. It’s different than anybody else’s on the show, and so him being that person, and him sort of reminding her of this transgression that she had made in their relationship felt like, “Oh. That’s the moment that’s actually gonna get her thinking.” 

Outside of that heart, Gregory and Janine finally share their feelings for each other. You’ve both been very open about crafting this will-they-won’t-they relationship and Quinta’s thoughts on timing and the importance of character development. What would you say to fans who are confused about Janine and Gregory ending the episode as friends?

Schumacker: Man, I would say rewatch that conversation again. I think they laid a lot of it out there in that conversation. I think it’s a sign of maturity that they’re aware of their own sense of readiness, you know? They’re not on the same page exactly, but Gregory’s accepted reluctantly what the determination was at the end, and I think that’s gonna keep up some of the dramatic tension in Season 3.

Was there ever a temptation to end the episode differently?

Halpern: Quinta’s always had in her head the trajectory of this relationship, so we’ve always had that sort of North Star to write to, because she’s kind of like “this is the way I want it to go.” And I feel like there’s nobody in this business that has better instincts than Quinta Brunson. She’s such a TV historian — especially sitcoms — and I feel like I just implicitly trust her. When she talked about her reasoning and why she wanted to do what she wanted to do, it just made sense.

I want to talk about Ava for a second. Despite scaring the children with alien talk and also saying Gregory is built like the Longhorn logo [laughs] I felt like she showed some real growth in this episode. I read an article titled “A Plea to Abbott Elementary: Let Ava Stay Terrible,” which noted that shows like The Office have given Michael Scott this sort of redemption arc, but they wanted Ava to keep being a bad boss. Is that something you think about — striking a balance between the bad principal we fell in love with and Ava’s character growth, which I’ve enjoyed seeing?

Schumacker: Yeah. I think we’ve been very lucky to work with several actors over our career that their aura is sort of so likable that they can get away with murder, and I think Janelle is one of those actors. We try and dimensionalize everybody, as you’ve seen. We tried to dimensionalize Ava probably starting with Season 1 with the step episode. I think we got a little glimpse behind the curtain and we saw her vulnerability, her humanity, and also her altruism with her grandmother. So I would say that’s part of the DNA of the show — that we want to dimensionalize every single character. But that’s not to say Ava’s all of a sudden gonna become traditionally great at her job, or that she’s going to become a self-sacrificing hero over time. I don’t know that that’s necessarily her arc. So I’m with you, but I’m also with the audience members that want her to remain an antagonist I would say. Villain is a bit harsh, but antagonist feels appropriate. 

I also loved Jacob and Gregory’s relationship progression this episode. But I have to ask about Jacob’s pajamas and Diego Luna seeing his tweets. Please explain both.

Halpern: [Laughs] Jacob’s pajamas were a Brittani Nichols pitch. And the Diego Luna line was, I believe Quinta’s line. When the staff writes a script they put in a lot of their own stuff. We outline the scripts. It’s a very detailed outline. But then it also leaves space for the writer to put a lot of themselves into it. And then when it’s done, Quinta will do a little pass on all the scripts as well and she’ll add little things that she wants and little moments. When I saw that, when Britt turned in her first draft and those pajamas were in [it] I was like, “Can I have those pajamas?”

This episode also includes one of my favorite lines, which I now believe to be one of the hottest lines in all of television: “I take all of your recommendations seriously. I want to know why you like stuff.”

Schumacker: No one’s ever said that to me, so I might agree with you.

Halpern: I also want to give a real shout-out to Tyler, who, man, the stuff he’s been able to pull off during the course of this season — dramatic, comedic — he’s one of those actors who never reaches for the moment. He just lets the moment come to him and then he plays it. And you can see it. There was a moment in the “Educator of the Year” episode where he goes up and gives that speech about what it means to be a teacher and what it means to get that award. And in my head, when I was reading this speech on the page, it felt like more of this “rah-rah” sort of building towards this big ending kind of speech, and he performed it in this really nuanced way, where you could really see that he was embarrassed that he was getting this award, but that he understood the importance of accepting it. He played it so under, and it was such a better choice than what I had in my head. And that’s what he does in every single episode. He thinks through everything. He finds. He makes choices that are unexpected. And I think the whole cast does this. That line that you quote, it’s a great line. And it’s also just delivered in the hands of a pro. 

Agreed. I know you likely can’t say much, but are you able to tease Season 3 for us at all?

Schumacker: There’s gonna be 22 [episodes], we hope.

Halpern: The one thing I will say is, you’ve sort of noticed that each season has a bit of a theme of public education and the things that teachers go through. The second season ended up talking about charter schools and the push and pull of those, and the first season was sort of about the challenges of being woefully underfunded. And so I think we have an idea, we’ve talked with Quinta, and I think there’s a larger overarching idea that we’ve sort of landed on for Season 3 that I think is really interesting and I’ve never seen it on TV before. 

Speaking of Season 2 tackling the charter-school movement, what was the sentiment amongst writers and on the show after that viral exchange between Quinta and Jeanne Allen?

Halpern: I think people felt good about it. If you accurately represent reality, then you have nothing to hide from or feel embarrassed about. One of the things that I really love about Quinta is she is interested in talking about the things that teachers are talking about, and she never comes at it from a place of like, “Oh, I’m gonna go after this or I’m gonna go after that.” We start every season talking to teachers. We bring them into the writers’ room, we have long conversations with them, and we find out what they are dealing with. And that’s what we did this year and that’s what came from it. So I think that you notice the people who kind of come at you with a lot of rhetoric and not a lot of substance to what they’re saying. I think that says it all. 

Schumacker: Yeah. I think the only agenda we have is the accurate representation of this particular world. If this is what comes of that, great. If we’re having these kinds of conversions because somebody saw the show, if it can affect a kind of change or a conversation that does ultimately affect change, awesome. We all set out to make a really funny comedy about teachers, and so all of this stuff is like, kind of gravy to us, but we just want to be authentic. 

Halpern: Yeah and again, the mandate on the show, the first and really only rule is make a funny show. And so we wouldn’t ever do anything that is going to stop us from doing that. 

The show also recently went viral for pulling what the people call a “Simpsons” and predicting this Baltimore Orioles walk-off home run. How did you know?

Halpern: [Laughs] Oh this is — I cannot wait to tell this story. So we were sitting in the writers’ room and we always outline every episode together as a group. We kind of group-write outlines, and then the writer of the episode goes off and writes the script. So anyway Jordan Temple, who by the way, this was his script, Jordan is an enormous baseball fan. Jordan is an 85-year-old man trapped in a 35-year-old man’s body. He likes baseball. He actually keeps score at baseball games when he goes to baseball games, like actually hand writes the scorecard. So anyway, I walk everybody through every scene before I send them off to write it, and I’m like, “OK, Jordan. So in this scene you’re gonna need some baseball banter. This is how they’re connecting.” And he’s like “I got it. I’ve never been more prepared to write a scene in my entire life.” So that was 100% just Jordan Temple getting baseball nerdy, and he just happened to hit on a thing that actually happened. 

Schumacker: I think he knew. I don’t think he happened to hit on it. I think he knew.

Halpern: That’s true! 

I know the writer’s room is set to reconvene on May 1, which is the same day the WGA’s contract expires. You two have been very vocal about support for writers and the strike authorization vote on social. So what do you want viewers to know about these issues and what could a potential strike mean for the show and Season 3?

Halpern: Well the thing I would want to say is I think people think that writers are these really wealthy people who have this amazing job where they’re allowed to drive BMWs and live in fancy houses. And I would say for 90% of the members of the Writers Guild, they are living job to job and I think a lot them, especially the younger ones and especially people of color, are barely able to make ends meet because of the erosion by the studios of writing as a job. So I would just say that I hope that we are able to reach a fair agreement that for the first time in a long time values writers properly and allows our members to make a living in Los Angeles and be able to live here and raise a family, and someday own a home. I think that’s really important to me and Patrick and everyone on our writing staff. And I think that that is first and foremost the most important thing and hopefully it is resolved and we can go back to doing the thing we love, which is making Abbott Elementary. 

Schumacker: On a pragmatic level, in the event of a strike, that could affect the amount of episodes in the season. In the last strike, if I recall, the example is like Breaking Bad did seven episodes. But that strike lasted three months or something like that. Knock on wood that a strike doesn’t happen, but if it has to happen, knock on wood that it can resolve very quickly, and we can go back in, and people won’t notice too much at home that anything different happened this year. But it is a distinct possibility should there be a strike.

Before we wrap, I have to ask how it feels to have Abbott and Harley Quinn — two wildly successful, both hilarious, but very different shows — out right now killing it. And you’re finding a rare moment of success on both streaming and broadcast.

Schumacker: It’s terrible. [Laughs] It’s amazing. We’ve never experienced anything like this in our careers, and I don’t know if we will again. I mean it’s super rewarding. With Harley we’ve gotten to the point where, because we have sort of transitioned to the day-to-day showrunners/executive producers on Abbott, we have bequeathed day-to-day operations of Harley to other people. So we’re still there, we’re still weighing in on stuff, but it’s from more of an Olympian view, it’s not like we’re day-to-day showrunning two shows at the same time. I’m really proud of what we accomplished in the first three seasons of Harley and that it’s continuing on in a time when streaming is kind of in a little bit of turmoil and everything changed with DC. The fact that Harley has kind of endured and will continue to endure with kind of these regime changes has been amazingly gratifying, because it started out as this show on DC universe that just kind of a small fraction of the people that are watching it now found when it launched and so, yeah I  don’t know I’m just happy. I’m really happy. 

Halpern: Yeah. I mean, we’ve had a lot of failure in our career before this. You make shows. You do your very best. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they don’t. Theres such a collaboration, and it’s kind of like catching lightening in a bottle, and it’s hard for it to happen. So I think for it’s like, fuck it happened twice! We just try to enjoy it and have fun. And the fun part is to be able to, like with Harley Season 4, we really were able to turn that over to Sarah Peters who’s such a funny, clever, smart writer — and let her get to do her version of the show for Season 4, which is really gratifying to be able to build something that then you can use to sort of like bring in this next generation of writers to command and use their really fresh voices. There’s so many times on Abbott and on Harley where someone will pitch a joke in the room and everyone will laugh but me, because I don’t understand the joke — not because it’s not funny, because I’m too old. And I’m like drat. Put it in. I have no idea why that joke is funny, but it killed, so let’s see it in the script. I think it’s been fun to see these shows connect with audiences. 

Any final words?

Halpern: I would just say you’re in good hands. However you’re feeling about the finale in the end, you’re in good hands. Don’t worry.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Abbott Elementary is now streaming on Hulu and you can check out Harley Quinn on HBO Max.