Abbott Elementary will make its triumphant return for season 2 on September 21 after a breakout first season. Throughout season 1, fans began shipping Janine and Gregory, but she was in a relationship with Tariq until the season finale. HollywoodLife got EXCLUSIVE scoop from Abbott Elementary executive producers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker about the future of Janine and Gregory.
“Well, I think the second season is really going to be about wanting this further growth of these characters, right? I think what we’ve just always said. It’s like, wherever we end up with those two — and we genuinely at this point don’t know — I think we want to earn whatever we’re getting,” Justin told HollywoodLife at the HCA TV Awards on August 13. “We also want to make sure that our characters, especially our series regulars, who we care about and the audience cares about, that whatever place we get to with them that people feel like we earned it and that we didn’t rush anything. We also didn’t flip something on its head, which makes everybody feel sour. Nothing we will do will not have the breadcrumbs laid and [will] feel very earned.”
The hit ABC series barely left Willard R. Abbott Elementary School in the first season, but that’s changing in the second season. “Season 1 was very contained within the walls of the school. I think season 2, now that we’re getting to know the teachers better and we do know them a little bit better, we want to expand the world of the show outside, see a little bit more, learn more about their private lives, where they live, meet some of their relatives, maybe? The show gets bigger,” Patrick teased.
In a world that’s now dominated by streaming, Abbott Elementary is one of broadcast TV’s rare hits. According to Variety, the show’s finale rating rose 200% with a week of multiplatform viewing. The ABC series has made an incredible first impression on viewers and critics alike. Patrick weighs in on why there’s been such a passionate response to the school comedy.
“We’ve heard a lot of anecdotes directly from educators, just like, the show kind of gets us. It’s very accurate. It’s grounded. We’re not sensationalizing anything. The teachers I think are portrayed as heroes, but not because we’re going out to portray them as heroes,” Patrick said. “They just do a thankless job. They do the Sisyphean task of pushing that boulder up the hill every day and have to do it all over again the next day. They’re underserved and underfunded and just have to use their own grit to just get through the day and improve the lives of these kids. It’s possibly just groundedness of that, the realism of that.”