‘Abbott Elementary’ Cast and Creatives Tease Season 3 at the TCA Winter Press Tour

School is officially back in session. Abbott Elementary Season 3 premiered on ABC last week, and the Emmy-winning sitcom was also recently renewed for a fourth season. The mockumentary series follows a “group of passionate teachers and a slightly tone-deaf principal” as they try to position their students for success at a Philadelphia public school. It stars Quinta Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Chris Perfetti, and William Stanford Davis.

As part of the 2024 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour, The Nerds of Color sat in on a panel with Abbott creator and executive producer Quinta Brunson (who also stars as Janine Teagues), executive producer Justin Halpern, executive producer Patrick Schumacker, and executive producer and director Randall Einhorn. The cast and creators dished on the upcoming season, Janine and Gregory’s evolving dynamic, behind-the-scenes facts, and more. Here are some of the biggest highlights!

Brunson first addressed Janine and Gregory’s current relationship status and explained how the show is seeking to “reinvent the wheel” with their story. The characters first shared a kiss in “Teacher’s Conference” (Season 2, Episode 16) — but unfortunately for fans of the ship, the pair has yet to officially become an item. Things grew even more complicated in the Season 3 premiere when Janine confessed her still-lingering feelings only for Gregory to admit that he’d “put a period” on anything happening between them.

“Stuff like that happens all the time,” Brunson reflected. “People kiss each other, they have sex with each other, and then all of a sudden, they’re cool again, or not cool again, or friends again, and they have to be in the same social circle. Their life doesn’t just magically turn into something where they never see each other anymore.”

“We always look at them as two separate individuals,” she added of the characters. “We know for the audience, they tend to look at them as a ‘will-they-won’t-they?’ But it’s Janine’s path and Gregory’s path. And sometimes those paths cross, but they are individuals.”

Next, they spoke about a major Season 3 storyline: Janine shockingly leaving her teaching position at Abbott to join the school district. Halpern revealed that Brunson had pitched the idea as early as Season 2.

“We’re always starting from a place of character first,” he said. “These are people in their 20s who make big decisions. [They] sometimes make rash decisions, they want to try things out, they want to see where they fit. I think for us, it’s always interesting for Janine and Gregory and Jacob, the characters who are in their 20s in the show, to be able to be a little messy, and to look at different parts of their lives and what they want to do.”

“We played the the school district as, like, the boogeyman the first two seasons,” he continued. “But you know, what’s happening a lot in our country is young, progressive people are getting into bureaucracies and trying to make a change. And so what does that look like? We wanted to show that.”

Brunson noted that, although the show deals with some serious issues and is intertwined with politics, it’s still a “comedy first.”

“I was thinking about recently how Abbott is politics,” she explained. “It’s an underfunded school. It’s public education. It’s a predominantly Black environment neighborhood. It is the politics that everyone is, like, fighting about. But we approach this as, ‘What makes us laugh?’ in the [writers’] room. … Some things just can’t fit there. Maybe if we were an hour-long [show], but that’s not what we are. And nor do we want to be. We love coming into your living room for those 22 minutes and giving you, you know, a place of peace.”

Later in the panel, the cast and creatives shared some behind-the-scenes trivia. Brunson revealed that Einhorn — who also served as director of The Office and Parks and Recreation — suggested the characters’ “talking-head-shots” should happen in the hallway instead of behind desks, to show how the teachers are constantly on the move.

Additionally, Brunson shared that the fan-favorite episode “Step Class” (Season 1, Episode 9) was inspired “directly” by her own mother, a teacher, who held dance classes for students after school.

“I remember showing it to my mom for the first time. And she turned to me and she’s like, ‘You’re just gonna steal my life, huh?'” she joked. “I was in my mom’s dance class after school. But that was something that was really special to her. She didn’t realize how observant I had been, and that she didn’t know I knew the reason those after-school clubs were important.”

As for what fans can look forward to in Season 3? More guest stars. Although the creatives declined to spoil any specific names (unsurprising, considering the Jalen Hurts cameo was kept tightly under wraps), Brunson revealed she had several “pinch-me moments” while filming this season. She also emphasized that the guest stars feel “organic” to the show’s world rather than shoehorned in.

When asked how she was “processing” the success of the series, Brunson said that it’s taken her a long time to come to terms with it. She called the second season and the show’s first Golden Globes victories a “blur.”

“I do not have a memory of that,” she said of her first Golden Globes. “I have memory of Tyler winning, but not me physically winning, or even the show winning, because we were also working. … I wasn’t really processing it. The strike is what allowed me to process, where the walls came crashing in. And I was like, ‘What the … What is going on? What happened?'”

On a final note, Brunson emphasized how proud she was of the Abbott writers, cast, and crew, calling them a “well-oiled machine.”

“I really have a lot of faith in my team and everyone to do a good job,” she said. “You ever seen at the end of [Avengers:] Endgame? You know when Tony Stark does the snap, and then he’s like, ‘You can rest’? I feel like that this year. I feel like I can rest.”