Abbott Elementary Season 3’s Best Plot Changes The Show’s Entire Formula (For The Better)

While Abbott Elementary season 3 sending Janine away came as a surprise, this twist is the best thing that could have happened to the series. Now that Superstore has ended and Blockbuster was canceled after one season, Abbott Elementary is one of the last remaining workplace sitcoms. The mockumentary follows the entire quirky staff of the eponymous Philadelphia public school as they navigate underfunding and other issues that get in the way of education, but creator Quinta Brunson’s character is the heart of Abbott Elementary. Endlessly idealistic, Janine is an indefatigable teacher who refuses to give up on improving her school.

While Abbott Elementary season 4 might make Janine a less optimistic figure, season 3 of the workplace comedy has taken an interesting approach to her character development. In the premiere, Janine claimed she was going to get less invested in the school this year and simply try to work within the flawed system. However, when the school district’s representative asked her for suggestions, Janine jumped at the opportunity to help them fix the place. She was so enthusiastic that the school district ended up offering her a spot in their internship training program, resulting in her temporarily leaving Abbott.

Abbott Elementary’s New Janine Job Complicates Its Workplace Setting

Janine’s school district job rewrites the workplace sitcom setup

While Melissa, Jacob, Gregory, Barbara, and Ava are all still working in Abbott during season 3, Janine now has a whole new workplace filled with new co-workers. While this does add a few new faces to Abbott Elementary’s cast of characters, that is not the only change that this plot has offered to the show’s formula. Josh Segarra’s Manny is a new potential love interest for Janine in season 3, an intriguing development after her slow-burn romance with Gregory petered out in the premiere. Manny and Janine shared a lot of chemistry as he mentored her in her new role.

Abbott Elementary works so well precisely because the show is a conventional workplace sitcom with a perfectly attuned cast, but this season 3 twist proves the show is not resting on its laurels. In season 3, episode 3, “Gregory’s Garden Goofballs,” Janine’s struggles to gel with her new co-workers and her difficulty in fulfilling her new role showed that Abbott Elementary won’t make this new gig easy for her. Janine has to grow a lot in Abbott Elementary season 3 and, since she is now working with the school district, she must do so without the support of old colleagues.

Abbott Elementary Season 3’s Separate Work Plots Succeed

Janine has a chance to grow outside of Abbott in season 3

Janine taking the school district role has freshened up the show’s familiar formula. This twist has introduced a new potential love interest for Janine, while also proving that she is more challenged by her new role than she expected. Abbott Elementary season 3’s Manny seems too good to be true, but “Gregory’s Garden Goofballs” didn’t go for an easy, obvious twist by revealing that the sincere school district employee was secretly cynical and uncaring. Instead, it was Janine who became hopeless and Manny who continuously encouraged her.

Since Janine was working on getting essential supplies for a student taught by one of her Abbott co-workers, this plot still felt connected to the main location of the series. It would be no surprise if the story of Janine’s internship felt disconnected from the main plot, but Abbott Elementary season 3 bringing Jacob and Ava to Janine’s new job made her storyline feel more integral to the series. By keeping Janine’s district role connected to Abbott, the show proved how important the work she was doing was, while also demonstrating that she remains closely linked with her old colleagues.

Abbott Elementary Season 3 Challenges The Show’s Status Quo

The sitcom can take its message deeper than ever with Janine’s plot

Although Janine has proven that she is competent in her new job, she struggled a lot with the bureaucracy and complexity of achieving seemingly simple goals when she started. Seeing Janine in a job where she doesn’t have to defer to Ava but still clashes with the higher-ups proves that even her endless optimism might not be enough to change the flawed school system. Abbott Elementary’s Gregory and Janine romance makes the show feel light-hearted and fun, but since its pilot episode, the series has been surprisingly unflinching in its depiction of serious issues like educational underfunding and mismanagement.

Before she worked in the school district, Janine was certain that her common sense solutions could solve everyone’s problems if she could just gain a bit of authority. However, this season 3 story goes to show that the entire system is bloated, overly complex, and painfully slow, something that Janine wasn’t prepared for when she joined the district. It will be interesting to see how much working for the district dulls Janine’s optimism or, conversely, how much this job makes her more determined than ever to provide for her students as Abbott Elementary season 3 continues.