Abbott Elementary Season 3 Was a Win for Janine and Gregory, and Their Shippers

Another school year has come to an end on Abbott Elementary. Despite being on the shorter side due to the dual Hollywood strikes, Season 3 of ABC’s hit mockumentary sitcom has been stellar overall — in just 14 episodes, it’s tackled teaching woes, career pivots, breakups, and plenty of other shenanigans. 

This season has heavily focused on Janine’s (Quinta Brunson) district storyline, leaving her will-they/won’t-they? romance with Gregory (Tyler James Williams) mostly just simmering in the background. Although fans have been invested in the couple from the very beginning, the show has never been in a real rush for them to actually get together. 

The Season 3 finale, “Party,” finally gives Janine/Gregory shippers a victory. The episode sees Janine throw a party in her apartment to celebrate the end of the school year. Unsurprisingly, she’s not exactly the world’s most relaxed host; she tries her hardest to make sure everything goes exactly as planned. (Think: that SpongeBob episode where he throws a house party and enforces a strict agenda.) The one thing she can’t totally control? How she feels about Gregory. 

As much as Janine tries to convince herself that getting together with her coworker is a bad idea, it’s obvious her feelings are growing too strong to ignore. During the party, she and Gregory end up sitting on her bed together, and they share a sweet moment where they each compliment each other on how far they’ve come this school year. But just when it feels like they might kiss, they’re interrupted yet again. 

Later when the party wraps up, Gregory leaves despite Janine’s not-so-subtle hints that she’d like him to stay, and it seems like the window of opportunity is gone. “If Gregory would have stayed, I would have told him how I felt, which is that I like him and I want to be with him,” Janine says to the camera. “But he left.”

For a moment, it really feels like the episode is going to end there and leave viewers waiting until next season for any major development. But then, Janine decides that she’s tired of waiting around and finds the courage to finally declare her feelings once and for all. In perfect rom-com fashion, he shows up at her doorstep before she can even go after him. Their kiss is passionate and more than earned.

Abbott Elementary could have dragged things out even further by playing into a love triangle with Manny (Josh Seggara) or ending the season on a cliffhanger. Instead, the writers wisely chose to finally let the stars align for Gregory and Janine. According to Williams, the pairing was always supposed to get together at the end of Season 3. “There were multiple versions of how we thought it could go down, but this felt right to me,” the actor told The A.V. Club. “I think if we tried to drag it out... I mean, even I was finding as we filmed the finale and were talking to the writers that we were running out of excuses for Gregory.”

Janine and Gregory getting together isn’t just a victory for shippers, but a testament to how far both characters have come individually. In last season’s finale, “Franklin Institute,” they acknowledged their mutual feelings, but ultimately decided to keep things platonic because Janine realized she needed to spend some time being single (aka her “selfish era”) and figure out who she is before diving into another relationship. 

By the time she realized she wanted to be with Gregory after all, he had already mentally moved on — in “Career Day,” he explained to Janine that he simply “put on a period on” the prospect of them getting together. Now, both of them are finally ready to take the leap. 

Both Janine and Gregory have undergone tremendous personal growth since their last kiss. This season has (mostly) done a great job of fleshing out individual characters, especially these two. Janine leaving for the district and then realizing her heart was still with her students at Abbott was a pivotal arc for her — the Janine we met at the beginning of the show never would have taken risks with her career, stood up to Barbara over the library program, or thrown a party. 

When Gregory was first introduced, he was a substitute teacher who saw his position at Abbott as a temporary stop on the way to becoming what he really wanted to be, a principal. Now, he’s a passionate teacher who cares about his students so much that he’s even continuing his Garden Goofballs program over the summer. 

As they sit on the bed together, Janine and Gregory each make a point of acknowledging how far the other has come. “Look at everything you did this year,” Gregory says. “The Janine I met the first day never would have left Abbott to try something new, and she definitely wouldn’t have let all these people in her place with their shoes on. You try new things, and you’re brave. You care about people. That’s what I admire about you.” 

The timing isn’t just right for them as a pairing, it’s right for them as individuals — and that’s an important distinction. From the beginning, the show has made a point of treating Gregory and Janine as separate characters who are dealing with their own journeys rather than just seeing them as halves of a couple. Even if keeping them apart didn’t always work seamlessly, it makes sense that they had to spend some time growing on their own first in order to get to where they are now. 

“We always try to chart their personal growth, first separately as characters,” co-showrunner Justin Halpern recently explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “We wanted to get them to a place where they couldn’t deny it. We almost made them as frustrated and kind of exhausted by the will-they-won’t-they as maybe some people in the audience feel.”

Janine and Gregory's decision to finally take the leap also represents tremendous character development in itself. As Halpern points out in the same interview, both of them are “really, really measured characters [who] do not act rashly.” Janine listening to Mr. Johnson’s (William Stanford Davis) surprisingly sage advice and following her heart regardless of her worries is a huge moment of growth for her. Similarly, Gregory puts himself in a vulnerable position by running back to Janine’s apartment even though he’s afraid she might have feelings for Manny. Their kiss is so satisfying because it demonstrates how far they’ve both come.

So, what does this mean for the future? Janine and Gregory finally dating certainly shakes things up. There’s already been hints of potential obstacles, like Mr. Morton’s (Jerry Minor) cautionary tale against dating a coworker and Ava (Janelle James) strangely disapproving of their relationship. Sitcoms, like The Office and New Girl, have also historically struggled to keep the relationship interesting once the will-they/won’t-they couple actually gets together. But given Abbott’s knack for subverting formulas and audience expectations, Janine and Gregory’s relationship has the potential to be different.

Viewers will have to wait until the fall to see where things go, but Season 4 will luckily have more episodes and time to spend developing the couple. In the meantime, we’ll be celebrating this Janine/Gregory win.

Abbott Elementary is available to stream on Hulu. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.
 

Kelly Martinez is a TV Reporter based in Los Angeles. Her previous work can be found at BuzzFeed and People Magazine, among other outlets. She enjoys reading, spending time with her cat, and explaining the plot of Riverdale to people.