‘Abbott Elementary’: Wait, Janine’s Father is Who?!

It’s Mother’s Day on Abbott Elementary this week—and yet, for some reason, all we can talk about is fathers. Particularly one father: Janine’s (Quinta Brunson). She doesn’t know who her dad is, and, after Ava (Janelle James) makes a snide comment about Kevin Hart, Janine starts to wonder…could the comedian be her father? After all, they’re both short.

No one at Abbott is particularly revved up about Mother’s Day. It seems like the school is home to a community of folks who don’t have great connections with their mothers. Although teachers like Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) are committed to setting up arts and crafts for the kids to bring back to their moms, most of the teachers bond over how little they care about the holiday—and, at times, how alienating it can be to celebrate mothers without even having a real mom.

This masterful episode is proof that, after three seasons, Abbott Elementary hasn’t lost its touch. A topic like Mother’s Day could easily be spun into an episode much more saccharine than the rest of Abbott’s tone—but no. The teachers may be struggling this Mother’s Day, but the show resists the urge to make everything too hopeful. They all go through it together. It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s downright brilliant.

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Barb and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) bond over the fact that they’ve lost their moms; Barb’s passed recently, while Gregory’s died when he was nine. Bereft at the fact that Gregory won’t have anything to celebrate on Monday, Barbara invites her colleague over for a celebration, where the pair bond over the different pains they feel regarding the loss of their moms.

Jacob (Chris Perfetti) and Ava care so little about Mother’s Day that they’re channeling all their energy into the students instead of the holiday. Abbott hasn’t been able to raise enough money for a field trip this year, and although all of the other teachers have given up on the opportunity, Jacob’s not going down without a fight.

Ava is willing to help, but then again, when does Ava ever actually “help” in the true definition of the word? Jacob starts a GoFundMe—but immediately learns that Abbott Elementary is banned from making GoFundMe fundraisers, thanks to Ava’s frequent fraudulent accounts.

While at a Mother’s Day drag brunch (because nothing screams “Mother!” quite like a flurry of effervescent drag queens) with Janine and Ava, Jacob has an epiphany: They’ll host a field trip at a nearby park, which would be free. With a little help from the queens, Abbott is able to secure a handful of spots at the constantly busy park on their proposed field trip date.

This brings us back to Janine, who has the best arc of the episode. We’ve seen Janine’s fraught relationship with her mom (Taraji P. Henson) and sister (Ayo Edebiri) in past episodes. Now, we learn that Janine has a different dad than her sister, and again, no one has any clue who that is. So, this is what brings us to Kevin Hart: Ava teases Janine for not having a dad and brings up Hart. Janine, ever serious, gets to thinking—wait, didn’t her mom go to high school with Hart?

Janine calls her mom, who reassures her daughter: She and Kevin Hart never dated. Oh, but they did have sex once or twice. This sends Janine into a tizzy. After all, Janine thinks out loud, Hart is super hilarious, so it would make sense that they’re relatives. (I have to assume this is a joke, and it’s an incredibly smart one, at that. Hart thinks he’s funny, Janine thinks she’s funny, but neither of them is actually funny. Brunson, however, is a comedic genius.)

Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) happens to have a contact for Hart—because of course she does—which gives Janine the opportunity to call…her…father? Maybe? Well, no. Hart gets on FaceTime (another huge guest for Abbott) and curses Janine out, asking her to stop harassing him on social media. He always used protection. He can’t be her dad!

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Alas, I’ll continue to hold out hope that, canonically, Kevin Hart is Janine’s father. Does it make any sense? No, not at all. But Janine has struggled enough in life, not knowing her father, that she should be allowed to dream big about who he might be.

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