'Abbott Elementary': Janine-Gregory Breakup Explained by Quinta Brunson
Quinta Brunson, Chris Perfetti and Tyler James Williams in 'Abbott Elementary.'
Disney/Gilles Mingasson
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[This article contains spoilers from episode 19 of season five of Abbott Elementary]
Last Wednesday’s “April Fools” episode of Abbott Elementary was all fun and (stressful) pranks, but this week, there were noticeably fewer laughs between everyone’s favorite teacher couple at the school.
Episode 19 of season five began with Gregory (Tyler James Williams) and Janine (Quinta Brunson) attempting to plan their first couple’s trip after moving in together earlier in the season, but differences over their individual philosophies around money and time quickly turned the process from pleasant to painstaking, with Gregory wanting to book an Airbnb and make an eight-hour trek in a car to the Outer Banks to save money and Janine preferring direct flights, a hotel and spa treatments.
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The pair initially decide to change their vacation destination to Atlantic City as a happy medium, but Janine later approaches Gregory during the workday with a compromise she deems “a bit more compromise-y,” telling him she went ahead and bought their flights to the Outer Banks herself since money was the issue. Gregory calls the purchase “a waste,” Janine says Atlantic City was a “cheap idea,” and the argument spills over into the couple’s home life, leading Janine to question how they can make their relationship work if they can’t even figure out a simple trip. Gregory says they won’t if they can’t get on the same page, and Janine responds by saying maybe the two should break up.
Viewers don’t exactly know what happens next, as both Janine and Gregory are left stunned into silence. However, Jacob (Chris Perfetti) receiving a text from Janine the next day that sends him hurling into a garbage can in front of Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) appears to be confirmation that the two did indeed split.
Below, Brunson talks with The Hollywood Reporter about Janine and Gregory’s breakup, whether this could lead to any romantic developments with Dominic, the newest teacher at Abbott Elementary, played by Luke Tennie, and preparing to hit the 100-episode mark of Abbott with the recent news of the ABC sitcom’s season six renewal.
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My first question is quite broad: Why?
(Laughs.) I’m sorry, that really cracked me up. I’m trying to get an answer together. Did you have more to that?
Why a breakup… why now?
Because no one saw it coming. I think that’s a great time to throw a stone at the settled earth. It was something I thought about from the beginning of this season. They’ve been in a relationship for a while now, and we’ve seen them be really great and go through the honeymoon phase, but I wanted to get under the surface a little bit about what could be going on with these characters and how, in relationships, things like this happen. We see it every day — couples who look kind of perfect from the outside. There can be things going on in that we don’t know about, that they discover within their relationship.
A few episodes before this one, when Janine and Gregory were deciding to move in together, I thought for a second that could be their undoing, but then they compromised pretty well and got a new place together. How did you decide a trip would be the impetus for their separation?
Because it was such a seemingly small thing. It felt like one of those things that can get so big, and you don’t even know why. We talked about this a lot in the room about relationships and past relationships, current relationships, how you never know. It could be this one little thing that leads you into an argument. I’m in my room, so I’m just looking around, but, for instance, if one person likes to sleep with the TV on and the other person doesn’t, this seems like a small thing, but before you know it, it could get really big and it’s like, “wait, why are we fighting right now?” This small thing was actually a catalyst for possibly some larger discussions that need to happen between two people who are trying to spend a lot of time with each other and possibly their lives together.
To that point, I wondered if, when Janine says, “Well, maybe we should break up,” did she really mean that?
From watching, you can see that she surprised herself. I’m not g