Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams in “Abbott Elementary.” Disney/Gilles Mingasson
Fans can’t wait for school to be back in session to find out what happens on season 4 of Abbott Elementary.
The hit sitcom, which debuted in 2021, focuses on teachers in a Philadelphia public school. After premiering on ABC, the show quickly became critically acclaimed and picked up many accolades, including Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.
There have been a wide variety of characters — and story lines — to root for throughout the seasons. But nothing could have prepared fans for the season 3 finale that ended with Janine (Quinta Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) finally deciding to date after a lot of will-they, won’t-they moments.
After the episode aired, Williams made it clear there was “no going back” now that Janine and Gregory are actually exploring a future together.
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“[It is] new and fresh and different from what the previous seasons were. This season should feel tonally different for them,” he hinted exclusively to Us Weekly in October 2024. “[When season 4 starts], this will be the first time that Gregory is in the school having fully disclosed and tried to explore what happened with Janine. Obviously it’s a workplace and it’s going to make things a little complicated. The biggest thing that I can tease is how do you interact with a coworker that you have now expressed feelings for and definitely had some sort of physical interaction with? That’s really his biggest challenge this year.”
Brunson, who created the series and serves as an executive producer, also opened up about why now was the perfect time to commit to a romance.
“I’m really pumped about that [storyline],” she teased to Us. “I’m excited about Janine and Gregory both as individuals and as people who have had a situationship up until now.”
In addition to Janine and Gregory’s future, viewers are also invested in Jacob’s (Chris Perfetti) love life, Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa’s (Lisa Ann Walter) friendship and the latest antics from Ava (Janelle James) and Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis).
Not to mention the potential guest stars after season 3 surprised fans with cameos from Bradley Cooper, Jason Kelce, Kevin Hart and more.
Keep scrolling for everything to know about season 4 of Abbott Elementary:
When Is ‘Abbott Elementary’ Coming Back to ABC With More Episodes?
The series is returning on October 9, 2024, with one major change. Instead of its usual 9 p.m. ET time slot, Abbott Elementary is now going to be airing at 9:30 p.m. ET.
“What’s fun about 22 episodes is being able to have multiple arcs throughout the season. I’m just so excited to return to having longer arcs that last six episodes long. But then also having some that only last two episodes within the 22,” Brunson told Us. “I am really pumped to be able to tell those kinds of stories again because with our truncated season 3, it was a little bit harder to do and minimized the amount of different arcs we would’ve done.”
Which Stars Will Come Back?
Brunson, Williams, James, Ralph, Walter, Perfetti and Davis are returning as main cast members on the show. Fans are also holding out hope for appearances from guest stars such as Zack Fox, Taraji P. Henson and Ayo Edebiri.
“The cool thing about our show is that everybody who comes to play on the show as a guest just feels so of the world of Abbott,” Perfetti shared with Us. “Once they’re in, I feel like they’re in and we’re trying to create a vocabulary for our audience where they don’t have to say goodbye to people.”
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Will the Episode Count Be Larger?
The first season of Abbott Elementary received a 13-episode order but after becoming a hit, the sophomore season got 22. However, the third season was reduced to 14 due to the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Fans can breathe out a sigh of relief because the upcoming fourth season is returning with a whopping 22 episodes again.
“The writers and producers — we have distinct visions. So my hope is always that I’m not asking the actors to work overtime and they don’t feel the need to do anything but come in and act. Of course they have [insight into their characters that they share]. And it’s more them taking the material and performing it in a way that sometimes I don’t even expect,” Brunson noted to Us. “I’m like, ‘Oh wow, that unleashed a new layer. I didn’t see it that way, but the way you did it was exactly how that would be said.’ It’s a lot about how they say things and I think that’s really cool with our process.”
What Is the Season 4 Vision?
William Davis, Quinta Brunson, and Janelle James. Disney/Gilles Mingasson
As fans wait to see how Janine and Gregory’s story goes from here, they can also expect updates on Jacob and Melissa being roommates and the fallout of Janine no longer working for the district.
“I’m excited about our holiday episodes. Those are just fun to do and they’re so much fun for the audience,” Brunson told Us. “We will have a Halloween episode and a Christmas episode this year and that really just makes me happy.”
A teaser for season 4 didn’t give away much — except there would not be class pets for the kids. The trailer showed Ava mocking her staff’s complaints about basic classroom needs. School dances and HR visits were also teased ahead of the show’s highly-anticipated return.
“We always like to do somewhat of a catch up — whether it’s visual or verbal. It’s the top of the year so that’s something that we’ve established as a pattern that you can expect at this point now that we’re going to do it,” Williams told Us. “How we’re going to do it is always going to be unique. But I think at this point, it’s safe to expect that we will catch up over the time missed.”
Where Does Melissa’s Journey Go From Here?
Despite not knowing much about Melissa’s journey during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Walter had plenty of guesses.
“Quinta plays it so close to the chest,” Walter noted in July. “Every once in a while she’ll come up like when we’re at a For Your Consideration event [to say], ‘You are gonna be so excited about this story line for your character. Oh wait, I’m not gonna tell.’”
Walter speculated about where Melissa’s love story could go after her split from the school’s vending machine guy Gary (Bruno Amato).
“For Melissa, I know that what Quinta said ‘You know, we all love Bruno. He was so sweet and he was like the perfect guy for Melissa. He was accepting of her being big and ballsy and outrageous. He loved her anyway,’” Walter explained. “And that was too safe and too calm for Quinta.”
Walter joked that Melissa might be in a new era, quipping, “Maybe she’ll continue to be a ho!”
Walter also teased a dinner episode fans won’t see coming, telling Us, “When you see it, you’ll know what I mean. But it is a super funny version of this kind of story and I’m very excited for it. It’s just chaos.”
As for Melissa’s love life, Abbott Elementary won’t be boxing her in as she keeps exploring the dating scene.
“In Melissa’s [experience], women got with a guy and probably had kids. We still don’t know that part of Melissa’s story yet, but I think we will at some point hear what that journey was for her,” she detailed. “For Melissa, getting a divorce was so big. It was big for her that she was just afraid to go and live a life the way it might’ve been. So she’s kind of doing that now.”
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What Does Season 4 Mean for Janine and Gregory?
Not a lot of details have been revealed about Janine and Gregory’s relationship status — except for the fact that Williams will no longer pretend he wants the characters to just stay friends.
“I was doing an interview that aired the same night we shot the finale kiss. Quinta sent me a text that said, ‘You are unhinged,’” he quipped to Us. “I do still hold to that argument though that it is really important to show these kinds of platonic love relationships. That’s what we did in seasons 1 through 3. However, the story must progress. It must go somewhere. This next phase however this looks is going to be equally as important. But I’ve also said this, ‘Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer. Then I’ll lie.’ What else am I supposed to do?”
Williams said the kiss between Gregory and Janine shifts the dynamic between our favorite Abbott Elementary couple.
“I can tell you right now, we changed the way we did everything. We changed the way we did literally everything,” Williams said about how he and Brunson discussed playing Gregory and Janine on season 4 of the hit ABC sitcom. “Each year we have to approach them and their dynamic differently — specifically the way they interact. We had a lot of conversations before the season started and then after the season first started as we were sharpening and narrowing things down.”
Williams and Brunson wanted to get things just right after so much onscreen build-up. “How do they interact with each other now? How do they interact with each other physically? How do they interact with each other emotionally?” he recalled asking his scene partner. “There’s different ways in which they’re going to talk to each other. This will feel like an evolution of Janine and Gregory, similarly to how they have the previous seasons.”
What Do Fans Know About the Upcoming Crossover?
Brunson teased the exciting news during the Abbott Elementary panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July, saying, “We will be doing an interesting crossover this season. I’m not gonna tell you with who, or with what, or where, or when, but it’s really exciting and I think it’ll change television as we know it.”
That same month, Brunson elaborated on what viewers can expect from the crossover.
“Those things are what reinvigorate TV viewers, TV watchers, and I think it’s always fun to find ways to reinvigorate our audiences,” she told Variety. “What’s important with Abbott is we protect the show. Because it’s a mockumentary, we have to protect what we’re doing but … find a way for it to still be possible to do something cool like that. It makes me really, really happy. It’s just like an ode to the medium.”
Walter joked during the panel that HBO’s House of the Dragon was Brunson’s pick. Fans have since had fun by suggesting other shows including Grey’s Anatomy, The Bear, The Bachelorette, 9-1-1, Euphoria and more. It was announced in October 2024 that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was the final choice.
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Will There Be More Surprise Guest Stars?
It feels safe to assume more star-studded cameos are in the works. Schumacker previously revealed that Bruson gets contacted “a thousand times more than she lets on” about celebrities appearing on the show.
“Justin [Halpern] and I only hear of a small fraction of the celebrities and very, very famous people wanting to be on the show,” Schumacker told The Hollywood Reporter in February. “But I think all of us are in agreement, and this comes down from Quinta, that if it can’t make sense in the context of what we’re treating as a real documentary about a real school in Philadelphia, then 95 percent of the people who want to be on the show and play themselves, like their real-life counterpart essentially, it doesn’t really make a ton of sense. We don’t want to break that sort of precious truth that we’re trying to seek out with the show. That said, sometimes it’s very hard to resist.”
In November 2024, Talia Shire was cast as Melissa’s mother for an upcoming episode.