Review: Abbott Elementary, “2 Ava 2 Fest” | Season 3, Episode 10
Somehow, Janine returned (to Abbott)
Back in 2022, toward the end of October, there was a meme going around Twitter about “villains” in television shows. More specifically, “the show villain” (who the show considers the villain) versus “the actual villain.” Naturally, a lot of the examples given by people were steeped in misogyny (the ol’ Skyler White Dilemma), but there was a fervor around an Abbott Elementary one that suggested—and this was conveniently just before the episode “Juice” really ramped up the conversation—Ava was “the show villain,” with Janine being “the actual villain.”
As you can imagine, there were plenty of contrarian responses to this example, from dismissing the idea of Ava being positioned as a villain at all to noting that the real villain of the show was obviously the public school system. (And, of course, charter schools.) But the major talking point was the idea of Janine being seen as a villain for the crimes of being annoying at best and meddlesome at worst. “Juice” and …