Review: Abbott Elementary, “Karaoke” | Season 4, Episode 17
Alas, we have no idea what Mr. Morton’s go-to karaoke song would be
Just how much of Abbott Elementary should actually take place outside of the school setting? As it stands now, the series doesn’t quite go for a 50/50 split between its characters’ lives teaching at Abbott (and functioning as educators in the Philly public school system) and their personal lives when not teaching at Abbott, but considering how well the episodes that fully focus on the latter tend to turn out, it arguably wouldn’t be a problem for the show to do more of a balancing act in that sense. Sure, it still wouldn’t explain why a production crew for a documentary about the public education system1 would care about these characters’ personal lives at all—though an argument can be made that following a teacher during his side hustle to make ends meet at least actually falls in the purview of said documentary, as opposed to a karaoke night or a first date between a principal and district IT guy—but thinking outside of the mockumentary framing device, it makes…
