Review: Abbott Elementary, “Smith Playground” | Season 3, Episode 13
We’re still asking that will-they-won’t-they question, huh?
It’s difficult to review an episode of television—no matter how familiar you are with a show—when you fundamentally don’t grasp the premise presented within it. (It’s also quite scary to admit that you don’t quite “get” the media you’re dissecting, but arguably, the state of culture criticism would be in a much better place if more writers simply admitted that.) But this ended up being the case for me with “Smith Playground,” an episode of Abbott Elementary that admittedly left me with more questions than answers, as well as extremely frustrated in just about every scene. It’s unfortunately an episode that embodies this season’s biggest structural and character issues, which have only been highlighted in Janine returning to Abbott from the district.
The larger questions I had up top for “Smith Playground” actually stemmed from last week’s episode, “Mother’s Day,” and I’d hoped (or at least, assumed) that they would be answered here. As I noted in last week’s stra…