Review: Abbott Elementary, “April Fools” | Season 5, Episode 18

The gamut of holiday-themed sitcom episodes usually covers Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day, with maybe a St. Patrick's Day or Easter special thrown in there if the schedule works out. But April Fool’s Day episodes are a much rarer thing, and that immediately gives this week’s very funny Abbott Elementary an extra pep in its step. Shout-out to whichever writer looked at the schedule and realized that for the first time in the show’s run, it would be airing an episode on April 1st. That sort of real-world calendar tie-in is a big part of what makes the classic network TV experience so special.  

It helps that April Fool’s Day is a perfect holiday for a show about an elementary school. While Halloween and Christmas are both associated with kids too, April Fool’s Day feels like our most purely childish holiday. It’s based on a premise and a power dynamic kids love, and though I’ve never worked at a school myself, I suspect a lot of teachers probably do have to be aware of the risk of pranks (or pull them themselves) when April 1st falls on a school day. While Abbott doesn’t concern itself too much with realism this week, the silliness is at least rooted in some sort of core truth.

It also helps that—even more so than “No Homework” last week—this episode really lets the show’s main cast bounce off one another as a true ensemble. Though a more expected version of this set-up would have followed the teachers as they tried to out-prank one another, Abbott delivers what amounts to a murder mystery caper in which they have to come together to figure out which unseen force is pranking them one by one. That allows for a different, more purely silly energy than if everyone were in conflict.