Major spoilers for Abbott Elementary Season 5, Episode 19 are ahead! If you haven’t seen it yet, you can stream it with a Hulu subscription.
If Jacob is the No. 1 supporter of Janine and Gregory’s relationship, then I’m their second biggest fan. So, yes, you better believe that my worst nightmare regarding Abbott Elementary centered around Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams’ characters breaking up. Therefore, you can imagine how distraught and shocked I was when that actually happened on the show. However, despite my dismay, Brunson, who plays Janine and created the series, is not sorry that it happened.
March 8 is a day on the 2026 TV schedule I won’t be forgetting, considering it’s the day Janine said that maybe she and Gregory should break up. After fighting for the whole episode about where they wanted to take a trip, Brunson’s teacher said that maybe they should end their relationship when they couldn’t compromise on how to get to the Outer Banks. During an interview with EW, the creator explained why she won’t even say sorry about that move:
I don't even want to say I'm sorry. We're all going to go on a nice sun ride with each other [after this], right?
Well, I don’t know if that will happen immediately, because I’m still upset. I’m also still dealing with a level of shock that’s greater than what I felt when Ava got fired. However, I respect her confidence in the move. I also respect why they did it.
While I’ve been a supporter of Janine and Gregory since the first episode, relationships are never perfect. It’s important to show conflict, and it allows the characters to grow. That’s the point Brunson made, too, as she further explained the choice to end the episode with the two broken up:
I think [we were excited] because Janine and Gregory are two characters we know very well, and more than anything, two characters we think we know very well. So we think we know their relationship. We feel settled with it. But I think as with any relationship, the inside has its own dynamics. And I thought that they've been in such an easy ride since they got together, it was interesting to all of us to see some different layers there.
I totally agree. While Janine and Gregory’s road to getting together was messy, once the will they/won’t they finally stopped, they haven’t faced many huge challenges. So, putting some conflict in their way is good for the couple and the story, as Abbott's creator explained:
Gregory and Janine haven't had this kind of conflict yet. So now it's like, what happens when these two developed characters — who have learned a lot of lessons and have done a lot of growing up — come to this kind of point in their relationship?
Now, considering that Janine and Gregory live together, and this proposed breakup happened really fast, I am optimistic that it isn’t permanent. I do think they’ll find their way back to each other, and this will make them stronger.
Brunson made me feel better about this, too, as she called this situation a “moment of growth” for Gregory specifically. The Janine actress explained that her character has grown a lot, and she’s learned that it’s important to “exercise her wants and get what she needs.” So, when her boyfriend wouldn’t budge on his ideas for this trip and tried to act on plans she didn’t have a say in, she put her foot down.
Now, the question we’re left with is: Can Gregory and Janine survive this? Thankfully, there are more episodes left in Season 5 (they will air every Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC), and Abbott has been renewed for Season 6. So, there’s time to figure this out, and man, do I hope they do just that, because like Jacob, I feel sick about this conflict.
