Abbott Elementary Season 5 Episode 15 Recap: Safety Day Goes Completely Off the Rails

This week on Abbott Elementary it is safety day and you know what that means. If you guessed chaos then you would be correct. Let's talk about it. 

Abbott came in chaotic from the jump and never really let up. The episode opened with one of the most unhinged safety assemblies they have done yet, combining texting and driving, drugs, and fire safety into one mess of a presentation. There was a staged crash, a fire and a fake fatality. Thankfully the fire was put out quickly, but the whole thing was pure Abbott chaos.

As part of the presentation, one teacher had to play the victim of a texting-and-driving accident and spend the day roaming the halls unable to talk. Ava picked Janine at first, but Gregory defended her, so naturally Ava chose him instead. Gregory being forced into silence ended up working in his favor because when one of his students asked what really happens when a person dies, he did not have to answer. For once, he was enjoying the peace until Jacob interrupted it with campaign talk.

Speaking of campaigns, Tina Schwartz, a former Abbott teacher who once kicked a student, is running for school district liaison, a word she cannot even pronounce. Jacob starts out trying to rally support for the position, but nobody is paying him any attention. He goes to Tina’s town hall and finds out no one else is there because she is running unopposed and the whole thing is basically a formality. Tina clearly knows nothing and only decided to run because she needed something to do, which tells you everything. It does not take long to see where this is headed.

Janine, meanwhile, is losing it because Gregory cannot talk. She keeps bothering Ava about it until Ava gets tired of her and has Janine “killed off” too, forcing her into silence as well. Later, Jacob tries to convince Janine to run for liaison, but in the end he chooses to step up himself.

Melissa had one of the wildest storylines of the episode. Her boyfriend being promoted to fire chief should have been a good thing, but to Melissa it suddenly made him less attractive because now she sees him as a desk jockey pushing paper. Barbara rightly tells her that this man is a catch and maybe she should think before she acts, but Melissa does what Melissa does and breaks up with him anyway because he wanted more for himself. It was completely unhinged. Thankfully, by the end, she apologizes, and he reassures her that he is not changing. He is even going to buy a Harley, which honestly felt like exactly the kind of compromise Melissa needed to hear.

Barbara spent the episode going around trying to get people to interpret her dreams, which was its own little running joke in the middle of all the other madness. Mr. Johnson taking over Gregory’s class only added to the absurdity because whenever he is left in charge, you know normal school rules are out the window.

This episode was hilarious, chaotic, and just a little dark in that way Abbott does so well. Everybody was slightly unhinged, the jokes landed, and the episode never lost momentum. Ten out of ten.

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