Light Bulb

"Light Bulb" is the second episode of the American sitcom television series Abbott Elementary. It was written by series creator and star Quinta Brunson, and was directed by Randall Einhorn. It premiered on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on January 4, 2022. The episode follows Janine (Quinta Brunson), who attempts to fix a flickering light without the help of the school or electricians, and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) who must confront a parent of his class for bringing her son into school late. The episode sees the first appearance of recurring characters, Tariq Temple and Amber Williams. The episode also sees a short cameo from Philadelphia broadcaster Jim Gardner, who appears in the cold open and is beloved by the staff of Abbott. Plot Janine arrives at school with her boyfriend, Tariq (Zack Fox). She finds a student who does not want to walk down the hallway because of a flickering light. Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) tells her that it is above his paygrade to fix it and that they will have to wait for an electrician to get the lights fixed; because of this, she decides to fix the light herself. In Gregory's class, a student arrives with his mother an hour late, and he tries but fails to call the attention of the mother and only manages to tell her that school starts earlier than when they arrived, to which she barely acknowledges. Barbara tells him that he simply needs to talk to the student's mother. Janine finds a ladder and tries to fix the lights herself, but instead causes a partial power outage in the school. Barbara coaches Gregory into confronting Amber about her son's tardiness. He tells her that her son could fall behind and retake the grade, and she promises him that her son will be at school on time. In the electrical room, Janine fiddles with the circuit breakers in the panel box with the help of Jacob which causes all the remaining power to go out, including the air conditioning. Barbara and Melissa confront Janine after the outage; shortly before she faints due to having not eaten any food. Janine wakes up in the nurse's office. Janine finds that everybody else is outside due to the outage and the heat. Janine expresses her disappointment that after trying so hard to fix the issue with the lights, she instead managed to make things worse. Janine tries calling Tariq but gets his voicemail. Shortly after, Gregory arrives and the two decide to grab dinner.