The Gang’s all here this season on “Abbott Elementary” — and we’re referring to the Paddy’s Pub gang. In advance of Wednesday night’s Season 4 premiere (9:30 p.m. ET on ABC), Justin Halpern and fellow EP Patrick Schumacker spoke with Variety about some of this season’s themes and storylines — including the just-confirmed crossover with “It’s Aways Sunny in Philadelphia.”
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“Sunny” star Rob McElhenney made it official last week via his social media account, posting photos of him and Brunson, along with Williams and William Stanford Davis from “Abbott” and “Sunny’s” Charlie Day and Danny DeVito outside the Warner Bros. lot studio for “Abbott.” Now, Halpern and Schumacker confirm that the entire “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” cast will appear in episode 409, and the storyline will take up the full half hour.
“We got the whole gang, the ‘A’ story, ‘B’ story, ‘C,’ ‘D,’ it’s all them” Schumacker said. That means Glenn Howerton (who’s currently shooting Netflix’s “Sirens”) and Kaitlin Olsen, who’s starring in ABC’s “High Potential,” will also make an appearance Because of schedules, the episode still has some scenes left to shoot next week.
“Charlie Day’s character has a pretty significant storyline in our episode,” he added. “It was kind of a joke at first, that the two shows should cross over. On paper, it feels like they’d be a real tonal mishmash. But then Rob and Charlie came to our writers room and we hashed out some real broad stroke ideas. From there, we emailed back and forth beat sheets and then an outline. They were super game for everything. All those concerns that we had about the tones of the shows butting against each other were alleviated the second we started filming with Charlie.”
Schumacker said any “Abbott” fans who are unfamiliar with “Sunny” shouldn’t feel left out, however. “It just kind of works in a vacuum,” he said. “They just feel like other guest stars on the show. Obviously, it’s going to have a much deeper meaning for ‘Sunny’ fans.”
Will we see the “Abbott” characters show up at Paddy’s Pub? “We can’t say too much about that yet,” Halpern teased.
There’s also a bit of an internal crossover: “Abbott” executive producer Randall Einhorn has also directed several “Sunny” episodes, while “Abbott” script supervisor Jeff Gonzalez also worked on “Sunny” for several seasons.
Meanwhile, once the “Sunny” stars wrap their “Abbott” appearance, they’re off to shoot Season 17 of their long-running FX comedy. So, is there a chance there might be a reciprocal “Abbott” crossover on “Sunny”? “Great question!” Schumacker said. “I don’t know that we’re allowed to answer that question right now.”
Halpern and Schumacker credited Brunson for first coming up with the crossover idea after running into McElhenney at an event. The duo continued talking (and posting!) about it until it eventually became real. “In most comedy writers rooms, you start the day by shitting on other shows that are on TV,” Halpern said. “But that’s not Quinta at all. Quinta comes in and talks about TV she loves. She has watched every sitcom, and she loves being excited about sitcoms. ‘Sunny’ is like a formative show for comedy writers, and so it was like the chance of, ‘one of the shows that we all love, we have a chance to play for a little bit in their sandbox.’ And it was born from Quinta loving sitcoms and being like, ‘I want to do stuff with other sitcoms that I think are so funny.'”
Meanwhile, there’s plenty more happening this season on “Abbott Elementary,” including one big thruline: A new PGA golf course being built next to the school, which causes plenty of construction headaches and concerns over gentrification.
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“Every season, we try and tackle a larger issue, with charter schools in Season 2, Janine dealing with the district and seeing it on the other side in Season 3, and then this one, with gentrification,” Schumacker said. “The specter of this PGA golf course opening up in West Philly is kind of going to haunt everybody for the duration of the season. It creates a conversation about how do these two sides coexist. Is one going to have to give and break ultimately, or can they possibly coexist?”
And there’s no easy answer, as PGA lawyer Miles Nathaniel (played by Matt Oberg) attempts to bribe the school with free computers and other perks. “It’s a kind of Faustian bargain,” Schumacker noted. Those gifts do have meaning, which makes it all the more murky.
“We try really hard on ‘Abbott’ to show the gray area that exists in all of these issues,” Halpern said. “Like last year with the district, this isn’t just like a bunch of big bad bureaucrats. There are people inside it who are trying to do the right thing, and here’s what’s holding it up, and there’s the gray area. Charter schools the same thing, like everybody is the hero in their own story. And so even with this, we’re more interested in what’s happening with our characters, and how does this change the way that they might feel about something, or make them feel a different way.”
(As an aside, Halpern revealed that “Miles Nathaniel” is an inside joke that Brunson put into the script. Halpern said his son was originally named “Nathaniel” — but after a few months, he and his wife realized it didn’t fit their child. So they legally changed it to “Miles.”)
Also this season, we’ll meet more family members who we haven’t seen before from the core cast. And the show will peer deeper into some of the other characters’ lives.
“You’re going to get to see some larger arcs from characters who maybe had things in their lives that have changed, so they’re suddenly open to new journeys in their life,” Halpern said. “That will allow us to explore all of our characters in a way we haven’t yet. Our goal every season is, what can we do to peel back another layer on every character, to not just continue to do the same kinds of jokes all the time? What new things can we learn about them? How can we grow them? Even as we talk about them in the writers room, there’s still huge parts of their lives that you don’t know as a audience member.”
And no spoilers, but Schumacker added, “There’s going to be a romance from a character that might not be expected. So we have that to look forward to. And in Season 3, we thought it might be too on the nose in dealing with some labor union issues [because of the Hollywood strikes]. But we we’re exploring a little bit of that this season. We have have an arc that deals with a labor movement that directly affects our characters, and not in an expected way.”
Then there’s the world of “Abbott Elementary” itself. The set continues to expand — we see stairs for the first time. And in an episode directed by Schumacker, we’ll get to see more of what’s actually across the street from the school.
“We have the teacher’s entrance from the outside now,” he said. “We don’t actually have to go to a location anymore, it’s on our back lot. I got to direct Episode 6, and in that episode where we actually, for the first time ever, see the entire physical intersection outside the student entrance. The deli across the street and the corner store and all of that. You actually kind of get to see the full geography and how big our footprint is on the lot!”
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