“Abbott Elementary” producers unpack that big Janine and Gregory moment in the season 3 finale

"In our heads, it is a journey that leads forward," Justin Halpern says.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Abbott Elementary season 3 finale, "Party."

Summer's here and the time is right… for kissing your co-worker.

At least it is for Abbott Elementary's Janine and Gregory, who finally acknowledged their feelings for each other in Wednesday night's season 3 finale. After Gregory (Tyler James Williams) rebuffed Janine (Quinta Brunson) at the beginning of the school year, saying he just wanted to be friends, the two gradually began to realize there was still something between them.

Following several attempts to admit their feelings to one another, particularly an interrupted confession during a field trip, everything came to a head at Janine's end-of-the-school-year party. Janine planned everything to a T, from anticipating Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter) arriving early and wanting to clean up to hiring Ava (Janelle James) to DJ.

Related: Bette Midler wants to play Melissa's mom on Abbott Elementary: 'If you see Quinta Brunson, please tell her'

But as the party, as parties so often do, descended into chaos — Barbara's drunk! Ava's making out with Janine's cousin! Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) abandoned his post at the dominoes table! — Gregory and Janine felt their window of opportunity closing. After seeing Manny (Josh Segarra) at the party, Gregory decided not to stand in the way of what he thought was happening there.

Meanwhile, Janine wrestled with confessing her own feelings, still reeling from Mr. Morton's (Jerry Minor) remarks about the dangers of falling for a colleague. But Mr. Johnson stepped in to offer some sage advice about living life to the fullest.

Just as Janine decided to run after Gregory, he showed up at her door, having seen Manny leave the party. He fixed her light (swoon!) and then immediately kissed her, closing the shade on the door in the window and shutting out the nosy documentary crew and their camera lens.

Entertainment Weekly called up producers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker to get all the lunchroom gossip on Gregory and Janine, why now felt like the right time to bring them together, and whether they're in it for the long haul.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Y'all really had me thinking that Gregory and Janine were just going to stay friends this season.

JUSTIN HALPERN: For real. You did think that?

Yeah. Especially because Tyler James Williams in interviews was like, "They should just be friends."

HALPERN: Good. That was our goal. Although it hasn't been necessarily fun to have people be like, "When are they getting together?" we wanted people to genuinely feel the way the characters did, which is "We weren't sure this was going to happen."

So was your plan always to bring us back here at the end of the season, or did you consider drawing it out longer? 

HALPERN: We talked about it a lot. We always talk about it in terms of the character growth of each character. We don't like to think about it like, "And then season 3 they get together." We try to see where they are emotionally and where they are in their lives and if that would line up. But in a way, they went through the same thing the audience went through, which is, "Are we going to do it? Is this right?" And then they have so many big feelings for each other that at some point it just becomes unable to be put aside and they have to to do it.

PATRICK SCHUMACKER: My mom is oftentimes my litmus test of whether or not something is working. She watches so much television. And after the field trip episode, I got a text from her saying, "Please tell me that they get together next week."

Related: Lisa Ann Walter worried women would 'hate' her Abbott Elementary character for becoming 'kind of a hoe’

What made Gregory turn around? Was it that final reassurance that Manny wasn't a factor?

HALPERN: We always talked about it as — if it didn't happen that night, it might've happened the next day or the day after that. He was realizing this is the way that he felt. The Manny thing was actually a moment of growth for the character. He was like, "I'm not going to be some person who's trying to throw a bomb into whatever she wants. If that's what she wants, I can respect that." But as soon as he found out that that's not the case, then he's like, then there's no time better than the present.

Do you all understand how sexy it is that Gregory is just casually like, "I fixed your light?"

HALPERN: We know how sexy it is. We talked a lot about how sexy it is in the writers' room. That's funny that you mentioned that moment, because that moment was pitched in week 1 of season 3's writers' room. When we were talking about how we were going to end the season and where we were going to put them, it was Brittani Nichols who pitched, "And then what if he fixes that light that's above her door?" And I believe Quinta said, "Oh, you ate that."

We have seen them kiss before and then tiptoe away from it. Might this one stick more firmly?

HALPERN: When we grow characters, we like to continue that growth. It may get messy, but we're always trying to chart a path forward. Even though when you play a "will they, won't they," it seems like it's, "Oh, we're taking two steps forward, one step back or two steps back, one step forward." But in our heads it is a journey that leads forward.

SCHUMACKER: The writers' room starts up in about a week and a half for season 4, so we can probably answer some questions more accurately then.

So much of what had held them up before was Janine feeling like she really needed this growth and period of self-reflection. Do you think she feels she's in that place now?

HALPERN: I do. We've talked a lot about it with Quinta, and she's talked a lot about it in general. Even down to what she wore this year. We're trying to show that this character is maturing. The decision she made with the district, the decision she made to come back from the district, those are all choices that belie a growth of the character and maturity.

Drunk Barbara is now my favorite Barbara. How did that come to be?

SCHUMACKER: We also loved seeing drunk Barbara. Here is this person, Barbara Howard, who is so composed for the entire school year and so poised, and it's too delicious not to see her let loose every once in a while. And it certainly felt like a rager at Janine's [was the place for it]. Janine knows her co-workers so well that she is able to mastermind the ultimate party. She's planted all of this stuff to make it happen at her whim. Barbara maybe went a little bit overboard, and Sheryl eats that stuff up. We love it. One of the funniest versions of Barbara is seeing her not so put together. It is a funny counterpoint to what Sheryl brings on a daily basis. Seeing her in that moment knocked down a little bit from that pedestal. Seeing her look human is real fun for the comedy.

Whether it was a member of your cast or someone in the writers' room, has anyone tried to throw a party with that level of specificity where people have assigned areas and tasks? 

HALPERN: No. We were just talking about it in terms of this is a moment for Janine to show growth but to still be bound by who she is. The metaphor in the episode is this is a controlled chaos, but that's an oxymoron. So for her, she's got to be able to let go in order to do the thing that she needs to do, which is show how she feels about Gregory to Gregory. It's that idea that she could go through her whole life planning this party, but the only way the party's going to get good is if she lets go.

I don't think, especially when it came to Gregory, that we might've expected Mr. Johnson to be the one doling out the sage advice here. How did you land on that choice?

HALPERN: Well, we always try to be careful with the way that we use sage advice being given from one character to another. We always try to make sure that it's coming up organically, that the situation in which they would have this conversation would be organic and be something that the person who's giving that advice would know something about it and be qualified to give it or want to give it. Mr. Johnson is a guy who has lived many, many lives. It's not just that he's an older person and he's got advice. It's specifically this man, who sucks the marrow out of life, would be someone who would have a real opinion on this. And he has a fondness for Janine and Gregory just as human beings.

Jacob finally talked to Zach after several months. Will they be friends? Is he committed to the single life for the time being?

HALPERN: Jacob's a person who likes making human connections, and if the right connection comes, he will jump at it. Melissa's in a different situation and time in her life and what she's looking for in terms of that. But Jacob, he's still in his twenties.

SCHUMACKER: I definitely think the takeaway with this finale is that Jacob and Zach are on speaking terms. It was maybe in a tipsy state, and it's water under the bridge, but this is a step in the right direction. The healing between the two of them. Of course, this is just speaking extemporaneously. I love the idea that that Zach has put on a one-man show that's basically denigrating Jacob. So who knows? Maybe that show becomes the bane of Jacob's existence. That's not canon in the show, though.

Related: Quinta Brunson wants Daniel Radcliffe to play Mr. Johnson's son on Abbott Elementary

If Gregory and Janine do move forward here, how might that impact Jacob? So much of his emotional energy has been going into being friends with both of them separately, as opposed to as a couple.

HALPERN: That might be a question that I ask on the very first day of the writers' room, to be honest.

Was Ava's night with Janine's cousin a one-night-only thing?

HALPERN: You never know with Ava. Ava leaves herself open to where life takes her. In kind of a more calculated way than Mr. Johnson, but she's also a wild card. For all intents and purposes right now, that was probably a one-night thing. But you never know.

SCHUMACKER: That's the second question Justin's going to ask the writers' room.

Will we continue seeing more of Mr. Morton next year?

HALPERN: I'm not sure, but we really found a lane for him this year that doesn't exist on the show otherwise. This is going to sound bad, but it's always funny to me in comedies when there's a character who's going through a divorce and not handling it well.

SCHUMACKER: Says the guy whose parents are still married after 70 years.

HALPERN: True. But Jerry Minor is so funny. Any time we have a guest star, we're always looking for somebody who's going to feel like they belong in the world that we've created, but also come at it from a different angle and energy. Jerry Minor is really good at that, and I like what he's done with the character, so I'm sure we will see Mr. Morton in some capacity in the next season.

What about the trio of Janine's friends at the district?

HALPERN: Despite her leaving abruptly, she obviously left on good terms with them. They're hanging out at their party. They are a part of her life. She enjoys their presence. We love having all of them on the show. And the district is organically in the lives of the teachers at Abbott and in Philadelphia. So yeah, the door remains wide open for them to return.

Related: Sheryl Lee Ralph shares tales from her storied career: a Barbie from Denzel, a haunted hotel, Bill Clinton, and more

You all have this really unique challenge with your love scenes, in that the show is a mockumentary. So how did you come up with that cameraman 360 turn and then looking through the glass door with the blind coming down?

SCHUMACKER: All credit to [director] Randall Einhorn and our camera crew for blocking it all out. That little additional moment with the sliver of below the blind was a late addition — once Randall and our DP, Mike Pepin, and all our camera operators were able to get down there on set and see exactly what they were working with. So that flourish came about a little bit later. But our art department, production designer, and art director all sat down for a nice long meeting talking about the geography of Janine's apartment, inside and out. So it became this choreographed thing that didn't look choreographed. It was a big conversation figuring out how that was going to look. Because it's such a big moment in the mythology of the show. One of our biggest, I would say.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.