Spoilers for Abbott Elementary Season 3, Episode 4 – “Smoking” – are ahead. If you haven’t seen it, you can stream all new episodes with a Hulu subscription the day after they air on ABC.
“Moving at the speed of fun,” is how Chris Perfetti described filming Abbott Elementary, and that mentality was on full display in the hysterical final moments of “Smoking,” the episode that just aired on the 2024 TV schedule. As you might recall, at the end of the episode all about how to address smoking and drug use in schools, Jacob tries to give up vaping. However, in the final minutes, as he’s throwing the pen away, he literally dives into the trash can to get it back before actually giving it up. It was a laugh-out-loud gag, and now the actor behind Jacob has shared the story of how it happened.
While Perfetti did note that picking a favorite scene was like “picking a favorite child,” when it came to “Smoking” this scene of him jumping into the trash to retrieve his vape that included the entire cast stood out, as he told me:
I feel like my favorite moment from this episode may be at the end of the episode, when Jacob is giving up his vape. We got to film a lot of different versions of this scene. And any opportunity for like physical comedy I am probably too eager about and so yeah, we just had a blast. It was it's fun to on the day, figure out what that moment is going to be. I also relish a scene where there's a lot of people in the scene. And that's another, this was another example of where the show is kind of moving at the speed of fun, and there's a lot of people around to play off of it was it was a blast.
Watching the scene, you can tell that it was a blast, and it turns out, it was also somewhat spontaneous. While the majority of what makes it to the screen in Abbott is scripted, the cast is full of talented improvisers. Jacob diving into the trash ended up being an idea they had on the day, as Perfetti said:
Diving into a garbage can was not [scripted] but yeah, I feel like most of the time, anything that I would come up with on the fly is usually not as good as what they've already come up with. But our writers and directors have also done a really good job of giving us that space to throw down when the opportunity requires it. And my cast is so talented and such talented improvisers in particular that you know, if Tyler James Williams has an idea, you kind of gotta see what that idea is.
Again, while Perfetti said the majority of the show is scripted -- the writers “are just hitting it out of the park over and over again,” he said -- there are magical improvised moments like this occasionally.
Along with Jacob being Janine and Gregory’s biggest shipper, and his “oh my god is a woman" scene, this sequence of him jumping into the trash to retrieve his vape pen has become one of my favorite moments from the history teacher.
Mr. Johnson and Gregory catching Jacob's legs, while Janine, Barbara, Ava and Melissa react was truly hilarious. Since Janine is at the district now, we don’t get as many moments with the entire ensemble together, and “Smoking” puts them all in the same building again. Ending the episode at this point was perfection, and learning from Chris Perfetti that it happened on the day makes it even better.
I’m sure we’ll get more hilarious moments like this one as we continue to watch Season 3 of Abbott Elementary. But, while I wait for the next episode to drop on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC, I’ll be thinking about this hysterical scene at the end of a truly hilarious episode where Jacob dove into the trash to save his vape pen.
