Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2 recap: Melissa Schemmenti's kids surprised her by acing up on a test without cheating

After the team-building session in episode 1, Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2, titled ‘Cheating,’ teased a dramatic love triangle as Tariq brings his new girlfriend’s kid, Nick, into Janine’s class. With that, Ava is set to upgrade the school and has even brought in a new counsellor, Elena Alomar, who is quite professional and keeps herself away from the ongoing drama.

On the other hand, the sixth-grade kids in Schemmenti’s class are bringing commendable grades in the Math test by cheating. However, these little cheaters aced the test without cheating, after Schemmenti learned about their tactics. 

The episode opens with Principal Ava Coleman set to upgrade the Abbott by hooking up the old speaker system to Bluetooth, and she is enjoying the moment of making announcements from her phone, from anywhere. Although she didn’t password-protect it, her announcement gets interrupted by the iconic song of Los Del Río’s Macarena. 

The whole Abbott vibes in the corridor, and that’s where the new counsellor steps in. She is Miss Elena Alomar. 

Melissa Schemmenti learns about her students' cheating scam in Abbott Elementary season 5, episode 2

The coolest of all, Melissa, is impressed by how she just got promoted to teaching sixth grade, and her students are already responding so well, acing their math tests with A+ grades. To her surprise, Gregory overhears two of the students. The student says, 

‘’I wish I could steal answer sheets for all the classes.’’

They are glad that Schemmenti is teaching them Math, but the other kid, who seemed a bit more smart, says that if they start getting straight A’s in all, they would definitely get caught. 

Greg informs Melissa about this and even complains about how her kids used ‘unkind words’ for his gardening hat, which would definitely hurt him, especially since the hat was a gift from Janine.

The kids stole the answer key, took a photo of it, and circulated it to the whole class. Schemmenti comes up with a plan. She did need to lock her desk drawers, but she preferred to handle the kids in her own way. 

She announced a new quiz in class, and the students were completely ready for it. She says, 

‘’Kids are gonna find out what Schemmenti name means. It means ‘scheme.’

Just as they were eager for the test, she said that she was keeping her keys, phone, stapler, and answer sheet in the unlocked drawer. She said she would be back within 10 minutes, but this time, the answer sheet had all the wrong answers.

To her surprise, the kids knew about her tactics. They get all the answers right in their quiz because they knew there were fake answers in the drawer. The kids talked to each other, ‘’remembered the stuff she lectured them about, the stuff she made them read, and the class discussions.’’ The bunch of kids aced the Math test again, making her revenge fail.

Tariq brings his son Nick to Janine’s class in Abbott Elementary season 5, episode 2

The teachers have to survive the whole new year, and yet the drama has already begun in ABC’s hit comedy show. Tariq, Janine’s ex, asks Nick to greet Neen, and he does by just calling her Neen instead of ‘Miss Neen.’

Janine corrects him and says that the students are not allowed to call her by her name, and Tariq makes sure that he calls her ‘Miss Neen’ from next time. Tariq has been surprisingly involved too much this season, and as per Janine ‘’he is killing it as the head of the PTA,’’ who has taken on many of the responsibilities. 

Meanwhile, Gregory enters. He assures Greg that he doesn’t have to worry about them and that nothing is going on between him and Janine. He says that ‘’it’s even inappropriate to date a co-worker.’’

Ava, who is always looking around for drama, enters the trio’s conversation and says, 

“Did I miss the show? This Janine, Tariq, Gregory love triangle about to get messy.”

Turns out, she purposely put Tariq’s kid in her class, but Janine assures that there’s no gossip she will get sooner from this class. Ava is definitely the most fun principal Abbott could ever have.

Tariq is trying to make his kid look like a VIP in the class, but Janine is not gonna let that happen, as for her, every kid is special. This even leads to a brief tiff between them. Tariq says, 

‘’If I knew you were going to treat my future son like this. I would have never dated you.’’

However, he did apologize to her later. Meanwhile, Barbara and Jacob spent the episode arguing over the dishwasher, as she was running it to wash just a single cup and a spoon, to avoid ruining her manicure. Miss Elanor was tired of them as they brought this petty issue for her to solve. 

She shut the door on them when they asked her to take sides, to which she replied, ‘’I’m with the students.’’