Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
The teachers ask the local community for new school supplies via wishlists and promotional videos. And wanting to support Barbara who isn't interested in social media, Janine asks for Ava's help in making a video to help grant what she needs from her wishlist. She regrets it when she sees what Ava will create for higher ratings. Elsewhere, Jacob tries to make due with an unusable printer while Gregory tries to add some decorations to his new room.
Tropes:
- The Alleged Computer: Almost, with the lame printer dropped off in the Cold Open. It wasn’t on the requested list of supplies, it didn’t come with a cord and the cord’s not a normal one, and also sometimes it smokes.
- Bait-and-Switch: Ava seems like she’s helping Janine and Barbara sincerely, albeit a little manipulatively. But then it turns out she’s putting totally personal luxury items on Janine’s wish list, like a foot bath, and people are actually buying them!
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Janine goes to Ava for help in making a successful video for Barbara who's struggling with obtaining school supplies. Her video proves to be so popular that she not only gets everything on her wishlist, and more, but it turns Barbara into a spectacle with media hounds wanting to get photos of the "oldest and poorest" teacher in Abbot Elementary.
- Cold Open: Janine explains that Wish List Weekend is when teachers share what school supplies they need with the community and collect funds or supplies. But that unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know how to do that very well. A comically bad printer is then dropped off, see The Alleged Computer.
- The Comically Serious: Greg is so serious he takes kids’ drawings at face value and assumes they’re drawings pictures of celebrities instead of things they’d actually be seeing.
- Comically Small Bribe: Ava mentions having bribed one of Mrs. Howard's students with a dollar to have her act sad for the video.
- Crazy Survivalist: Ava has an earthquake preparedness kit, despite how unlikely they are.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Greg is avoiding getting comfortable at his desk since he doesn’t expect to be there that long. Janine convinces to open up a bit and put up the pictures the students are drawing of him.
- Everyone Has Standards: Barbara isn’t really mad about people using social media for their wish lists, but she does object to them talking about how underfunded and disadvantaged the school is, since even if it’s true, it makes it look like they have no pride in the school, which reflects onto the students.
- Expospeak Gag: When repurposing the printer as a plant holder, Jacob calls its page receiver a “shade distribution mechanism”
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Ava starts making videos for Barbara behind her back and saying she did it, which escalates to the point that influencers are coming into the school looking for her, at which point the jig is up.
- The Generation Gap: Explored. Jacob, Ava and Janine are more comfortable using social media to solicit help for the wish lists, and even find fantastic success doing so. But Barbara resists them because she’s not used to the technology, which leads to Janine going behind her back and asking Ava to make one for her without Barbara knowing.
- Granola Girl: Janine quips that Jacob has ethical objections to “well, everything”
- Hidden Depths: Being a social media clout chaser means Ava is actually a pretty good video creator.
- I'll Take That as a Compliment: Janine’s reaction to the video Ava made for Barbara:
- Janine: This is the most emotionally manipulative thing I’ve ever seen!Ava: Thank you!
- Karma Houdini: Despite embezzling hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise from Janine’s wish list, Ava faces no consequences.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: The endpoint of Jacob trying to get the printer to work. After the final attempt to make it useful - repurposing it as a plant holder - he admits he can’t make it useful and lets Johnson trash it.
- Shout-Out:
- Ava jokes about being the other famous Ava director.
- She then compares having to erase her Barbara video to be the same as Beyoncé being forced to delete Lemonade (2016).
- So Bad, It's Good: Janine’s self-made promotional video is so bad it becomes funny, which is why she solicits Ava’s help.
