It's been a LONG time since I've seen a good crossover, "good" being the key word here. I'm not talking about cameos in shared universes like the MCU, the Arrowverse's annual four episodes across four shows, or Netflix's Perfect Match series dedicated to creating a Netflix reality family. I'm thinking about the days of Disney Channel's Russo family meeting up with the Suite Life twins or Phineas & Ferb doing a Star Wars episode and a Marvel episode, all of which is possible because of the Disney umbrella.
So it should come as no surprise that two Disney umbrella shows set in Philadelphia would find themselves coming together on the silver screen. ABC's hit sitcom Abbott Elementary recent featured the five stars of the long-running FX staple It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and perhaps the biggest appeal of this crossover was that the PG rated cast of Abbott would have to contend with the wildly unstable cast of Sunny.
As a fan of Sunny who had only seen the first few episodes of Abbott way back when season 1 was airing, I was looking forward to how the Paddy's clan would do at an elementary school (not for the first time), and while I definitely enjoyed the episode, the overall plot and the use of most Sunny characters left me wishing for a tighter script.

The Premise of the Crossover
The crossover kicks off with the teachers of Abbott ready to receive volunteers to help out with their day-to-day activities. There's a funny moment during which Melissa remarks that if Goldilocks broke into her place, she'd eat her ass, causing Janine, Gregory, and Jacob to whirl around as she doesn't realize her accidental double entendre. It gives newcomers a chance to get familiar with these characters before they're off to meet the volunteers.
As Abbott is a mockumentary, something the Sunny characters wouldn't be used to, I expected this aspect to come into play, and we do get a bit of that from Dennis choosing to hide from cameras all week because he knows all about "filming and consent" (which Abbott fans might not know refers to Dennis's extensive collection of, let's call them, "self-tapes," courtesy of hidden cameras in his bedroom that allow him to collect tons of footage without his partners' knowledge).
But this is sort of the only time we really see the mockumentary stuff come into play besides the end tag interviews, and I do wish we maybe had a couple shots of the camera crew catching the Sunny gang doing some questionable things and even had the Abbott crew see that footage. At any rate, they all get paired up and head off to help out.
The Elements That Worked
Charlie learning to read was an obvious plot choice but a pretty good one. The scene where he tries to read off Jacob's history presentation and completely butchers the words had me dying. And it's not just random words, either, as battle becomes baffling while Charlie inaccurately explains an extremely famous war by completely misreading Jacob's board to suggest that marines and aliens teamed up.
It might have been nice to see Charlie give a speech at graduation that he wrote and have it call back to the episode where he writes a speech for Dennis that makes zero sense ("The Gang Runs For Office") and other episodes in which he shows off his writing, which is almost as bad as his reading.
But then again, if they'd done this they might not have been able to have that end tag moment where Charlie shows he still can't read. That end tag featuring interviews from the cast was definitely enjoyable, especially Frank encouraging crime because Charlie learned to read, and then cutting to Charlie misreading "guests" as "ghosts."
The gang being criminals that were there for community service came as no surprise and in fact, I had predicted this because this ain't their first rodeo when it comes to that sort of thing. I wonder if we'll actually see the crime they described committing in season 17.
Dee's feature was working at first, with her and Janine bonding over going to Penn. Her cosplaying as Ben Franklin to help Janine teach is 100% up her alley as Dee loves playing characters and even taught acting before. I thought they'd continue in that direction and maybe have her and Janine fall out over Dee no longer cooperating while she tries to do her own take on the character or becomes overly critical of Janine (which Dee has a tendency to do when someone tries to say something and she gets defensive and starts throwing insults). But unfortunately, that wasn't the direction they took.
The Missed Opportunities
Having Dee's storyline become about hitting on Gregory was maybe not the best direction to go. Kaitlin Olson really sold it with her acting, 'cause it really did feel like Dee would do that, but I think there was a lot else they could've done and perhaps they only did this because they needed to give Gregory more screentime?
Besides this, he was only marginally in Frank and Mr. Johnson's raccoon plotline, which really wasn't a great utilization of Frank nor was it a decent plotline on its own. Frank's tips about the smell of urine and him being stuck in the cage were okay attempts, but I feel like they didn't really come up with something that catered specifically to his character.
Similar to Frank, Mac also didn't have a suitable storyline in this episode. He's basically just trying to get the community service slip signed and that's about it. Ava is able to use him to threaten the school board to send someone to fix their scoreboard, but he doesn't even do anything, she just mentions him. Knowing Mac and the way he thinks he has serious fighting moves and can take people down or be a bodyguard, why didn't they have him offer to do that? He could've suggested several highly violent solutions (yet described in a PG appropriate way) that Ava could hop between turning down and seriously considering before deciding no, that wouldn't work.
On the Abbott side, it feels like we didn't get that much from Jacob, Melissa, and Gregory since Barbara took more of a lead during the teaching-Charlie storyline and Gregory was just kinda there for Janine and Mr. Johnson's storylines. Even though they did have screentime, it doesn't feel like we really got to know what these three are about compared to Janine, Ava, Barbara, and Mr. Johnson.
Also, the way they found out the gang was there for court-mandated community service just felt really random. Melissa recognizes them and they're all thinking something's not right with these people, then they find out they're criminals and Melissa says their bar sucks, and cue mid-episode ad break? It just felt like the lead up was off and it didn't really have much impact.
Hopes For The Sunny Version
Overall, I still liked the episode, and the 17th season of Sunny is slated to have their version of the crossover at some point, so I have some hopes for what we'll see.
Charlie is the janitor at Paddy's, and while I was surprised to see him and Mr. Johnson have zero interaction, I understand one episode can't do everything so maybe the crossover episode of Sunny will have more of a storyline with them.
Since Glenn Howerton was unavailable, Dennis was barely in this crossover, so hopefully we'll see more of him in the other one.
Frank will really be at home on the Sunny set, so I can't wait to see him get weird with it.
Dee will hopefully get to do more than just chase after Gregory, and Mac can maybe show off how he's definitely, unquestionably, the leader of the Paddy's gang.
The gang's insane debates and discussions are among the highlights of Sunny, so to see the characters of Abbott exposed to how unhinged these people can really get on a TV-MA platform would be really fun. This could also give us a chance to get to know the Abbott characters a bit better, and in a way we would never see on their show.
The Sunny version could really take on any number of forms, from behind the scenes of this crossover to a whole storyline where the Abbott crew comes to Paddy's for who knows what reason, or maybe the gang runs into the teachers out in Philly and tries to use them for their schemes. My most unhinged idea right now is that the Abbott crew will have to testify in court where the Sunny gang are on trial for something illegal they did on or near school premises, and the documentary team rolls out some evidence.
Regardless of what shenanigans ensue, I have a feeling the best is yet to come.