Vice principal full#

Flanked by Lee and Nash - who now has gone full mini-Gamby with a blazer on top of her shirt-and-sweater vest ensemble - he bursts into the gymnasium and proceeds to begin evacuating the school. This is exactly the kind of crisis needed to finally get Gamby all the way into principal mode. The graduation centerpiece is a caged tiger, and after failing to kill Snodgrass, Abbott sets it loose, declaring, “If I can’t have a beautiful life, at least I’ll have a beautiful death.” The tiger, however, has other plans, heading straight past Abbott and mauling its trainer. The show vaults straight from horrific to surreal as Gamby and Russell, who was just grazed, head to the school to stop Abbott from wreaking further havoc at graduation. If there was any doubt that this season was going to go full Brian De Palma, it’s gone now. It’s a shocking moment given how relatively low the stakes usually are (this is a school show, for Chrissakes), dramatically upping the bar for just how crazy the rest of the finale will be. Gamby refuses, and when Lee rolls up to tell Gamby what he’s figured out, Abbott pulls out a pistol and shoots Russell in the head. Wearing a wedding dress, she tells Gamby that the way he’d strung her along over the last year had really messed with her head, and that the only way to fix it would be if they got married. By the time he drives to Gamby’s house to tell him, Abbott is already there. With no one to back him up, Russell sets up his own conspiracy board (a geometric miracle in comparison to Gamby’s red-string diorama), and comes up with … Jen Abbott.

Although it may not be the comeuppance that she deserves to bring down upon Russell and Gamby’s heads, the scene is a neat button on the biggest story line that’s been left hanging open, and a fitting good-bye for a character who’s always been more mature than the fools around her.

She has a whole new life as the principal of a private girls’ school, and quickly kicks him off campus. He goes to Belinda Brown to appeal for help, but she’s not having it. In typical Russell fashion, it’s only now that he’s been ousted that he tries to figure out who set him up. Y’all had feelings for each other.”Īs you may have gathered (and congrats to those of you who figured this out early), Russell is not, in fact, Gamby’s shooter. Dayshawn is the only one who seems to have any idea of how much it’s affecting Gamby, as he notes, “You’re sad as fuck that Mr. Gamby’s last encounter with Russell has left him a little rattled, something that’s not helped by how keen the staff are to harp on him now that he’s gone. It’s a sweet moment and an unusually harmless cold open, though that complacency doesn’t last long. The earnest tone is set from the start, as Gamby uses his position as acting principal to give Robin a shout-out on the morning address, telling him that he’s proud of him. The show, like its protagonist, is ultimately softhearted, and manages to pull it off by doubling down on love. As it turns out, the big payoff at the end of Vice Principals isn’t the reveal of the shooter, getting the girl, or exacting revenge, though we do get all three of those things.ĭespite the more cutting material that the show shucks in order to accomplish this conclusion - for a long while, it felt like it was going to be a near-surgical dismantling of modern America - I couldn’t be happier.

Vice principal