Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2 ending explained: How does Melissa deal with her cheating students?

Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2, titled Cheating, aired on October 8, 2025. In episode 1, the teachers participated in team-building exercises while Ava worried about the school slowly falling apart. That doesn't change in episode 2 as Barbara and Jacob start a minor feud over the dishwasher.

They even involve the school's new guidance counselor, Ms. Elena Alomar, in the mix despite her being at the end of her rope.

Disclaimer: The article contains spoilers from Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2. Readers' discretion is advised.

After being made a teacher of middle school math, Melissa confidently believes she has the students under control in Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2. She even believes her methods for teaching and handling them are working perfectly, especially after they score near-perfect results on a test.

She brags about it to the other teachers until Gregory overhears the students blabbering about how they cheated on the test. He tells this to Melissa, who devises a plan to catch them in the act by planting a fake answer key and giving another test. However, that plan fails, as the students figure it out and study for the test, ultimately acing it again.

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Melissa definitely has her hands full with the grade six students in Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2

A still from Abbott Elementary season 5 (Image via ABC)

While initially confident about being assigned to teach the older children at Abbott Elementary, Melissa gets a shock when Jacob and Morton criticize the experience. Hearing their experiences of teaching the higher classes, she considers returning to teaching second graders in the season premiere. However, she eventually changes her mind and decides to take on the new challenge.

However, in Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2, she thinks she has things under control, but the students are definitely toying around with her. After bragging about her students' acing a test and praising herself for the way she has adapted and dealt with the kids, Melissa is soon hit with a reality check.

Gregory overhears a few students from her class talking about how they cheated their way to a perfect score. Despite being initially shocked by the information, she decides to take action and catch them in the act.

In Abbott Elementary season 5, episode 2, she creates a fake answer key and leaves it in her unlocked desk drawer before distributing a new test and leaving the classroom. However, when she corrects the test papers, Melissa realizes that her students have aced this one too, but not via cheating.

When she confronts the students, they tell her that they studied together as a group for the test, knowing that the test answers are fake. Instead of being happy and proud, she is pissed off and decides to take action, this time by teaching her students.

The episode ends with Melissa teaching her class how to cheat better and promising to make her tests harder and harder the quicker they learn, something the class gets overjoyed with.

Read more: Abbott Elementary season 4 recap: All to know before season 5 arrives

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Barbara and Jacob go to war over the dishwasher, dragging in an overworked new guidance counsellor

A still from Abbott Elementary season 5 (Image via ABC)

While a majority of the Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2 focuses on Janine attempting to deal with her ex-boyfriend, Tariq, and Melissa’s battle with her new class, Barbara and Jacob are in a war of their own. The two fight over the dishwasher. Barbara insists on putting in the bare minimum required to get what she wants: her cup clean and usable again.

However, Jacob argues that it should be filled up to save water and thus the planet in the process. It escalates into an all-out war as the two parties intensify their disagreement, primarily out of principle, using Post-its as their chosen weapons. Jacob starts things off after dragging the new guidance counsellor, Elena Alomar, into the battle in Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2.

Alomar doesn’t say a word but merely nods at what Jacob says, which he takes to be a sign that she’s on his side. So he starts his Post-it war by sticking the note on the dishwasher door, and Barbara doesn’t take it well at all. She talks to Elena, who continues to be an unwitting participant, and again she simply nods and says a few encouraging words, which Barbara takes to mean she’s on her side.

Barbara then escalates the situation by starting the dishwasher with just one tiny spoon and a cup, something that Jacob reacts badly to. The two then take their troubles to Elena, who slams her door in their face. They take their troubles with the counsellor to Ava, the principal in Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2.

That doesn’t work well as Ava takes Elena’s side, helped by a conversation she had minutes before the two entered with Elena. That’s when Jacob and Barbara realise that they’ve been overdoing things and patch up, with Jacob even getting her a second mug to help ease the transition.

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Interested viewers can watch Abbott Elementary season 5 episode 2 on ABC.

Edited by Riya Peter