I Got Thoughts On Jane The Virgin: Chapter 47

I Got Thoughts is a thing I've been trying where I post a point-form collection of my thoughts on episodes of television for shows instead of a normal recap to better express myself and give it a personal touch. Some thoughts will be longer than other ones as the following post will demonstrate.

-Hey, this post is going to get really personal, so if that's not your jam you can skip this post. I won't be mad. OK, here we go.

-So I'm a virgin (Told you this post was super personal) of roughly the same age as Jane waiting for marriage like Jane did. It's a personal choice for reasons that started out as purely faith-based but have expanded as I grew older to be more about my own ideas of romanticism and sex as a personal, meaningful experience between two people. I'm aware a very large number of people feel differently than I do and that's fine. I respect that and I don't judge anyone who doesn't wait because it has nothing to do with me. Everyone's entitled to their own choices and opinions about sex and everyone deserves to have their choices respected. That being said, "waiting until marriage" isn't really something you see on television or film these days and while I'm definitely not calling for more abstinence on TV, it does get lonely sometimes (for lack of a better word). So I've always appreciated how Jane the Virgin has carefully and respectfully Jane's virginity, which she finally lost tonight when she consummated her marriage to Michael at last. It was always something that the show took seriously and explored honestly, but it was never a huge part of the show, despite being part of the show's title (Which will apparently now be constantly changing and in flux). It came up when it was pertinent to the stories the show told and was backgrounded the rest of the time. It was part of who Jane was but it didn't define her. She's always been much, much more than just Jane the Virgin. The show could've lost the "Virgin" part at any time, but they chose to wait until it was right for the character and I find that amazing. I genuinely never expected for them to actually have Jane wait until marriage to have sex so it's a big deal for me that they actually followed through with that. And Chapter 47 was everything I wanted for the episode where Jane has sex, which was handled with the same respectfulness and care that's been present throughout the show as it explored the effect finally having sex had on Jane.

-I was wondering how the sex in question would be handled. This is the CW after all and while Jane has never been afraid to get steamy, a full-on sex scene would've felt weird. The animated representations of Jane and Michael getting into a rocket and travelling around the world though? Perfect the first time (albeit too short, which makes sense as it wasn't that satisfying for Jane) and even better the second time (which got the extended sequence it deserved). It's the kind of super cutesy thing only Jane could really get away with, through the whimsical tone they've established from the get-go.

-Even though last episode ended with Jane and Michael rushing off to have sex, I was worried that they were going to get waylaid by something to delay the moment from happening until at least the end of the episode. And they were waylaid, but the distractions weren't in the way for very long and they had sex by the end of the first act, which was much appreciated. That left the episode more time to explore the aftermath.

-Having Jane's first time be a confusing disappointment where she faked an orgasm was smart and felt true to life. When you build something like that up for so long, there's no way that it immediately manages to live up to your expectations.

-Having Jane also accidentally record her first time and send it to her adviser was a weird choice and probably unnecessary, but the awkward scene between Jane and Professor Donaldson wound up being funny enough to justify it, while moving along the Jane's thesis storyline well.

-The thing in this episode that really hit close to home was Jane's ultimate fear that a huge part of her identity was gone now that she had had sex. Having this fear manifest itself through Jane becoming concerned about Xo considering giving up on being a famous singer to explore other possible career venues was a smart move on the writers parts (I feel I say "smart move" a lot but that's only because the Jane writers make a lot of smart moves) and added more heft to Xo's eventual conversation with Jane, grounding it in their mother-daughter bond. Xo assuring her that she hadn't lost something and had instead gained something was powerful and something I had never thought about before (So Xo helped me out too. Thanks Xo!).

-Jane and Michael watching their own accidental sex tape and that leading to their much more satisfying second encounter (after some hilarious mishaps with both of them too in their own heads earlier in the episode) was the other reason I wound up being fine with that particular plot point.

-Jane's thesis gets revisited this episode too as we find out Alba has an estranged sister Cecilia (Who used to look exactly like Jane), who ruined Alba's wedding by revealing she wasn't a virgin. Gina Rodriguez gets to show off even more of her acting chops by playing a fantasy version of Cecilia as Jane tries to get into her head for why she'd do such a thing for her novel. It's terrific.

-The Cecilia runner even plays into Jane's ongoing identity crisis in the end, as Jane tries to use her newfound sexual experience to deepen the character, but gets completely hung up on that aspect of the character. Once she puts that aside and starts focusing on other details of Cecilia's life, she's able to crack the character and accidentally stumbles on the real reason she tried to derail Alba's marriage: she was in love with Alba's fiance. Hopefully we get to see real Cecilia sometime soon.

-Gloria and Emilio Estefan guest-starred in this episode! That's pretty neat! Having Rogelio call in a favour (According to him, he gets one every 20 years) to help Xo instead of himself like he planned was sweet.

-The majority of the Estefan's appearance is spent fawning over them, so when Jane snaps at Gloria for encouraging Xo to explore other ventures beyond singing, the moment is that much funnier.

-Rogelio pitching an American remake of The Passions of Santos to The CW allows the show to get incredibly, delightfully meta as it both pokes fun at The CW (Jane and Xo have never heard of it and Rogelio hails their "Superhero every day of the week" plan as genius at the actual meeting), while also heaping tons of praise on The CW and giving it a bit of promotion (I was excited to see a poster for The 100 in the background).

-Rogelio giving Dinah 51% ownership of Santos feels like the kind of thing that will haunt him later but I hope not because I love Judy Reyes and want her to be in this show at every opportunity as an ally. Rogelio's declaration that they were artistic soulmates was surprisingly sweet.

-The show finally acknowledges that Luisa and Rose are going in circles by having them literally spend over a month going in circles at the bottom of the ocean. Clever.

-The Sin Rosetro element of the show has long been it's weakest, but focusing it on the idea of Rose wanting to get out of the crime game and settle down with Luisa (who may or may not be game for that. It's left up a secret what she actually decided in the end) has potential. Her apparently killing Rafael's mother at the end of the episode is also promising for at least suggesting that they're going to simplify the crime story.

-No Petra/Anezka this week. Smart call as that story would've overstuffed the episode.

-So I guess Jane The Virgin is gonna have to change that title now (At least in show). That could be fun.

-Thanks for reading all that super personal stuff earlier. I think it turned out really well!

I Got Thoughts On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: When Will Josh See How Cool I Am?

I Got Thoughts is a new-ish style of recap I'll be doing for some shows where I'll post a point-form list of thoughts I have on episodes of television. It's pretty new (This is the third one) so I'm still playing around with it a bit.

-I didn't write about Where Is Josh's Friend? last week (Actually another reason I started this I Got Thoughts format) but I thought it was a strong start to the season and taken with this week, I'm very excited to see where this all goes.

-I wasn't sure about the new theme song at first but it's quickly grown on me. It does a good job of summing up Rebecca's mindset for the season now that she's no longer in denial for her feelings and is all in on being in love. Also the "Blam!" ending that lasts just long enough to be awkward is hilarious.

-Very good week for the music this week. The three new songs were all great in their own way for reasons I'll outline below and I'm a sucker for a good reprise so as worried as I was for Greg's new-found sobriety, him returning to But I Could If I Wanted To right before punching a wall was great.

-Where Is Josh's Friend? made it clear that Josh and Rebecca clearly have different levels of investment in their relationship. Luckily, by the end of When Will Josh See How Cool I Am? Rebecca has also realized that and is making a push against Josh's "staying in our own lanes" attitude towards her.

-Before she learned that though we had the adventure of her trying to become a master ping pong player in a short amount of time, which had a guest appearance from national treasure Albert Tsai as her child mentor and helped offset the heavier material of the Greg story with some welcome silliness.

-I've been very impressed with how Greg's newly discovered alcoholism is being handled this season. Santino Fontana is doing great work making Greg feel like the same guy we met last season, albeit less angry and trying to improve himself in a meaningful way. The varied reactions of Greg's friends trying to figure out how to best support him was also nice (With Hector's constant forgetting that Greg can't drink being a very Hector touch). The road to recovery is long and complicated the CXGF writers seem interested in fully exploring it, which is nice.

-Heather is still pretty much on the fringe of the show's world ever since breaking up with Greg but she was good here as a friend and a support for Greg. Vella Lovell is always great on the show so more of her this season would definitely be welcome.

-Very glad they didn't drag out Rebecca and Josh hiding the truth from Greg for very long. Having it come out now while Greg is still early into recovery and could possibly spiral back was smart. Even though I figured Greg wouldn't actually be out drinking, I was genuinely worried when he was suddenly missing.

-Interesting that Josh and Rebecca had essentially the same reaction to Greg's alcoholism. They both didn't see it coming and then both used it as an excuse not to tell Greg about them sleeping together (Though Josh was not able to keep the cat in the bag for very long).

-Greg got a DUI because he was going to tell Rebecca he loved her! Aw, that hurts. He seems to have processed what Josh and Rebecca did pretty healthily in the end though. Of course if the ending with Rebecca smelling his sweatshirt is any indication, she might be interested in Greg again, which might not be the best thing for Greg. Agh, the relationships on this show are so messy and well-drawn.

-At the least, it's good that Rebecca's conversation with Greg has opened her eyes a bit to the reality of her situation with Josh. It was a relief to hear her tell him "I deserve to be with someone who treats me well".

-Josh's self-centered personality and emotional immaturity have always been part of his character, but now that he's no longer with Valencia, it's really becoming obvious. It's good. Josh's flaws only serve to make him more interesting as a character.

-Paula trying to quit her addiction to Rebecca's drama and applying to law school was a very smart move on the writers part that opens up a lot more stories for her and gives us a good example for how Rebecca's single-minded pursuit is affecting and hurting her relationships with others.

-Having Paula's big concern in this episode be "Does Rebecca support me doing this?" rather than "Will Rebecca write the letter on time?" was a smart choice. It lets the fact that Rebecca does write the letter in the end be more important than her not doing it on time (which we all knew was going to happen). It helps that Daryl had actually written Paula a recommendation letter so Rebecca screwing up didn't actually hurt Paula.

-That being said, it seems we're eventually going to reach a point where Rebecca and Paula hit an impasse over Rebecca's behaviour.

-Daryl being under the very mistaken impression that he and Paula are best friends was a great beat when he mentioned it during Paula Needs To Get Over Josh! and I was thrilled to see it return here. Oh Daryl. Paula will realize you're the friend she needs one day. At least she used your letter (when she had no other choice).

-Paula's marriage seems to be in a more stable, supportive place this year which is nice. Also the "After everything you've done for her-" "That she didn't ask for" exchange was a nice echo to both After Everything I've Done For You and the pairs spoken word exchange of the theme song last season.

-White Josh DOES look kind of resemble a giant, buff chipmunk (A Chiphunk to use Rebecca's phrasing.). I'm not sure I'll ever look at him the same again.

-Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is very good at making distinct characters like Greg's ridiculously supportive boss Kevin (who's getting a lot of play so far this season.) or his Motorcycle gang AA Sponsor Guardrail. Hopefully there's more Guardrail in the episodes to come because he seems to be the kind of gruff but supportive presence Greg needs right now.

-I was looking forward to Ping Pong Girl the moment it showed up in the promos for this weeks episode and it did not disappoint. Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne fame wrote a terrific send-up of late 90's/early 00's pop punk that manged to skewer the idea of the "effortlessly cool without trying girl" and bro culture as filtered through Rebecca's fantasy of what that is and how she can twist it to lead Josh to make a meaningful commitment. The song's also full of great lines like "Ping-Pong shows that she has control over her body, but it doesn't threaten my masculinity like basketball or hockey". The cuts from the fantasy music video back to Actual Rebecca trying and failing to learn Ping Pong before getting too caught up in the fake music video playing out in her head were also great and made it clear how well Rebecca's plan would actually work (which is to say not at all).

-Although Ping Pong Girl is probably my favourite song of the episode (I have a real soft spot for pop punk), Maybe This Dream and Greg's Drinking Song were equally terrific, character driven songs that were funny but also had a certain kind of sadness to them. Behind Paula singing a Disney Princess song about the disappointments of life and "Dump Cramps" is a poignant mix of hope and fear about her applying to law school and her worries that it won't work out. And Greg's Irish drinking song about all the things that happen when he drinks is funny, but also paints a bleak portrait of how serious his problem actually is.

-All in all, another strong and inventive episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Next week appears to tackle the Josh/Greg/Rebecca triangle head-on with a Marilyn Monroe-inspired number. That sounds promising.

It's All Eyes on Dina When Superstore Deals With A Halloween Theft

Halloween makes for good television, especially when it comes to sitcoms. It gives shows an opportunity to dress up, cut loose, and get a little spooky and the results are seldom disappointing. Halloween Theft doesn't do a lot with Halloween, beyond put the cast in costumes and let it be a backdrop for Dina going into authoritarian overdrive and for Amy's motivations this week, but there's just enough Halloween spirit to elevate an already good episode of Superstore into a great one.

In these recaps of Superstore, I often compare Dina to Dwight Schrute from The Office. It's an easy comparison to make. Both of them are abrasive oddballs in positions of authority, obsessed with rules and order, and who have little regard for their fellow employees, often making their lives harder. There's a couple of key differences between Dwight and Dina though that tonight's episode of Superstore make abundantly clear. The first is how they relate to their managers. Dwight always had a great love and respect for Michael and that allowed Michael to keep him more or less in line. Dina has no respect for Glenn, who is a massive pushover so she's much harder to control or stop. The second key difference? Dina has boobs, which are suddenly put on full display in Halloween Theft.

The costumes Halloween Theft puts their characters in make a lot of sense from a character standpoint. From Jonah's "trying too hard too be clever" Brexit costume to Amy's "totally loves Halloween" Cleopatra to Garrett's "suave and stylish" James Bond to Glenn's "fun but very impractical" Hot Dog, you can tell a lot of effort was put by the writers into what the characters would wear. Of course, Dina has no desire to dress up for Halloween and her main concern is monitoring who's buying things like toilet paper and shaving cream so the writers develop a simple but clever way of getting her into costume: having Sandra dress up as Dina and the rest of the store saying they could twin. This leads to Dina in a incredibly distracting and ridiculous sexy cop costume. The sexy cop costume is maybe the episode's best joke this week and props to Lauren Ash for being willing to go for it. She goes all out this week, not changing a thing about how Dina conducts business despite being in something more revealing than she typically wears. Watching her interrogate and chase people down in the costume is ridiculous and makes every scene she's in funnier. The disconnect between how Dina looks and how she acts causes a lot of problems for Garrett this week who finds himself suddenly attracted to Dina. He knows her personality is terrible but his caveman brain can't help himself. It's always funny to see Garrett off his game and while this is probably just a one-time scene, a possible romantic connection between Garrett and Dina could be promising. In the meantime though, this is a good story for Garrett who's inability to act normally around Dina makes him a good suspect for her investigation.

The funny thing about the titular Halloween Theft that a lot of the stories in this episode become connected to is just how minor it is. A box of irregular produce scheduled for destruction has gone missing and Dina won't let any employee leave until she knows who did it. The low stakes heighten the absurdity of the situation and allow the writers to focus on the jokes, like a great sequence of Dina interviewing many of the employees with Jonah annoyingly interrogating himself and Glenn struggling to sit down in his hot dog costume (The other costume sight gag gift that keeps on giving of the episode). We never find out who stole the fruit because it doesn't matter. This lets us keep the focus on Glenn and his struggles with an assistant manager who doesn't respect or listen to him. When Amy and Mateo (Who want this situation to be over so Amy can trick-or-treat with her daughter and Mateo can go on a secret date with Jeff) get Glenn to take them to the Chesterfield Cloud Nine so they can secretly replace the missing produce, Glenn is struck by the many "differences" between the two branches but mostly he's struck by the great relationship the Chesterfield Manager and Assistant Manager have. Him ultimately stopping the investigation is a similar beat to him stopping the drug testing a couple weeks back, but the key difference is he never approved the investigation. By stopping it, he's asserting himself as manager and fighting back against Dina. Hopefully this leads to a shift in their dynamic and a more assertive Glenn going forward. It'd be a shame if they walked back the character development because assertive is a good look for Glenn.

The investigation is the biggest story this week and most of the other plots relate back to it, but Jonah and Cheyenne have their own story as they have their first significant interaction. At first they have nothing in common, until they discover a shared love of gossip. It's a story that's been told before by other shows with characters who don't really have much reason to interact (Community did it 4 episodes in with Jeff and Shirley) but it's given a bit of a twist here when Jonah finds out everyone thinks he has a crush on Amy. Just as Garrett is thrown off by Dina's outfit and forced to evaluate his feelings, Jonah is thrown off by this information. However he may or may not feel about Amy (And he's adamant he doesn't have a crush on her), he didn't realize other people were drawing their own conclusions. Amy meanwhile has one goal in the episode: go trick-or-treating with Emma. Her plans are dashed however when Emma wants to go to a party with friends instead. Amy thought she had one or two more years left before Emma started to move on from her but that time has already slipped away. It leaves her in a vulnerable space but Jonah's efforts to listen to her are derailed by a co-worker doing lewd gestures in the background, keeping him too concerned about how his friendship with Amy looks to actually help her. In the end he manages to invite her to see "Nosferatu" with him and Garrett (And Dina, who invites herself), but it's become clear he won't be able to shake this anytime soon. He's gonna have to confront his feelings, whatever they may be, sooner rather than later.

All in all, Halloween Theft felt like a return-to-form for Superstore after the slight let-down of last week's episode. It was full of funny stories that were based in character and seemed to go somewhere in the end. Even the slightest story, Mateo trying to go on his date with Jeff has a pay-off when Cheyenne bears witness to Jeff and Mateo driving off together. With Cheyenne's newly revealed love of gossip, that relationship might not be able to stay secret for very long. It also was probably the best showcase for Dina yet in establishing what makes her a unique character. There wasn't a whole lot of Halloween in Halloween Theft, but the episode was definitely a treat.

Memorable Moments

-Best Interstitial: A rare two-part interstitial as Mertle encounters the grim reaper, who she later chases.

-Dina briefs the store on possible things to look for. "Let's watch out for people buying toilet paper, eggs, shaving cream, ketchup, your squeezables, your squirtables. Everything is a weapon today, okay?" "What about guns?" "Those are fine."

-Dina is dubbed "Booge". Boo Scrooge.

-Dina interrogates Sandra. "You don't have the courage or the intelligence to have stolen anything." "Then why are you even talking to me?" "I just wanted you to know that."

-Dina interrogates Brett, who's dressed as a burglar. "There's something about you I just don't trust".

-At Chesterfield, bedding is where jewellery should be, the lights are (apparently) dimmer and the aisles are (apparently) narrower. What a mess.

-Assertive Glenn is terrific. "So if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go home and cut myself out of this hot dog costume and make love to my wife! If she's up for it."

-The best part of Jonah's Brexit costume is his confusion that no one has asked him about his costume.

The Good Place Wonders What To Do With Its Most Improved Player

Most Improved Player begins the same way the Pilot did, with Eleanor sitting in the waiting room of Michael's office with a sign informing her that "everything is fine". Except as we've seen time and time again since the Pilot, everything is not fine and that sign is nothing but a meaningless platitude. Ever since Eleanor (and Jason, though he remains in hiding throughout this episode) arrived in the good place by accident, nothing has been going fine for her, Chidi, Tahani, Michael, and even Janet. Eleanor shocked everyone by coming clean about her being there by mistake in the last episode. Now they all have to reckon with what that means and if Eleanor truly belongs in the bad place. The result is another strong episode of The Good Place, as the show continues it's hot streak and continues to up the stakes to an incredibly high degree.

The bulk of the episode is carried by Eleanor and Michael, and Kristen Bell and Ted Danson do some of their finest work yet as Eleanor tries to convince Michael that she really wasn't all that bad and Michael fights his conflicted feelings on how to handle this situation. He's trying to be an impartial arbiter, but he's clearly hurt by Eleanor deceiving him for all this time and confused by the affection he has for Eleanor and that conflict is clear throughout the episode. The process is also complicated by a still recovering Janet. Janet brings a much needed levity to the early parts of the episode through a running joke where every time she is asked to bring Eleanor's file, she produces a cactus. It's a joke that never stops being funny and the visual of dozens of cacti on Michael's desk by the time he's interviewing "Jianyu" is a great gag. Without Eleanor's file to rely on, Michael has to make due with a litmus test of good/bad questions and a lie detecting cube. This gives us more insight into the moral system the good place judges us all by and helps to make the episodes point. Eleanor has never murdered someone or committed arson or taken her shoes and socks off on an airplane or paid money to hear music performed by the "Californian funk band The Red Hot Chili Peppers" or been emotionally invested in The Bachelor franchise. She's not a truly bad person, just a flawed one, but the good place system has no room for flawed people.

This becomes clear when Eleanor's file is found and the flashback of the episodes begin. The flashbacks on The Good Place can be kind of hit or miss, not really showing us anything about the characters that we didn't know already but because they come this week through Michael's interrogation and commentary as Eleanor's story gets worse and worse, they work well this week, helping to emphasize the point the episode is making on Eleanor. Eleanor borrowed her bitchy roommate Madison's dress without permission, ripped it and said nothing leading Madison to put a dry cleaners out of business with a lawsuit. When social media found out and turned against Madison, dubbing her "Dress Bitch", Eleanor and her other roommate made "Dress Bitch" T-Shirts that practically sold themselves and Eleanor used the profits to buy an identical dress to the one she wrecked. Now nothing Eleanor did in this story was evil, but her staying quiet about ripping the dress led to a dry cleaner going out of business and her capitalizing on her roommates humiliation, even if it was justified wasn't right. With the details of this story, presumably the first of many laid out in full, Michael asks if she thinks she belongs in the good place and she admits that she doesn't. It's a poignant moment and all Michael needs to finally call the bad place to come get Eleanor.

The bad place has been shrouded in mystery since the beginning and we finally get a taste of what it's like through the introduction of Trevor, Michael's bad place counterpart played by Adam Scott. Bringing in Adam Scott (who played Ben Wyatt for years on Parks and Recreation, also created by Mike Schur) is a smart move. Though you wouldn't know it from watching Parks, Scott is really good at playing smug and self-satisfied and he makes Trevor weirdly likeable, while also being totally despicable. Trevor knows he's terrible and he loves it, which makes him a good foil for all the characters of The Good Place. His blatant terribleness is rare on this show, making him a novelty and he goes all out. Watching him explain the train to the bad place, which will makes thousands of stops for no reason, is very hot and goes up by a degree every time you think of how hot it is and which only serves room-temperature Manhattan clam chowder (which doesn't matter because it's closed anyways) is a marvel. Trevor's presence teaches us enough about the bad place to hammer home the fact that Eleanor's situation is about to get significantly worse.

The truth is Eleanor doesn't deserve the good place, but does that mean she deserves the bad place? Chidi, who spends the whole episode conflicted about the situation and unsure about if he should confess to Janet's murder doesn't think so. He confronts Michael, confessing to the crime but also revealing why it happened, how he's always known about Eleanor and arguing about how much progress Eleanor has made. It's a scene that really highlights how far Chidi and Eleanor have come from Flying, when Chidi wasn't sure if she was worth helping. Michael admits that he enjoyed Eleanor's company but points out that this isn't Little League and there's no trophy for "Most Improved Player", even if Eleanor has become a better person, to which Chidi simply says "Well maybe there should be". It's this line that points out the real flaw in the good place system. People don't stop changing and growing even after they've died, but the system doesn't care. Even if Eleanor had kept her charade going a bit longer, she still would've been sent to the bad place even if she didn't deserve it anymore. It's all punishment with no rehabilitation. It's all Michael needs to convince him to stop the train and keep Eleanor around, at least until they can get to the bottom of this unprecedented situation.

It turns out Trevor has more than one can of flaming snakes disguised as nuts though. He declares that until the situation is sorted, they'll hold onto the other Eleanor before producing the shaken and dishevelled good Eleanor Shellstrop who was sent to them by mistake, looking almost like a mirror image of our Eleanor except with a darker complexion. The idea that our Eleanor had taken the spot of someone more deserving has been kind of in the background throughout the show but suddenly it can't be ignored anymore. There's another Eleanor who earned her spot in the good place, who has been tortured in the bad place all this time and keeping our Eleanor means she stays there. It's a stunning twist that manages to kick the show into an even higher gear. Suddenly the argument to keep Eleanor around has gotten a lot more complicated. It's hard to say how it will all play out but one things for sure: everything is still not fine and will continue to be not fine for a while to come. And that's wonderful (for us anyways).

Memorable Moments

-Tahani doesn't have much to do this week beyond be angry at Eleanor and sort through her conflicted feelings before admitting "a casual sense of kinship" "much as one might be fond of a street cat", but she does get in some choice name drops.

-"You know, I haven't been this upset since my good friend Taylor was rudely upstaged by my other friend, Kanye, who was defending my best friend, Beyoncé"

-"You know, one of my shyest friends, I won't say his name to preserve his privacy, but he found my presence so comforting that he asked me to co-host his TV show Anderson Cooper 360."

-Also when Michael says Tahani has been very helpful, the lie cube indicates otherwise, continuing Michael's hilarious low-key hatred of Tahani.

-Jason also doesn't get to do much, but his fascination with the cactus leading to him pricking himself is mistaken as monk wisdom by Michael, which is very funny.

-Eleanor warns Michael about the T-Shirt story. "I'll tell you, but it doesn't make me look great, so don't judge me." "That's literally the purpose of this entire exercise."

-Michael doesn't understand the ol' fake nut can with burning snakes bit. "Oh, flaming snakes ate all the nuts you brought me".

-The bad place ordered 100 Hawaiian Pizzas to Michael's office. The monsters.

-Before getting on the bad place train, Trevor tells Eleanor to "smile more", a brilliant callback to the Pilot which lists that as a pretty big negative action.

I Got Thoughts On Timeless: Party At Castle Varlar

I Got Thoughts is a new style of recap I'll be doing for some shows where I'll post a point-form list of thoughts I have on episodes of television. It's pretty new so I'm still playing around with it a bit.

-Going to Nazi Germany 4 episodes into the series is a bold choice, though not as bold as going to the Lincoln Assassination in episode 2. The show handled it well though (unlike when they did Lincoln) and the result was the strongest episode yet.

-Smart decision to not have Hitler anywhere in this episode. That would've complicated things way too much and a "should we kill Hitler" conversation two weeks after the "should we save Lincoln" conversation would've been repetitive.

-Was very glad that Flynn's plan this episode wasn't to give the Nazis a nuclear bomb, but was instead to give Wernher von Braun to the Russians, which is much more interesting from a story perspective, especially because fellow time travel show Legends of Tomorrow already did a "Nuclear Weapon unleashed earlier in World War II" story a couple weeks ago.

- Incidentally Wernher von Braun is one of my favourite historical figures. Well, favourite is a strong word but he is someone I find very fascinating for reasons the episode pretty much covered. He was a Nazi but only (as far as we know) so he could work on his rocket research and try to get to the moon. His rockets killed thousands of people and he should've been charged with War Crimes, but he wasn't and helped get America to the moon instead. While his line to Rufus at the end of this episode about his "concern being whether the rockets go up, not where they come down" is taken from a Tom Leher song rather than something he actually said, the line is fairly accurate to how he felt and the show did a good job capturing the ethical murkiness of helping von Braun, with our heroes knowing he'll never get punished for what he did.

-Wernher von Braun was ultimately used as a mirror for Rufus, who is dealing with a lot of guilt over his role in the mothership's invention and the spying he now has to do on Wyatt and Lucy, but you could also connect him to Flynn, who doesn't seem to enjoy helping Nazis or shooting Lincoln but claims to be doing it in service of a "greater good". Hopefully we find out what that "greater good" is soon enough though because Flynn is still a very flat character.

-Wyatt on the other hand had his best episode yet and I'm impressed with how quickly he improved. Letting him fanboy over getting to team up with Ian Fleming and know German plus the backstory we got from him about his hero grandfather being the reason he does what he does (and the reason he struggles with saving Nazis or letting Lincoln die) did a lot for his character and letting him actually have a personality.

-Sean Maguire made for a good Ian Fleming and made a good foil for our heroes to bounce off of this week.

-First Robert Lincoln. Now Ian Fleming. Is every historical figure our heroes run into going to fall in love with Lucy?

-Lucy had a good arc this episode as we see her trying to find a way to manage with the crazy situation she's suddenly found herself in. It feels true to life that a civilian historian is not going to be totally OK with suddenly having to deal with actual history and real Nazis who could actually kill her and the conclusion with her becoming more assertive in wanting to put history back so her sister is alive helps solidify her motivation going forward.

Lucy and company's adventure with Ian Fleming inspiring a "new" (well to them) Sean Connery Bond movie would be dumb on any other show, but for Timeless, it's perfect. Lucy probably does sleep with Bond in that version.

-Between the introduction of the wardrobe dock with hundreds of specially-made outfits for every era and region, and the reveal that Anthony had used the stolen nuclear core to make a battery to sustain the Mothership without needing to plug it into power grids for 300 years, Timeless definitely feels like it's settling in for the long haul.

-Still not super interested in whatever this Rittenhouse group is, but the end scene with the representative depowering Rufus' car long enough to threaten him to continue spying on Wyatt and Lucy was pretty intriguing. It'd be nice to get some actual answers sometime soon though.

I Got Thoughts On Jane The Virgin: Chapter 46

(As I get back in the habit of writing this blog, I want to try tinkering with different formats for writing recaps beyond that standard mini-essay format (Though I'll still be doing those as well) to shake things up and get me writing about more shows on a regular basis. "I Got Thoughts" will be a point-form collection of thoughts I have on an episode of television. Like a more substantial "Memorable Moments" for the few regular readers reading this. If you're not a regular reader, you're this preamble means nothing to you so I better get to it.

-This new format option actually came about because I tried to write about Jane's season premiere last week in my normal format and hit a wall. So I'm hoping that doesn't happen this week on the inaugural "I Got Thoughts".

-Interesting choice to forgo the standard flashback opening to focus on Jane's trauma-fuelled nightmares about Michael getting shot instead.

-Just like how the emotional trauma of Mateo's kidnapping lingered at the beginning of last season, it's nice to see the Jane the Virgin writers interested in exploring the aftermath of Michael's near-fatal shooting and how it impacts Jane and Michael instead of using it as a cheap cliffhanger to quickly forget about and move on from. It takes a soapy twist and gives it real, lasting weight.

-Of course it also lets the show drag out Jane's virginity just a little bit longer. The Jane The Married Virgin title card and Michael's line about it starting to feel like a "cosmic joke" were funny but if it keeps going much longer, I might get upset. I just want to see these two crazy kids have tasteful, network-approved sex, damn it! The cliffhanger promises it's finally happening next week but I'll believe it when I see it.

-Also glad to see Rafael officially move on from Jane. Dragging the love triangle on after Jane's married Michael would have been irksome and Jane and Rafael having to navigate their new dynamic as friends and co-parents is a much more fresh and interesting source for stories.

-I figured Xo's abortion storyline might get dragged out a couple weeks but not only has it already happened, but Alba even found out about it in the same episode! It's nice to see the writers not drag it out longer than it had to.

-Alba deciding to move on and accept Xo's decision despite not agreeing with it rather than feud with Xo felt a little easy, but I wasn't looking forward to those two not talking for a prolonged period of time yet again so I'll take the easy resolution. Alba not actually changing her mind on approving of the abortion was also much appreciated. It would've felt like a betrayal of Alba's character for her to suddenly just be fine with the whole thing. The use of that bit of their history where Alba had advised Xo to get an abortion when she was pregnant with Jane and always regretted it was also welcome and the show did a good job showing how that event has shaped both their views going forward.

-Also I should've known the new cherry wallpaper in the repaired Villanueva home would become a metaphor for Alba's stubbornness. Clever writers.

-Also we finally figured out what Alba did for a living. Home health care worker! How long have the writers been sitting on that piece of information?!

-Petra's still #petrafied. Poor Petra.

-Anezka falling for Scott was unexpected but I can ship it. The fact that she slept with him while he thinks she's Petra is super-dicey but I'm trusting the writers will handle the fallout of that when it finally comes out as gracefully as they usually handle this stuff.

-Lots of great Jane/Michael moments this week. I didn't start out on Time Michael but he's definitely won me over. The "honeymoon room" was super cute. And watching him, Jane, and Xo all interact was something I hope we get more of.

-I also got choked up when Jane's innocent comment about comforting the victim for Mateo's biting finally made Michael break down over what happened to him. It was very well acted by Brett Dier.

-The "hippy dippy" preschool is becoming a bit of a cliche, but I was as surprised as Jane by how well I liked the one Mateo is now part of. The visual of Jane and Rafael in the "compassion corner" surrounded by children was hilarious. Jane using what she learned their to help mediate Xo and Alba's conflict was also a clever way to tie it into ongoing storylines.

-Rogelio's American accent was amazing.

-Rogelio's telenovella using Emily Lazarus' story had a bunch of funny moments. And though Rogelio's character giving old white judges a speech on how America is about welcoming diversity was a bit on the nose (Though a very important message), the fact that it led to his epiphany that he should be trying to bring his telenovellas to American television to become a crossover star made it all work. That should be a ripe source for comedy in the weeks to come.

-Jane and Michael getting the all-clear to have sex is the biggest cliffhanger this show's ever done. I'm so excited for next week!

-That's it for the very first I Got Thoughts! I really like how this turned out and I'm going to keep doing it!

Dog Adoption Day Brings A Lot Of Conflict in Superstore

Dog Adoption Day was the first episode of Superstore this season that didn't really do a lot for me. It wasn't a bad episode or anything. It had plenty of funny moments and I liked it a fair bit, but I don't know. Something just seemed missing for me that I can only somewhat put my finger on. That hard-to-define thing that can take a good episode and make it great. I dunno. Maybe this recap will help me sort through my feelings better.

A lot of my issues stem from the main story being kind of repetitive and not really going anywhere. Essentially Bo (Johnny Pemberton in prime hilarious douche mode this week) and Cheyenne get into a fight in the middle of Cloud Nine and Amy and Glenn intervene and try to help. Cheyenne thinks the solution is to move the wedding up in the hopes that they won't fight anymore after they're married. Glenn thinks this is a great idea and immediately goes to book his church but Amy's not so sure. It's been established from the first episode that Amy sees Cheyenne as a younger version of herself and she doesn't want Cheyenne to go through the same mistakes she went through. This is an interesting character dynamic and there's lots of story potential there. It's also been established that Amy does not have a very high opinion of Bo, which has significantly less story potential so Amy pushing Cheyenne to maybe give things a try with her other romantic option, Cole feel a bit stale and recycled. It then takes a turn for the new and uncomfortable, when Cole turns out to be her middle-aged former teacher. It's a move that could be funny, but comes across as icky more than anything, even with the show clearly showing that Cole's actions are not OK. Amy quickly does a reversal on her efforts to get Cheyenne to leave Bo and that's amusing but we don't really learn anything new about Amy, which feels like a waste. Glenn and Bo do a bit better as Glenn winds up convincing Bo to buy a house for him and Cheyenne, only to panic when the realtor wants him to cosign. Glenn initially does the smart thing and refuses to sign, but all it takes is some choice guilt from Bo describing his ideal family life to get Glenn to sign. So now Glenn is more invested than he wanted to be in Bo and Cheyenne's lives and with the four dogs Bo has adopted, he's definitely not getting his security deposit back. That's something that could potentially pay off down the road. For now though the whole story just winds up feeling unfinished, like a couple of key character beats were cut to make room for the climatic Bo/Cole fight that Glenn fails to get his customers to not film. It's funny but just feels kind of lacking.

The other storylines luckily fair better. Jonah and Mateo's fairly contemptuous relationship gets it's first real spotlight since the Pilot as the two find themselves handling the Dog Adoption Day the episode's title promised. Mateo's competitive nature is a key part of his character and it works well here with his compulsive desire to one-up Jonah in everything. The pair make a surprisingly effective team though when they learn that any dog not adopted is going to be put down and they decide to work together to make sure this doesn't happen. They bond a bit, Jonah admits he used to be competitive until he burnt out hard during business school, and when it's all over and all the dogs are adopted, Mateo returns to have to one-up Jonah. It's a small story but a fairly effective one with a good number of laughs from Jonah and Mateo's team-up and plenty of cute dogs. The best laughs though come from Lydia, the shelter rep who has no qualms about putting down the unadopted dogs and is even dating the injection guy ("He's divorced. Most of them are at my age"). If the show can somehow find a way to keep bringing Lydia back, that'd be cool because she certainly makes an impression here. The only issue I had with this story is Jonah's admission to Mateo about his competitiveness, which was clearly supposed to be the big emotional beat of the whole episode but felt kind of rote, as if the writers realized they should tack on an emotional moment to one of the stories at the last minute and just threw it in. It was fine, but Superstore can usually do better than that.

Garrett and Dina get the last story here with a plot that's reminiscent of the classic Office storyline where Jim keeps track of all the time Dwight is wasting at work. Here Garrett forgets to clock in thanks to Elias' butt distracting him and Dinah refuses to fix the time sheet for the two hours he wasn't clocked in because of the rules. So Garrett becomes a strict enforcer of the rules, refusing to let Dina take more than 15 minutes for lunch or more than one bathroom break even though the first one was a false alarm. By the time she's rushing to buy a stapler after her shift because the bathrooms are customer only and trying to figure out what day they both work so she can get him back, he's more than over the two hours of pay he lost. Garrett and Dina don't get a lot of stories together so this story is nice in how it highlights their dynamic, and while said dynamic gave me serious Jim/Dwight vibes (probably because I still see Dina as essentially a female Dwight), it felt different enough to work here. That's mostly due to Garrett who actually has motivations for his pranking beyond being annoyed or bored, though Dina's refusal to give in and accept Garrett's point also helped.

So all in all I still can't put my finger on why this episode didn't totally work for me. I think it comes down to all of the stories settling for being simply funny and none of them trying to push things on a character level. That can still lead to a great episode if the jokes are solid enough but it didn't quite work this time for me. That's fine though. Even a merely good episode of Superstore is still one of the more enjoyable things to watch on Thursday nights. I also have a feeling I'll enjoy this one more when I rewatch it. For now, I have no doubt this is only a bump on the road to better episodes ahead.

Memorable Moments

-Best interstitial: A woman walks by a mannequin that looks exactly like her down to the outfit and is thrown.

-The cold open where Glenn uses the Dog Adoption Fair job as a lesson that it pays to volunteer and then has the next volunteer job be getting rid of hornet nests (poor Sandra) is great. "That's right. It's not always good to volunteer. That was another lesson".

-Also Dina gets indignant about the lack of volunteers. "I hope someone sets you all on fire, and you need a volunteer to put it out". "It's too much for 6:00 a.m., Dina".

-Glenn tries to break up Cheyenne and Bo's fight with terrible Batman and Joker impressions, but turns out to do a pretty good Bane.

-Glenn gets progressive. "My friend Kathy from church, she's a real estate lady. No, wait, Glenn, darn it. It's 2016. She's a real estate man."

-Bo thinking that Glenn's name is Glem and his "What the hell kind of name is Glenn?!" reaction to finding out that isn't the case is probably the episode's best joke.

-Jonah and Mateo almost have a moment. "Hey, you know, I'm seeing a movie tonight if you want-" "I'm seeing two movies". "OK".

The Good Place Is Shaken Up By Some Honesty In The Eternal Shriek

As we reach the halfway point of The Good Place's first season, the thing about the show that impresses me the most is its refusal to play it safe. It could've been content being a show about Eleanor being the only thing wrong in paradise, telling simple stories about Eleanor trying to keep her secret and slowly become a better person along the way with the help of Chidi. They could've conceivably done this for a couple seasons and still be a pretty good show. Instead, the show has proven to be much more ambitious, introducing Jason as another flaw in the system and showing that paradise isn't exactly all it's cracked up to be. If that wasn't enough, the end of last night's episode takes a key part of the show's premise and completely smashes it, creating a wonderful sense of uncertainty about how the back half of the season will play out. The ending alone is enough to make The Eternal Shriek one of the best episodes of The Good Place so far, but the rest of the episode is equally wonderful, with lots of laughs and a strong story to help get us to that ending in a way that feels compelling and organic.

The Eternal Shriek spins out of last episode's cliffhanger of Michael deciding he was the problem in the neighborhood and deciding to leave forever to go into "retirement". Naturally Eleanor sees this as a good thing, with her secret now safe and Michael presumably getting the chance to relax. Chidi is not so happy, with the effects of the lies he's been helping Eleanor tell since the beginning really starting to weigh on him. Honesty is very important to Chidi and even the smallest lie is enough to keep him in agony about it. This is illustrated in the flashbacks this week as we see Chidi lie about liking a colleagues red cowboy boots (boots so awful that not even Ted Moseby would wear them) and feel terrible about it for three years, not saying anything because his lie wound up affirming his colleagues decision to buy them (He even bought Chidi a pair, despite how expensive they were). It's a simple but funny flashback story with a very effective message. If even a harmless social nicety of a white lie makes Chidi swell up with guilt, then keeping up this charade that's beginning to have real harmful consequences is going to destroy him eventually, and his breaking point finally arrives tonight, when Michael reveals the truth of his retirement: that he's actually submitting himself to what is known as "the eternal shriek", a hilariously grotesque and over-the-top method of eternal torture.

Ted Danson is in fine form tonight, managing to even top his performance in the last episode with Michael at his most resigned and morose. He allows Tahani to throw him both a upbeat retirement party and then a downbeat memorial, but snarks, sulks and nitpicks his way through each one with constant reminders of his coming torture. The highlight of this story is when he gives a wistful speech of all the mundane human things he wanted to do like pull a hamstring or get a rewards card or end a conversation with "Keep it sleazy" or eat a saltine (When Tahani produces a saltine, he declares it to be "pretty dry and too salty. Going out on a real low note here".). It's a solid story full of laughs that both reaffirms Michael's love of humanity and really drives home the selfishness of Eleanor continuing to keep her secret. Of course, Eleanor isn't present to witness any of that because she's off to try and both keep her secret and keep Michael from retirement by killing Janet.

D'arcy Carden has been one of the best parts of The Good Place since the beginning and she really shines tonight with what will probably be the closest thing she'll ever get for a Janet character showcase. Janet is a bit of a tricky character for The Good Place. As a virtual helper who is not actually alive, she has no real underlying character motivations or purpose of her own. That means she can be put in most situations in whatever role the show needs her to be in, but it also makes it hard to tell stories about her as she has no wants of her own. Despite this, Carden is great in the part, throwing herself into whatever she's given and making Janet's lack of a personality a personality in it's own right, fuelled by her peppy delivery and willingness to go along with whatever's required of her, even her own destruction. See the only way out of the neighborhood is by a train only Janet can summon or drive so Eleanor, at the heights of her selfishness, decides the perfect solution is to simply shut off Janet. It's a solution that makes sense. Janet isn't actually alive and can't feel pain so shutting her off isn't really going to kill her because she isn't a living thing. Still, that doesn't make any of it right and Carden's perpetual cheerfulness as she leads Eleanor and Chidi to the part of town where her override switch is only highlights what a low point this is for Eleanor's attempts to be a better person.

The versatility of Janet's inhumanity comes to a head in the episode's best scene. It turns out Janet is programmed to plead for her life when someone approaches the shut-off switch as a fail-safe in case of accidental shutdown. This leads to hilarity as Janet switches from reminding Eleanor and Chidi that she is not human to desperately pleading for her life and back at the switch of a dime, making this whole plan seem worse and worse as neither of them can get past her begging for her life or showing a photo of her fake kids ("Tyler has asthma but he's battling through it like a champ", she says of one before explaining it's a stock photo from the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards a minute later). Eventually Jason shows up, not aware of anything that's going on and immediately goes to push the button because of course he does. Chidi attempts to stop him but accidentally pushes the button himself and Janet crumples to the ground in a stunning scene. As Chidi becomes overwhelmed with what he's done, Eleanor's reminder that he didn't actually kill Janet is undercut by a blaring video recording of Janet announcing she's been murdered. Of course Janet isn't really murdered and reboots during a wake being held for her. She's in severely limited capacity while she re-downloads the knowledge of the universe and conveniently can't remember who killed her but she's alive and the murder convinces Michael to stick around, knowing something else is responsible for the neighbourhood's problems.

This could all be seen as a win for Eleanor, but the episode wisely doesn't treat it like one. Chidi is consumed by guilt and while he ultimately decides not to confess to killing Janet, he informs Eleanor that this act will eat him up inside forever. This is what causes Eleanor to see the harm she's caused with her desperate attempt to fix things without actually fixing them. So she does what she should have done from the beginning. At a neighborhood meeting, she confesses to not actually belonging in the neighborhood in front of everybody. It's a decision that shows how much Eleanor has come to care for Chidi and feels earned by how their relationship has developed over the course of the show. She knows he can't keep doing this so she frees him from the burden of having to carry her secret by finally being honest. It's a very huge, very welcome game-changer from the show which completely upends the structure and opens a huge number of possibilities for where things go from here. And there's still six episodes left in the season! So yeah, The Good Place writers aren't playing it safe with the show and the result is exhilarating. Here's hoping things only get even wilder than here.

Memorable Moments

-Since the beginning of the show, there's been a theory that The Bad Place will ultimately turn out to not be that bad. The description of the eternal shriek seems to kill that idea. What is it? Well according to Michael, the soul is disintegrated, and each molecule is placed on the surface of a different burning sun. And then the essence is be scooped out of the body with a flaming ladle and poured over hot diamonds (not lovely ones either). Then what's left of the body is beaten endlessly by  titanium rod, like a piñata (making the one of Michael Tahani has made suddenly ghastly and inappropriate) where the string is tied around the genitals.

-Janet does her best approximation of human crying for the news of Michael's departure with a hilariously awful wail.

-Chidi explains his hatred of lying with an old Chinese proverb. "Lies are like tigers. They... are bad". "That's it?" "It's more poetic in Mandarin".

 

-Michael's favourite colour is called pleurigloss. It's imperceptible to human eyes, but it's "the colour of when a soldier comes home from war and sees his dog for the first time".

-Eleanor takes the news of the eternal shriek well. "Dang it. I was almost handed a perfect solution to all my problems without having to work for it at all, and now it's gone. Why do bad things always happen to mediocre people who are lying about their identities?"

-Eleanor hopes "the ends justify the means" was said by Oprah. Unfortunately for her it was Machiavelli.

-Appreciation for Michael doesn't go well. "Michael, you always kept us warm and safe like a bright, glowing sun." "Like the one I kicked the dog into or the one I'm going to be burned on the surface of for eternity?"

-Michael's Architect pin is his birth year, 0-0-0-0. Should probably change that.

-Janet has a lot of learning to do. At least she knows the alphabet: "A-B... Janet".

Jane The Virgin Is The Funny, Charming, and Magical Show You Need In Your Life

When Jane the Virgin first debuted two years ago, I was sceptical to say the least. A show about a virgin who gets accidentally inseminated and becomes pregnant? How could that possibly be good? So despite fairly positive buzz I opted to ignore it. I was watching enough shows that year and just didn't have time to watch something that sounded that dumb. Then about six weeks later, I found myself with nothing to do one afternoon and tried the first episode on a lark. I was immediately hooked, caught up with the other episodes aired in one sitting and never missed an episode again. That's because despite the goofy title and terrible-sounding initial premise, Jane the Virgin (which is about to start it's 3rd season tonight and which I'll be trying to write about week to week) is one of TV's best shows, expertly blending over-the-top Telenovella-style soap opera plotting and crazy drama with strong characters, and a charmingly self-aware sense of humour into a very addictive mixture that's a must-watch.

As mentioned earlier, the initial premise of Jane The Virgin (Created by Jennie Snyder Urman and loosely adapted from the Venezuelan Telenovella Juana la virgen) is a little ridiculous. Jane Villanueva (played by Gina Rodriguez, who won a Golden Globe for her performance) is a young waitress with aspirations of writerdom who lives with her devoted but irresponsible mother Xiomara, or "Xo", (Andrea Navedo) and her devoted and very religious grandmother Alba (Ivonne Coll), who instilled in her a protectiveness of her virginity at a young age. Jane has a loving police detective boyfriend Michael (Brett Dier) who plans to marry her. One day all her plans are thrown off course when she goes in for a routine pap smear and gets accidentally artificially inseminated, becoming pregnant. Complicating things is the fact that the "father" Rafael Solano (Justin Baldoni) owns The Marbella, the hotel Jane works at and is both a former crush of Jane's and the half-brother of Luisa (Yara Martinez), the doctor who inseminated Jane instead of Petra (Yael Grobglas), Rafael's gold-digging wife with a secretive past. Also Jane's father Rogelio (Jaime Camil), a famous Telenovella star who never knew about Jane has finally learned about her from Xo and wants to be part of her life. Also The Marbella and possibly Rafael's family are connected to an elusive crime lord named Sin Rostro who Michael is investigating. And that's just the first episode. The show only gets bigger and crazier from there with more twists and turns than you could ever count.

If that sounds insanely complicated and impenetrable, it surprisingly isn't, thanks to a couple key factors. The first is the presence of the Latin Love Narrator (Anthony Mendez), a Third-person mostly Omniscient narrator who keeps the story moving, explaining or recapping things we might be confused about, while offering his own commentary on the story as it unfolds. It's maybe the best, most entertaining use of narration ever deployed on television, and never detracts or obtrudes on the action too much. Mendez gives The Narrator a vibrant, welcoming personality that makes it feel like he's right beside you watching the action unfold with you. The other key to keeping this all accessible is that while the situations are ridiculous and wild, the characters emotions are grounded and real and the show never loses track of that for the most part (The one exception being the crime element, which is grounded in character on occasion but can get pretty tedious and disconnected from everything else at times, especially in the second season.). So even when things are at their most heightened (Typically, when Rogelio or Petra is involved), you have a clear understanding of the emotions of the characters and that's usually enough to get you through it.

There's a lot to love about Jane The Virgin and the most important thing is Jane herself. Gina Rodriguez brings to life a fully-formed, multi-faceted human being who is the kind of complex female lead we need more of on television. Rodriguez brings a warmth and a relatability to Jane that invites instant empathy for the character. Jane is our entry-point into this crazy world and Rodriguez's grounded performance helps keep things from spiralling too far out of reality. Being the grounded one doesn't mean she has to be devoid of personality and there's plenty of spark to Jane's. Jane has a passion for everything she loves from her family to her writing to grilled cheese sandwiches and this passion is allowed to manifest itself in many ways, including anger, frustration, and despair that help add to our impression of Jane as a person. After two seasons, you can pretty much guess how Jane is going to react to most situations, but Rodriguez keeps it from getting repetitive by constantly finding new nuances to Jane. And when she really gets a chance to cut loose in the shows many fantasy sequences, she becomes even more of a delight, whether being the "romance novel" version of Jane or showing off her various skills such as dancing or rapping.

Also bolstering the show is how it approaches it's main love triangle between Jane, Michael, and Rafael. Like any good love triangle, both men are different in a lot of ways. Michael's a detective with a goofy side and his interactions with Jane suggest a deep connection and a lived-in history between them. Rafael's a former playboy with a lot of pain in his past who's a bit more guarded, but he's very encouraging of Jane's dreams and brings out a different kind of passion in her while being a great father (in season 2) to boot.  And although the show begins with Rafael being shown in a more positive light than Michael, it soon equalizes things so that both men are good and viable choices for Jane, despite their flaws. Viewers will probably switch "teams" as it were a few times throughout the show (I certainly have). The most important thing the show does with the love triangle though is make it so that whether you're on Team Michael or Team Rafael, you're first and foremost on Team Jane so that when she does make her final decision (and she makes it partway through the second season), you're happy for her and willing to give it a shot even if it wasn't the choice you would've made.

Of course the other important thing about how Jane The Virgin handles it's love triangle is that the love triangle isn't at the core of the show. The most important relationships in Jane's life are the ones with her family. Jane, Xo, and Alba have a bond and a love that feels real and which is given weight by many of the flashback scenes that start off every episode. Xo and Alba could've felt like caricatures of the "flighty, irresponsible parent" and the "tough, religiously devout grandparent" respectively (Ivonne Coll even played that caricature on Glee a few years back). Instead they feel like real people as human and flawed as Jane is, with Alba's faith being treated as seriously as Xo's dreams of being a singer. The show is as interested in Xo trying to be a better mother or Alba's fight to get legal status after years of being an undocumented immigrant as it is in Jane navigating pregnancy and parenthood. So when Xo and Alba or Xo and Jane or Jane and Alba fight, it hurts a lot more to watch than when Jane is fighting with Michael or Rafael. The Villanueva women's relationship with Rogelio as he enters or re-enters their lives is also compelling. Jaime Camill is playing the broadest, most comedic character on the show: an actor with a big ego and little self-awareness, but he gives Rogelio enough depth and nuance to avoid feeling out of place on the show. Rogelio's desire to have a family and be part of Jane's life is the most important thing about him and comes through even with his wackier subplots.

Another great thing about Jane the Virgin is how pretty much every character, no matter how one-note eventually gets depth and empathy, from trainwreck Luisa to even Sin Rostro. This is especially true of Petra (Yael Grobglas), who could easily come off as a one-dimensional villain, but doesn't thanks to a surprisingly genuine love of Rafael and a lot of pain in her past, that makes it easy to feel bad for her even when she's at her most villainous in season 1. Petra often gets straddled with the soapier elements on the show (A manipulative, seemingly wheel-chair bound mother who might be the exception to the "everyone gets depth" rule and a psychotic ex-boyfriend or two for starters), but Grobglas keeps things from getting too wild by giving Petra a fierce dignity that makes her real, even as she's caught up in stories about blackmail and evil twins. She also gets to show real pathos in season two as Petra struggles with a complex real-life issue I dare not spoil here.

Jane The Virgin is also a very creative show and that creativity comes through in every ounce of the production. The show splashes it's Miami setting with a burst of colour that makes every episode a visual delight. On-screen text constantly pops up on screen for extra joke or to add emphasis to certain points or hashtags to use so you constantly need to pay attention to the screen. The show is comfortable with having a good portion of it's dialogue in Spanish, which Alba speaks almost exclusively, adding extra realism to the characters. Glimpses of Rogelio's Telenovella projects will tie into the plot and themes of the episode in surprising ways. Episodes will makes use of various narrative gimmicks and conceits, ranging from small things like a growing light over Jane's heart in an early episode as her feelings for Rafael grow or Wrestling title cards popping up in an episode where many of the characters are in conflict to big things like a season 2 episode that spans six months or past versions of Jane and Rafael that advise her when the two are facing serious conflict late in season 1 or the show depicting short stories Jane is writing for a grad school exercise. You never know what to expect when watching Jane and that unpredictability becomes half the fun.

Look, blending grounded human stories about family and growing up with high-concept soap opera craziness shouldn't work but Jane the Virgin does. It also shouldn't be as nearly a consistent show as it is, but I have yet to dislike or be disappointed by the show 44 episodes in. Not every element of it works, but the overall performances and writing are so strong, that the little grievances pale in comparison to the whole. So don't make the mistake of letting the title throw you off the way it threw me off. Give Jane The Virgin a shot. You just might fall in love.

The Good Place Considers What We Owe To Each Other

One of the biggest surprises about The Good Place so far has been the lack of screen time shared by Eleanor and Michael. It makes sense from a storytelling standpoint. Eleanor’s relationships with the people immediately around her (Chidi, Tahani, and Jason) need to be established properly first before we focus on her relationship with the neighborhood architect. Additionally Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are pretty much the only “names” in the cast so pairing them off with the less known ensemble members helps us get invested in everyone. It makes sense from a storytelling standpoint too, as Eleanor is not going to be eager to spend time with the man she least wants to learn her secret. Still given their prominent place in the advertising and Eleanor’s job as his assistant, you would think we’d have seen a bit more of them interacting. Thankfully, What We Owe To Each Other makes up for this lack of Eleanor/Michael stories by pairing them off to wonderful results as they try and figure out the source of the troubles in the neighborhood.

The main thrust of What We Owe To Each Other is Eleanor trying to figure out how to help Michael without really helping him. Chidi’s ethic lessons are starting to have an effect on her, even if her instincts still lean toward tyranny when Chidi explains the veto part of contractualism, and she wants to help Michael but she doesn’t want to expose her secret. Seeing Michael obsessed with figuring out what the flaw in his design is to an irrational degree, (He’s found the 78 most suspicious rocks in the whole neighborhood) she suggests he takes a day off. This gives them a chance to bond and become friends like Ross and Phoebe (“An odd combination, but OK”.) as Eleanor and Michael play arcade games, bowl, and sing karaoke together. It also gives us a chance to learn much more about Michael. It turns out he is obsessed with humans and has always wanted to be among them. He has a collection of forbidden human objects in his office, a la The Little Mermaid and he watched all 10 seasons of Friends to prepare for making human friends (His constant references to the show become a terrific running gag throughout the episode). He loves humans so much that he’s become the first architect to ever live in his designed neighborhood with the residents. It turns out his bosses aren’t happy about this and he’ll be in big trouble if the neighborhood fails, which explains why he’s so desperate to fix the flaw in the neighborhood. Ted Danson has been The Good Place’s MVP since the beginning and he’s great here, capturing Michael’s clear passion and glee about humanity, but also the fundamental disconnect between Michael and his charges. Michael loves humanity but he doesn’t understand it. That may not be the biggest problem with the neighborhood, but it’s still a significant problem.

Bell is also great, and her chemistry with Danson is helpful in capturing the full nuances of Eleanor’s dilemma as she grows to like and genuinely want to help Michael, even as he gets closer and closer to figuring out her secret when he realizes a human must be acting unpredictably and causing the problems as a result. Flashbacks this week return to Eleanor as we see her agree to dog sit, ditch early to go see Rihanna in Vegas, and leave the dog to grow permanently obese from the excessive supply of emergency food she left. They’re a little blunt and unnecessary, but they do capture the contrast between the Eleanor who’s more than willing to abandon her obligations when they threaten to get in the way of her happiness and the new, slightly better Eleanor who can’t stand by as Michael rolls around on the floor of the newly rebuilt Good Plates in a grey hoodie, trying to get the sinkhole to open back up and swallow him (an excellent bit of physical comedy by Danson). So Eleanor goes in to encouraging Michael, telling him she’s willing to help him, even though she’s just a normal person and he’s “a super magical Orville Redenbacher-type guy who invented the entire universe”. It’s one of the most selfless gestures we’ve seen from Eleanor yet, as she’s willing to risk her safety to help her friend but it’s also the one that helps her initial plan to “help him and not help him” succeed when Michael realizes what the flaw in his design must be: himself. He announces to the whole neighborhood that he is going to leave forever in order to fix the problem. It’s a plot swerve that feels earned because of Danson’s excellent performance and the quick exposition from earlier about architects not typically staying in their neighborhood. It also gives Eleanor a new dilemma to deal with: does she let Michael leave forever despite knowing how much his time in the neighborhood means to him or does she put herself further at risk to help him stay? Since it seems unlikely that Danson will be leaving the show anytime soon, it’s almost going to definitely be the latter but we’ll have to wait until next week to see how this unfolds.

Meanwhile, Chidi, Tahani and Jason get their own storyline this week without Michael or Eleanor around to bolster it and it succeeds just fine without them, while setting up an intriguing new development. William Jackson-Harper, Jameela Jamil, and Manny Jacinto have all been turning in great work since the beginning and it’s nice to see them play off each other here. The story is a familiar one: Tahani wants to go to a couple’s spa with a slowly-speaking “Jianyu” and Jason convinces Chidi to come along and help him impress Tahani (who he describes as “pretty like Nala from The Lion King and she talks so smart like… Nala from The Lion King”) without giving away his secret (He’s been relying on Magic 8 Ball answers like “All Signs Point To Yes” and “Made In Taiwan” but those can’t help forever). It's a story that unfolds as expected with Jason being unbelievably dim, Chidi nervously scrambling to cover for him and Tahani being frustrated at her inability to connect with "Jianyu", but it's played terrifically by all the actors. It also leads to Chidi and Tahani discovering they actually have a lot in common (besides the being stuck with the wrong soulmate thing that only Chidi knows about). They correct the person who mistakes them as soulmates, but watching Jackson-Harper and Jamil, it's easy to see how one could jump to that conclusion. Would Chidi and Tahani be happier together? It certainly seems that way based on the impressionist painting Jason gives Tahani that's a lot different than the one he originally wanted to give her (A painting of "the best impressionist of all time" Frank Caliendo). "Only my true soulmate could ever give me such a perfect gift", Tahani declares, her faith in "Jianyu" restored. It certainly seems like we'll be heading into a love triangle situation, which should definitely shake things up as we move into the second half of the season.

Ultimately this was another winning installment of The Good Place, which shone a much needed spotlight on Michael, and gave all the characters a moment to shine. At this point the only character who still could use some defining is Janet, but D'Arcy Carden still succeeds with everything she's given so it's alright if that takes them a little while longer. But between Michael on the verge of leaving forever and Chidi and Tahani on the verge of a love connection (even if Tahani doesn't realize it), it looks like The Good Place writers are in no fear of their show turning into the 8th season of Friends ("Out of ideas and forcing Joey and Rachel together, even though it made no sense!"). And thank God for that.

Memorable Moments

-Theory Corner: OK, so personally I think that Eleanor and Chidi actually are soulmates as are Jason and Tahani and the mistake has something to do with a glitch in whatever determines "soulmates" causing Chidi and Tahani to get paired with their actual soulmate instead of their "good place" soulmate. Because it doesn't seem plausible that everyone in the good place's soulmate also happened to belong in the good place. So while I'm fine with Chidi having feelings for Tahani as a storyline, I'm still holding out that Eleanor and Chidi actually belong together.

-Eleanor has named all the clown paintings in her house. "Psycho, Creepo, Crazy Head, Stupid Juggling Weirdo, Freaky Feet, and Nightmare George Washington." Creepo gets replaced by a sexy mailman painting though.

-Eleanor's thoughts on the veto part of contractualism in full: "Well, my first rule would be that no one can veto my rules." "Well, that's called tyranny. And it's generally frowned upon."

-Chidi doubts Eleanor's helping and not helping plan is possible. "Oh, really? I once posed as a hot prom date for my cousin, both helping him and later, according to his therapist, not helping him."

-Michael really likes Friends. "Boy, those friends really were "friends," weren't they? Although- and I realize this is the kind of observation that would only occur to the mind of an eternal being- how did they afford that apartment?"

-Michael has come to love Frozen Yogurt. "There's something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so you can have more of it."

-Hopefully this isn't the last of Micheal and Eleanor singing Karaoke together. Their rendition of "Blaze of Glory" was terrific.

-Michael on Karaoke: "This is so interesting! I mean, there's no point to it. The images on the screen relate to nothing. Some time passed, and then it was over."

-Michael asks Janet to call a meeting. "Should it be festive and casual or moribund and devastating?" "Moribund and devastating, please." "Great!"

Superstore Has A Lot Of Fun With A Terrible Spokesman Scandal

I have to admit Spokesman Scandal caught me off guard. I was aware that it would involve a spokesman scandal of some kind but if you were to ask me what that scandal would be before watching the episode, I never would've guessed "the spokesman is a serial killer cannibal". It's an incredibly dark set-up for an episode of a network comedy. Incredibly dark. Yet Spokesman Scandal manages to be the funniest episode of Superstore yet, by using the insanity of its premise as a springboard for character stories that are a lot of fun.

Having the scandal be the set-up for the two main stories tonight instead of being a major story itself is a smart call. The crimes of Kyle the Cloud (portrayed by Nate Torrence who is unnerving enough to be believable as both a superstore spokesman and an unhinged serial killer cannibal in his brief screentime) are awful and are depicted as such. It doesn't stop the characters from making morbid jokes about the situation as people are prone to do in real life, but it's something that could make Superstore seem callous and cruel if the whole episode was about the characters making light of these crimes. It also could've given the episode an overly wacky detached feel by focusing on a character we've never seen or heard of before tonight instead of our regulars. Instead Kyle and the scandal fade into the background after the first act, letting the show get in a bunch of dark jokes before letting the character stories take over.

Glenn gets a chance to take the lead tonight as the person most shaken by the revelations about Kyle the Cloud (who is actually named Daniel, but gets referred to as Kyle by all the characters so that's what we're going with here). Glenn is convinced the allegations against him can't be true because he met Kyle once and he seemed like a good guy. Glenn, like most of us, wants to trust in his instincts and believe he'd be able to tell if someone was a terrible person. Unfortunately his confidence in Kyle's innocence is shattered when a dungeon where Kyle videotaped his crimes is found. The discovery of bags of marijuana at the scene gives Glenn new faith though and he convinces himself that Kyle wasn't really a cannibal and that he only did those things because he was on marijuana. It's a very misguided and uneducated perception of how marijuana works that feels like it was ripped from Reefer Madness but it feels very in-character that Glenn would latch onto this idea rather than admit he was wrong about Kyle. When Amy and Jonah inform him that's not how it works though and that they'd be surrounded by killers otherwise, Glenn becomes horrified at the idea that he can't even trust his feelings about his own employees and authorises Dina to conduct drug testing, despite having always been against it. It's an extreme decision and one Glenn is uneasy about making, but if he was that wrong about Kyle, what does he really know about his employees? It's a much more nuanced, effective story for Glenn than his morning after pill dilemma last week and Mark Mckinney portrays every step of Glenn's crisis of confidence expertly and humorously. Ultimately, Amy is able to convince him through a very analogy-filled speech that he knows the things that matter about his employees and it restores confidence in him to the point where he halts the testing and pours all the urine down the sink where Sandra's coffee mug is. It's a funny conclusion that ties in Glenn's story with the much goofier Amy/Jonah story in a great way.

Amy gets to cut loose and have some fun this week in a way she hasn't been able to do since sometime in season 1 and it's delightful, especially after all she's had to deal with in the first three episodes. America Ferrara is great at playing the sadness and anger at the core of Amy, but she's also great at playing the mischievous, playful side who lets herself get sucked into a dare war with Jonah instead of doing the tedious work of removing Kyle's visage from the store. Feldman and Ferrara have a natural easy-flowing chemistry and it helps make the escalating series of dares charming and delightful. The dares are also quite funny with Amy singing the theme song to Charles in Charge over the store intercom being the highlight (Although the two of them passing off their kayaking on wheels through the store to Jeff as product testing comes close to topping it). They even tie into Glenn's story in hilarious fashion when Amy's inspiring speech is dependant on metaphors and similes chosen by Jonah who's in the background lifting up objects for her to incorporate into her speech. There's an unspoken flirtiness at the heart of these dares though that lies dormant until the end when Jonah strolls through the store wearing only an apron and comes face to face with Adam, who is picking Amy up to go home for the day. Adam isn't angry about a basically naked Jonah talking to his wife (Though he thinks Jonah is gay, which probably explains his response being more confusion than anything else.), but his appearance is a reminder that the Will They/Won't They between Amy and Jonah is still heavily on the Won't They side. The show handles this well too. There's no melodramatic look of longing from Amy or Jonah as they go their separate ways and no real indication that they have actual feelings for each other, just the presence of Adam (who is actually able to show a bit of a softer side this time rather than the inconsiderateness that's marked his last two appearances) to remind us that as much fun as Amy and Jonah have at work, at the end of the day Amy is still married.

Amy and Jonah might still have a long way to go before possibly finding love with each other, but Mateo's love life is on much better ground after this week. The scandal allows for the return of Jeff, as delightfully normal as ever and follows up on his possible pass at Mateo a couple weeks back. It follows a familiar pattern as Mateo attempts to prove to Garrett and the rest that he isn't imagining things and that Jeff is interested in him but his efforts prove for naught (save for a commendation for cleaning up lots of vomit that's going in the wrong file when Mateo mistakes a request for his employee number as a request for his phone number). At least until the end when Jeff asks him out on a date and Mateo turns out to have been right all along. He can't say anything about it to Garrett (Jeff swears him to secrecy since a manager shouldn't be dating an employee), but he has a date for the night. It's a small story, but an amusing one and the beat at the end where Mateo actually has to think before saying yes because he hasn't thought about if he likes Jeff is a welcome one.

Ultimately Spokesman Scandal is such a success because it focuses not on the lurid details of Kyle the Cloud's murder spree (although the details we do get are appropriately horrifying), but on the characters and how they try to get through a normal day that happens to feature news of a serial killer very connected to the company they work for. It allows the darkness to be funny and gives the characters a chance to just have fun after the turmoil and issues of the first few episodes, while advancing their arcs ever so slightly. In the end, it's another promising sign that early in this second season, Superstore has found it's stride.

Memorable Moments

-Garrett, Sandra, and Cheyenne also had a really slight story that I didn't find the space for in the main review. Basically Cheyenne is talking about her baby too much, Garrett and Sandra get sick of it and Cheyenne understands when they tell her. Garrett is less understanding when he hears he talks about his new sneakers too much though. It's funny enough and notable for letting Sandra be part of a story for once, which makes sense because she's probably the first supporting player to get bumped up to regular if Superstore lasts long enough to do that.

-Best Interstitial: I didn't really notice any interstitial scenes this episode, so I'm giving this to the beat of the customer who takes a urine sample and keeps walking when Dina informs them they've taken urine.

-"We pretty much still have the market cornered on serial killing. It's one of the last non-integrated industries."- Jonah explains white person craziness to Garrett.

-The opening sequence of everyone trying to turn off the TV telling the news of Kyle the Cloud's crimes only to spread it to every TV in the store and have the audio play over the speakers is a great example of comic escalation and Glenn leading a sing-along of "Cry, Ezekiel Cry" was equally great.

-Jeff addresses the situation to the staff. "As most of you may have heard, our company spokesman has been accused of some improprieties." "By improprieties, you mean killing and eating people, right? Or is there a tax evasion thing going on as well?" "The killing and eating. I can't speak to his tax situation."

-Jeff's terrible experience in the hotel Corporate has put him in continues to be a great running gag. "Hi, yes, while I have you on the phone, I wanted to ask you why the curtains were gone when I got back last night. I'd prefer to have them."

-Garrett doesn't like baby or dog photos but he can't resist pictures of Sandra's dogs dressed like Ewoks.

-Dina notices Glenn smelling employees. "If you're smelling the workers, you gotta smell Elias. On Thursdays he smells like ham. It's hilarious."

-Also Dina humming the Charles in Charge theme is a good callback to Amy's performance (which she also does in Spanish).

The Good Place Faces A Category 55 Emergency Doomsday Crisis

There's something inherently selfish about Eleanor's quest to be less selfish. By pretending she's someone she's not, she's allowing potentially all kinds of chaos to come to her neighbourhood, including the giant sinkhole that threatened to destroy everything tonight. And if she succeeds in her quest, she'll still have stolen a spot in paradise from someone significantly more deserving of it. Her quest to learn ethics is also tough on her "Soulmate" Chidi. His reward from a life of teaching ethics has turned out to be teaching more ethics for potentially eternity. Eleanor has learned to appreciate what Chidi is doing but she hasn't learned to appreciate Chidi and that tension makes Category 55 Emergency Doomsday Crisis a fruitful and rewarding episode of the increasingly good Good Place.

The episode definitely benefits by spotlighting Eleanor and Chidi's uneasy relationship, which has been backgrounded for the past two episodes but still serves as the heart of the show. Chidi's lessons are starting to pay off for Eleanor who is delighted to see herself doing things like letting someone go in front of her when she's not sure what she wants at the Frozen Yogurt place instead of holding up the line or sampling 12 flavours she doesn't want out of spite ("You do that?!" "No, Chidi. I used to do that".). So naturally she wants more "good person" lessons all the time. This is starting to be a real burden on Chidi, who wants to be doing paradise things like "rowing out on a lake with a good bottle of wine, reading french poetry" but feels an ethical obligation to keep helping Eleanor. Of course Eleanor is not too happy to find out that Chidi feels this way and decides he can leave, but before he can, they find themselves stuck at Eleanor's because of a sinkhole induced quarantine. William Jackson-Harper has been stealing the show since episode 1 and he continues to be great here, bringing all of Chidi's frustrations and resentments to the surface, while retaining his nervous energy. Bell is also great, seeming genuinely hurt that she's being forced to watch TV instead of going to school and then angry when she realizes she's upset about that.

Things really become complicated when they have to play host to Nina and Bart, a former Marriage Counsellor and Identity Theft Specialist respectively.  Of course they can't even keep up the charade of being happy soulmates for a couple minutes and find their relationship being put under the microscope. This is when we find out the real reason Chidi has been so frustrated. It turns out he never had a soulmate or a serious meaningful relationship on earth and now he's supposed to have his perfect soulmate and it's not what he had hoped it would be. This is when the inherent selfishness in Eleanor's quest finally becomes apparent to Eleanor. At the top of the episode Chidi has been teaching utilitarianism, the idea that the action that leads to the most good and the least pain is the correct one. When Eleanor came to the good place, she took the place of Chidi's real soulmate and the more Chidi helps here, the more likely it is that he'll never get to meet her. By helping Eleanor, Chidi is sacrificing his own happiness because that's the least amount of pain for the greater good. This realization inspires Eleanor to give Chidi the day of rowing out on a lake with wine and french poetry he wants and a "Fork Off Eleanor" sign to use whenever he needs a break from her, because even if they aren't soulmates, they are friends and she's finally ready to start treating Chidi like one. Finally Eleanor is able to acknowledge the sacrifice Chidi is making and by taking steps to rectify her selfishness, the sinkhole her selfishness created in the last episode finally heals itself and goes away. It turns out a bit of selflessness can heal a bit of selfishness. It's a positive step for Eleanor and Chidi and hopefully one that will carry forward into future episodes.

Category 55 Emergency Doomsday Crisis also gives us our best look yet into Tahani Al-Jamil, as she gets a peek at the neighbourhood goodness rankings while Michael and Janet are dealing with the sinkhole crisis and discovers she ranks 321 out of 322 people (Jianyu ranked 2nd and Eleanor ranked 6th, which is interesting considering what we know about those two). This sends Tahani into a tailspin as flashbacks reveal she spent her life in the shadow of her much more talented sister Kamilah. It turns out a lot of what Tahani did was to try and earn validation from her parents who never thought she was good enough. It's an affecting and tragic backstory that immediately teaches us a lot about why Tahani is the way she is. When her parents die and misname her in their will as Tahini (Like the sauce), she decides to step out of her sisters shadow and achieve great success all on her own but that fear of not being good enough hasn't left her. So she immediately tries to step up her game with elaborate brunch parties for all the people stuck at her mansion in an effort to move up the rankings. When that doesn't work she decides to try and help Michael and Janet fix the sinkhole. Of course that backfires when side effects from the hole cause her face to resemble an abstract painting, and Michael finds out she's seen the rankings. Ultimately he assures her that while the point counting stopped when she died and the rankings are final, the mere fact that she beat out billions for a spot in the good place means she is good enough and has nothing left to prove. It's a small capper to her arc, but an effective one for now. I wonder if this is something that will be revisited in future episodes though because the feeling of not being good enough doesn't go away that easily.

Also not going away that easily are the problems that have come up with the neighbourhood. Michael's story in this episode is slight, but one that sets him up for a major role in the weeks to come. Ted Danson gets a lot of notes to play, from goofily reciting the Western Hemisphere brunch banter he's been working on ("You haven't seen Hamilton? Hey, did you hear about Stephanie") to trying to conceal his panic about the whole sinkhole crisis. Michael thought the sinkhole would fix itself but it only grew and grew. When it finally went away, he has no idea why it did. It's become apparent that he does not have control of the neighbourhood he's designed and this terrifies him. So by episodes end, he recruits Eleanor to help him find the reason for all this trouble. This should prove an interesting dilemma for Eleanor in the weeks to come, as she happens to be the reason for all this trouble. So once again The Good Place tells an amusing and satisfying story, while continuing to set up for more stories down the road. It's been a good ride so far and we're not even halfway through the season yet. It's hard to say where all of this is ultimately going (though I have a few guesses), but episodes like this one have me very excited to find out.

Memorable Moments

-Jason doesn't get a lot to do in this episode but his monologue on utilitarianism is a beauty. "It's like, I knew this girl Sheila? She was a black market alligator dealer with a pierced jawbone. Sheila was gonna get married to my boy, Donkey Doug and make him move to Sarasota. It would've broken up my whole break dancing crew and Donkey Doug was our best pop-and-locker. So I hid a bunch of stolen boogie boards in Sheila's garage and called the cops. I framed one innocent gator dealer to save a 60-person dance crew".

-Michael keeps calm in the face of crisis. "Tahani, dear, could you show us to a private room where no one can see or hear us, even if I yell very loudly out of fear?"

-Eleanor knows when Chidi says no big deal, it's a pretty big deal. "When I told a boyfriend something was "no big deal," it meant anything from 'I just bought weed from your nephew,' to 'I secretly befriended your ex-girlfriend last year, things got out of hand, and now I'm her bridesmaid.'"

-Tahani introduces her sister. "Kamilah, of course, is the youngest person ever to graduate from Oxford University, she's a world-class painter, social activist, iconoclast, Olympic gold medalist for archery, a BAFTA Award-winner for her documentary on her Grammy Award-winning album, and the person voted 'Most Likely to be Banksy.'"

-Tahani made "Doughnut Holes" for the sinkhole repair but Janet informs her it's too soon by "exactly 9 days".

-I hope we see more of Bart and Nina, who may or may not want to swing with Eleanor and Chidi.

-Chidi not actually knowing how to row a boat is a very funny capper to his storyline this episode.