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.
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