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".
No comments:
Post a Comment