Nine episodes into The Good Place and I'm running out of ways to talk about how good this show is every week. It feels like every week I talk about how the show has delivered it's best episode yet or continued it's hot streak and I could say both of those things again about "...Someone Like Me As A Member", which gave us a lot more of the bad place, told a satisfying story that felt like the culmination of eight episodes worth of build-up, and was super funny to boot. So instead of just talking about all the things I liked about this episode while recapping it as I typically do, I'm going to list them in no particular order (And then talk about them.). Thrilling, I know. So let's get to it.
1. Adam Scott is Still Great at Being Awful: After being introduced to Adam Scott's smarmy demon bro Trevor briefly in last weeks episode, we get a lot more of him here and he's just as hilariously awful as ever. In a show full of perfect people The Good Place hasn't really had much in the way of antagonistic jerks and Trevor fills that role nicely. From endlessly hitting on Eleanor to clipping his toenails and ordering wine just to send it back without tasting it at dinner, Scott really throws himself into the character, making him funny but also giving him the hint of menace he needs to be an effective villain and despite being all about being bad, he doesn't feel one-dimensional either. When he talks to Eleanor about how she'll probably be happier in the bad place, even though she'll be totally miserable because she won't have to pretend like she belongs, he has a valid point. He's someone who's totally comfortable with who he is and that makes him more nuanced than he might be otherwise.
2. Real Eleanor is Here and She's Delightful: She was briefly shown at the end of last week's episode, but "...Someone Like Me As A Member" gives us our proper introduction to Tiya Sircar as the real Eleanor (A great running gag through the episode has people keep referring to our Eleanor as "Fake Eleanor"). Sircar is great in the role, making Real Eleanor feel authentic and believable. She immediately feels like the saint we've been told she was everytime she's been brought up and has none of the condescending haughtiness that Tahani has. She has no grudge or illwill about the mishap that caused her to spend weeks in Fake Eleanor's personal hell (An endless baby shower for a woman she didn't know that she also had to organize and got an electric shock if she couldn't remember names) and her endless kindness is both amusing and refreshing. She also has immediate chemistry with Chidi. They seem like they could be soulmates (Which makes sense, seeing as they're supposed to be soulmates.).
3. We Finally Get Some Answers: Why did Fake Eleanor wind up in the good place instead of Real Eleanor? Well it turns out that besides having the same name, they both died in the same thousandth of a second in the same place in the same accident (Real Eleanor was attempting to push our Eleanor out of the way of the truck. She feels very bad that she failed) and the good/bad place people don't have access to faces so there was a mix-up. After all that mystery, it's a simple solution but it's funny enough to work and the continuing presence of Jason suggests there still might be more to this mix-up than we know. Additionally we learn more about how the bad place works. It seems that just as each resident of the good place is put in a house that's perfect for them, the bad place residents are put in their own perfect nightmare. Plus there's flying pirahana's, lava monsters, college improv and constant Jazz music (At least that's what Real Eleanor experienced). They even have a bad Janet (Also D'arcy Carden) who doesn't answer questions and just texts while insulting people. This helps us get a good picture of what the bad place is like without us actually having to go there (Though that seems like something that'll happen at some point) and helps to flesh out the greater universe of the show. Nine episodes in, this is very welcome.
4. Eleanor Finds A Group She Wants To Belong To: The title of the episode refers to that famous Rodney Dangerfield line of not wanting to belong to any club that would accept someone like him as a member and the flashbacks show that sentiment is something that Eleanor has been practicing her whole life. She refuses to join in with any groups in high school, would rather buy her own ticket to Spider-Man 2 in a terrible section then buy tickets as a group with her roommate and declines a position at a friendly-seeming company because she doesn't want to be part of a team environment (A big part of the reason she takes her job at the fake job company). For whatever reason, she has always been resistant to letting people in, possibly because deep down she's never felt like she's belonged. In the good place, watching Chidi bond with his actual soulmate and seeing how perfect Real Eleanor is and it starts to get to her, She's better than she used to be but she still doesn't belong. She even gets to the point where she's willing to go to the bad place, and Kristen Bell's resigned "aight'" to Trevor's pitch is some of her best acting yet.
Luckily before she can finalize that decision, Chidi pushes back when she tells him he doesn't have to go to the negotiation, letting her know that he's still going to be there for her even with Real Eleanor around. They're a team. That refusal to give up on her after she pushes him away is what gets Eleanor to change her mind about going to the bad place. She doesn't belong in the good place but for the first time, she's found somewhere she wants to belong. It's a good direction for Eleanor's arc to go and very illustrative of how far she's come. She started out wanting to stay because the alternative was an eternity of torture. Now she wants to stay because she actually cares for these people and she's part of the team. And she's willing to fight for that.
5. Michael Stands Up For Himself (Eventually): Michael spends the episode trying to stand up to a delegation from the bad place and failing. As the bad place crew snorts powdered time and does karaoke to famous hate speech, Michael sits there and goes with it while Tahani tries to get him to stand up for himself. It's a funny story, but where it really gets good is the pay-off. Eleanor's speech inspires Michael to make a stand at the negotiations when Trevor asks for something good. He tells them they get nothing and no matter what they throw at them, he believes Fake Eleanor belongs in the good place and he's not going to give her up. Then he tells them to "Get the fork out of my neighborhood", using the kind of covered expletive that typically only Eleanor uses. It's a strong moment for Michael, crystalizing once and for all where he stands when it comes to his people and it makes the wait for the next episode that much harder.
6. Tahani Wises Up: Also making the wait for the next episode hard is where this one ends. Jason, who up to this point hasn't done much in the episode beyond bond with a still recovering Janet, walks into his "bud hole" to discover Tahani waiting for him. She's finally pieced together his secret and knows he isn't actually a buddhist monk. This complicates things a lot now as The Good Place moves into it's third act in January. We now know why Eleanor wound up in the good place, but why did Jason? Will Michael be willing to protect two people who don't belong? How will Tahani react when she realizes Eleanor and Chidi knew this whole time? Like most of the twists on this show, this one opens up a whole bunch of interesting directions for the story to take. Only time will tell which one they land on.
7. There's An All Powerful Judge Out There. And His Name Is Sean: Ok, lastly this episode had maybe my favourite joke of the series yet that doubles as brilliant world building. During negotiations, Trevor threatens to bring Sean into all of this much to Michael's horror and everyone else's confusion. Who is Sean? As Michael puts it, "He's the wise, eternal Judge who sits on high, has the final say on all disputes between our two realms." Tahani and Chidi are still perplexed. "And his names... Sean?" It's absurdist jokes like these that make me love this show. Of course the all powerful judge in The Good Place universe has a mundane, ordinary name like Sean. Of course he does. The best part is now it seems inevitable Sean will show up to mediate this dispute. Who will play him? If I was a betting man, I'd say Nick Offerman or Jon Hamm. I'm willing to be surprised though. Because the surprises on The Good Place are always the best kind.
Memorable Moments
-Besides Sean, my other favourite joke in this episode was Eleanor's reaction to being asked to see Spider-Man 2. "They made a second "Spider-Man"? What is there left to say?"
-Trevor compares the Eleanors. "She's like a perfect ball of light, and you're like a... wet pile of mulch."
-Fake Eleanor was a child of divorce. Real Eleanor? She was abandoned at a train station in Bangladesh, adopted by a nice couple who died of bird flu when she was 4, had her orphanage burn down, and then made her way to America, learned English watching Seinfeld and put herself through law school. So both have had tough lives.
-There's a sweet moment during Eleanor's speech when she says she wants to be like the people there, Real Eleanor says "You can, Eleanor", and Eleanor simply says "Thanks, Real Eleanor".
-Apparently the bad place has a four-headed flying bear. Now I kind of want to see that before the season ends.
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