-Throughout Eleanor's quest to become a better person has been the unspoken fact that her motivation for self-improvement is inherently selfish. She doesn't want to become a better person because it's the right thing to do. She wants to become a better person so she can stay in the good place and not be tortured for eternity. Sure she's doing good things out of this desire for self-preservation but would she be so eager to do good if her soul wasn't on the line? It's easy to say her experiences have changed her and she wouldn't backslide into old habits but it's more plausible that she ultimately wouldn't change that much. Actions are important but motivation is important too and "What's My Motivation?" brings this to the surface.
-If the hyper-serialized approach to The Good Place has a drawback, it's that there hasn't been much time to develop the neighborhood beyond our principle characters. We hear a lot about how all the craziness is affecting the residents but we don't really see how they actually feel about all this. "What's My Motivation?" starts to rectify this by showing that the neighborhood is not at all happy with all the grief and trouble Eleanor has caused them. It even brings back classic residents like "The Girl Whose Dog Was Kicked Into The Sun" and "The Guy Who Fell Into the Sinkhole" (They have actual names, but I have yet to learn them. Maybe I will if there's a season 2). It's a good way of affirming that yes, Eleanor has caused a lot of pain and suffering since she's gotten there and needs to rectify it.
-If you're going to quickly move past a plot point as ripe for stories as "The Neighborhood Hates Eleanor" with a joke, it better be an amazing joke. And the idea that all of the residents of the Neighborhood would find "Bobody's Nerfect" hysterical enough that they'd be willing to forgive Eleanor for all she's done? That's an amazing joke. It's the way Bell delivers it as a last-ditch effort and how slowly but surely a multitude of laughter sweeps in that sells it. It's ridiculous and kind of stupid and just absurd enough to work.
-The "Someone says 'I Love You' and The Other Person Doesn't Know How to Respond" story has been done to death at this point, but The Good Place makes it work by channeling it through what we know about Chidi's character. Because of his tendency to overthink things and his obsession with ethics, of course he's going to agonize over his motivation for saying it back. It also helps that the story is brief, serving more as the key to why Eleanor's point score isn't going up.
-Jason marrying Janet was played mostly for laughs when it happened last week and while it's still mainly a source of comedy this week (Mainly for Jason still being unable to grasp that Janet isn't a girl and Michael isn't her father), it winds up tying back into the story in a big way as Michael finds out the truth about Jason, which ultimately leads to the train stealing ending twist.
-Janet has mostly been deployed for comedy purposes throughout the series and her nature as a cosmic database prevented her from growing and changing like the others did so the revelation that Jason bonding with her while she was rebooting has given her feelings and a bit of agency is a nifty twist I didn't expect. Janet is capable of character growth now, even if she's still fairly aloof and robotic and I'm really excited to see the show possibly explore that.
-The return of the lie detector cube and basic morality test was hilarious and revealing in how Jason's answers differed from Eleanor's when she took the test a few episodes back. It underlines just how out of place Jason truly is in the good place.
-Nice to see Eugene Cordero return as Pillboy in the flashbacks to Jason's untimely death. Suffocating in an airtight safe you've been doing whippets in as part of the world's worst robbery is a ridiculous way to go but for Jason, it's fitting. It's also interesting in how the revelation of how he died actually does cause Jason to do some self-reflection for the first time in his "life". Jason bemoaning what an idiot he is was much more poignant than I would've expected, even with the tragicomic punch of him realizing why wearing a snorkel in the safe didn't work.
-Eleanor realizing the only way she can get her point score up enough to stay in the good place is by deciding to give up and go to the bad place is a strong twist that pays off 11 episodes worth of character development well enough. Even better is the reveal that there IS a "medium place" and Eleanor's decision to join Janet and Jason in stealing a train to go there, undercutting Eleanor's sacrifice in a believable way. Eleanor has grown a lot but her choice to go meet Mindy St. Clair shows the limitations of that growth. She's been saying she belongs in a medium place all along and now that she knows it's possible, she's willing to throw away everything she's been working towards. Why try to be better if there's a place where she doesn't have to be better AND doesn't have to be tortured? It's a great hook to head into the endgame of the season on and I can't wait to see how this plays out.
-Shawn has arrived and brought with him official spelling (courtesy of the credits) on how to spell his name! He's played by Marc Evan Jackson, which is very obvious casting in retrospect (Jackson is brilliant at making self-seriousness hilarious and has been on fellow Mike Schur shows Parks and Rec and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.) and also brilliant. He doesn't get much to do in his debut, but I'm sure he'll be a significant part of next week's finale.
-Tahani has both sacrificed her life for someone AND changed the consciousness of a nation. I wonder if we'll get to see the former, based on this trend of flashbacks showing the character deaths that's been present the last couple episodes.
-Michael trying to give rousing speeches, only for them to be derailed by his own preoccupations and despair has become a great running joke this season.
-Janet can love things now and she can hate things too. "So far it's genocide and leggings as pants".
-"I truly believe [Fake Eleanor} is a good person". "Are you sure? Because I believe she's stealing my train". This line doesn't seem funny on paper but when Marc Evan Jackson says it, it's hysterical.
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