The Good Place Ends It's Season On A Stunning High Note

I don't typically put spoiler warnings in my recap but trust me. If you have yet to see the last episode of The Good Place's first season, do not read this review. You'll thank me later.

-Twists are tricky. A well-deployed one can change or re-contextualize the direction of the narrative in a way that revitalizes the story and captures the hearts and imagination of the audience. A bad or poorly-executed one can sink the story and drive the audience away in droves. It's especially hard if your show is full of big twists because if you're not careful, you could wind up sacrificing meaningful character development in service of the plot. The Good Place had a new twist practically every episode, but it managed to pull it off because the show was always keeping it rooted in the characters and their journeys. The twists and the mystery were fun but also besides the point. And when tonight's finale featured a massive twist of world-shattering proportions, it worked like gangbusters because of how well it clarified it's characters in addition to what was happening around them.

-The best twists are the ones that are hidden in plain sight, unseen because we don't realize what we're looking at or what clues we should be paying attention to. Throughout the first season of The Good Place, something has always felt a little off. It's not just that Eleanor and Jason wound up in the wrong place by some kind of convenient cosmic error, it's also how Michael was always terrible at putting his guests at ease (As well as just being terrible at his job in general) or how for heaven, no one was ever at peace. It's how Tahani managed to get in, despite the fact that the motivation behind her lifetime of good work was always suspect or how a nervous wreck like Chidi who couldn't even write his book qualified. There was something not right, but that feeling of weirdness could easily be chalked up to (depending on the plot point) first-season kinks or the vaguely-defined rules that the show's universe followed. Instead, all the little inconsistencies and weirdness turned out to be very intentional as we learned that our heroes have actually been in the bad place this whole time, part of an experiment designed by Michael (architect for The Bad Place) to subject them to their own personal hell where they torture each other. Everyone else in the neighborhood is a bad place actor (Hence why we never really spent time with anyone outside of our core group) and they've been pushing them to make each other miserable. It's an incredible twist and one that immediately makes me want to re-watch the season to see how it plays now that the whole picture has been revealed.

-The great thing about this twist is it doesn't negate or render any of the character growth we've seen this season irrelevant. The reset sort of does it but I doubt it'll last that long before our characters have their memories back next season (Assuming there is a next season. I'm hopeful though). Sure Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, and Janet to an extent were being manipulated all season, but the growth they experienced is real and they're probably on their way to belonging to the good place for real. Well, not Jason. If anything this episode doubled down on his selfishness and awful behavior. The rest of them are getting better though.

-Chidi's flashbacks now take on greater significance in retrospect because they're no longer just about how his need to do the right thing tortured and paralyzed him over the years, they're explaining how a life of alienating and hurting everyone he cared about as a result of that compulsion to do the right thing caused him to fall short of entering the real good place. Without those flashbacks, it would be much more of a stretch that Chidi belonged in the bad place (Tahani makes much more sense as a bad placer).

-That smile though! Ted Danson has been an all-star all season but that moment when Michael gives up the charade and shows his true colours was next-level good. It's a huge shock but there's so much subtlety into how Danson plays the switch. He's like a terrific method actor who suddenly breaks character. It's super jarring in the best possible way and it'll be interesting to see him play both versions of the character if/when the show returns. It's also really impressive how manipulative the majority of Michael's behavior becomes in retrospect now that his true motivations have come to life.

-Though the twist winds up dwarfing everything else that happens in these two episodes (Especially since the whole Shawn thing was just a ruse and the whole "pick any two people to go to the bad place" thing was only there to set up Eleanor figuring out the truth), I do want to talk about the first episode of the night Mindy St. Claire for a minute, particularly the medium place.

-"Mindy St. Claire" was a strong episode for showing how far Eleanor has come since she died, despite her efforts to run away from it and live in eternal mediocrity. The opening flashback to her final moments shows her at the height of her selfishness, the culmination of years of taking care of only herself that began when she emancipated herself from her even more selfish parents. She truly has changed and even if Shawn's threat to "send" Chidi and Tahani to the bad place wasn't there, it's likely she would've eventually gone back on her own. She's not a medium person anymore and even when Jason tries to lull her into staying, she's able to stay strong and convince him of their need to go back.

-As for Mindy St. Claire herself, Maribeth Monroe does a great job, playing someone who has made peace with her life of isolation and imperfect lifestyle, despite having not entirely kicked her cocaine addiction. She also serves as the platonic ideal of a "medium" person: someone who did bad things before having the intention to follow through with a grand idea she got (while on cocaine) for a charity that would genuinely help people, which was enough to save her from torture after she immediately died (The foundation was established posthumously). She's like a heightened version of Eleanor and the perfect final temptation for her to overcome on her quest to be better than medium.

-The big question about the medium place post-twist though is if it was real or part of the post-confession scrambling. I'm leaning towards real because Janet wasn't part of the ruse and Mindy seems like too promising a character to just discard on a one-off appearance that didn't matter. I guess we'll see though (Hopefully).

-Real Eleanor turns out to be Fake Eleanor. Tirya Sircar played genuine goodness so well that it was actually shocking (and hilarious) when she suddenly drops the ruse and reveals herself to be another bad place jerk. Hopefully there's room for more of Vicky in season 2, though they'd have to find something new for her character to do since we all know Fake Eleanor's goodness is a sham.

-Janet falling in love with Jason was real! Aww, that's sweet. I don't have a whole lot of interest in an Eleanor/Chidi/Tahani love triangle (At least not with Chidi as the center) but Janet and Jason forever! Their attempts to figure out how to have sex were terrific.

-I'm not sure which joke I liked more: Jason's failed attempt to destroy the train with a Molotov cocktail or Eleanor realizing that she might legit be into Tahani. Both were great for different reasons. Jason's for how the episode makes you think this will work for a split second before it fizzes out terrifically and Eleanor's for how well it pays off the running joke of Eleanor describing how beautiful and perfect Tahani is.

-Marc Evan Jackson was perfect as "Shawn" (If that is his real name), both before and after the reveal. The joke that his character goes into a literal cocoon when a situation becomes the slightest bit emotional was also great and made perfect use of the dry emotionless monotone that he somehow rings so much nuance from. Who knew there was such a stark contrast between normal indifference, cruel indifference, and annoyed indifference?

-It's telling that when Eleanor has seconds to write a note to herself to help her break the cycle she chose "Find Chidi". She could've said "Don't Trust Michael" or "This is the Bad Place" or any number of things but she prioritized finding the man who helped turn her into a better person because she knows she can't become a better person or break the cycle without him. That's a more convincing sign of the Eleanor/Chidi bond than any silly love triangle.

-Also this exchange: "I feel like I failed you". "No. Don't ever think that. I was dropped into a cave, and you were my flashlight".

-Bambajan bursting in with an obscure precedent that could fix everything and being waved away by Eleanor was terrific. I really hope we get to spend more time with the employees of the bad place next season as they try to maintain this insanely elaborate ruse for 1000 years.

-The idea of starting season 2 with all the characters reset to their season 1 selves but separated from each other with some details changed is certainly promising. Eleanor being given a new shirtless mailman soulmate is funny already. Changing the focus of the show from "selfish person tries to learn to become good" to "flawed people who are better together try to come together and overcome the bad place" is a smart call. Before it was hard to see the premise of The Good Place sustaining itself for that long. Now, it's easy to see how this show could be sustainable.

-So that's it for season 1 of The Good Place. This has been one of the best first seasons of a TV comedy I've seen in a while and I'm very hopeful that we'll get more of this wonderful show in the future.

The Good Place Prepares For Judgement in What's My Motivation?

-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.

The Good Place Has Some Decisions To Make In Chidi's Choice

It's a new year and I'm tinkering around with the format of my blogs to increase output (maybe) and hopefully quality. So I'm going to be using my I Got Thoughts point-form style of recap as the standard going forward for my episodic recaps. So if this review looks different from past ones, that's why.

-After going into the break (At the beginning of November! Thanks NBC.) with a ton of story momentum, The Good Place kicks off the first of the last 4 episodes of the season with a breather of a set-up episode. It's not filler by any means. We get some valuable insight into Chidi that should pay off at some point, clarify the dynamic between various characters in the wake of recent events and there's even a wedding, but it feels a bit minor compared to the past few episodes. That's totally fine though. Set-up episodes are necessary for shows like this and even if it wasn't the most exciting episode, it was certainly a funny one.

-With Real Eleanor back, Fake Eleanor (Our Eleanor) starting to realize in recent weeks how much her friendship with Chidi means to her, Michael deciding to help Our Eleanor, Tahani still being upset at Our Eleanor, Jason's growing bond with Janet and Tahani's discovery of Jason's true identity, all the relationships on The Good Place are in flux. It's kind of a mess and it gets complicated more tonight when Real Eleanor convinces Our Eleanor that she's in love with Chidi as Tahani comes to that same revelation but Chidi's Choice wades into that mess admirably and manages to sort everything out somewhat by the end.

-As the title suggests, we spend a lot of time with Chidi who has a choice to make. Well a bunch of them actually. It turns out Chidi is terrible at making decisions under any kind of pressure to the point where he literally died because he couldn't make a decision in time to step out of the path of a falling air conditioner. Chidi being indecisive is something that I'm not sure entirely vibes with his actions the past nine episodes (Though the show does kind of point it out) but it fits in perfectly with what's been established about his character. Of course the Chidi who always tries to do the right thing, can't tell a simple lie without being wracked with guilt for years, and made his life's work an impenetrable mess due to his constant revising is bad at making decisions. It just makes sense.

-William Jackson-Harper has been the stealth MVP of The Good Place since episode one and he gets a well-earned spotlight tonight with plenty of opportunity to showcase Chidi's two best comedic modes: crippling nervousness and stunned bewilderment. His series of confused "What?"'s that close out the episode are a comedic masterstroke.

-Ted Danson gets a lighter workload this week but he plays Michael's growing frustration with Chidi's indecisiveness perfectly. Michael and Chidi is probably my favourite pairing on the show. They have a really odd dynamic that I just can't get enough of. The scene where Michael gets drawn into Chidi's overthinking when he begins considering the idea that the soulmate system might have been totally thrown off while Chidi just melts down is a highlight.

-Tiya Sircar continues to make complete and utter perfection both compelling and kind of funny and Real Eleanor continues to be a beam of pure goodness. When she realizes that Our Eleanor cares for Chidi, she acknowledges that it's an awkward situation and you can tell she feels weird about it, but she also encourages Eleanor to go talk to Chidi and get it all sorted out rather than be jealous or catty. It's nice.

-Also nice? Eleanor and Tahani genuinely bonding and being friends even when they realize they both think they love Chidi. The Good Place could've used the reveal of Jason's deception to further the wedge between the two but while Tahani is justifiably angry, Eleanor is able to win her over. It's an excellent example of how far Eleanor has come. Her willingly trying to make amends with Tahani and salvage their friendship would have been unthinkable at the beginning of the series but it seems perfectly in character now.

-So Chidi and Tahani bonding a few episodes back did come up again. I was starting to think the show was just going to forget about that. Of course now it seems like that story existed so they could throw Tahani into the love triangle with Chidi and the Eleanor's for an episode and have it make sense but that's fine. It doesn't weaken the previous story, though Tahani suddenly deciding she doesn't love Chidi weakens this one. Why even have her in the mix? Oh well.

-Eleanor suddenly deciding that maybe her soulmate is actually Jason came a little too out of left field for me to work but it does make an odd amount of sense. We still don't know how Jason got into The Good Place. Maybe he was supposed to be Eleanor's soulmate. But Eleanor has grown a lot since the start of the show and Jason has not. There's no way Eleanor would seriously consider Jason as her soulmate now. It seems like a contrivance designed to make the end where she tells Chidi she doesn't love him in a romantic way seem more feasible (Also come on. She totally loves him in a romantic way). Yeah it doesn't take long for Eleanor to realize she doesn't love Jason but it's just weird.

-Jason and Janet getting married also comes out of left field but unlike Eleanor deciding that she loves Jason it makes perfect sense. Jason has been attracted to Janet from the start and him being kind to her during her rebooting phase is justification enough to have a fully restored Janet decide to marry him.

-The wedding sequence at the end with Jason's sleeveless tux, Eleanor and Tahani both objecting before deciding to just roll with it, and Jason's attempt to feed Janet cake was definitely the funniest part of the episode. I wonder if Jason's new marital status is going to play into how he winds up staying in the good place when he's inevitably discovered (I'll be shocked if Michael still doesn't know by the end of next episode).

-Poor Chidi. Even when he's finally ready to make a decision, he doesn't get to make a decision.

-So again, this wasn't the best episode of Good Place but it was still a quite good one. I'm very glad the show is back in my life for a couple more weeks.

-Seriously though. Chidi's closing "What?" to the sight of newlyweds Jason and Janet dancing? Incredible.

The Good Place Clashes With The Bad In "...Someone Like Me as a Member"

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.

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.

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".

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!"

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.

Jason Mendoza Wants To Be True To Himself In The Good Place

While I was watching the first two episodes of The Good Place one of the biggest questions I had was how the show would handle Jianyu (Manny Jacinto) going forward. Blabbermouth Tahani having a silent monk as a soulmate was a funny concept but one that seemed like it was quickly going to go stale. The end of last week's episode however revealed that there was much more to Jianyu than had been let on and Jason Mendoza takes that revealing and runs with it, giving Jacinto an excellent showcase for his comedic chops and making "Jianyu" a much better and funnier character in the process.

Now that he can talk, we learn a ton of information about Jianyu this week. His name is Jason for starters, he's Filipino not Taiwanese like everyone thinks he is. ("Heaven is so racist", he bemoans), and he was an amateur EDM DJ from Jacksonville, along with being an amateur hip-hop back-up dancer and body spray inventor who made money selling fake drugs to college kids. He's also shallow, simple-minded and not that bright, only managing to avoid detection through dumb luck (The first thing Michael brings up when he arrives is the vow of silence the real Jianyu is under so he latches onto that). Now the "dumb guy" is a classic sitcom staple that Good Place creator Mike Schur is quite familiar with (and which he practically perfected on Parks and Rec with Andy Dwyer), and Jason with his perpetually stoned bro vibe, lazy pronunciation (there's much confusion when he shows Eleanor his "bud hole"), and low ambition (His dream was to DJ all around Florida) is a fresh variation on the archetype. Jason also gives The Good Place a purely comedic character they can lean on for quick, fast punchlines, something the show could definitely use more of in this early-going period. Sure enough, Jason Mendoza is probably the funniest episode of The Good Place so far, with lots of humour derived from the goofy dumbness of Jason and Jacinto's stellar delivery and mannerisms. It turns out last week's "I'm freaking out homie!" was just the beginning of Jason's charm. Jason Mendoza is also probably the most tension-filled episode of The Good Place so far, as Jason proves to be the biggest threat to Eleanor's secret yet.

See Jason is driven by desire and his key desire is to always be himself. Flashbacks (the first time the flashback aren't about Eleanor and hopefully not the last) take us back to Jason's DJ days where he gets a chance to fill in for DJ Acidcat, wearing a big helmet and pushing a button every night while the real deal is elsewhere. It's more recognition than he's probably ever gotten as Mr. Music, the DJ (best DJ name ever, by the way) but it's not good enough for him so he unmasks, plays one of his own beats and gets promptly booed and pelted with garbage. Sued for breach of contract, Jason decides never to pretend to be someone else again, lest it cost him his dreams in life and then blows up DJ Acidcat's speedboat in retaliation. Now though he finds himself forced to be someone he isn't once again, with his "bud hole" (described as 12-Year-Old Boy meets 13-Year-Old Boy by Eleanor) the only place he can be himself. This isn't sitting right with him though and coming clean to Eleanor has made him decide to stop pretending and be himself again. It doesn't matter how much danger this puts himself, Eleanor, and Chidi in or how it might affect Tahani (still sad about her inability to click with who she thinks is his soulmate). Jason just can't take being Jianyu for one more minute so at The grand opening of The Good Plates (a new restaurant where you're served your favourite dish in the world.) where Michael and Tahani are under the impression that Jianyu has gained the courage to start talking, he decides to start talking about his real favourite meal (Jianyu's is a block of tofu), the buffalo wings at Stupid Nick's Wing Dump. It's an act that's understandable and relatable. No one wants to be someone they're not after all, but it's also incredibly selfish and dangerous. So to protect herself, Eleanor does something equally understandable, but equally selfish and dangerous.

Destroying the cake the chef at The Good Plates has spent all week working on is the first time since arriving that Eleanor does a bad thing on purpose with the intention of creating havoc. It's something she has to do to protect her secret but it doesn't make it right and the consequences reflect that. Selfishness has only begat more selfishness and the sinkhole that results is the most destructive thing she's caused since the storm. She tells Jason she did it to save him from himself but really she did it to save her and she knows it. It hasn't fixed anything either. Jason still wants to be himself, even rejecting Chidi's gracious offer of a spot in his Ethics class. This is when The Good Place flips the traditional lesson of "Be true to yourself" on it's head. Jason wants to be himself, but "himself" sucks. "Himself" is a selfish person who puts his desires above everyone else. Sometimes you need to change and become a better version of yourself. Eleanor has been trying to better herself, but she hasn't been giving it as much effort as she should or given Chidi the appreciation he deserves. It's when she sees Jason reject Chidi's offer that she gains a new appreciation for what Chidi has been doing and is able to recognise that they both need to be better, even if it's not as easy as just being themselves. This allows her to give Jason the wake-up call he needs to accept Chidi's help and learn "ethnics" as he calls it. It's not going to be easy and Jason's "dumb guy" status makes him a much tougher student than Eleanor but it's worth a try to be someone better than himself.

It might be too-little too-late for Eleanor and Jason though as the damage their actions led to in the restaurant proves more significant than initially thought. Michael assures Tahani that the sinkhole should fix itself within a few days but the end of the episode shows it's still growing. Eleanor was able to clean up the garbage storm and make Tahani's plant go from on fire to blooming but this sinkhole won't be as easily fixed it seems. This is an interesting but welcome note for the episode to end on because although it's not a huge twist like the Jason reveal, it doesn't let us feel at ease with how things are. Just like the aftermath of a cruel act in life, the danger has subsided but the damage remains and it's not going to magically fix itself. It'll be interesting to see what it will take to fix it.

Memorable Moments

-Tahani and Michael spend the episode getting ready for the restaurant opening, dealing with Tahani's soulmate issues (Michael assures her that her problems are normal and most soulmates take a few months to click) and deciding to help keep the neighbourhood together. It doesn't do much beyond keep the story in motion but that's fine. Hopefully they'll have more to do next week though.

-William Jackson-Harper continues to delight as Chidi. His shock and "You broke Jianyu" reaction to seeing Jason in all his douchey glory has to be seen to be believed.

-The "bud hole" confusion was funnier the first time than the second. Hopefully that's a one-episode gag and not a recurring thing.

-Michael drops an interesting fact. "Any place or thing in the universe can be up to 104% perfect. That's how you got Beyoncé."

-If we don't see more of the restaurant, I at least hope we see more of Chef Patricia, a very intense woman who angrily yells positive statements and remarks ("Change the floor plan an hour before opening?! Of course! The more the merrier!").

-The other Eleanor's favourite meal was the hunger strike she went on to protest Bolivian sex trafficking so our Eleanor doesn't get a meal at The Good Plates.

-Michael reassures someone who fell in the sink hole. "Glenn, stay calm. We're gonna get you out of there. And we'll put your soup in the fridge so it won't go to waste. I know that may not be your number one concern right now, but-" "It was up there. It's real good soup."

-Jason has two questions about the ethics class. "When are football tryouts and does this school have a prom?" This won't be easy.

Everyone's A Bit Insecure on The Good Place, Even Tahani Al-Jamil

The first two episodes of The Good Place seem straightforward enough. Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) is a selfish person who mysteriously wound up in paradise and needs to learn how to be good before she's discovered. It's a solid premise but also the kind of premise that seems like it could grow tiresome or unsustainable pretty quick. Having Eleanor be the one thing wrong in paradise can only go so many directions. Luckily, Tahani Al-Jamil reveals that there's a lot going on here then meets the eye, which is very welcome news indeed.

As the title suggests, perfect neighbour Tahani (Jameela Jamil) is the focus of Tahani Al-Jamil, as Eleanor gets to know her neighbour as an excuse to find out if she's the one who left her the "You don't belong here" note at the end of the last episode. It also gives us an excuse to get to know Tahani, who didn't have much to do in the first two episodes beyond serve as a symbol of irritating perfection to contrast Eleanor with and try to connect with her soulmate Jianyu (Manny Jacinto). So what do we learn about Tahani? Well it turns out the reason she seems so perfect and friendly is because she just really is that perfect and friendly. She raised over 60 billion dollars for charity in her lifetime, while dabbling in things like modelling, museum curating, and being Baz Luhrmann's muse. She may come across as a bit conceited and condescending but it's nothing intentional on her part. The key thing we learn though is under that perfection, she's as insecure and desperate to feel like she belongs as Eleanor is. Her inability to connect with silent Jianyu, which was played for laughs in Flying gets some actual pathos here as we find out just how depressed she is by the fact that he won't break his vow of silence for anyone, even his soulmate. It's what really breaks through to Eleanor and gets her to reluctantly embrace Tahani ("Ugh, of course your hugs are amazing", she grumbles).

Really though Tahani's main purpose in the episode is still to teach us something about Eleanor. Throughout the episode Eleanor is determined to prove that Tahani is not who she seems to be and is someone sinister and evil underneath her shiny surface. All the while a housewarming plant Tahani gave her withers and dies as Eleanor keeps trying in vain to prove Tahani wrote the note that's been giving her so much stress. Meanwhile flashbacks show how she broke up with a boyfriend because she saw his efforts to do the right thing by boycotting a coffee place where the owner sexually harasses people as him lording over how much better than her he was. Eventually after Chidi (William Jackson-Harper) suggests that the note was written by her own guilty conscious manifesting itself through the good place, Eleanor is able to admit that perfect people make her insecure and that when she sees someone she feels is better than her she has to try and drag them down to her level. It's a realisation that puts Eleanor in a new light, showing how insecure she's always been about the kind of person she was. The note hit her so hard because she just wants to belong to and once she has admitted this, she's able to help Tahani feel better about herself and cause the plant to bloom.

Eleanor's realisation also allows her to help Chidi who's been feeling insecure himself about his life's work and his place here. Tahani Al-Jamil wisely lets us get to know Chidi as a person outside of Eleanor by pairing him up with Michael (Ted Danson) and Janet (D'Arcy Carden) for a story in which Michael tries to find Chidi a hobby. It turns out Chidi has been obsessed with ethics all his life, spending 18 years working on a manuscript about his findings and Michael wants him to have new adventures while he's here. It's a great chance for Jackson-Harper to show off how funny he is and Chidi's inherent nervousness plays well off of Danson's trying-to-help Michael. His efforts reveal new things about Chidi as we learn cartography won't work because exploring makes him nervous (he has what doctors diagnosed as "directional madness"), and journalism is a no-go because he doesn't like deadlines. Ultimately though, we learn that Michael is just trying to find him a hobby because Chidi's 3600 page manuscript is so convoluted and muddled, it took Michael (who can read all the world's literature in a hour) two weeks to get through it. This raises a lot of questions (like if the book was so bad, how did Chidi's knowledge of ethics qualify him for the good place) and causes Chidi to doubt himself and his purpose, before committing himself to starting over and writing the book again with Michael's help. Chidi wants new experiences but he truly does love ethics and he owes himself to be true to that. Even Janet gets the chance to be insecure through a comic runner where Michael tries to help her personality as she tries to be his assistant. This is mainly an excuse to watch Carden string together a bunch of colloquialisms, toss off increasingly ridiculous fun facts, be overtly sexual, and then cold and cruel but she's great at every iteration of Janet before she eventually reverts back to her original self. It also opens the door for Eleanor to be Michael's new assistant, which along with him taking on the role of Chidi's advisor opens the door for Danson to be much more involved with our leads, which should complicate their attempts to keep Eleanor's secret from him.

All of this makes Tahani Al-Jamil a perfectly enjoyable episode of television. The kind of third episode you'd expect from a show figuring out it's rhythm. Until the last two minutes upend everything we thought we knew so far. Confronted with another anonymous note telling her to meet the sender at town square, Eleanor learns she wasn't the note sender after all. Jianyu was AND he can talk. It's a good twist, but also a fairly predictable one. Why have Jianyu in the main cast if his only function is to be silent and perfect? What really takes Tahani Al-Jamil to the next level there is the episode isn't content to stop on that reveal. Jianyu doesn't belong in The Good Place either and he doesn't know how or why he got there. And suddenly the question of how Eleanor got to the good place becomes significantly more interesting. Who else isn't supposed to be in The Good Place? How perfect is the system for figuring out who gets in the afterlife? Who is Jianyu really? It's a big reveal and the impressive thing is it comes in the third episode instead of the 7th or the 9th. It shows Michael Schur has bigger plans in mind for this show and he's not going to string us along very long before giving us a look at them. It makes me that much more excited for next weeks episode and to see what will happen next and what else isn't what it seems. One thing's for sure: the characters on this show might be insecure, but The Good Place certainly isn't. And it's not afraid to show it.

Memorable Moments

-As a symbol, the housewarming plant a bit too cutesy and on-the-nose, but it does lead to a great bit where it literally bursts into flames after Eleanor steals Tahani's diary.

-"Who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics?" "Plato".

-"So now I’m supposed to be nice and make friends and treat her with mutual respect?" "Yeah." "That’s exactly what she wants me to do Chidi. Wake up!" "That’s what everyone wants everybody to do".

-The reveal that Tahani translates to "Congratulations" and Al-Jamil translates to "Beautiful" is a terrific joke.

-In her fun fact phase, we learn from Janet that Columbus is in The Bad Place on account of the raping and slave-trading and genocide, as is every deceased member of the Portland Trailblazers. Her best fun fact though? "Fun fact: Janet is me."

-Chidi really likes taking his time on things. "You never even named your dog, did you. When it ran away you posted signs saying 'responds to long pauses'".

-Malala Yousafzai and Kylie Minogue wrote forwards for Tahani's diary. Of course.

-"First of all, throwing sand is an excellent way to put out vodka fires". "Why would you even know that?!"

-"I don't know how I got here, I don't know what's going on, and I am freaking out homie!" Jianyu frantic delivery of the word "homie" turns a major twist into the biggest laugh of the night.

The Good Place Gets Off To A Good Start

What does it mean to be a "good person" or a "bad person"? Can bad people learn to be better? Is there life after death? These are fairly heavy, often quite debated questions that come up in the course of a lifetime and while we all probably have our own answers to these questions, they're not the kind of questions that can be definitively answered. That won't stop NBC's new afterlife comedy The Good Place from trying though, and those questions are at the heart of Michael Schur's (Co-Creator of Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine) provocative new show which debuted Monday night with a 2-part premiere, before it moves to it's regular timeslot on Thursdays.

In The Good Place, there is an afterlife but it's not like anything you've been taught about. All major religions got maybe 5% of it right (Except for Doug Forcett, a stoner who lived in Calgary who guessed 92% of it while on mushrooms one night). Essentially every action you do in life from eating a sandwich to poisoning a river is given a positive or negative point value based on how much good or bad it sends through the universe. This is all monitored and once you die your score is added up. Those with the highest of high scores go to The Good Place, everyone else goes to "The Bad Place" (though what this means is left unexplained beyond a terrifying audio recording of roars and screams.). The Good Place is a series of neighbourhoods, perfectly designed for the 322 people that live in each one by an architect who oversees the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood The Good Place is set in is a pleasant suburban setting with a frozen yogurt shop on every corner (something all neighbourhoods have in common) and stores with names like "Everything Fits" or "All The Books". Each resident lives in a house perfectly designed to their tastes and meets their soulmate who is their universe-ordained perfect match. A walking database of knowledge named Janet (D'Arcy Carden) pops up in an instant to help with any question or request. All the words spoken are translated into the listeners preferred language. It's paradise. A very exclusive paradise (Mozart, Picasso, Elvis, basically all artists, every President except Lincoln, and Florence Nightingale all missed the cut) but paradise all the same.

Into paradise comes Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a woman who may have had an embarrassing death (A shopping cart mishap while trying to pick up "Lonely Girl's Margarita Mix For One" caused her to get swept into the street where she was hit by a mobile billboard truck for an Erectile Dysfunction product and the first paramedic on scene was an ex-boyfriend), but who's exemplary life as a lawyer who got innocent people off death row and who routinely went on humanitarian missions helping orphans has earned her a place in paradise, according to Neighbourhood Architect Michael (Ted Danson), along people like smug do-gooder Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), a monk who won't break his vow of silence even in death and Tahani's soulmate Jianyu (Mandy Jacinto), and Eleanor's soulmate Chidi (William Jackson Harper) who was a professor who taught Ethics and Moral Philosophu. The only problem is that there's been a mistake and she's not the person Michael thinks she is. She was the kind of person who sold fake medicine to seniors (and was salesperson of the year 5 years in a row), the kind of person who would drink before work drink night to get out of her turn being designated driver and the kind of person who deserves the bad place. Of course she would rather stay in The Good Place and so she turns to Chidi, who just might be willing to help teach her how to be a good person so she can fit in and avoid getting caught. It won't be easy (especially because Eleanor's negative actions cause catastrophic storms to affect the neighbourhood) but with paradise on the line, Eleanor has no choice but to try and pull it off.

Everything Is Fine/Flying, the 2-part opener of The Good Place, has a lot to get through in about 42 minutes of television. It has to introduce the characters, lay out the premise, set up an elaborate world and explain how it works, while telling a compelling story and scoring laughs along the way. For the most part it pulls it off. NBC made a smart choice in airing both parts of the episode together because Everything Is Fine would be a lot less satisfying (albeit pretty entertaining as any episode of television that ends with the chaotic sight of giant ladybugs and frogs, flying shrimp, and a herd of giraffes would have to be) without Flying right after to complete the story it's telling. Additionally Everything Is Fine has to take the burden of laying out the majority of the exposition of how The Good Place works so there's not time for much else. Luckily the exposition is laid out in a way that's entertaining and allows for plenty of jokes (I transcribed what I could of the elaborate point system that determines who gets in The Good Place below. This show is looking to be heaven for lovers of blink-and-you-miss-it gags like that) and Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are charming enough to keep the pilot from becoming dull or uninteresting. Flying is more set-up, but it gets to focus on the story of Eleanor trying to convince Chidi that there's a part of her worth saving so he'll help her try to keep her secret. It's a story that feels more complete than the story of Everything Is Fine, while also creating a compelling path for the series to move forward and now that we have that path, subsequent episodes should be a lot smoother. Also on the plus, the mystery of how and why Eleanor wound up here that the show subtly sets up over these first couple episodes is already compelling and offers a lot to hang on to going forward as well.

If there's one thing about The Good Place that seems perfect off the bat though, it's the casting. Eleanor is a deeply flawed person who we really shouldn't be rooting for, but Kristen Bell makes her feel likeable and human, even at her most selfish. Her desire to stay in this place no matter the consequences to the deserving people around her is greedy sure, but can anyone really blame her? Meanwhile, as Michael, who has finally gotten a chance to design his own neighbourhood after a 200-year-long apprenticeship and is devastated that there's a flaw in his perfect system, Ted Danson steals the show. Michael is clearly not used to having an earthly body or dealing with earthly emotions and it comes through in Danson's impeccable line-readings and acting. His desire to have everything be perfect on his first big opportunity is very understandable and can only lead to great things for the show going forward. William Jackson-Harper is no slouch either, playing Chidi with exasperation (who wouldn't be exasperated going to paradise only to find themselves confronted with a selfish mess of a soulmate) and nervousness, but also kindness and empathy. His interactions with Bell were the best parts of the first two episodes and their relationship should prove to be very compelling going forward. As for the supporting players, Tahani, Jianyu and Janet haven't made much of an impression yet (though Jamil nails Tahani's condescending perfectness and D'Arcy scores a few laughs with Janet's matter-of-fact delivery), but given Schur's track record for developing deep ensembles, I'm sure they'll get there in time.

The Good Place has not set an easy bar for itself to clear. It's ambitious and bold and I can imagine it's premise and environment being quite weird and alienating for viewers who prefer their comedies simpler (which is fair, I guess). It doesn't seem like the kind of show that's long for this world. I hope it lasts a couple seasons at least though, because it has the potential to become a show that's truly unique and special on the TV landscape. Everything Is Fine/Flying have introduced us to the world and gotten all the heavy lifting out of the way. Now it's time to watch this show soar.

Memorable Moments

-As mentioned above, I went through the Orientation Video and got all of the positive and negative actions (and most of the point values listed so you don't have to (unless you wanted to). Voila:

Eat a Sandwich +1.04
Buy a Trashy Magazine -.75
Hug Sad Friend +3.67
Plant Baobob Tree in Madagascar +5.25
Stiff a Waitress -3.21
Use "Facebook" as a verb. -5.55
Use the Term "Bro Code" -8.20
Poison A River -4010.55
Disturb Coral Reef with Flipper -55.02
Fix  Broken Tricycle For Child Indifferent to Tricyles +1.12
Fix Broken Tricycle For Child Who Loves Tricycles +6.60
Rev a Motorcycle -
-Root For New York Yankees -
Save A Child From Drowning +890.04
Remain Loyal to the Cleveland Browns +53.83
Blow Nose By Pressing Down Nostril and Exhaling -7.14
Tall a Woman to "Smile" -53.83
Remember Sister's Birthday +15.02
Be Commissioner of National Football League (American) -824.55
Purify Water (Village) Pop: >250 +294.26
Ruin Opera With Boorish Behaviour -90.90
Pet A Lamb +3.89
Scratch Elbow +1.10
Step Carefully Over Flower Bed +2.09
Stealing Copper Wire From Decommissioned Military Base -16.00
Maintain Composure in Water Park Line in Houston +60.98
Fail to Disclose Camel Illness When Selling Camel -22.22
Harassment (Sexual) -731.26
Overstate Person Connection to Tragedy That Has Nothing To Do With You -40.77
End Slavery +814292.09
Commit Genocide About -433401.86 (exact value not given)

-As for all the positive actions from the life of the person in the orientation video, I opted not to list them all but these are the highlights
Ate Vegan
Never Discussed Veganism Unprompted
Gave Out Full-Size Candy Bars At Halloween
Self-Monitored Potentially Nauseating Mouth Sounds While Chewing
Began to Compose Social Media Post About David Bowie Dying And Then Thought The World Doesn't Need To Hear My Thoughts on David Bowie
Researched West Indies Test Cricket Tournament Results to Facilitate Conversation with Father-In Law

-As someone who lives in Calgary, the story of Doug Forcett was my favourite joke of the episode (I'm very biased).

-"The bear has two mouths!"- overheard on the Bad Place audio.

-Example of how good everyone else in The Good Place is. "So then he said 'You can't give me both your kidneys. You'll die.' And I said 'but you will live, and I know we just met on this bus 10 minutes ago but you seem nice'".

-"We don't know what it is, how long it'll last or what caused it. What do we know Janet?" "We know where it happened: here".

-Eleanor's favourite "book" is Kendall Jenner's Instagram feed.

-"I have to say this neighbourhood you've built is tuly a masterpiece, the likes of which I've never seen, and I've been to Johnny Depp's private bird sanctuary".

-Some people think of their wedding day or favourite vacation spot to get the joy needed to fly. Eleanor thinks of people puking on roller coasters.

-"We could've literally been flying and all you wanted to do is talk about morals. You're like the worst parts of Superman!"

-Not a memorable moment but just a note that I'm planning to recap The Good Place throughout the season. Will I follow through on this? Hopefully.