The Good Place: Janet(s)

December 6, 2018 5:50 PM - Season 3, Episode 9

Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason are in a new place. Michael and Janet try to get information on how the points work.
posted by numaner (188 comments total)

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH SO MANY D'ARCY DARDEN (and i love it). She was so good and she should totally get a Golden Globe nomination too, but this episode missed that deadline I'm guessing.

"freaking out about everything is my identity"

I wonder if Jason will return Janet's feelings now that he knows. Also, I wonder if he and Tahini will find out about their hookups in the last reboot.

So the points system is basically unfair like we all thought. 521 years is a long time. Ahhh it's the real Good Place I'm so excited!
posted by numaner at 6:01 PM on December 6, 2018 [22 favorites]

holy forking shirt!
posted by JimBennett at 6:05 PM on December 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

This episode was epic!
That kiss was everything I have ever wanted a tv kiss to be.
This episode is undeniable proof that there is no such thing as too much D'Arcy Carden.
Shawn didn't lie -- Doug Forcett didn't get enough points to get into The Good Place!
521 years with no one getting in to The Good Place ... ? So what happened in 1497 I wonder?

Historical Events in 1497
Jan 6 Jews are expelled from Graz in Styria, Austria
Feb 25 Italians troops reconquer Taranto on France
Mar 9 Nicolaus Copernicus' 1st recorded astronomical observation
May 2 John Cabot's expedition departs Bristol searching for new lands across the Atlantic
May 10 Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed)
May 13 Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola
Jun 22 Antitax insurrection in Cornwall suppressed at Blackheath
Jun 24 John Cabot claims Eastern Canada for England (believes he has found Asia in Nova Scotia)
Jul 8 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage, becoming the 1st European to reach India by sea
Jul 26 "Edward IV's son" Perkin Warbeck's army lands in Cork
Aug 6 Italian explorer John Cabot returns to Bristol from North America (Newfoundland) - first European to do so since the Vikings
Aug 10 John Cabot tells King Henry VII of his trip to "Asia"
Sep 7 Flemish pretender Perkin Warbeck acclaimed as English King Richard IV on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall
Nov 22 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India
Dec 16 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama is 1st European to sail along Africa's East Coast, names it Natal
posted by pjsky at 6:18 PM on December 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

SO GOOD, ZOMG!

"Hi, Chidi, I'm Eleanor. I'm Arizona shrimp horny."
"That's not what I sound like, Jason. Get out of here!"
"Oh, dip."
posted by wiskunde at 6:19 PM on December 6, 2018 [39 favorites]

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
posted by palomar at 6:44 PM on December 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Head is exploding. That might have been the best episode of television I've ever seen.

ALSO, what did happen 521 years ago?

Also ALSO, when was 521 years ago? 1497 is 521 years ago from today. But are our pals in 2018? 2017? 2016?

"That one's Jason." hahahaha. Oh man, this SHOW.
posted by juliebug at 6:44 PM on December 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

D'Arcy Carden was astonishing. Even when they were look alike Janets, I could tell who each one was supposed to be. Her Tahani voice was perfect.

Plus, there were PUPPIES! Janet kissed a puppy mid-scold!
posted by gladly at 6:49 PM on December 6, 2018 [26 favorites]

I loved this episode very much but I actually don't think she did an amazing job at portraying the other characters, except Tahani. How long until the next episode now?

It would be a list of deaths 521 years ago, right? One of the Borgias died that year, probably not him. (I think we're in 2018 because of the updates that Judge J/Gen gave earlier this season.)
posted by jeather at 6:56 PM on December 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

The Wrap
How Mike Schur and D’Arcy Carden Pulled off That Ambitious Midseason Finale
According to series creator Michael Schur, Thursday’s midseason finale of “The Good Place” was more than a year in the making, which comes as no surprise seeing as the half-hour is one of the most ambitious episodes of any broadcast comedy in recent memory.


The AV Club
The Good Place’s latest gambit was over a year in the making
According to Schur, one of the reasons he knew the show could pull off something so challenging was because, “Orphan Black did it 100 times.”
posted by pjsky at 6:56 PM on December 6, 2018 [34 favorites]

So I guess Lincoln didn’t get into the Good Place after all.

I wonder if there’s anything to the Jeremy Bearimy in Janet’s wedding album (with an arrow pointed at the e in Bearimy)?
posted by Aznable at 7:06 PM on December 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

holy forking shirtballs, WHAT - AN - EPISODE. :O

An Emmy for D'arcy!
posted by bigendian at 7:37 PM on December 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

I just. I just love this show.
posted by rewil at 8:08 PM on December 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Goodness.
posted by peeedro at 8:13 PM on December 6, 2018

D’Arcy Carden gets the Emmy. End of conversation.
posted by Etrigan at 8:17 PM on December 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Well, that certainly explains why the preceding few episodes had been light on Janet content.
posted by dry white toast at 8:46 PM on December 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Haha I was like why does this remind me of portal 2? Stephen Merchant's voice is amazing.
posted by Carillon at 9:01 PM on December 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

I loved this episode very much but I actually don't think she did an amazing job at portraying the other characters, except Tahani. How long until the next episode now?

i thought tahani was her weakest impression. her jason was astonishing.
posted by JimBennett at 9:03 PM on December 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

That. Was. Genius.

I love this show so much.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:04 PM on December 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Reading that article about how they did it and all the work D’Arcy Carden did leading up to it made me tear up a little bit. It's fantastic to see someone so excited about what they do AND have them do it so well AND for a show to take a huge risk that paid off. I almost applauded in my empty living room when this episode ended.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:14 PM on December 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Aznable: So I guess Lincoln didn’t get into the Good Place after all.

Au contraire - they spent over 300 years in the fake Good Place. Lincoln died in 1865. He could conceivably have been the last person who got into the real Good Place.
posted by tzikeh at 9:18 PM on December 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

That was... Just amazing. I thought D'Arcy did amazingly well as everyone except maybe Chidi in the start, although by the second half her Chidi felt pretty natural to me too. Her Jason was eerie good. Tour de force.

Schur compared it to Orphan Black, and let's be clear that Tatiana Maslany is amazing in that, but she had the advantage of being able to build her own characters rather than jumping into someone else's shoes, especially so many different sets of shoes.

What an amazing show.

And I'd already looked at the 1497 deaths during the commercial break. "Hmm, Anna Sforza, let's see about her... Italian noble woman, that's not so bad, dressed as a man, no shame in that, didn't consummate her marriage for years, okay so far, preferred to be with her small black slave, well she's definitely not getting into the Good Place."
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:18 PM on December 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Two things to keep in mind re: deaths in 1497:

1) We know they spent 300 years in the Bad Place
2) Jeremy Bearimy
posted by tzikeh at 9:20 PM on December 6, 2018 [25 favorites]

Seems odd to me that the accounting office would have pneumatic tubes to send people...aren't people sorted out someplace else? And if not wouldn't there be a tremendous number of people going through?
I thought they said 512 years. If that's the case...the most famous person dying that year was Christopher Columbus. Something tells me it's not him.
This brings up the question of where do infants go. They haven't accumulated any points probably but they aren't bad either. They don't go to the medium place as far as we know. Hmm.
That poor guy in weird sex things.
It's very intriguing to me that Janet is quite pointedly telling Michael he has to do it. Heh Michael's going to save heaven :chortle:.

Very bummed that we have to wait til January or something for the new season, on the other hand it gives me time to do some reading (and rereading) of various ethics books. Speaking of which, Chidi seemed to be more focused on "what makes us US" this time as opposed to what is the good thing to do. Little bit of a shift in focus. Was that a topographical map on the back wall?
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 9:21 PM on December 6, 2018

Also, wow the computer equipment in the accounting office reallllly needs an upgrade. The sound of the do matrix printer made me a little nostalgic though. Only a little.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 9:45 PM on December 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ooh an alphabet cypher on the wanted poster.
With a bit of fiddling I get:
(?1)making kristen bell
william jackson harper
stunning jamela jamil
handsome (?2)anny jacinto

I think they didn't proof it, as the ?2 should be M for Manny, but it's a new character.
posted by Marticus at 9:56 PM on December 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

MAXIMUM JANET
posted by lunasol at 10:11 PM on December 6, 2018 [32 favorites]

My favorite part was when Jason-Janet sat down next to Chidi-Janet and I noticed the accent/mannerisms were sort of off. And then we find out it’s Eleanor-Janet masquerading as Jason-Janet!!!! THIS FORKING SHOW.
posted by lunasol at 10:13 PM on December 6, 2018 [40 favorites]

Give D'Arcy Carden all the awards. I love this show so forking much.
posted by karayel at 10:47 PM on December 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Some actual lols: Janet burping a Cher song, "Burning Man just started", the poor weird sex accountant's pained "What are you going to use it for?" when Michael asks him for a paperclip, every single moment Jason-Janet (or Janet-Jason?) was onscreen. Eleanor's glorious burst of good-place profanity at the end wasn't so much a lol as a straight-up effusion of joy.
posted by karayel at 11:07 PM on December 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

Podcast is up!
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 12:58 AM on December 7, 2018

Beyond Good. All the Janet(s).

My Dreams come truuuuuuueeeeee!
posted by Faintdreams at 3:32 AM on December 7, 2018

I was at a work dinner last night (which ended just in time; I walked in my front door at 8:26pm), and the question came up "Can a show be both bingeable and smart?"

None of these (lefty, intellectual, college-professor-type people) had heard of The Good Place! I was like, "No, but it's about this woman who dies and goes to The Good Place but there's a mix-up and she's not supposed to be there, so she starts learning about ethics from her assigned soulmate who is a professor of moral philosophy from Senegal by way of Australia, and one episode is called The Trolley Problem and they are LITERALLY ON A TROLLEY," and at that point the outside guest speaker's eyes lit up.

Y'all I just got so many good place points for introducing 5 new people to the smartest and bingeablest show around.

This episode was pretty amazing though. D'Arcy Carden deserves all the Emmys.
posted by basalganglia at 3:52 AM on December 7, 2018 [35 favorites]

(1) Shoutout to the late Derek Parfit! It was during a guest lecture by Parfit at my college that I realized I loathe philosophy and should never take another phil class.

Also, I now realize that Janet's Derek is almost certainly named in tribute. From Parfit's Wikipedia page: "Parfit argued that reality can be fully described impersonally: there need not be a determinate answer to the question 'Will I continue to exist?'"

His first published paper was called "Personal Identity."

Pretty slick, writers!

(2) Wild speculation about the real Good Place: The vaguely referenced "committee" in the Good Place raised the admission standards 500 years ago because they were worried the Good Place was getting too crowded. This is going to be about privilege and scarcity and ... kinda college admissions? I mean, look at the set: It looks like an old-timer private school.
posted by purpleclover at 4:24 AM on December 7, 2018 [22 favorites]

Also, check out the Parfit obituary thread. It is all ... very relevant.
posted by purpleclover at 4:30 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Well, congratulations, television sitcom. I've now read more and more eagerly about Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion (as well as a short essay about the difficulty of making "the best choice" by my actual philosophy professor) than I ever did when I was in college and taking a real class about it, so maybe what I owe The Good Place is ... tuition?
posted by purpleclover at 5:41 AM on December 7, 2018 [14 favorites]

When I first saw that room full of Janets, I both laughed my butt off and cheered for an all D'arcy Carden episode!. But, when they started speaking, I was really transfixed. D'arcy's acting was so spot-on, I sometimes couldn't tell if she was acting or lip-syncing (the female parts, of course) She got Kristen Bell's voice and mannerisms so right-on, it was amazing. This was easily one of the most entertaining episodes of the show.

Now, when D'arcy/Chidi was talking to D'acy/Eleanor, and D'acy/Eleanor was quickly morphing through dozens of other entities, I thought to myself, "Y'know...If I ran this show, most of those people would be folks that work behind the scenes on the show." Anyone know if this might have been the case?
posted by Thorzdad at 6:05 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Seems odd to me that the accounting office would have pneumatic tubes to send people...aren't people sorted out someplace else? And if not wouldn't there be a tremendous number of people going through?

The tubes are for mail, not people. That's why it was crazy for all of them to go through it.

There's something hysterical and true-to-life about a whole office worth of people, doing their work, eating cake once in a while, and their work is just, stupid. Broken system even though all the cogs are doing their part.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:20 AM on December 7, 2018 [35 favorites]

Imagine working in that office and hearing that your work is useless. I expected a revolt from the workers and for them to help the group.
posted by soelo at 6:43 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Imagine working in that office and hearing that your work is useless.

Who on earth could ever imagine such a thing!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:50 AM on December 7, 2018 [40 favorites]

I'm lucky to have enough PTO to do this but I may have called in sick to work today in part because of that office and how recognizable it was.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:50 AM on December 7, 2018 [19 favorites]

If we were in the Good Place, then The Good Place: After Dark with Matt having to adjudicate a new Weird Sex Thing every week would be the tentpole nice franchise on NBC's new streaming service.
posted by Etrigan at 6:59 AM on December 7, 2018 [22 favorites]

I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but at times I was wondering if they were doing some kind of voice mixing with the different Janets.
posted by idb at 7:02 AM on December 7, 2018

1497 is about a hundred years too late but otherwise I would have guessed that after being flooded with people following the Black Death, the Good Place might have shifted the entrance requirements to make it more exclusive.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:03 AM on December 7, 2018

1497, depending on the Jeremy Bearimy & the actual definition of 'now' would be late for the Black Death.... but just on the cusp of wave after crushing wave of virulent epidemics in South America post European contact.

I mean the Black Death was indeed bad but there are estimates of the population of modern day Mexico dropping by 90% in the first 3 generations-ish post Columbus.
posted by mce at 7:10 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

"Which in turn makes you inter-dimensional fugitives, so that's neat."

Chidi-Janet: We're in the body of a white lady—
Eleanor-Janet: Not a lady.
Tahani-Janet: Not a lady, darling.
posted by ckape at 7:26 AM on December 7, 2018 [23 favorites]

My personal guess is that the right thing to be looking for '521 years ago' (not going to say 1497 because of Jeremy Bearimy) is not the individual that was the last person to get into the Good Place, but rather some key ethical or moral philosophy event that filtered through human awareness and either a) implicitly changed everyone's motivations, so that acts that previously would have scored points now don't count or b) somehow threatened the Bad Place, so they were motivated to find a way to rig the system.
posted by BlueDuke at 7:30 AM on December 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

My prediction now is that the Good Place have actually changed the rules to keep people out. The Bad Place haven't rigged the system, the Good Place have just got high on their own supply and have decided nobody is actually good enough.
posted by Tevin at 7:37 AM on December 7, 2018 [16 favorites]

Haha I was like why does this remind me of portal 2? Stephen Merchant's voice is amazing.

There's also the human-sized pneumatic tubes operated by large red buttons, a passive-aggressive female AI (Neutral Janet), and the thwarted promise of cake. The writers knew exactly what they were doing, all right.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:49 AM on December 7, 2018 [68 favorites]

My prediction now is that the Good Place have actually changed the rules to keep people out.

Which makes the Good Place....more of a Bad Place, amirite? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNN.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:19 AM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

My prediction now is that the Good Place have actually changed the rules to keep people out. The Bad Place haven't rigged the system, the Good Place have just got high on their own supply and have decided nobody is actually good enough.

Or someone got into the Good Place who had followed all the rules and accumulated all the right number of points, but was in fact a total screaming asshole, and they had one of those PHIL 101 "There's no true altruism, maaan..." moments.
posted by Etrigan at 8:28 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

How The Good Place Made Its Very Special Janet Episode
By Whitney Friedlander - VULTURE

Why has the Good Place been broken for so long?

“The question of why no one has gotten in [the Good Place] in 521 years will be answered in the next episode,” Schur says. But like so many other small details on the show, that specific length of time wasn’t an arbitrary choice. “We sort of figured once the world was closed as a loop — once exploration moved from Western Europe and had moved across the ocean — after that moment it was essentially impossible for anyone would get in by the criteria we set up,” Schur explains. Sorry, Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman.
posted by pjsky at 8:30 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Now, when D'arcy/Chidi was talking to D'acy/Eleanor, and D'acy/Eleanor was quickly morphing through dozens of other entities, I thought to myself, "Y'know...If I ran this show, most of those people would be folks that work behind the scenes on the show." Anyone know if this might have been the case?

Not sure about the others, but the first person she morphed into, was Monica Padman, who is Kristen Bell's… friend/writing partner/assistant/it'scomplicated. Which seems very intentional.
posted by mumkin at 8:46 AM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

speaking of intentional...

"...you're the first humans in history not to go immediately to the Good or the Bad Place..."

So, uhh, who or what is Mindy?
posted by mce at 8:58 AM on December 7, 2018 [10 favorites]

I think Mindy might have immediately went to the Bad Place or Good Place first and then they fought over her. I'm thinking the Bad Place first since there hasn't been anyone going to the Good Place in 521 years. And maybe someone in the Good Place argued for her because they needed a win.
posted by numaner at 9:00 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

it'scomplicated

Im gonna be honest, I really don’t love this thing where they treat lesbian* relationships as a source of jokes and nothing else. It’s uh...it’s actually not great. Like when you meet someone who does this in person it’s a pretty surefire sign that they think they’re totally cool with the queers but in fact they don’t see lesbians, in particular, at all, so they’re not actually going to be someone you can be close to or who you can trust not to screw you over.

This is the one thing I do not like about this show, and now I’m bummed that it’s a thing I do not like about Kristen Bell.

*I use “lesbian” to refer to the type of relationship, not the people in it, bc I’m not aware of another concise way of referring to it. Like female homosexual relationship would have the same problems, just with more words. Maybe the youths have come up with something? Lmk
posted by schadenfrau at 9:11 AM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

D’Arcy Carden remains an utter delight though please let’s not spoil her
posted by schadenfrau at 9:14 AM on December 7, 2018

It seems like the Good Place has a lot of piled up mail, considering that they haven't gotten any for centuries.
posted by ckape at 9:21 AM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's something hysterical and true-to-life about a whole office worth of people, doing their work, eating cake once in a while, and their work is just, stupid. Broken system even though all the cogs are doing their part

We all work for the accountants.

Imagine working in that office and hearing that your work is useless.

You get used to it.

some key ethical or moral philosophy event that filtered through human awareness and either a) implicitly changed everyone's motivations, so that acts that previously would have scored points now don't count or b) somehow threatened the Bad Place, so they were motivated to find a way to rig the system.

I like this one, but....

We sort of figured once the world was closed as a loop — once exploration moved from Western Europe and had moved across the ocean — after that moment it was essentially impossible for anyone would get in by the criteria we set up,” Schur explains. Sorry, Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman.

????? I wonder why that did it?
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:42 AM on December 7, 2018

"freaking out about everything is my identity"

Personally attacked, relatable content, etc.

Also, I am totally stealing Arizona Shrimp Horny as a sock puppet name.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 11:03 AM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I just loved the way this episode continued Janet's apotheosis. Janet's always been such a stealth god -- hidden, in part, by the way we are often trained to dismiss pleasant helpful women as in the background -- even though she keeps telling people she's omnipotent and omniscient, and obviously is. As Janet has died for the sins of everyone in the group (800 or so times in the reboots), harrowed Hell, fallen in love with and raised up a lowlife (Jason as Mary Magdalene), rejected rigid legalism and literally redeemed people who are connected to her (in part through contact with her body), and most recently in this episode empowered her agent Michael to take the war forward and reform the law, it's been amazing to watch theology as comedy. And it's even more wonderful that in this version, she's rebelling against Heaven and Hell, like a combination of Jefferson's Jesus and Milton's Satan, to establish a newer freer order.
posted by SandCounty at 12:30 PM on December 7, 2018 [70 favorites]

We sort of figured once the world was closed as a loop — once exploration moved from Western Europe and had moved across the ocean — after that moment it was essentially impossible for anyone would get in by the criteria we set up,” Schur explains. Sorry, Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman.

????? I wonder why that did it?

At that point, everyone was in some way benefiting from systems that rested on slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.
posted by Etrigan at 12:41 PM on December 7, 2018 [29 favorites]

Tough void
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:43 PM on December 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

Chinet, Jaset, Elnet, Tahanet.
posted by Grangousier at 1:12 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

It's a bit early (100 years or so?) but Miltons Divine comedy was published in the rough timescaled of 521 years ago, plus or minus Jeremy Bearimy.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 1:33 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

I probably should also flag that Janet derives from John, and is rooted in an etymology that apparently means "god is merciful". (See, http://babynames.net/names/janet and https://www.behindthename.com/name/john). This is... probably not a coincidence.
posted by SandCounty at 1:56 PM on December 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

At that point, everyone was in some way benefiting from systems that rested on slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.

Except for the slaves and the colonized. But Harriet Tubman didn't get in either.
posted by sohalt at 2:27 PM on December 7, 2018 [13 favorites]

Unless there is a scene where the Scooby hang have to eat parts of Janet to be saved then I am not buying her/them/it as God.

HOWEVER..

We have learnt in this episode that Janet only has three distinct states Good, Bad and Neutral.

Holy trinity perhaps?
posted by Faintdreams at 2:36 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Hmm, now I'm wondering if it's got something to do with exploration... That when the system was set up, the best thing anyone could do was to bravely explore the unfamiliar to find new places to live for others. That could then lead to an argument that self discovery, striving for improvement, is what really matters; that seems to be the central theme of a lot of the show anyway
posted by Cannon Fodder at 4:00 PM on December 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

‘The Good Place’: How Its Team of Philosophers Made the Fall Finale Go Deep

The tally determines whether a person is worthy of entering The Good Place, but it’s revealed that no one has been accepted into The Good Place for 521 years. Schur said that number will be addressed in the next episode.

“It was always reserved for the elite, top 5 percent,” said Schur. “So we figured once westward expansion begins, everyone was screwed. Harriet Tubman, Jonas Salk, and the Golden Girls were the main [ones]. Basically, anyone Antebellum in America is screwed pretty much.”

The Good Place team on the show's most insane episode yet

Michael's quest ends with the startling revelation that it's been 521 years since a human being has been granted entrance to the Good Place. It's a number that led to a spirited discussion in the show's writers' room. "We made a list of, like, a dozen people where it was like, 'This has got to be a no-brainer,'" says Schur. "Lincoln was one. Harriet Tubman, Jonas Salk. It's people who did something good that affected an enormous number of people, right? But it's funny, because when you play that game, you go, 'Well, this person has to be in.' And then you go, 'Oh, no, no. They don't.' Thomas Jefferson? No. George Washington? No. And that is what gave us a little bit of wind in our sails for this idea. Go try to find the Incontrovertibly Great Person in history, who never did anything [wrong]. Basically anyone pre-Antebellum is screwed, in America. [...] We chose roughly 521 years because we sort of figured that once exploration moved from Western Europe and moved across the ocean ... basically, that was the last moment. After that moment, it was conceptually impossible for anyone to get in, via the criteria we've set up."
posted by EmilyClimbs at 4:05 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

At that point, everyone was in some way benefiting from systems that rested on slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.

Except for the slaves and the colonized. But Harriet Tubman didn't get in either.
posted by sohalt at 5:27 PM on December 7 [+] [!]

I think it's possible that the points system considers the consequences of the slaves' actions to primarily be benefitting and enriching slave-owners. The points system is, as we're learning, a really shitty way to judge people.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:08 PM on December 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

There is some kind of Paradise Lost thing there, though isn't there...? Or if not Paradise Lost, then Bedazzled (1967), which would, at the very least, be a very good companion piece to The Good Place.

(An RE teacher at school once told us that Bedazzled was the best thing he'd ever seen about the Satan Problem. It is a wonderful film, and Peter Cook at one of his peaks.)
posted by Grangousier at 4:10 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

I thought D'arcy Carden's Jason was the best of her impressions, but agree that all were great. I kinda wish they'd kept them all in regular Janet clothes, I think they would still have been recognizable - but I guess the Eleanor-Jason gag worked better this way.

The accounting department had fun references to Parks and Recreation, with the accountant's humor joke, and The Office, with Stephen Merchant and his "existence's best boss" mug.
posted by the primroses were over at 5:25 PM on December 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

That was so forking good we ended up watching it twice.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:08 PM on December 7, 2018

At that point, everyone was in some way benefiting from systems that rested on slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.

Except for the slaves and the colonized.

I said "in some way" for a reason: reducing life to a series of discrete actions means that a rigid moral system can blame people for doing what's necessary to survive under a repressive regime, e.g., "Accepted food from slave owner, minus 60 points." "Wore clothing made by a slave, minus 40 points." Clearly, these aren't things that benefit the slave overall, but unless you're given points merely for being a slave, then you could easily end up being in the negative for insufficient (non-fatal) resistance.

On the other hand, we were also given a clue by Doug Forcett's fate -- he has 520,000 points, which the Accountant says is "excellent", but then it turns out he's going to the Bad Place because he's 68 years old. So the grading seems to be on an age-based curve, rather than simply judging by whether a person is net-positive or net-negative. Perhaps they decided to do that because under the previous regime, if you merely survived long enough, practically everyone would accrue enough points to go to the Good Place, but if you died young, you would almost certainly go to the Bad Place (children are a net drain on society while they're children). So they started the age curve, but they over-corrected, so that no one can manage to accrue / retain enough points to go to the Good Place.

That doesn't really jibe with Schur's "one the world was closed as a loop" theory, but it's what I was thinking after the Accountant said Forcett was screwed because of his age.

Also, per the podcast, Jimi Hendrix is in the Good Place, so the metatextual stuff may or may not be true.
posted by Etrigan at 6:27 PM on December 7, 2018 [8 favorites]

@schadenfrau, the concise way I know to speak of those relationships between two women whose sexuality can be bi/lesbian/pansexual/etc are WLW (Women Loving Women) relationships. There's also MLM relationships. Those are generally understood to cover a variety of types of love (erotic, passionate, etc) between all people of those genders, with the exception of platonic love.

Of course technically being attracted to Janet is being attracted to someone who is female presenting and not a woman. But our Janet uses "She" for neutral Janet, so... female identifying and female presenting but not a woman in the sense that she's not human? I'm unclear.
posted by gryftir at 7:03 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Historical Events in 1497

I think we can rule out everyone on your list as far as "who was the last person to get into the Good Place".

If the last person to get in wasn't just some rando peasant (seems likely, actually), then maybe it was this guy?

There's also the human-sized pneumatic tubes operated by large red buttons, a passive-aggressive female AI (Neutral Janet), and the thwarted promise of cake.

HOW DID I MISS THAT???
posted by tobascodagama at 7:20 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

I had a goofy grin on my face for most of this episode. Definitely for every minute spent in the void.

After watching this episode with me tonight, my twelve year old son, on his own, pointed out that the good place doesn't make sense, because people are supposed to be happy there, but good people couldn't be happy knowing about all the people in the bad place. He had some other issues, too, but that was the one I was most pleased with.

I think we're doing a good job with that kid.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 7:47 PM on December 7, 2018 [15 favorites]

Also, per the podcast, Jimi Hendrix is in the Good Place, so the metatextual stuff may or may not be true.

That appears to have just been thrown out the window in this episode.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:58 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

How good is the real good place if you can’t swear there?
posted by Going To Maine at 8:06 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

What about uncontacted by Europe people post 15th century? That seems to say the entirety of Australia (I'll skip NZ because of documented cannibalism and genocide) had no Good Place contenders either. Ditto for South America's western side.

The American-Euro bias of The Good Place shows every now and then. It'd be nice to see them deal with some solidly non-western things.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:42 PM on December 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

I loved the episode so much I'm still smiling. JANET.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:44 PM on December 7, 2018

I'm rewatching from s1e1 with my 10 year old (which is fun!) and people mentioned in the Good Place don't line up with this episode's timeline.
posted by k8t at 9:43 PM on December 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lalala I haven’t watched this episode yet

Good Place fans, there’s an improv show in Los Angeles next Friday with a few peeps from the show: Shirt Show. I’m considering plane tickets.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:27 PM on December 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

How good is the real good place if you can’t swear there?
posted by Going To Maine at 11:06 PM on December 7 [+] [!]

I figure, you shouldn’t be able to swear in the bad place either... muahahahahah
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:24 PM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Eleanor is pretty clearly openly Bi but romantically most interested in Chidi. I don't take her references to also being horny for Tahani or Janet as purely jokes, but rather a matter-of-fact way that this horny Arizona Shrimp-monster approaches the world, and I like that there's no judgement about it.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:51 AM on December 8, 2018 [33 favorites]

Marticus: Ooh an alphabet cypher on the wanted poster.

Huh! I compared it to a shot of the Bad Place computer screen earlier in the season; I think they only share a character or three. (It's excerpted in the podcast ep with video and Jameela.)
posted by Pronoiac at 1:23 AM on December 8, 2018

Co-creator of The Office now runs the universe's most important and terrible office.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:30 AM on December 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

Noting that when Michael and the humans went back to earth and mucked with the timeline, that had effects on everything (remember Gen's disgust/incredulousness for the Jaguars' performance?) Although Jeremy Bearimy, I wonder if this also impacted the afterlife in some way? I guess we'll find out next time.

Anyway, D'Arcy Carden should get the Tatiana Maslany Award. Amazing.
posted by hijinx at 5:24 AM on December 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Colbert should have them both on and D'Arcy Carden doing a Tatiana Maslany character and Ms Maslany in Ms Carden for a full segment.
posted by sammyo at 6:13 AM on December 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

After watching this episode with me tonight, my twelve year old son, on his own, pointed out that the good place doesn't make sense, because people are supposed to be happy there, but good people couldn't be happy knowing about all the people in the bad place.

According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, awareness of the suffering of the damned is a big part of what makes heaven so great.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:28 AM on December 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm rewatching from s1e1 with my 10 year old (which is fun!) and people mentioned in the Good Place don't line up with this episode's timeline.

Mentioned by whom, though? The only Good Place representative we've ever seen that hasn't been debunked so far was the one in the Medium Place intro video (and Mike Schur has said that the Medium Place story is true).
posted by Etrigan at 7:15 AM on December 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Technically on the podcast intro (unlikely to be canon but even so) they don't say Jimi Hendrix is in the Good Place, they say that his podcast is popular in the Good Place.*

A podcast he makes with Mozart, whom we have previously heard is in the Bad Place--but that info came from Season 1 Michael who not only is a known liar, but also apparently until this week did not even know who, if anyone, was or wasn't in the Bad Place. So he made that up on the spot and accidentally got it right, along with everyone else he ever said was in the Bad Place. (The only one he got wrong, I think, is implying Lincoln is in the Good Place?)

Janet has previously given out factoids about who is in the Bad Place, but no one has ever asked her if she knew of someone who definitely went to the Good Place. Presumably if she knows the former she knows the answer to the latter, which is "no one in the past 500 years." But does she know why? (Probably, as she knows almost everything). And if she does know would she be allowed to say so? (Less clear).

One thing that stuck out to me is earlier this season Glenn says to Shawn, "we torture like 30 billion humans--why do you care so much about these four?" If that number is accurate, and everything we learned this week is also true, then there are about 75 billion people in the Good Place, all of whom died at least 500 years ago, and 30 billion people in the Bad Place, only 10 billion of whom died before everything changed. (Source). That means getting into the Good Place didn't just go from Really Really Hard to Impossible. It went from Pretty Doable to Impossible.

*Whether a podcast could be made in the Bad Place and listened to in the Good Place is unclear, because communication between various segments of the afterlife seems to be at times surprisingly difficult and at other times surprisingly easy. Also the Good Place could simulate a podcast. Also do people in the Good Place like...keep up with music trends over the ensuing centuries? Also Jeremy Bearimy, I guess. Maybe these questions will become moot soon, once we get a look at the Real Good Place. All that said, I can easily believe that making a podcast could be a form of punishment in the Bad Place.
posted by lampoil at 9:26 AM on December 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

It seems everyone is trying to figure out who got into the Good Place. There was a 100-fold increase in visitors to the Wikipedia page on 1497 after the episode.
posted by Tsuga at 10:19 AM on December 8, 2018 [27 favorites]

WHo the hell was looking up the year 1497 before this?
posted by skewed at 10:21 AM on December 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Janets.
posted by Tsuga at 10:26 AM on December 8, 2018 [21 favorites]

I am glad that the body-switch only lasted for one episode because I was having trouble coming to terms with the realization that I am intensely attracted to Jason-Janet.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 10:32 AM on December 8, 2018 [15 favorites]

Yeah, Eleanor is pretty clearly openly Bi but romantically most interested in Chidi. I don't take her references to also being horny for Tahani or Janet as purely jokes, but rather a matter-of-fact way that this horny Arizona Shrimp-monster approaches the world, and I like that there's no judgement about it.

I agree that I like that there's no judgment about it, but at the same time, it's also never allowed to go anywhere.

So far we've had Eleanor talking openly about finding Tahani and Janet attractive, she called it on the demon couple who wanted to swing, and she's mentioned Mindy St. Claire "keeping it tight" and also hitting on her and Chidi for a threesome. It's treated like it's fairly normal, but it's hard for me that it's never given more than that and that the only hookups we have among the main group are man/woman hookups. Eleanor talks about how hot various women are, but the exes she talks about are only men and we get no followup on what happened in the attempt where she and Tahani were soulmates. The one same-sex couple we've seen are the two demons posing as a gay couple who love cleaning stuff up. There is no trans representation at all.

Honestly the lack of openly LGBT characters and same-sex relationships is the part of this that I find least realistic and most alienating.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:35 AM on December 8, 2018 [20 favorites]

And even with that, this is my new favorite show. I've watched the entire thing this week because I got gluten in my food and it's been so bad that I couldn't work, so I decided to check this show out that my friend was recommending and am now completely enthralled by it.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:36 AM on December 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

our Janet uses "She" for neutral Janet, so... female identifying and female presenting but not a woman

Using "she" pronouns and presenting feminine and not being a woman is absolutely a thing that some humans are, so it's not necessarily down to Janet(s) not being human, though the show does suggest that in her case it is.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:07 PM on December 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

One thing that stuck out to me is earlier this season Glenn says to Shawn, "we torture like 30 billion humans--why do you care so much about these four?" If that number is accurate...

Glenn seems to be a low-level worker who may or may not actually know their true number of “clients” — I have no idea how many people my company serves (or even employs, for that matter), so if someone got really hung up on one or two of them, I’d likely say something to the effect of “We have like five million people in the system — why do you care so much about these two?”

Alternately, Shawn might only be in charge of a certain chunk of the Bad Place that does have 30 billion people, and there are several other ten-figure Bad Places.
posted by Etrigan at 12:46 PM on December 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

That's right, hence the "if."

At the same time, on a show that has spent three seasons meticulously refraining from confirming any Good Place residents before revealing what they revealed this week--in addition to it being clear there's a plan for why the number 521 was chosen--it's hard to imagine any number in this season was chosen cavalierly. We'll find out.
posted by lampoil at 1:09 PM on December 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

I loved this episode very much but I actually don't think she did an amazing job at portraying the other characters, except Tahani.

Hard disagree here. Her Jason was perfect.
posted by Pendragon at 2:12 PM on December 8, 2018 [16 favorites]

Dougs in the book of Dougs:

• Doug Forcett
• Doug Shellstrop
• Donkey Doug

Something that might go nowhere, or anywhere.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:31 PM on December 8, 2018 [25 favorites]

Uhm not to be a Debbie Downer but what about babies who die or the conscious but unborn?

If theres no limbo are they also doomed to go to hell simply for existing? Do they acquire negative points for causing thier parents/potential parents pain?
posted by Faintdreams at 4:41 PM on December 8, 2018

I think a point this show is trying to make is that reducing a human's life to a series of point gains/losses is a pretty terrible idea, so what-iffery about babies or uncontacted peoples, while maybe is fun, is probably ultimately pointless.
posted by axiom at 4:48 PM on December 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

what-iffery about babies or uncontacted peoples, while maybe is fun, is probably ultimately pointless.

I see what you did there.
posted by Mogur at 4:51 PM on December 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

Opinion: D'Arcy Carden's greatest acting achievement this episode is the absolute, terrifying lifelessness of Medium Janet's eyes.
posted by Rinku at 6:28 PM on December 8, 2018 [24 favorites]

Eleanor is/was a trashbag and would definitely have found men easier in general numerically. I can't see pre-death Eleanor dealing with bisexuality well outside of bar hookups. Too much effort and self-awareness required.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 6:35 PM on December 8, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm rewatching!

- when Michael's like "just stay here, keep Janets heads on straight", Jason-Janet started twisting his/her head around

- I didn't put it together at the time but the puppy Eleanor-Janet conjured is the one Chidi failed to get because of his indecision when they got to pick a pet in one of the reboots.

- Accountants and their departments:
-- Walter - Borrowing (Money)
-- Milton - Impressions (Borat)
-- Clementine - Songs with Specific Dance Instructions
-- Anastasia - Stuffed Vegetable
-- Hector - American Coins
-- Matt - Weird Sex Things

- I love that Chidi-Janet's conjured chalkboard has his name at the top under the class's name, like he's back in his classroom teaching.

- Assuming the room where the Book of Dougs is in is just for English names, Douha is an interesting one. I've never heard of that name before.

- Dougs: Forbush, Forcap, L. Forcett

- !Pillboi: "Yeah I was just chilling, being nothing, and then all of a sudden, I was!"
when Janet undo him and the hottub: "Aw dip, I'm not again!"
I cracked up both times

- The "Butt overhearing" is a great attempt by Eleanor-Janet to be Jason-Janet

- According to IMDB, the different Eleanors are all actors, but only up to number 7 (old white guy who's changed outfits for some reason), after that are non-speaking roles which could be people from the crew.

- The birthday cake is for Marisol, who's turning 39,000,000... again

- "Saying the word 'sexy' is not sexy

- Stephen Merchant in despair about losing his corner piece is something I didn't know I needed in my life

- Jason going up the tube: "I love getting in stuff!" Which is also how he died, which was also something outrageously insane that made him cease to exist. In this case it's really fun!
posted by numaner at 6:43 PM on December 8, 2018 [13 favorites]

Anyone else think that Eleanor-Janet was channelling Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie when conjuring stuff? Eyes closed, head nod?
posted by juliebug at 6:46 PM on December 8, 2018 [8 favorites]

'End of conversation' made me think of the Carol Liefer story from the SNL book about Lorne Michaels ending a conversation with her by saying 'Conversation over.' and walking away.
posted by DowBits at 7:10 PM on December 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

This show is going to make "Oh, dip!" happen.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:33 PM on December 8, 2018 [11 favorites]

According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, awareness of the suffering of the damned is a big part of what makes heaven so great

Augustine, at the very least, is pretty canonically a dick, though, so, you know, grain of salt.

side note: I'm glad we don't have confirmation of an accountant in charge of commas.
posted by DebetEsse at 7:58 PM on December 8, 2018 [6 favorites]

btw if any of you also keep up with Supernatural, this week's episode was very relevant. and they were broadcasted on the same night!
posted by numaner at 8:25 PM on December 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

1) Michael saying (to Janet about the Janets), "How are we going to tell them apart?!" while Chidi-Janet is already clutching his stomach. He's still a demon and still not super good at... human things, like telling people apart without their clothes.

2) Michael picking Jason for the mission of going up the chute first, and then immediately realizing oh, oops, there's no way to tell how it went for him, so I guess we gotta all just go anyway.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:50 PM on December 8, 2018 [10 favorites]

1) Michael saying (to Janet about the Janets), "How are we going to tell them apart?!" while Chidi-Janet is already clutching his stomach.

And Tahani-Janet, like, still has her accent...
posted by greermahoney at 9:54 PM on December 8, 2018 [7 favorites]

If theres no limbo are they also doomed to go to hell simply for existing?

Have they definitively said there's no Limbo?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:29 AM on December 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Have they definitively said there's no Limbo?

They said the Four are the first people ever to die without going to the Good Place or the Bad Place (and of course, this forgets Mindy St. Clair’s Medium Place and the idea that she got credit for things that happened after her death, but Jeremy Bearimy, I guess).
posted by Etrigan at 6:44 AM on December 9, 2018

but Jeremy Bearimy, I guess

This show is also making Jeremy Bearimy (will have never not) happen
posted by device55 at 7:23 AM on December 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

We have learnt in this episode that Janet only has three distinct states Good, Bad and Neutral.

I haven't rewatched, but didn't we actually only learn that there are at least three? When we first met Good Janet, we assumed she was the only kind because while it was clear there was a Bad Place, there was no reason to think they had a need for Janets. Then we learned more about the Bad Place, including that there were Bad Janets, but we assumed those were the only two kinds because there was no reason to think any of the non-good non-bad functions (Gen, the Accountants....any others?) needed Janets. Then we learned more about the neutral zone, including that there were Neutral Janets.

We can maybe feel confident there's no Medium Janet because we'd probably already have met her at Mindy's because where else would she be (and anyway it might be too difficult to make the difference between a Medium Janet and a Neutral Janet both obvious and interesting), and we don't know of any other zones/Places yet (I think?), but I don't think we can assume there aren't any or that there aren't any other Janet functions within the places we already know. For all we know, the dot in Jeremy Bearimy's "i" might have its own Janets.
posted by solotoro at 7:25 AM on December 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

We can maybe feel confident there's no Medium Janet…

If Mindy has a Janet, it's an older model with a click-wheel.
posted by device55 at 8:00 AM on December 9, 2018 [24 favorites]

Eleanor is/was a trashbag and would definitely have found men easier in general numerically. I can't see pre-death Eleanor dealing with bisexuality well outside of bar hookups. Too much effort and self-awareness required.

I agree 100%, but there's literally zero reason for her not to have that realization post-death, or for any of the other characters to be straight or cis.

Then again, it is the Bad Place and incessant cisheterosexism would absolutely be a feature.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:10 AM on December 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Medium Janet’s request for immediate suicide was granted.
posted by Etrigan at 8:46 AM on December 9, 2018

I could definitely buy that the catastrophe of global colonization just broke the system. It was such a bad thing to happen to the planet and so many peoples’ morals became corrupted at the same time that the whole system crashed and it became impossible to reward anyone for a life well lived. I can definitely buy that but it seems like a very ... anti-capitalist idea for NBC. I mean this show has gone some places but I’d be even more surprised if they went there.

The Accountant’s whole bit and Michael in a panic trying to explain that something was wrong really reminded me of how I felt when the inauguration was coming up in 2017. We all knew the whole thing was crooked but we were just, going ahead with it? We all know! Why can’t someone stop this? But no, it doesn’t work like that. And the system can’t even comprehend not doing what it has always done. That scene really seemed just like that.
posted by bleep at 11:55 PM on December 9, 2018 [11 favorites]

It also makes me think about how growing up I was assured America was the Good place but then after centuries of psychological torture it turns out we are not in the good place and there might not be one. The only one who can help now is the old white guy architect of all this torture realizing the error of his ways and wanting to eradicate his own entire corrupted structure across the whole world. Our fate depends on that. It all tracks.
posted by bleep at 12:19 AM on December 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

If Europe's discovery of the Americas is what cuts off the flow of souls the good place, doesn't that imply that Europe was the only source of good place souls prior to that? Or at least the last going source at that time?

If some percentage of the dying population of Madagascar went to the good place in 1496, I don't see how the doings of Chris Columbus & Co would change that in 1497.

So either discovery isn't the trigger, or the good-place matriculation rate was horrifically low even before that.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:40 AM on December 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

I really think it's going to be a case of the Good Place administrators arbitrarily bumping up their minimum point value because they just didn't want to take any more humans.

The inciting incident for the whole system was that Cain-and-Abel story with the two cave men, right? The one who got murdered went to the Good Place, the one who did the murdering went to the Bad Place. (At least, we assume...) So the original criteria was basically "don't be a murderer", which covers most of the people who've ever lived.

All the twists and complications in the current system and the general idea that avoiding the Bad Place requires you to accumulate a certain number of points rather than just maintaining a positive total seem like intentionally-exclusionary additions to the system over time. I wouldn't be surprised if "what happened 571 years ago?" was simply "some kind of friggin' saint somehow managed to get past the ridiculous point number we set last time, we need to bump it up even higher now".

(The actual residents of the Good Place almost certainly just don't know that the Good Place is so fucked up.)
posted by tobascodagama at 6:01 AM on December 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

D’Arcy Carden on the Art of Imitating Her Good Place Co-Stars [Vulture]
posted by ellieBOA at 7:41 AM on December 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

If Europe's discovery of the Americas is what cuts off the flow of souls the good place, doesn't that imply that Europe was the only source of good place souls prior to that? Or at least the last going source at that time?

Or Europeans were not getting in to the Good Place and traveling around managed to infect everyone with negative point value ideas, just like they infected people with diseases.
posted by Margalo Epps at 7:49 AM on December 10, 2018 [12 favorites]

Maybe the points system breaks down once people become aware of a larger inter-connected world. I.e., the more you know, the harder it is for your intentions to be clear and your actions have larger ripple effects. If someone's universe is an island with 600 people, it's pretty clear to, say, protect the water source and help that family rebuild their hut from the last storm and share the food you find. But once colonizers show up it introduces too many variables. Do you tell them where the good fishing spot is? Sure! Oops, they overfished it in one season so now half your village is malnourished. But a third of the crew was going to die of starvation. So you saved them. You manage to create a blockade so they can't fish anymore. But they then sailed to the next island and wiped out thousands with a disease. But it turns out one of the people who survived was a key clue in developing a vaccine. So how many points do you have now?

I mean, if the origin of the points system was "guy kills other guy with rock = bad" maybe they didn't really think things through for the long haul.
posted by mikepop at 11:17 AM on December 10, 2018 [9 favorites]

Dougs in the book of Dougs: •Doug Forcett
•Doug Shellstrop
•Donkey Doug
Something that might go nowhere, or anywhere.

You know that Doug spelled backwards is Guod??
posted by cottoncandybeard at 12:02 PM on December 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

The timing is suggestive.... but the more I think about it the more I think that it's likely to be another throw away. My current bet is that the date is some kind of demonic y2k.
posted by mce at 2:47 PM on December 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

I would argue that a good rule of comedy is that a specific is funnier than a generality. 571 is simply funnier than a general number.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:04 PM on December 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, it would be extremely out of character for the head of accounting to just hand-wave the number vaguely like "eh, 600 years ago, give or take".
posted by tobascodagama at 5:44 PM on December 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

I really think it's going to be a case of the Good Place administrators arbitrarily bumping up their minimum point value because they just didn't want to take any more humans.

Some version of this is possible, but it requires writing around how the Good Place ostensibly fought to get Mindy St. Claire
posted by Going To Maine at 11:37 PM on December 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

When 521 years was referenced I didn't give much thought to world events or timeline because my brain just went, "that's when the points system was hacked." Apparently my easily entertained brain leaned into Michael's thing about the system being hacked. And also, Jeremy Bearimy.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:57 AM on December 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

So Jeremy Bearimy aside, Mindy St. Claire was literally the closest person to get into the good place? That's...wild.
posted by mosst at 7:01 AM on December 11, 2018 [6 favorites]

She pulled it off because she died young (and in the middle of attempting to do a high-positive-point-value thing), unlike Doug Forcett who lived a long life of doing lots of low-positive-point-value things. Age seems to factor in somehow, like maybe there's a points-per-day average that people get judged on.

My take on Mindy is that she probably went straight to the Bad Place. Being a high-powered lawyer with a sudden point value jump at the end of her life, she was able to argue her way into a hearing with Gen. The Good Place didn't actually want her, though, so despite technically meeting the entrance criteria they were able to convince Gen that she didn't belong in the Good Place after all. Hence, Medium Place.

This is pretty close to the version of events on the Medium Place orientation tape, and I don't put it past anybody involved with the system to just straight up lie to humans. Unlike the existence of the Bad Place, we don't have independent confirmation of the Medium Place story from behind-the-curtain dialogue with no humans present.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:07 AM on December 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Amazing episode, and a tour de force by D'Arcy Carden. It wasn't until the chalkboard scene that I realized how completely she nailed Chidi's bizarrely galumphing speaking rhythm. And her recitation by Jason of "things white people say" was so great we had to rewind and rewatch it twice ("did you change the Brita?").

I thought the presence of "Jeremy Bearimy" on the Jason/Janet wedding invitation (with an arrow pointing to the E) was the equivalent of "save the date" -- that is, the wedding will take place at this point on Jeremy Bearimy.

One thing I noticed is that the quality of light in the "Good Place" (if that is in fact where we are at the end of the show) seemed different. I don't know what they did, but it clearly set it apart as a different place than Earth, Accounting, the Bad Place, or the fake Good Place. Can't wait to see what they do next.

The Mindy St. Clair thing bothers me too, because it implies that she is the best human (points wise) in 500 years. I agree that it's probably due to some glitch in the system brought on by her sudden untimely death right after a big influx of points. But one wonders why, if they'd been happy not to take anyone for so many years, the Good Place would have advocated for her in the first place.

Also, I was reminded that the four protagonists' case before Judge Gen was Case Number 3. Mindy St. Clair is either 1 or 2 (presumably 2, because the Judge mentions her most recent case having been "30 years ago"), so I wonder if the other case has something to do with a revising of the points system 500 or so years ago.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:18 AM on December 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

And her recitation by Jason of "things white people say" was so great we had to rewind and rewatch it twice

Was this a callback? I could swear I've heard "I found it on Etsy!" as a thing white people say joke before.
posted by mikepop at 10:07 AM on December 11, 2018

Maybe there are multiple afterlives, each driven by a specific ethical theory and applying only to the people that philosopher considered part of civilization. The afterlife in The Good Place is based on Utilitarianism and would initially only apply to Europe because Jeremy Bentham and similar philosophers wouldn’t have considered anyone else civilized.

It doesn’t matter when the idea was formulated on the human timeline, due to Jeremy Bearimy the first souls to show up to be evaluated were cavemen. Accounting needed to develop a points system that would send 5% of humans to the Good Place. To do that they needed to make some assumptions about how population would grow over time, how long people would live normally, their effects on society, etc. The points you need to get in are high, but it is achievable because you don’t really interact with that many people and you don’t live that long. That limits how many negative points you accumulate.

They would have had no idea how the expansion of western civilization across the globe would affect that. New things and ideas keep coming into the system and they all must be assigned a point value. The number of ways you can do good is probably stable, but new ways to do bad are invented all the time. Population is increasing and people are living longer and interacting more, which means every day is another opportunity to rack up negative points. After a certain point you just can’t win.
posted by InfidelZombie at 11:42 AM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's entirely possible, due to the nature of JB, that the Good Place representatives don't even realize how long it's been in Earth time since anyone got in.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:55 AM on December 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's entirely possible, due to the nature of JB, that the Good Place representatives don't even realize how long it's been in Earth time since anyone got in.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything nefarious going on. I think it's a broken system and everyone who is a part of it is just continuing to work without realizing that anything is wrong.

That is, until we meet this "committee" that the Accountant mentioned.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 12:05 PM on December 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

If no one has got into the Good Place for the last 521 years, then every human being who has died in that time has gone to the Bad Place... except one. The one who was sent to the Medium Place.

Mindy St Clair is the best human being to have lived in the last five centuries.

(Sorry - on preview, I see that's already been pointed out above!)
posted by meronym at 12:59 PM on December 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

The best idea I've got which works with the age of exploration thing is that western civilization (or some component of it is bad) and therefore not overthrowing it is bad. Once the Atlantic is crossed, everyone is in a position to do something about it, or can get themselves in a position to do something about it. And, since even the people who are trying to overthrow western civilization cannot be doing it 24/7, that's basically a constant point drain on everyone.

Main downside of this is that it's functionally the same as if the Bad Place hacked the system, rather than the system as a whole being broken.
posted by ckape at 1:45 PM on December 11, 2018

Being a high-powered lawyer with a sudden point value jump at the end of her life, she was able to argue her way into a hearing with Gen.

The orientation tape in the medium place implies that Mindy was uninvolved in any decision about herself. ("A compromise was reached.") Mindy herself says she just woke up there. All of these things could be lies, but they would be very big lies for a show that has already put its audience through a large betrayal.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:13 PM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm thinking that the accountants haven't noticed the 521-year gap because to a multi-billion-year-old creature, 521 years is literally the blink of an eye. In another few thousand, they might start to go "hmm, system's a bit slow today".
posted by Mogur at 2:18 PM on December 11, 2018 [10 favorites]

I just started a rewatch of this episode and Jeleanor's first appearance has her immediately doing an impression of Tahani. The first time around I was so thrown that I thought D'Arcy's Eleanor was too overbroad. That was an amazing performance.
posted by LarsC at 7:56 PM on December 11, 2018

I'm thinking that the accountants haven't noticed the 521-year gap because to a multi-billion-year-old creature, 521 years is literally the blink of an eye.

Multi-billion year-old creatures? Broadly speaking, I think Australopithecus emerged about 3 million years ago, Erectus a million after that, and we Homo Sapiens are only around 300,000 years old as a species. I don't recall if we had a date for the cavemen featured in The Accountant's equivalent of Michael's Doug Forcett portrait, but it makes me wonder what the Good/Neutral/Bad Place denizens were doing before [proto?] humans came onto the scene. Or am I just not appreciating the Beariminess of it all?
posted by mumkin at 8:40 PM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

That's covered in The Silmarillion.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:25 PM on December 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

The Bearimyrillion
posted by tobascodagama at 4:56 AM on December 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Here's a clip of The Medium Place orientation tape for reference. One thing I didn't recall was that Mindy was able to submit a list of things she wanted (which was then adjusted by the Bad Place). So maybe the timeline was something like:
- Mindy dies
- The afterlife realizes they have a tie on their hands
- Mindy is probably not "awake" anywhere while they sort it out with Gen
- She wakes up in a neutral location - maybe the unconfigured Medium Place
- They explain things to her and she provides this list
- The Medium Place is fully created

It's hard to rig a system to catch every edge case, so it makes sense someone like Mindy would almost be the one to beat it.
posted by mikepop at 5:23 AM on December 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

...but it makes me wonder what the Good/Neutral/Bad Place denizens were doing before [proto?] humans came onto the scene.

All DogsBrontosauri Go To Heaven?
posted by Thorzdad at 5:23 AM on December 12, 2018

...but it makes me wonder what the Good/Neutral/Bad Place denizens were doing before [proto?] humans came onto the scene.

Administering rewards and punishments for the sentient plants of Tau Ceti IV?
posted by Mogur at 5:51 AM on December 12, 2018

Here's a clip of The Medium Place orientation tape

Nice find! At least, it helps lock down something for me (maybe everyone else already knew), because when I read this above:

presumably 2, because the Judge mentions her most recent case having been "30 years ago"

I assumed that we figured 30 years lines up with Mindy just estimating based on her story/clothing/etc. But it actually lines up precisely with a throwaway line from your clip:

Mindy: Sorry about before. One of the perks of living alone is that I get to just walk around naked.
Eleanor: Ha! My kinda gal. ... And I gotta say, you keep it toight.
Mindy: Oh! That is the nicest, and only thing, that anyone has said to me in thirty years.
posted by solotoro at 7:07 AM on December 12, 2018 [8 favorites]

But our characters meet the judge almost 300 years after that first exchange with Mindy.

Jeremy Bearimy doesn't solve that issue so much as further complicate it, and just thinking about it gives me flashbacks to trying to figure out what was going on in season 5 of LOST, which come to think of it is probably intentional but still probably not, like, the wisest use of my time and yet...I can't help it.

But I still think we are meant to believe--and have been since mid-season 1 or so (of this show, not LOST)--that we are watching the third of three special cases, and that the second one was Mindy's.
posted by lampoil at 7:17 AM on December 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'd never really thought about this before, but we never learned just why the Good/Bad fight regarding Mindy wasn't instantly determined by her point total. The dilemma was framed in the sort of rhetoric humans use to debate similar questions about someone's fate (she seems bad in some ways, good in others, it's complicated!)... but in principle there's always an "objective" answer for the system to defer to, even if it doesn't "seem right" to us.

Assuming this isn't an oversight (on my part or the writers'), I can imagine a few possibilities. One is that the accounting hadn't fully resolved at the moment of her death -- perhaps her point total would in part be based on the future effects of her nascent charity. But that sort of thing should have happened in history many times before and after, because everyone's actions have ripple effects going forward, which could be one reason the system uses a deontological rather than consequential approach.

A second possibility is that the accountants disagreed with each other, but we've been told that never happens. (That itself raised a big red flag with me, because so much of their work seemed to involve subjectivity -- does the guy who evaluates weird sex things really always agree, to the nearest single point, with his colleague who looks at "stuff a pumpkin with hot sauce and nickels" or whatever it was from a culinary perspective?).

So that leaves me with the notion that I'm starting to favor as an overall explanation for what's going on, which is that the Good Place is doing its best to keep new people out. Then Mindy happened to slip through, and an "objection" was raised -- maybe covertly, by means of some Good Place character convincing Trevor or another demon to challenge it. (Interestingly, while Trevor says in that orientation video "We still think we should have gotten you", his counterpart Bebe doesn't say the Good Place actually felt entitled to Mindy in any way.)

The covert-sabotage possibility gives the show a couple opportunities for twists (though is there now a "no more huge twists" principle?), because then we could have an episode confirming Michael's suspicions that the Bad Place is interfering... before learning in another episode that it was really the Good Place all along (or certain factions within it), acting through the agents of the Bad Place.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 7:41 AM on December 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

The covert-sabotage possibility gives the show a couple opportunities for twists (though is there now a "no more huge twists" principle?), because then we could have an episode confirming Michael's suspicions that the Bad Place is interfering... before learning in another episode that it was really the Good Place all along (or certain factions within it), acting through the agents of the Bad Place.

This sounds spot on to me--I don't think the Good Place, its managers or its inhabitants, are innocent here.
posted by skewed at 8:00 AM on December 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe the Bad Place "hack" (if that is what it turns out to be) turns out to be some sort of points expiration scheme? So the way the points are determined and assigned remain unhacked, but the points are somehow now expiring after a certain amount of time, so no one accumulates the necessary total.

• When they look at Doug Forcet's points they think it is a good total until they look at his age.
• Mindy accumulates a ton of points and then dies right away, so no chance for them to disappear.

I can't really square this with (podcast spoiler warning) the comments on the podcast that it's somehow linked to the expansion of Western civilization, etc. unless that was simply the time in history the Bad Place demons came up with and implemented the hack, perhaps due to some sort of disruption/confusion brought on by same.
posted by mikepop at 8:23 AM on December 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

But I still think we are meant to believe--and have been since mid-season 1 or so (of this show, not LOST)--that we are watching the third of three special cases, and that the second one was Mindy's.

What if Michael is/was the first? Or Janet?
posted by hijinx at 9:24 AM on December 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

All those stacks of paper in the Good Place office at the end of the episode made me think that the accountants have been sending candidate files up all along but a) no one is bothering to process them or b) someone is quietly doctoring the point totals to disqualify people and bounce them to the Bad Place.
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:46 AM on December 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm wondering if they will break out of the quasi-Christian frame to a theology where it's all Maya and a process of purification (or not) for the next step. That would include the demons as well.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 10:03 AM on December 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

All those stacks of paper in the Good Place office at the end of the episode made me think that the accountants have been sending candidate files up all along but a) no one is bothering to process them or b) someone is quietly doctoring the point totals to disqualify people and bounce them to the Bad Place.

But the Accountant tells Michael (and us) that Doug Forcett is screwed, so the issue isn't after that point.
posted by Etrigan at 10:54 AM on December 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

GenderNullPointerException: I'm wondering if they will break out of the quasi-Christian frame to a theology where it's all Maya and a process of purification (or not) for the next step. That would include the demons as well.

When she was struggling with the question of determinism, Eleanor did speculate about "mega-demons" that pull the strings of demons like Michael. This could be a nod to the fans who have contemplated that already, or it could be foreshadowing.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 11:06 AM on December 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

The accountant actually states that 521 years ago was the last time that someone got enough points to get into the good place. Not that this person actually got in. This opens up some possibilities (not mutually exclusive, and could be way overthinking).

1a. the last person to get into TGP did so not by points, but by a judge's ruling.

1b. the last person to get into TGP via points did so even longer than 521 years ago.

Probably nothing, but damn this careful writing!
posted by nicodine at 11:12 AM on December 13, 2018 [5 favorites]

Why did Mindy have a video camera?
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:18 AM on December 14, 2018

Must have been part of the modified list of things she wanted to be provided.
posted by rhizome at 10:55 AM on December 14, 2018

> Why did Mindy have a video camera?

It's probably one of those camcorders that records directly to a full-size VHS tape which is a pretty medium thing to own. Not retro-cool like Super 8, not modern and useful like digital.
posted by komara at 10:56 AM on December 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Not only that but she had to tape over Cannonball Run II, which so far is the only VHS tape she owns.
posted by rhizome at 11:04 AM on December 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that we're told Mindy was the first case of necessary adjudication ever -- which means the second case the judge heard is the yet-to-be-revealed problem. I swear I read an interview with Schur about this back in second season.
posted by tzikeh at 12:13 PM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Does that mean Gen didn't exist before that?
posted by rhizome at 2:52 PM on December 14, 2018

Gen existed from the beginning of time. She's named after the only other thing in the universe, hydrogen.
posted by tobascodagama at 4:14 PM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

OK, Gen-as-judge, then. :)
posted by rhizome at 7:25 PM on December 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just finished my rewatch, and I zoomed in on the three inbox like bins on the desk in the Good Place office. Not 100% positive, but pretty sure they are labeled IMPORTANT (empty) VERY IMPORTANT (also empty) and EXTREMELY IMPORTANT (roughly 18" pile of papers). I think that along with the multiple mailbags lying around mean something isn't getting processed there. However, as mentioned above, the accountants don't know that, so that's not the thing keeping people out. This forking show...
posted by sapere aude at 9:59 PM on December 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

The best idea I've got which works with the age of exploration thing is that western civilization (or some component of it is bad) and therefore not overthrowing it is bad. Once the Atlantic is crossed, everyone is in a position to do something about it, or can get themselves in a position to do something about it. And, since even the people who are trying to overthrow western civilization cannot be doing it 24/7, that's basically a constant point drain on everyone.

It occurs to me that a major network television show is, in 2019, almost certainly going to argue that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

And then at some point later in the year it's probably going to break out an explanation of grace.
posted by thecaddy at 7:43 AM on December 17, 2018 [7 favorites]

At that point, everyone was in some way benefiting from systems that rested on slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.

You don't have to be a fan of European colonization to think it's preposterous to regard the pre-colonization Americas as somehow uniquely free of these issues. There were empires. There were slaves. There was human sacrifice. Any system strict enough to penalize African-American slaves for "benefiting" from the system would surely take in pre-colonization First Nations people, as well.

I suspect the answer has something more to do with awareness. That is, from the Catholic Church's point of view, the damnation rate began a steady climb with the invasion of the Americas, because individuals who had never had the opportunity to act in accordance with the Scriptures were treated as going to Limbo or Purgatory, not to Hell. Spreading the Gospels meant creating the opportunity for people to go to Heaven, but also to Hell. Perhaps there is something unique about moral philosophy in the pre-contact "known world" that renders it impossible for people to qualify. Of course, it's hard to guess what feature it is that, say, Kantian thought, Shinto Buddhism, and Confucianism all might have in common that American indigenous thinkers would not...
posted by praemunire at 9:07 AM on December 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

At that point, everyone was in some way benefiting from systems that rested on slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.

You don't have to be a fan of European colonization to think it's preposterous to regard the pre-colonization Americas as somehow uniquely free of these issues.

Please, allow me to clarify that I am aware that pre-colonization, the Western Hemisphere did feature civilizations that practiced slavery, colonialism, environmental rapaciousness, etc.

My point was that Schur said "once the world was closed as a loop", which could mean that the trigger was the globalization of these things that divided (more or less) the entire world into either colonizers or colonized, where before the "loop" was "closed" there were some societies that managed to be neither of those.
posted by Etrigan at 9:26 AM on December 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

there were some societies that managed to be neither of those.

There is zero evidence I'm aware of that indigenous American societies were somehow uniquely nonexploitative. In the north, away from the empires further south (which they would have nonetheless had trade and other cultural links to) they fought wars over control of territory or resources. Long-term captive-taking was a common practice among a number of peoples. They were hierarchical in differing ways, but hierarchical they were. That they happened to run into the buzzsaw of some of the most awful practices and people world history has known doesn't mean that they themselves were particularly morally noteworthy. They were human beings like the rest of us. If it was just a question of living well in a just society, I'd expect them to do about as well on average as members of most other human cultures.
posted by praemunire at 12:47 PM on December 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

At last, caught up.

We've heard a lot about dead humans being tortured in the bad place and dead humans being rewarded in the Good Place. But in the entire run of the series, the only post-death humans we have actually SEEN are the four principals and Mindy St. Clair.

Where are all the people going? We thought a lot of them were going to the Good Place but we now know that's not true. Maybe that means they're all going to the Bad Place -- but we spent a fair amount of narrative time in the Bad Place seeing lots of demons talking about the souls held there but never actually seeing them.

Maybe dead humans aren't going to the Bad Place either. Maybe the point system isn't broken. Maybe it's sending every single dead soul into one place and one body: the body of Mindy St. Clair. Mindy St. Clair is everyone fused together, a confused stew of appetites, fundamentally and eternally Medium.

It wouldn't be the weirdest thing this show has done.
posted by escabeche at 12:54 PM on January 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

Nobody has posted this yet so I thought I'd throw it in. Youtube...what happens when Janet's in her void. Yea it really is 5 hours long.

link

Also, The Good Place is back this week huzzah!
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 9:40 PM on January 6, 2019 [9 favorites]

Did You Catch E!’s Very Meta Prank Against The Good Place’s Jameela Jamil?
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:28 PM on January 6, 2019 [10 favorites]

what happens when Janet's in her void

she blinks out at 1:15:11 and then back in at 1:37:12, and again between 4:19:23 and 4:41:24. At about 22 minutes, each is a length of an episode!
posted by numaner at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2019 [6 favorites]

re: 521 years: I'm not sure there's anything historically significant about the year. Presumably thats just when The Bad Place managed to hack the Accountant's system.
posted by memebake at 6:49 AM on January 11, 2019

We're in the UK so we've been watching this via the Windows 10 Films and TV things (because it lets you download episodes before watching). Anyway I mention this because I thought Season 3 ended on this episode. But now I learn there's more coming soon. Fantastic! Though I was going to have to wait for season 4.

This episode was brilliant, as everyone's saying.

I really liked the Doug episode too. His predicament - trying to scrape more points at every moment to the detriment of all else - is a fantastic critique of the whole 'afterlife' concept. The idea of a lifetime of actions being judged (in whatever way), with a binary result of 'eternal bliss' or 'eternal damnation' is so transparently ludicrous when portrayed in that way.
posted by memebake at 6:57 AM on January 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

Amazing episode, and a tour de force by D'Arcy Carden. It wasn't until the chalkboard scene that I realized how completely she nailed Chidi's bizarrely galumphing speaking rhythm.

There's a reason for that, and it lead to one of my favorite anecdotes that I heard on the podcast. For weeks before they filmed this, they made tapes of the other actors reading all of "their" lines in this epside for D'Arcy Carden to listen to. And she listened to nothing but those tapes for weeks. No radio, no TV, no podcasts, just her co-stars speaking lines.

After a few weeks of this, she said that she was driving somewhere and listening to those tapes, and in the middle of one of Chidi's monologues she saw William Jackson Harper on the sidewalk, and got all excited about the coincidence, so she rolled down her window and frantically called out to him and hallooed and got his attention, and then turned up the tape and said "I'm listening to you right now, check it out!"

Harper just blinked at her a few times and then said "oh, honey. You're going crazy."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:22 AM on September 17, 2019 [8 favorites]

Just while this episode popped into my recent activity, I anted it noted for the record that Janet(s) won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (aka the best science fiction TV episode). 2018's winner was a little episode called The Trolley Problem.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:08 PM on September 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

- !Pillboi: "Yeah I was just chilling, being nothing, and then all of a sudden, I was!"
when Janet undo him and the hottub: "Aw dip, I'm not again!"

I think this was my favorite line. So simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.
posted by straight at 10:58 PM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: the thwarted promise of cake.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:16 AM on June 11, 2020