The Good Place: A Fractured Inheritance

November 1, 2018 5:32 PM - Season 3, Episode 6

Eleanor makes a startling discovery that tests her resolve, Tahani looks to make amends and Janet does some bonding.
posted by numaner (100 comments total)

Diana!

Shirt material napkins is indeed fancy

Indeed the diversity of boobs is art

Did Janet just casually drop that Kamilah is also going to the bad place for the same reason as Tahani?

Wow people who think it's art because of who the artist is are the worst

I'm so proud of Michael, a demon who doesn't want to take a knife to a child's toys

Dad-Michael is amazing, I want him for a dad (i mean because of other reasons besides my lack of a father growing up)

Janet and Jason are too cute, I want more of them but this episode is not for them

Oh Chidi how can you fall for Kamilah's bs?

1 vote for bofa deeznuts

I love that there's an architect's code

wow the Al-Jamil parents are terrible

* tears everywhere *

i really want to kick those two fanboys in the nuts

"YA BASIC" "no mom, ya basic, why are you wearing yoga pants?"

a 9 year old can have a use for both a crib and a car! right??

Janet drives!

Michael forgot bathrooms!

Noooo Michael not the best time to tell her about her afterlife life!
posted by numaner at 6:03 PM on November 1, 2018 [8 favorites]

Every single time an important thing or conversation was about to happen my wifi dropped out. And because of rain and clouds my data was also dropping. So I kinda know what happened but missed a lot. (Will catch it when it hits on demand early in the morning if my internet has improved.)
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 6:04 PM on November 1, 2018

The Al-Jamil parents being dead came as a surprise to me. I guess it must have been mentioned before, but they were around in the flashbacks as much as Kamilah, so it never registered to me that they weren't as alive as her.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:30 PM on November 1, 2018 [7 favorites]

* tears everywhere *

Oh good! I like knowing other people cry at sitcoms. The Al-Jamil sisters hugging was too much.

A line reading of "Ya Basic" that's sincere and bittersweet! And Ted Danson trying out a fatherly scolding? I needed this episode this week.
posted by gladly at 6:34 PM on November 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

MGM Grand Luxury Resort and Casino Elementary School. "Always Bet on Read!"
posted by rewil at 7:10 PM on November 1, 2018 [57 favorites]

Ok so now we know Michael doesn’t use the bathroom- so what happens to all those tequilas??
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:11 PM on November 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

During season 1, we learned of their parents passing during the reading of their wills and they spelled Tahani’s name incorrectly as Tahini.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 7:30 PM on November 1, 2018 [36 favorites]

Well. I cried over pretty much everyone but Jason...and to be honest, that's only because Jason didn't have much to do this ep (understandable considering everything else happening.) There was even a Janet thing that made me tear up. (A look she gave Jason in the museum.)

The Eleanor and Tahani stuff was just great.

I was surprised by the Chidi "I love you" revelation being brought up so soon but damn, we're half way through the season!
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 4:41 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

During season 1, we learned of their parents passing during the reading of their wills and they spelled Tahani’s name incorrectly as Tahini.

Oh, right, totally forgot about that scene. Wish I'd remembered that last season - I was always a little bothered by Tahani's failing the Judge's test because I felt that she had to know those were just simulations of her parents, but if they were already dead and she knew it, it makes more sense that she couldn't resist opening that door.
posted by oh yeah! at 4:44 AM on November 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

My god, the bar this show sets for itself. We had to rewind three or four times because we were laughing too hard, and another few times because we were commenting on a callback or a philosophical point, and this was like a B-minus TGP episode.

Podcast notes:

Rebecca Hazelwood (Kamilah) originally auditioned for Real Eleanor / Vicky.

Andy Daly couldn't do an episode of Parks & Rec because he was busy making Review, and the role went to Marc Evan Jackson (apparently, they get called for the same roles a lot). Daly doesn't remember what the breakdown of Dave the architect was when it was offered to him, because it was The Good Place and of course he would do it.

Everyone on the set was very apprehensive of Jameela Jamil waving an ax around.

Artwork titles (all of which were written in English and then translated into Hungarian):

• A Precipitous Fanfare
• Slow Abiding Number Twelve
• The Crush of Age
• After Wim Wenders
• The Imaginarium of Dr. J
• Cave, Heart, Blasphemy, Elephant
• Every Soul a Whore
• Turncoats in the Spring
• Nowhere, Nothing, Everywhere, Menstruation
• The Window to the Fall
• The Hegemon Shibboleth
• The Ruby of Ararat
• The Frog, The Base, The Chimp, Panama

Rebecca was quite surprised that "wanker" made it on the air.

Kristen Bell has an umbrella-backpack to keep the sun off, which she invented herownself.

The school name was originally something like "Steve Wynn Presents The MGM Grand Luxury Resort and Casino Elementary School".
posted by Etrigan at 6:39 AM on November 2, 2018 [17 favorites]

Kristen Bell has an umbrella-backpack to keep the sun off, which she invented herownself.

I *need* to see a picture of this, and I swear, I would buy one.
posted by gladly at 6:43 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Kristen Bell has an umbrella-backpack to keep the sun off, which she invented herownself."

I *need* to see a picture of this, and I swear, I would buy one.

She posted a picture of it to instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVVMqRclt4D/
posted by jedicus at 6:52 AM on November 2, 2018 [20 favorites]

> "wow the Al-Jamil parents are terrible"

Considering that the Kamilah/Tahani sibling relationship as portrayed in this episode is pretty much beat for beat the same as the Gamora/Nebula sibling relationship in Guardians of the Galaxy II, the Al-Jamil parents are effectively Thanos.
posted by kyrademon at 9:17 AM on November 2, 2018 [41 favorites]

Can we hold off on the podcast notes until after the weekend ? Give me at least a chance to listen to it first ?
posted by Pendragon at 11:01 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Can we hold off on the podcast notes until after the weekend ? Give me at least a chance to listen to it first ?

FanFare is an explicitly spoilery place. We don't hold off on discussion of the episode until people can catch up on Hulu either.
posted by Etrigan at 11:04 AM on November 2, 2018 [11 favorites]

I know you’re right, Etrigan — but I had the same gut reaction as Pendragon, as I forgot to check my feeds for the Good Place podcast before my morning commute and won’t get to hear it until the trip home. (I’ve just been doing the scrolling equivalent of “la la la can’t hear you”, though)
posted by oh yeah! at 1:02 PM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

The podcast is not the episode though.
posted by Pendragon at 1:36 PM on November 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

Between "Ya basic" and "See you in hell" Eleanor has been getting a lot of mileage out of her stock phrases lately.
posted by ckape at 2:34 PM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

The podcast is not the episode

this it totally the title of a Marshall McLuhan book in the Bad Place
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:36 PM on November 2, 2018 [46 favorites]

I am so bitter that this episode did not air before Halloween because I totally would have gone to a Halloween party in a KAPPA ZETA JONES sorority shirt with a jeans jacket and a "HI MY NAME IS Diana Tremaine" sticker and I could have finally found my soul mate and I would know it was my soul mate because he/she would have walked up to me and introduced themself as Boffa Deeznutz.
posted by pjsky at 3:27 PM on November 2, 2018 [32 favorites]

This was the greatest twenty minutes of television I’ve ever seen.
posted by schadenfrau at 3:44 PM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I love Kamilah.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:41 PM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Superficial, but true: I am always aware that Jameela Jamil is attractive but she was just extra breathtakingly beautiful in parts of the scenes in the museum.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 4:56 PM on November 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

This episode was so cathartic. Tears.
posted by Monochrome at 6:26 PM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

wow that was not good life advice from eleanor from any perspective except wholly justified revenge. tell her mom to stop stealing from what's his name? sure. tell her -- a woman living under an assumed name without security or the protection of the law in a home that belongs to her partner -- not to have an emergency back-up fund of her own money, because you're not really committed to your new life & man if you have the power to leave him? that is one of the most immoral life lessons I ever saw taught on network tv.

if it was meant as revenge advice it'd be fine with me, because just because Eleanor's mom went and sinned no more, or at least sinned a little bit less, does not mean she repented or made any restitution to the child she traumatized. she didn't. she seems not to have the capacity for it. but it did not appear to be meant as revenge advice. this is not cute like some things on the show are cute.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:04 PM on November 2, 2018 [15 favorites]

You want to listen to a podcast?
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 7:42 PM on November 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

The podcast doesn't come out until the morning after. I agree that the spoilers here make me sad.
posted by k8t at 8:16 PM on November 2, 2018

Fanfare talk discussion of podcast spoilers
posted by k8t at 8:25 PM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Anyone know if there are separate threads for the TV show and its official podcast for other shows? I mean, it doesn't bug me personally, and it seems a bit much to have two posts for a 22 minute TV show and its podcast, but if it's annoying people, and that's how it's played out elsewhere....
posted by tzikeh at 8:27 PM on November 2, 2018

I just skim over the podcast comment until I've watched. It's nice to have it in the same thread, I think.
posted by zeek321 at 8:34 PM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Let's just say we lived in the same neighborhood.
posted by ckape at 8:51 PM on November 2, 2018 [12 favorites]

You know, Donna's self-improvement only reinforces what we've seen from Team Cockroach: that having the right people around you and being in the right situation really does have a huge impact on your ability to be a good person. Dave is such a square, earnest nerd that you would expect Donna to run screaming, but instead he seems to have had a similar effect on her as Chidi did on Eleanor.
posted by nonasuch at 10:16 PM on November 2, 2018 [22 favorites]

Let's just say we lived in the same neighborhood.

What an interesting way to say something normal!
posted by Navelgazer at 10:26 PM on November 2, 2018 [31 favorites]

That was a sweet episode. Like, sometimes people traumatize us and then they grow up but we hang on to our scars (and our perspective of the situation) because we're still hurting. So in this episode they didn't really fix Kamilah or Eleanor's mom, they changed themselves, and so found peace with the other person. I'm thinking it's been a subtle trend on TV lately, not being able to solve the other or get them to realize anything or even change, but instead solving the self and choosing to see the context differently.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:56 PM on November 2, 2018 [14 favorites]

I was really pleased to see Andy Daly show up as Dave.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:00 PM on November 2, 2018 [7 favorites]

Eleanor was wearing stripes again! What does it meeeeeeeeeaaaaaaan? (Probably nothing!)

I loved the little detail of Eleanor eating a whole plate of cheese slices (with a fork!) at the PTA meeting. I guess that’s her shrimp alternative.
posted by lunasol at 8:14 AM on November 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

The episode where Janet realizes she's outgrown Jason is going to be so heartbreaking. She'll let him down easy — she'll let him down perfectly — but it's still gonna hurt.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:34 AM on November 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

I watched on my phone and thought Eleanor was eating nachos.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 11:08 AM on November 3, 2018

The episode where Janet realizes she's outgrown Jason

Ride. Or. Die.
posted by Etrigan at 11:11 AM on November 3, 2018 [13 favorites]

> Ride. Or. Die.

She's died a lot.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:08 PM on November 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Well, not really dying, because she isn't human and she cannot die.
posted by rhizome at 12:17 PM on November 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

I usually enjoy the podcast, but not so much this week. There was too much sort of silly nonsense and laughing, not enough show/production info for my taste.
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:21 PM on November 3, 2018

I had been nervous about this season until this episode, and everything fell together beautifully.

I love that Ellenor is so kid phobic because I felt like that most of the time until I had a kid that tiny humans were aliens with unpredictable development.

I think there was just so much to connect to in it.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:17 PM on November 3, 2018

I just rewatched it and it's amazing how much they packed into just the first minute of the show, before even the title card:
- "Why didn't you tell me sooner, man?" "I didn't wanna be, like, a bummer."
- "accidentally trampled to death when she bent down to adjust her toe ring at a Rascal Flatts concert"
- "your mom had gotten drunk, wandered into a charity auction, and bid $30,000 for a date with Gene Simmons, outbidding everyone else by $29,800"
- "Diana Tremaine is my fake ID name! How dare she steal the identity I stole!?"
- "Whatever you're feeling, remember this is not about you." * moments later * "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?"
posted by numaner at 7:04 PM on November 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

Kamilah's exhibit is called "The Persistence of Conception", and the first piece of art we're shown is seen as boobs. Then she was serving omelettes, which are eggs. And the theme that Tahani recognized is that the art pieces are of the sisters, joined as they were as children, but also apart. The layers of this show, man.
posted by numaner at 7:09 PM on November 3, 2018 [12 favorites]

Eleanor's mom had the ability to be a good mom all long but capitalism got in the way. Cut from financial needs, she was able to be a loving mother!

On the other hand, I don't buy that she's moral now because she's happy living a sober life while rich.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:08 PM on November 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

Michael Schur and Co. out here providing free therapy to the world this season.

I really appreciated that in the car at the end, Eleanor was still sad, even though she accomplished what she set out to do. It's such an authentic note to end that plot on.
posted by dry white toast at 10:00 PM on November 3, 2018 [15 favorites]

watching people I love showing that they can love someone else the way I want them to love me is my life story
posted by numaner at 1:45 AM on November 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

You know, though...Donna hasn't really changed that much. I don't want to judge, but she and her dude seem like more than casual drinkers. She just schmoozed her way into a job she doesn't understand, presumably to score points with the other moms. She was perfectly willing to go along with Eleanor's lie about being sorority sisters. I get why Eleanor is crushed, but I really do think this might be who a financially secure Donna might have been when Eleanor was growing up.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:26 AM on November 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

I don't know that I'd call her financially secure -- as queenofbithynia points out, she's wholly dependent on Dave (aside from the cash she stole from him), who knows her secret and is ok with it (for now) but also now has a lot of power over her. And have we seen her do anything altruistic or really, well, good? The moral seems to more that it's ok to be happy about being with nerdy Rick Steves Dave, and Eleanor's encouragement to commit seems to be in the vein of the Me vs. Us speech she got from Simone a couple episodes ago.

Honestly, this episode felt much more like a standard sitcom ep, where we have two complementary plot (Eleanor-Donna and Tahani-Kamilah, both about reconciling with family), comic relief by Jason, and all moral challenges are wrapped up in 20 minutes or less. I thought it was a good change of pace from the frenetic early episodes of this season, but tonally, it felt very different from the overall direction of the show.
posted by basalganglia at 4:23 AM on November 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

"Oh, No! All my fears are my own again!"
posted by thedward at 5:46 AM on November 4, 2018 [32 favorites]

Hey, has anyone else noticed that Michael doesn't wear bow ties anymore? When did that happen?
posted by nonasuch at 7:09 AM on November 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

OMG. I just realized that when Michael said Donna won a date with Gene Simmons, I pictured Richard Simmons. Very, very different.
posted by basalganglia at 7:42 AM on November 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

Maybe Michael didn't have time to pack all his bow ties when they had to flee?
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:19 AM on November 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm not worried about Donna's living situation. She and Eleanor are good at sizing people up and manipulating them accordingly. I agree that this depiction could be considered irresponsible -- desperate woman with false identity shacks up with man, etc -- but this is a character that faked her own death to get away from paying for a charity auction bid. I think Eleanor reasoned that Donna's little thefts (in addition to causing afterlife point deductions) were more likely to lead to the destruction of "Diana Tremaine's" good life than a sudden change of character from her husband. Donna has the run of the household. She's friends with other moms, does leisure activities, and has taken a post with the PTA. She's not being kept away from society. If the nerdy nice guy she married turned into a nerdy Nice Guy, Donna would be able to steal a car-full of the most valuable things in the house and start life over in New Mexico the next day.

...also, this is off-topic for the episode, but the implications of the point-effect of Foundations are driving me crazy. Did John D Rockefeller, for example, get plucked from the Bad Place once the Rockefeller Foundation did enough good? (Or did the fact that the Rockefeller Foundation funded a bunch of Nazi eugenicists...yeesh...doom all the people involved in setting up the Foundation, beyond even just Rockefeller?) Was this discussed anywhere after any of the Medium Place episodes? I feel like Mindy St. Clair is such a trip that I don't think about these things until months after she's gone...
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:29 AM on November 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

Hey, has anyone else noticed that Michael doesn't wear bow ties anymore? When did that happen?

I didn't notice, but I'd like to think that he thinks of bow ties as a "professional" accessory. Maybe he's trying to be more casual now that he's not working as an architect?
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:31 AM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I took Kamilah's paintings to be the parents joined (or rather, enmeshed, the two overlapping circles) and driving the other two circles apart (the sisters). Flash back to them sitting on the couch together (always on that couch!), while the sisters pitted against each other and forced apart, are on opposite sides of the room. Every painting was that. I could feel the judgment of the two enmeshed circles, staring down the isolated ones. Once Tahani got it, the paintings seemed both deep and sad, so she had to hug her. Kamilah felt just as lonely as she did. It was really sweet.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:51 AM on November 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

For that reason, A Fractured Inheritance is a way better title, sorry Tahani. They inherited a fractured relationship from their parents' issues.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:05 AM on November 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Maybe it's just that on Earth he'd have to tie them by hand, and ain't nobody got time with that, even with all the extra free time from never using the bathroom.
posted by ckape at 9:54 AM on November 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

..also, this is off-topic for the episode, but the implications of the point-effect of Foundations are driving me crazy.

Yes! Thank you! This is a small thing but it has always really bugged me that Mindy got so many points just for thinking of an idea for a foundation. For one thing, foundations are just like everything else - ideas don't get you very far, it's how you execute them that matters. And the idea that a corporate lawyer who has never given a shit about anyone but herself would be the one to come up with the magic idea to solve some of the world's most intractable problems is some Silicon Valley-level cluelessness. The idea that there's going to be one magical idea to solve everything is actually kind of a problem in the non-profit/social good sector. And then on top of that, foundations themselves have a ton of moral complexity to them! (non-profit nerd rant over - ok, I guess I don't think it's such a small thing!)

Did John D Rockefeller, for example, get plucked from the Bad Place once the Rockefeller Foundation did enough good? (Or did the fact that the Rockefeller Foundation funded a bunch of Nazi eugenicists...yeesh...doom all the people involved in setting up the Foundation, beyond even just Rockefeller?)

I like to think a lot of people involved in the Rockefeller Foundation are in the bad place but the current generation gets some serious Good Place points.
posted by lunasol at 12:08 PM on November 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

what if the points system thing is just nonsense that the gang's been told because it's currently pedagogically useful for them.

what. if.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:14 PM on November 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

what if the points system thing is just nonsense that the gang's been told because it's currently pedagogically useful for them.

I mean, yeah. I will be seriously mad if that's NOT the case. Or else they're gonna have to overthrow the whole thing, which is kinda wild when you think about it.
posted by lunasol at 12:36 PM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Idle musing: I've got to go back and watch some Season 1 to refresh my memory of how Jianyu came to be, but I have an emerging theory that yes, Janet is God, but also Jason. He just seems a) more different from the others than they are to each other, and b) the most like Doug Forcett.
posted by rhizome at 1:50 PM on November 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

And also that Donkey Doug evidently created Jason in his own image. And that they like each other!
posted by rhizome at 2:07 PM on November 4, 2018

I will be really disappointed if it turns out there's a god.

I think they end up bringing down the whole system, because what they accomplish highlights the inherent injustice of a rigid "neutral," quantitative framework.
posted by Superplin at 5:18 PM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'll be disappointed if there's a god that the gang doesn't end up murdering.

I mean unless it's janet in which case they've already murdered her hundreds of times so
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:43 PM on November 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

ideally at some point soon someone should refer to janet as god just so she can cheerily announce "not a god!" and we can stop speculating.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:44 PM on November 4, 2018 [27 favorites]

Is Janet willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then she is not omnipotent. Is she able, but not willing? Then she is malevolent. Is she both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is she neither able nor willing? Then why call her God?

Why hasn't Chidi ever talked about Epicurus!?! The show is a living testament to: "Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship."
posted by pjsky at 6:38 AM on November 5, 2018 [12 favorites]

And the idea that a corporate lawyer who has never given a shit about anyone but herself would be the one to come up with the magic idea to solve some of the world's most intractable problems is some Silicon Valley-level cluelessness.

If Tahani didn't get into the good place, none of our famous save-the-worlders would either. I always assumed the key to Mindy getting into the Medium Place was that she a) when she was high, she really sincerely wanted to help and b) she set up the money part and then c) died before she could screw it up. That would give her action (b) the right motivation (a and c).

...you guys are right, though, that's a terrible system. Human nature is such that you'd pretty much have to die right after a big, purely altruistic good act to have it count in your favor. It's like hoping you'll get run over as soon as you leave the confessional.
posted by grandiloquiet at 6:51 AM on November 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

> Why hasn't Chidi ever talked about Epicurus!?!

I mean if we've gotta exhume more of the Greeks why can't we have a Good Place Diogenes the Cynic? Going around refusing the trappings of society, eating where they please, masturbating where they please, making do with a minimum of needless luxury, willfully ignoring the customs and judgements of the world?

...

...

oh shit. folks. I just realized something.

Mindy St. Claire. She's Diogenes. She's totally Diogenes. well okay, she's Diogenes with a coke habit.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:48 AM on November 5, 2018 [25 favorites]

Hey, has anyone else noticed that Michael doesn't wear bow ties anymore? When did that happen?

The bow ties were an affectation for when Michael had to pretend to be a Good Place architect. My recollection is that he hasn't worn one since the middle of Season 2 when they closed down the Neighborhood.

what if the points system thing is just nonsense that the gang's been told because it's currently pedagogically useful for them.

Or, the point system is a stupid and arbitrary method of figuring out whether someone is actually a good person, and the series will conclude with Our Heroes overthrowing whatever entities oversee that system.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 11:23 AM on November 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

> and the series will conclude with Our Heroes overthrowing whatever entities oversee that system.

... at which point Janet tells them they've set a new high score record for the real points system. Or, alternately, tells them that most players solve the game twice as fast as they did.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:28 AM on November 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

the real Janet is crucified deep below the Good Place HQ
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:30 AM on November 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

Human nature is such that you'd pretty much have to die right after a big, purely altruistic good act to have it count in your favor. It's like hoping you'll get run over as soon as you leave the confessional.

I believe this is the essential logic behind deathbed conversions!
posted by rhizome at 11:32 AM on November 5, 2018

> the real Janet is crucified deep below the Good Place HQ

yeah but when you go down there all she says is "Not Lilith!"
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:48 AM on November 5, 2018 [13 favorites]

Afterlife points are the LCL that seeps from the peirced side of Janet-Lilith
posted by Rinku at 8:59 PM on November 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sure the points system is obviously flawed, but I've always felt the larger point that The Good Place (the show) is making is that the very existence of a Bad Place where people are tortured for all eternity is utterly vile.

How could anyone admitted to The Good Place possibly be happy knowing that everyone they knew in life is being tortured?

That's the aspect of the system that I want to see our protagonists bring to an end.
posted by simonw at 3:45 AM on November 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

Okay and Chidi is definitely Shinji.

But... Eleanor is Asuka Langley Soryu? Which makes Tahani... Unit... 02? *confused dog head* Or is one of them Ayanami? Which?

I mean if at the end of the series everyone collapses into hivemind goo that would be awesome, but I'm thinkin' that's unlikely.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:49 AM on November 6, 2018

Get in the trolley, Chidi.
posted by tobascodagama at 4:44 AM on November 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

The Good Place: What if Parks & Rec turned into Neon Genesis Evangelion so gradually that no one noticed?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:47 AM on November 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

> Or is one of them Ayanami? Which?

It’s pretty obvious who’s Ayanami, but explaining why would require explicit Evangelion spoilers rather than the “you’ll get it if you get it” Evangelion spoilers we’ve given already. and I’m not sure that’s an appropriate thing for a fanfare thread that’s not about Evangelion.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:49 AM on November 6, 2018

no wait I’ve got it:

Ayanami Rei is Medium Janet.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:11 AM on November 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

... we never meet the 17th angel, but Eleanor and Mindy St. Claire spend a lot of time watching a tape of him and Chidi...
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:18 AM on November 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Now I want a montage of Chidi's moral philosophy lectures cut to the "Decisive Battle" theme.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:55 AM on November 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

all I know is that if “Ode to Joy” or “Air on G” starts playing on the soundtrack, Team Cockroach needs to run. cause whatever’s happening, it’s no good for anybody.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:56 AM on November 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

> and the series will conclude with Our Heroes overthrowing whatever entities oversee that system.

I would like to think the series has a planned endpoint/scheme but I am not sure I buy that it does, or that it really has its metaphysics concretely set.
posted by phearlez at 8:29 AM on November 7, 2018

I don't really...care about the cosmology? As much as The Good Place doesn't feel like a normal sitcom, I think it is in the sense that the premise is just an engine for character development and jokes. I'm sorry if I'm saying something that's super obvious! But I personally have nothing invested in whether the universe of the show is moral or fair or even sane, because it deals with unknowable questions that no one can answer In Real Life, so -- at the risk of sounding boorish -- who cares. I'm not terribly interested in the characters meeting God or whatever (except insofar as God might be funny).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:22 PM on November 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

You're not wrong, this could still turn out to be like Lost.
posted by rhizome at 12:31 PM on November 7, 2018

Well it's season three and I'm still watching and enjoying so it's already diverged from Lost for me.

I don't think you're being a boor or obvious at all, kittens, and I don't think there's anything wrong with not caring about the cosmology. But metafilter gonna beanplate...
posted by phearlez at 12:57 PM on November 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Re-watched this episode today and it really hit home that they have zero direct memories of any of their time in the afterlife. No neighborhoods, no Mindy St. Claire, no Judge, no Michael existential crisis. No frozen yogurt even! Sure, Michael and Janet gave them some kind of summary after they caught them using the door but they couldn't recap all the details of all those years of experiences. Hopefully they left out the part about the clam chowder fountains.

Can't wait for tonight's episode (even though I probably can't watch it until later Friday). I feel like the show is ready to pivot away from the Soul Squad theme, but we've looked at how all the characters have been affected by family (or lack thereof) — except for Chidi. I'm guessing that everyone is going to re-converge around the Eleanor/Chidi love storyline which will lead to learning more about Chidi's family. Has he said anything about his parents previously? I can only think of the throwaway line about missing his mother's back surgery because his promised his landlord's kid to help setup his phone.
posted by mikepop at 11:27 AM on November 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

For some reason, I keep thinking Uzo is Chidi's brother rather than his friend. I guess it just makes more sense to me that a brother would follow him to Australia instead of a close childhood friend. (At least, I assume the air conditioner incident took place in Australia, I guess it could have been in Senegal.)
posted by tobascodagama at 11:41 AM on November 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

She'll let him down easy — she'll let him down perfectly — but it's still gonna hurt.

What makes you think she'll have to let him down at all? Has Jason given any indication of being remembering that he and Janet were a couple in the past?
posted by kenko at 1:35 PM on November 8, 2018

Michael has this look of quiet demon glee when discussing the Subaru dealership / burlesque club and it's perfect
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:51 PM on November 26, 2018

So, there have been multiple prior demon jokes about taking dumps, but Michael omitted bathrooms from the plans he gave Dave. Continuity error or unsettling insight into demon sanitation?
posted by EvaDestruction at 6:39 AM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

Demons probably only poop as a way of punishing humans.
posted by Etrigan at 7:38 AM on January 2, 2019 [5 favorites]

I will be really disappointed if it turns out there's a god.

I just rewatched this episode and Kamilah's comment upon meeting with Chidi stood out:
“Chidi is an Igbo word that means ‘god exists’”
posted by milkweed at 8:59 PM on January 14, 2019 [6 favorites]

Sure the points system is obviously flawed, but I've always felt the larger point that The Good Place (the show) is making is that the very existence of a Bad Place where people are tortured for all eternity is utterly vile.

Have we seen any evidence other than demons talking about it that anyone is actually being tortured in the Bad Place?
posted by straight at 10:45 PM on December 2, 2019

Have we seen any evidence other than demons talking about it that anyone is actually being tortured in the Bad Place?

In the second episode of the first season, Michael asks Janet what’s going on in the Bad Place at that moment, and she plays sounds of screaming. She doesn’t lie directly about anything in the first season that I can remember.
posted by Etrigan at 4:02 AM on December 3, 2019

Which is conspicuously different from asking Janet to describe what is happening in The Bad Place. That could easily have been audio of demons throwing a party similar to the "Burn the Neighborhood Down Party" in Season 2 with no humans present.
posted by straight at 12:09 PM on December 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's just that on Earth he'd have to tie them by hand, and ain't nobody got time with that, even with all the extra free time from never using the bathroom.

I’m just saying: if I didn’t ever have to use a bathroom for sanitation purposes but I went into one just to have a mirror to tie a bow tie, I’d still be in there quite a while.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:30 AM on June 10, 2020