Line #17 Recap/TheGoodPlaceS2E02DanceDanceResolution


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tgp_s2e2.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"...Which obviously never worked, because you're here, and you're back, so, good luck."]]
3
4	->''"I was a member of a sixty-person dance crew in Jacksonville. We were called "Dance Dance Resolution: We Resolve to Dance". One day, Donkey Doug and I got into a fight, because I'd framed his girlfriend for boogie board theft. So he started a new dance crew called "Hashtag Doug Life" and immediately challenged us to a dance-off. He said, "Meet us inside the abandoned orange juice factory at midnight." That night, as the clock struck twelve, me and my crew came together with a determination we had never shown before... and slashed all their tires. It was dope. The end. By Jason Mendoza."''
5	-->-- '''Jason'''
6
7	Michael reboots the neighborhood to try torturing Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason again. However, no matter what he does to modify it, Eleanor eventually figures out its true nature, over and over again (and during Attempt #649, ''Jason'' figured it out). Michael grows more frustrated as time goes on, even hitting rock bottom during Attempt #484 where he gorges himself on junk food and alcoholic drinks, but refuses to give up.
8
9	Michael launches Attempt #802. He goes outside to a neighborhood meeting, and nobody is there except Vicky, who says he's lost control of the experiment and the demons have gone on strike. Vicky complains that everyone is sick of the constant reboots, they often can't remember what their jobs are, and she herself is still upset about the size of her part. They have a list of demands, and Vicky says Michael will have to fit them into his system. Hers is to take over the next reboot and be a "main character". Michael is outraged, but Vicky threatens that if he doesn't comply with this, she will reveal the 800 reboots to Shawn.
10
11	Meanwhile, Eleanor is taking ethics lessons from Chidi again. She's bored and suggests they go outside, where they notice the town streets are empty. They notice a strange burning smell and follow it, finding a group of demons (including one lava monster named Todd who isn't wearing his human skin-suit) complaining about the constant reboots and of Michael's version of the Bad Place in general. Eleanor and Chidi are horrified to learn that they've literally been put through hell hundreds of times and got their memories erased and try to figure out what to do. They use Janet to escape and she takes them on the train to the Medium Place, where Mindy St. Claire greets them.
12
13	Mindy reveals that this is the sixteenth time Eleanor has come by here with Janet and some other human and is frustrated that they've forgotten to bring cocaine again. She explains that Eleanor, Janet and one or two of the other humans (usually Chidi, but sometimes Jason and/or Tahani) will come to the Medium Place to escape from Michael, but they would eventually end up going back to rescue whoever was left behind. Chidi says they need a plan, but everything he or Eleanor suggests is repeated back to them by Mindy. She pulls out a board consisting of a list of all the things they've tried before to defeat Michael, which include trying to seduce him, outright attacking him, or trying to psychologically screw with him.
14
15	Chidi and Eleanor try to go over their options. Chidi is discouraged and says it's pointless - they're trapped in an endless loop and they lose their memories every time they try to break out of it. Eleanor gets upset with him giving up and goes to complain about him to Mindy. Mindy is tired of her complaining, and says Eleanor and Chidi have it bad for each other. Eleanor denies this, but Mindy shows her a video she recorded from the sixth time they were at her home, showing Chidi and Eleanor in bed together professing their love for each other. Eleanor is stunned by this; from her perspective, they've only known each other for a few days and she considers Chidi to be an uptight and humorless dork but Mindy asserts there's a reason why they keep coming back to each other. Eleanor calls Janet and Chidi over to announce they're leaving and takes the tape back with her.
16
17	Michael is standing on a bridge, and Jason comes calling for anyone, so Michael takes him aside to bounce ideas off of, as he feels he's caught between a rock and a hard place - he's certain Vicky's plan would be a failure, but if he doesn't go along with them otherwise, she'll rat him out to Shawn. Jason then relays the story of how he and his old friend Donkey Doug were in a dance team, and then they got into a fight due to Jason framing Donkey Doug's girlfriend for stealing a boogie board, so Donkey Doug organized a rival dance team and challenged Jason's dance team to a dance-off, so Jason's team went there and slashed their tires. From something in there, Michael gets an idea.
18
19	Michael gets to Eleanor's house, where she, Chidi and Tahini are, and Jason joins them; Eleanor says they keep figuring out the puzzle of the "Good Place", so they're winning and he's losing. Michael says, actually, they're on the same page and he wants to team up with them.
20	----
21	!!Tropes:
22
23	* AccidentalMisnaming: In Michael's various attempts to reboot the neighborhood, Eleanor calls Chidi "Chibi," "Chili," and "Cheeto."
24	* AesopAmnesia: Since Michael can easily erase their memories, any CharacterDevelopment the humans achieve gets undone.
25	-->'''Chidi:''' We are experiencing karma, but we can't learn from our mistakes! It's an epistemological nightmare!
26	* AmnesiaLoop: The four humans and Janet spend half the episode trapped in one of these as Michael wipes their memories every time he reboots the neighborhood, forcing them to rediscover the truth of their situation every single time.
27	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: When Eleanor asks Janet in Attempt #3 for people in the Neighborhood who could help her become a better person, her ideas for career options fitting that criteria consist of teachers, life coaches, and Instagram fitness models.
28	* BaitAndSwitch:
29	** Michael drunkenly rants into his recorder, similar to the other times we've seen him talk into it... except the camera expands to reveal he's mouthing this all off to ''Eleanor.''
30	** Jason's story about "Dance Dance Resolution" seems to be building up to his team coming together and beating Donkey Doug's rival dance crew through hard work and ThePowerOfFriendship... before he then reveals that they just slashed the other team's tires.
31	* BeeAfraid: In one of the reboots, Chidi is being chased by a swarm of bees at the same time that Eleanor is figuring out the truth.
32	-->'''Eleanor:''' Oh, ''this'' is the Bad Place!\
33	'''Chidi:''' ''(running from the bees)'' Bees! Bees! Bees! Bees!
34	* BelligerentSexualTension: Mindy considers Chidi and Eleanor's bickering to be this, as they've hooked up several times before.
35	* {{Blackmail}}: Vicky gets Michael to let her run the show by threatening to tell Shawn about the 802 do-overs.
36	* BrickJoke: Vicky brings back her mediocre Australian accent during her discussion with Michael when she starts blackmailing him.
37	* ContinuityNod:
38	** During his DrowningMySorrows moment, Michael dresses up in the "stress hoodie" he was wearing during his fake HeroicBSOD [[Recap/TheGoodPlaceS1E06WhatWeOweToEachOther last season]]. Apparently, Michael actually ''does'' wear that hoodie whenever he feels stressed and he didn't just pull it out of nowhere to guilt-trip Eleanor.
39	** Continuing on from the last episode, Gunnar wants to be able to bite the humans. At least he's apparently pared down his requests to nibbling on the humans while they sleep.
40	** [[Recap/TheGoodPlaceS1E12MindyStClaire Mindy St. Claire]] returns when Eleanor, Chidi, and Janet escape in the "final" reboot to the Medium Place, and her addiction to cocaine is also mentioned.
41	** Chidi [[Recap/TheGoodPlaceS1E13MichaelsGambit yet again]] believes he was sent to the Bad Place because he kept drinking almond milk despite knowing it was bad for the environment.
42	** Jason reveals that [[Recap/TheGoodPlaceS1E05Category55EmergencyDoomsdayCrisis framing Donkey Doug's girlfriend for boogie board theft in order to save their dance crew]], unsurprisingly, ended much less neatly than he'd previously claimed and temporarily cost him his friendship with Donkey Doug.
43	* CreatorsApathy: [[invoked]] InUniverse; by Attempt #802, the other demons in the Neighborhood have long since lost any passion or motivation to continue on due to the many reboots, to the point where they smoke in public, openly complain about Michael ignoring the GoodOldWays of how torture is performed in the rest of the Bad Place, and even walk around without their human "skin-suits", clearly identifying them as supernatural creatures. As the demon "Kamaria" herself points out, "Who cares if [the humans] see us? They're just gonna get rebooted anyway."
44	* DashedPlotLine: Due to the insane number of reboots, breaking 800, the actual length of time this episode covers can easily be several hundred years. They said the longest cycle was 11 months, but we see at least a handful foiled within the first few hours.
45	* DenserAndWackier: InUniverse; as the reboots go on, they become increasingly absurd and bizarre as Michael clearly starts to run out of ideas and the other demons start to care less and less about their jobs. Special mention should go to Attempt #3, which features an ObviouslyEvil smoking obelisk covered in glowing red runes.
46	* DeterminedDefeatist: Michael realizes halfway through the reboot cycle that he is obviously never going to make his plan work, yet he still has to try literally hundreds of more times - mainly because he doesn't know what else he can do.
47	* DrowningMySorrows: During Attempt #484, Michael is a mess and resorts to drinking as he bitterly rambles to himself about how Eleanor keeps figuring out the truth behind the "Good Place".
48	* DumbassHasAPoint:
49	** In the reboot where ''Jason'' figures out they're really in the Bad Place, much of his reasoning makes a bizarre kind of sense:
50	*** They all keep fighting with each another (something which he finds odd in a group of friends)
51	*** None of the TV's get the "NFL Redzone" channel (as a big football fan, this is a big clue that this isn't his idea of heaven)
52	*** And finally, his "soulmate" doesn't know anything about Blake Bortles (his favorite football player).
53	** Despite Michael considering everything that happened in his life to be stupid, Jason actually manages to give Michael a bit of good advice in his inane story about his dance crew.
54	* EatingTheEyeCandy: When Eleanor first meets Tahani in Attempt #3 and the latter comments on her large bosom, Eleanor looks right at Tahani's breasts with visible interest.
55	* EnemyMine: Michael realizes that the situation has gotten completely out of his control and the only thing that might save him is to team up with the humans.
56	* EpicFail: Attempt #108 represented a really bad failure for Michael, as Eleanor walked into his office while he was recording his thoughts and figured out she was in the Bad Place ''before her orientation even began!'' He also regards Attempt #659 -- the one reboot where ''[[TheDitz Jason]]'' pieced it together -- an especially painful failure.
57	-->'''Michael:''' ''(aghast) Jason'' figured it out? '''Jason?!''' ''(looks sick)'' This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts. ''Ow.''
58	** There's also another unknown reboot where (going by the placement of chairs she and the rest of the Neighborhood are sitting in) it seems that Eleanor figured out the twist ''literally in the midst of her orientation''.
59	* EternalRecurrence: Chidi calls their situation a "warped version" of this and name drops Nietzsche himself.
60	* EurekaMoment:
61	** This episode gives us a montage of these as Michael keeps putting the humans into different scenarios and yet each time, Eleanor figures out that they're actually in the Bad Place. Even '''Jason''' figured it out once. That one ''really'' hurt Michael.
62	** Notably, ''Michael'' gets his own at the end of the episode after listening to Jason's bizarre story about his dance team, with him realizing that he can't survive on his own, and so needs to perform an EnemyMine with the humans to get out from under Vicky's blackmail since all of the other demons are fed up with the experiment and he has no other potential allies.
63	* FailureMontage: Virtually the entire episode's first act is a montage of the various attempts Michael has made at torturing the humans, and how the humans figured it out ''that'' time. Michael's pride is in shreds by the end.
64	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: When Mindy was first introduced, she was shown to be walking around naked because she was completely alone until then and wasn't expecting anyone to be coming by. When Eleanor, Chidi, and Janet see her here, she's fully clothed, meaning she's been expecting them to come back. She also doesn't look remotely surprised to see them, hinting that this has happened numerous times before.
65	* FlatWhat: Eleanor is confused when Michael immediately agrees with her that the humans have a lot more power than the situation suggests and then directly offers to work with them.
66	* FreezeFrameBonus: All the different resets have [[https://imgur.com/a/pszEx different themed signs]] for the neighborhood's restaurants. There is also the poster of all the plans the main four have tried, including "Stab with large knife," "Find Doug Forcett," and "Try to stuff Michael back into his magic lamp".
67	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Given the little amount of time each reboot is given, most montages have something funny going on only in the background. Some examples are:
68	** [[ButtMonkey Chidi]] getting frightened by an angry pig while at a farm with Eleanor and later getting chased by a swarm of bees.
69	** During the attempt where Jason figured it out, Michael really went overboard and just ''decked'' Eleanor's entire wall in clown paintings. Additionally, Michael's expression becomes one of slowly dawning horror as Jason's EurekaMoment continues on during this reboot.
70	* GroundhogDayLoop: The constant reboots functionally serve as this, with Eleanor realizing over and over again that they're in the Bad Place and only the demons and Mindy St. Claire (more or less) remembering the reboots' events.
71	* {{Homage}}: [[invoked]] According to WordOfGod, the episode was largely written as one to both ''Film/GroundhogDay'' and ''Film/EdgeOfTomorrow'' in terms of how it utilized the GroundhogDayLoop -- particularly in the concept of how the first act can be "on repeat," but the "trick" from a writing perspective is to then have the time loop go OffTheRails to incite drama.
72	* HumiliationConga: Michael is subjected to one in this episode, as the humans keep on realizing they're in the Bad Place... at least ''800 times''.
73	* IHaveAFamily: As part of the reboot montage we see Michael approaching the button that reboots Janet and activating the "beg for her life" failsafe. In one clip she asks him who will look after her pet birds, and in another, she claims to be pregnant with his baby.
74	* IMadeCopies: Eleanor takes the tape of her and Chidi having sex and confessing their love. Mindy says, "Oh no, it's my only copy, don't," in a sarcastic tone that clearly means it isn't.
75	* {{Irony}}: In many ways, ''Michael'' is tortured more than his human subjects through his increasing panic and desperation to make their psychological torment of one another actually work.
76	* KickTheDog: Vicky specifically mocks Michael for not being able to pull off bow ties. Amusingly, this seems to be [[ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne one of the few things that legitimately offends him]].
77	* MemoryGambit: Defied - as the second attempt was undermined with a note Eleanor delivered to herself through Janet, Michael is on to the trick and makes sure Eleanor can't repeat it again while going through with his third attempt. But this cycles back to why it didn't work in the first attempt, as moving too fast on the literal torture clues them in on this not being The Good Place and both Michael and the demon cast members start getting sloppy on the details. When they go to Mindy for the eleventh time, she actually started keeping track of what has happened to them and the many different plans they devised that didn't work.
78	* NoJustNoReaction: Eleanor's reveal in Attempt #11 starts with this, as she states that no version of Heaven would ever have a three-hour spoken word Jazz concert just for her.
79	* NoodleIncident: Several reboots from the FailureMontage are this, such as the one where everyone is inexplicably hiding from a levitating clown and the one with Chidi being chased by bees. Many of the plans written on Mindy St. Claire's board also qualify.
80	* OffTheRails: The main foursome consistently manages to figure out the deception, resulting in Michael becoming desperate to keep things together and the other demons becoming exasperated with having to go through the process again.
81	* OverlyPrepreparedGag: It's quite mind-boggling to realize how much effort must have gone into creating the dozens of blink-and-you'll-miss-it gags in this episode.
82	* PostStressOvereating: In addition to drinking, Michael does this during Attempt #484. He complains about all the weight going to his thighs.
83	* PunBasedTitle: [[VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution Take a wild guess]]. It's the name of Jason's dance crew.
84	* RightBehindMe: One of the failed attempts has Eleanor tell Janet that Chidi sucks while he's standing behind them and can hear everything she says.
85	* RunningGag:
86	** Eleanor never pronounces Chidi's name correctly every time she first meets him in each reboot.
87	** After he learns yet again that he's in the Bad Place, Chidi believes that he was sent to the Bad Place for drinking almond milk while alive despite knowing about the negative environmental impact.
88	** During the initial montage of Michael's attempts, Janet keeps having her "panicking and begging for her life" reaction as he goes to reboot her.
89	** Mindy's addiction to cocaine also comes back and is mentioned.
90	* ScaryStingingSwarm: During one of the reboots, Chidi is [[FunnyBackgroundEvent in the background]] being chased by a swarm of bees while Eleanor is in the foreground figuring out yet again that they're actually in the Bad Place.
91	* SeenItAll: Mindy, whose memory isn't being wiped with the reboots, is no longer surprised when the humans and Janet show up at her house. If anything, she's just frustrated that they never remember to bring her cocaine.
92	* ShipperOnDeck: Mindy has become one for Chidi and Eleanor.
93	* ShipTease: This episode lays it on thick for Eleanor and Chidi, who've hooked up in various previous reboots and even confessed their love for each other once. PlayedForLaughs in Attempt #218, where Eleanor and Tahani are made into each other's soulmate.
94	* ShoutOut:
95	** Eleanor initially calls Janet "busty Alexa" when she's trying to summon her in Attempt #3 before she remembers Janet's name.
96	** Furthermore, during one of her automatic attempts to beg for her life, Janet tells Michael that she had just gotten tickets to ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}''.
97	** Among the list of failed plans that the humans have previously tried against Michael (or at least those that have been recorded by Mindy) include "Find Series/RayDonovan but an angel", "Film/IndecentProposal [Michael]", and "[[Film/TheShawshankRedemption Shawshank]] our way out".
98	* SmartBall: In one reboot, everything lines up so that ''[[TheDitz Jason]]'' is the one to first put the pieces together and realize they're in the Bad Place. Michael is, understandably, annoyed at this revelation.
99	* SpottingTheThread: No matter what Michael tries to do to keep them oblivious, the humans keep figuring out the truth. At one point, he managed to tip off ''Jason'' first because he didn't accommodate him and his idea of heaven.
100	* SunkCostFallacy: During his DrowningHisSorrows rant, Michael blurts out how he's been lying to Shawn about how successful the second attempt at the experiment was (by this point he's on v.484) but is no longer in a position where he can admit the truth, despite how dangerous this is for him, because he's now in too deep.
101	* TakeThat:
102	** Eleanor does not have flattering opinions on clam chowder, referring to it as both "a savory latte with bugs in it" and "hot ocean milk with dead animal croutons".
103	** Michael tries to encourage Vicky to stay on his side by claiming that if they're able to make the whole scenario work, she might even get the "Jared [Fogle] from Subway account" in terms of designing future torture scenarios.
104	** Amusingly subverted; Tahani claims she was Music/TaylorSwift's best friend, but Tahani herself had a better best friend. However, instead of this being a dig at Taylor Swift, Eleanor instead uses Tahani's statement as evidence of her really belonging in the Bad Place.
105	* TimeCompressionMontage: An episode-long example, compressing hundreds of years' worth of action into the regular 22 minutes.
106	* TitleDrop: Jason's sixty-person dance crew on Earth is revealed to have been called "Dance Dance Resolution."
107	* TotallyRadical: Spoofed in Attempt #11, where Michael ([[ItMakesSenseInContext who was participating in a jazz concert]]) angrily rants in a weird string of pseudo-[[TheRoaring20s Roaring Twenties]]-style lingo after Eleanor figures out yet again that she's not in the Good Place.
108	* VillainProtagonist: The first half of the episode is told from Michael's perspective. There really isn't any other option considering he's the only main cast member who's not having his mind erased every few months.
109	* WhamLine:
110	** Mindy bluntly informing Eleanor, Chidi, and Janet that this is the ''sixteenth'' time they've shown up in the Medium Place quickly highlights just how expansive and trapped both the humans and Michael are in their EternalRecurrence stalemate.
111	** Michael telling the humans at the end of the episode "[[EnemyMine I wanna team up with you guys]]."
112	* WisdomFromTheGutter: Michael laments his problems to Jason simply because he has no one else to talk to. He clearly does not expect Jason to be any help, considering Michael knows everything that happened in his life and it was all stupid, yet Jason actually ''is'' able to provide a story that inspires Michael to try a new solution to his problem.
113	* TheWorfEffect: [[InvertedTrope Inverted.]] To show how the humans keep beating Michael, one reboot has ''Jason'' figure it out. Michael even lampshades that this is a ''particularly'' humiliating failure.
114	-->'''Michael:''' This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts. ''Ow.''
115	* TooYoungToDieLamentation: Jason wails about this during the reboot where they're presented with an obelisk that will transport them to the Bad Place.
116	-->'''Jason:''' I'm too young to die! And too old to eat off the kids' menu! ''What a stupid age I am''!

Context Recap / TheGoodPlaceS2E02DanceDanceResolution