The Good Place

Charles Brainman was my favorite dumb alias.

Jason's growth was the most interesting as he seems to actually had some introspection when thrust back into a familiar environment with none of the restraints or freedoms given to him in the afterlife

Edited by Nouct on Sep 28th 2018 at 12:06:04 PM

That was a really fun episode! Also Trevor is back and ready to fuck shit up, oh dear. Though I do wonder if he might actually end up becoming reformed along the way...

I'm just hoping that Michael and Janet find a way to get directly involved. It would suck if this entire arc went by without the cast being able to just bounce off each other.

I wonder what significance the Doorman will have. Is he part of a Secret Test of Character Gen is giving to Michael?

Honestly, I just finished the premiere and this may officially be my favourite show.

Betcha that key gets duplicated at some point.

My favorite part was the Doorman’s reaction to the frog-yeti. Michael just brought so much joy to that bored nine-to-fiver whose shift lasts for billions of years.

Is it just me, or does Janet seem different from last time? She sounds a lot more free-thinking and independent, especially being quick to criticize Michael’s plans. Was she like that at the end of last season?

She was getting there, yes.

I also really love the touch with the doorman. It’s a combination of self interest but also kindness that shows Michael is developing too.

The doorman's reaction to the frog thermos was so sweet. I couldn't stop smiling.

Very fun episode, even if it did have to do a lot of table setting to get the season's plot going.

My theory at the moment: Simone is actually Gen, going down to Earth in disguise to monitor all this up close. Their personalities just ring very similar to me.

I find it interesting that while Jason was the one that made the least change initially, he's also the one that might have been able to make the change stick without further intervention.

What’s really gotten on my nerves with this show is that the universe clearly operates under Blue and Orange Morality, but everyone (for the most part) treats it as if it works under ordinary Morality. What’s the point of an ethics class if you can go to hell just for being French?

The points system seems to combine normal morality with the biases of the beings who created the system. So learning morality does help, even if the system itself is broken in many ways.

Is it that being French earns you negative points that send you to the Bad Place, or is it that no French person in history has ever made it to the Good Place, so most of the time they don't even bother tallying up the points for French people before condemning them?

I'm not sure. Here is the actual dialogue from that scene:

Chidi: I just want to have a little chat about your progress. In the last homework assignment, I asked you to examine the ethics of Les Misérables, in which a man steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. Would you please read your first paragraph here?
Michael: "Everyone in this story sucks and belongs in the Bad Place. The thief is bad. The officer chasing him is bad. All the whiny prostitutes are bad. Plus, they're all French, so they're going to the Bad Place automatically."
Chidi: Do you see how you're already off topic?
Michael: Chidi, I've been around a long time like, all of it. But I know for a fact that if you steal a loaf of bread, it's a negative 17 points, 20 if it's a baguette because that makes you more French.

So them being French gets them sent to the Bad Place automatically, but if something "makes you more French," it loses you three more points.

Edited by alliterator on Sep 30th 2018 at 11:27:15 AM

My theory is that the reason the points system is messed up is because it's the codified result of angels and demons arguing for eternity. So demons put in the thing about the French automatically going to the Bad Place because they think it's hilarious, and angels had to allow it so they could get something else in—like maybe a genuine Heroic Sacrifice automatically gets you into the Good Place.

That would be awesome.

I feel it's still a shitty thing to for the Good Place team to cave on. Sentencing an entire nationality to damnation is a pretty high cost...

I mean, it's pretty clear the world building of the good place is meant to be semi-absurdist, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, at least until the writing team is ready to care about it.

Edited by MrAHR on Oct 1st 2018 at 11:08:59 AM

Really good new episode; totally didn’t go the way I expected. Then again, I can never figure out where things are going? This show is so damn good and innovative.

Once again the show ditches the "we gotta do the thing in a way that no one finds out" premise quickly.

I love how the Judge just flung Trevor away. I hope he's not dead, though — he was hilarious.

Also, now Michael and Janet are on Earth without any powers, so I wonder if they will try to become part of the study?

By the way, whoever is doing the recaps for The Good Place — "Everything is Bonzer!" was actually the first two episodes and "The Brainy Bunch" is the name of the third episode.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that the judge’s combination of personal niceness and callous adherence to the rules is deliberate. That whole debate about people who are friendly but make horrible, horrible decisions when they vote or enforce the law… I think that is intentional.

Concidering that both motive and consequences count I wonder how the judge would fair in her own court.