The Good Place

Who knew that little note could make everything spiral out of control so fast? Haha. Though, without the note this time, I wonder how Eleanor and everyone will figure things out this time.

Seems like Jianyu was on his way to breaking cover, regardless of the note.

The way Michael guilted Tahani out of asking for more stuff was probably my favorite bit.

P.S. My phone's auto-correct thinks that "Tahani" isn't a real word. It suggests I'm actually trying to spell "Ha ha, no". That may be worse than "Tahini".

It's an Arabic name meaning "Congratulations" or "Best Wishes"

After watching the S2 premiere, I binged the first season. Every time I saw a scene in which I originally felt sorry for Michael because his dream and life’s ambition is falling apart around him and he thinks it’s because he isn’t good enough (a believable character trait that actually makes a cosmic entity relatable, no small creative feat), I now wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him. I am still blown away by the genius of this twist and the foreshadowing.

Then there are moments where, in hindsight, he's clearly taunting them and playing on their insecurities, but on first watch seems like that-wacky-Michael-doesn't-know-what-he's-doing shenanigans. Particularly in "Chidi's Choice".

Well that was Season 2 everybody. A bit on the short side, but I'm excited for how Season 3'll go.

Ok but for real, this whole second-try really fell apart because Michael's idea of a "slow burn" was to set a raging fire under all of their asses right from the get go and still try to say it's their paradise. Like, dumb move, buddy.

An easy way for them to be clued in is that recording that Michael started and forgot to turn off through the whole conversation with Shawn. Or maybe some other fun shenanigans. Who knows?

Yeah, he learned the wrong lesson from take 1. His plan was going perfectly, he just underestimated Chidi's ability to teach Eleanor ethics. Split them up and you're pretty much set. There's no real need to change anything else.

Well, the whole point of the neighborhood is to get them to torture each other. Splitting them up defeats the purpose. He says the plan is to eventually get them to torture each other, but has to come up with some other forms of torment in the mean time.

My guess is that recording will come into play, but instead of one of our main cast finding it, it'll be Vicky (a.k.a. Denise, a.k.a. Real Eleanor), and she'll use it to blackmail Michael into giving her a bigger role in the story.

Yeah, the whole shebang sorta falls flat, which is probably the point. And based on how Elanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason are the protagonists, the "Good Place" plot is bound not to work. Hard for torturing demons to change their nature, especially twice over.

I'm pretty sure go two would have fallen apart precisely because of the harshness. Jason was barely able to keep up the Jianyu character in Season 1, but that's because he had some escape from his misery. Remove any chance to be himself and he's going to rebel. Him talking up would have happened regardless of whether Elanor went on her Chidi hunt.

Spoilers based on one of the promos:

The promos for The Good Place show us very little of what's going to happen, but one clip that NBC did put in a promo has Michael telling Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason that "The Bad Place knows one of you belongs down there". That suggests he's gonna do some major retooling regarding how the whole secret-keeping aspect of their torture works, positioning himself as their confidante rather than the person they need to hide from.

I think in theory, the idea would be that following the party, something would happen that would clue Jason in that he didn't belong, in the same way that was done to Eleanor in the first season. And that whether or not he confided in his "Buddy", Jason would keep up the ruse to avoid being sent to the Bad Place.

Although, this assumes a lot of intelligence from Jason. One thing that also struck me during the episode is that besides everything being too bad for the characters all at once (outside of their overall character growth), I thought that while obviously not as bad as Eleanor's fake soulmate, Jason's "Buddy" had this air about him that would lead a person of greater intelligence to break character. While obviously the audience knows that he was really a demon, but besides that, there was something "off" about him that makes Jason's conclusion that he was a jerk understandable. Kind of reminds me of that swinger couple in that the glee in tormenting isn't quite well hidden enough. It's not like with fake Real Eleanor or Angelique (who of course is an in-universe Suspiciously Similar Substitute), where the demon gives the impression of being a completely sincere and good person.

That being said, it seems like another example of iffy planning on Michael's part that the demon pretending to be Jason's Buddy was expected to be in-character as a silent Buddhist Monk for at least 1000 years. While that's not all that long from the framework of an immortal being, seems like a pretty boring and annoying way to spend one's time.

Which reminds me, that comment from Michael to "Denise" about how she'd have an interesting plotline in 80 years is a clever bit of metafiction in terms of lampshading why the immediate reset was necessary, because a sitcom hashing and rehashing over 80 years (or even just a season) would be pretty boring.

Well, that episode sure was something.

Didn't expect any of that to happen, for sure.

Glad that the writers are throwing the Reset Button off the table. The scenario at the end of Season 1 made me fear that there was no way forward but Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy. Even some of the character development is sticking via Elanor learning of other iterations of the Good Place.

Does Jason seem a bit Flanderized to anyone else? At one point, Michael tells him the truth, Jason clearly reacts with worry, but one cut-away later Jason still thinks he’s in the Good Place. Jason has always had trouble understanding information but I don’t think it’s ever just fallen out of his head like that (Michael’s reboots notwithstanding, of course).

Yeah I don't think that joke quite worked, especially because he was able to figure it out himself in one of the previous loops. It's only one scene, though so that's an Out of Character or Idiot Ball moment rather than Flanderization which requires long term decay of personality.

I dunno, remember last season when they escaped from the "Good Place" to head for the Medium Place, then on the train ride there, Jason asked Eleanor, "Where are we going? I forgot."

But, yeah, this episode was amazeballs. I really wish we could have seen the scenario where Tahani and Eleanor were soulmates (the golden retriever soulmate is a close second).

God, I love this show. They have thrown me for a loop for the past two episodes now. I legitimately don't know where they plan on taking the show next.

I just realized something: Eleanor's plan to stand up to Michael at the end is essentially "Dormammu, I've come to bargain."

Man, I don't think any show has ever made me ship an OT3 so much. But Chidi/Eleanor/Tahani really sounds like something feasible, considering all the ways the three have interacted with each other.

Honestly I'm all for it. It even fits the theme of them being tormented by the rules. The idea that you can only have one soulmate might deliberately be set up to make them miserable.

I'm very for that OT3, too. And that's also a really good point.

I want Michael to reveal that, over the hundreds of reboots they've been through, each of the four has slept with every other member of the four at least once. Even Chidi and Jason.

I showed this to my girlfriend and she guessed the big twist in the very first episode. Wow.

What made the twist so hard to guess is that it didn't seem like the show that would have this sort of premise re-defining twist. If you're looking for a twist going in, it's a bit easier to spot.