The Good Place - Season 2

Let's be honest, regardless of whether Manny Jacinto can dance, Jason probably can't dance very well.

I was laughing so loudly!

My biggest problem with the show right now is that after how perfectly they've pulled the rug out from under us (and more than once) I'm having a little trouble buying into it, because I'm kind of constantly on the look out for the next one. (Which is dumb, because the rug pulls are FUN, but still)

I did not realize that the show needed that. But the show needed that. And that is a good thing to have added to the show.

I like him, but he is definitely a "small dose" persona for me. 

HDTGM wouldn't be the same without him, though. I think all of my favorite gags from that 'cast have been his.

Apparently you're in the Bad Place.

It's on NBC's website.  Which is annoyingly prone to crashing midway through commercial breaks for me, but is better than no episode at all.

That was something I really liked as well.  Last week's episode was fantastic, but the ending fell a little flat for me.  Chidi essentially went "I'm not going to let you bribe me into forgiving you," and then Michael was basically like "Well, what if I were to just say what you want me to say, but only so you'll forgive me?" and Chidi was like "Yeah, sure!" as if Michael then proceeding to say what Chidi wanted him to say wasn't just as much of a bribe as the lost Kant text or whatever.

They go on hiatus for two months and they leave us with that cliffhanger?

So, fun fact, the "sexy mouse robot" Jason referenced was a Showbiz character, not Chuck E Cheese. She was a terrifying female Chuck E basically, with pompoms and a cheerleader outfit.

The female CEC character was a chicken named Helen Henny.

I have a feeling that that C- might be the best grade Jason ever got.

I think my favorite jokes from this episode were Janet's "Thank you; not skin," in response to Eleanor's compliment on her appearance, and the way Eleanor said "Of course" when responding to Michael reminding her that she once abandoned her car after the "change oil" light came on.

I had similar reservations about the show's first season as well.  The whole idea of the show of the afterlife as a points-based meritocracy is pretty abhorrent on its face, especially the way it's implemented.  Like, when you watch the first half of the first season, you don't get the impression that Eleanor or Jason deserve to be subjected to Divine Comedy-esque physical torture for all eternity, even if Eleanor's kind of terrible, and Jason's committed some really dumb petty crimes.  Furthermore, this is a show by Michael Schur after all, the guy behind Parks and Rec, which in its final season ended up being the epitome of a lot of what's wrong with meritocratic liberalism (like the way that ).

But without giving anything away I think that The Good Place is in fact aware that the afterlife presented in the show is unjust.  The problem is simply that in order for the show not to be stomach-churningly meritocratic, it needs to explicitly acknowledge this fact at some point, which is something that, midway through the first season, the show hadn't done (and something which, without spoiling too much,it has failed to do so by the mid-season finale of Season 2).  I do think it ultimately will be critical of the points-based system (and your description of Schur's Black Mirror episode, which I haven't seen, makes me a bit more confident of this), but I do think it's a flaw that it isn't more thoroughly dealt with in the first season, and I definitely think it's reasonable to be critical of the show on that basis.


I think your other reservations about the show could end up being more of a deal-breaker, though, maybe?  I thought the show was funnier in the second half of the first season, so maybe Michael and Janet will win you over, but Danson and Carden seem to be turning in the most widely-praised performances on the show, so if you don't find them funny now, it's entirely possible that the show just might not be your thing (although, I'll admit that as good as I think D'Arcy Carden has been as Janet, I'm not as huge a fan of her character, at least in Season 1, as a lot of other people seem to be, and I've come to like the show quite a lot).  As for whether the show gets less twee, ehhhhhh.....maybe a little, but not really, to be honest.  

I don't know, I feel like the show has kind of subtly had the opinion all along that a points-based merit after life would be some bullshit.  Obviously you have Eleanor openly saying it.  Nobody, even Michael, seems to question that posthumously racking up points could be a legitimate path to entering the real Good Place, even though that would seem to defeat the entire purpose of the whole thing.  Mindy St. Claire was literally haggled over by the good and bad places.  No real effort ever seems to be put in by the show to justify it in the slightest.

When, or if, we ever get an appearance from a representative of the actual Good Place, I think that will be really revealing of how the show really feels about the justness of their premise.