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Also, of course, the problem is that both Michael and Janet went onto the train together, which means that they would both need to be replaced at the same time, Janet is needed to run the neighborhood, a bad Janet can't do the job, and a new stolen good Janet would not be capable of pretending to be the same old Janet. There's no chance that the Michael in this episode was a fake based on that speech, that Michael was trying to help Eleanor, whereas a fake Michael would try and undermine her while looking like he's being his bumbling self TRYING to help her. No, there is no way that Vicky somehow, offscreen without the audience seeing any of that, went so deep into character that she somehow completely reformed, offscreen into a perfect imitation of a Good Michael.
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Oct 6, 2019 14:35
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 This is "Shannon was stabbed" all over again.A fake Michael in a Michael suit would not have discouraged Eleanor from torturing Chidi. A fake Michael would not have been helpful to Eleanor. Also, MICHAEL AND JANET WENT ONTO THE BAD PLACE TRAIN TOGETHER, and nobody is going "Janet is fake".
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Oct 11, 2019 02:41
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Xelkelvos posted:There's literally zero telegraphing of a fake Janet Exactly my point. You cannot have a real Janet and a Fake Michael because they went onto the train together. Therefore if Janet is real, Michael must also be real. There is no more telegraphing of a fake Michael than there is that Shannon was stabbed and not shot.
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Oct 11, 2019 02:50
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Xelkelvos posted:I don't understand your reference. It's to the TVIV threads for Season 2 of Lost. There was an episode where a character called Shannon ran through some bushes chasing after some of the mysterious whispers on the island. A gunshot rang out and we see Shannon bleeding, and the reveal of other survivors from the plane, one of which is holding a smoking gun. Some people sincerely posted the theory that Shannon had been stabbed (offscreen) by another person who then ran off instead of being shot by the fellow survivor. Next week it was revealed to be exactly what it looked like. Shannon was shot by the fellow survivor. In this analogy, the reveal of Vicky in a Michael suit in last season's finale is the equivilant to "we know there are other people on the island so one of them could have been there to stab Shannon". quote:I will admit that that's basically the only hole: a nearly omnipotent being getting distracted just long enough for a switch to happen seems unlikely. Michael pushing Eleanor to initially torture Chidi seems like a suspect thing. Also the destruction of problems thing since Michael absolutely knows what problem Chidi's talking about and implies destroying it even if Michael would obviously know that Chidi wouldn't want to destroy Jason. Michael pushed for torturing of Chidi because as the show demonstrated, Chidi wasn't concerned with holding ethics lessons because he believed that they truly are in The Good Place. It's one of the things which others have pointed out is a flaw in the experiment currently running - without problems, there is no impetus to change. Eleanor and Jason in Season 1 knew something was wrong because Michael gave an incorrect recounting of their history. It seems like there was no such "mistaken identity" problem tipping off any of the new participants, so without interference, they have no reason to be worried and feel the need to change to fit in.
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Oct 11, 2019 03:17
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Even if I agreed with your premise that there are lots of instances of out of character behavior, the problem is that for every instance of something not being in character for real Michael/Janet which you point to, I can point to an instance of something which IS in character for the real Michael/Janet. Sometimes it's the same instance because we can have different interpretations of what is and is not in character. (I saw nothing wrong with Janet breaking up with Jason, gently telling him about Jake Jortles, or Janet trying new stuff in her hair to try and cope with a breakup (remember that's how Derek was created back in Season 2?). A "they've been replaced" theory needs the show to later on go "by the way Michael was secretly replaced offscreen" AND "also Vicki/Shawn learned how to flawlessly impersonate Michael while offscreen too". That's two implausible things the "replacement" theory needs to explain, whereas the "they're still real" theory has *checks list*... zero implausible things which need explaining.
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Oct 11, 2019 03:34
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Ha, well done show. I did catch that she didn't say "Not a girl." I thought that was odd, but Janet has seemingly been so much more human recently that I wondered if she dropped that.
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Oct 18, 2019 03:45
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Assless Chaps posted:Not to be pedantic (OK, yes, to be pedantic), but that martini was made of a white Christmas tree ornament, not an onion. When he took a bite out of it, it shattered/crunched. The AV Club reviewer made the same mistake! Didn't he take a bite out of the glass itself, not the object in it?
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Oct 25, 2019 19:00
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Something I hope the show addresses is what Simone's "fatal flaw" is. All the original four humans had at least one fatal flaw which got them sent to the Bad Place. What's Simone's? The experiment is supposed to show all four humans improving after their death, but for improvement to happen, they need to change their behaviors. Just "life is too complicated" is too nebulous a thing to qualify as a flaw in need of improvement. Simone's flaw needs to be identified and Team Cockroach needs to help encouraging her to fix it.
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Oct 26, 2019 14:39
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Cemetry Gator posted:I think a big lesson here is that if you don't challenge anyone, you end up going nowhere. Brent wants people to adore him. And they were afraid of breaking Brent's tiny ego that it took an explosion. Exactly. That's why Guy. A. Person is correct that Team Cockroach set up the experiment in a flawed manner. They told everyone that it was the Good Place, they belonged, they made it. They didn't challenge anyone the way Team Cockroach was challenged: Eleanor was challenged to overcome her selfish impulses, Chidi was challenged into making a decision, Jason was challenged to get some control of his impulses, Tahani was challenged with trying to connect to people on a personal level instead of as a way to feed her own ego.
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Nov 2, 2019 02:11
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Taear posted:Eternity is a LONG time to be tortured for even if you killed 6 million people tbh. I think that's kinda the point of the show. There's nothing like taking something to its logical conclusion to highlight its absurdity. This show does that for organized religion's concept of an judgement-based afterlife.
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Nov 4, 2019 02:20
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