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Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Arist posted:

Yeah they 1000% switched Michael, gently caress

ohhhhhh shitt good catch guys drat

so that had to have been the entire play all along right?

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Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Jingleheimer posted:

Eleanor knew she didn't belong because Michael "unintentionally" got her file mixed up with someone else, and they did the same with Jason If Michael would have told Eleanor that she got into the good place while still acknowledging all the bad stuff she did in her life, I don't think she would have changed at all and probably would have just enjoyed herself until the bad place intervened. And Chidi and Tahani we're good enough people on the surface that they wouldn't have had any trouble believing that they got into the good place.

I don't know how they could have done it without having any time to prepare for the new people, but I'm sure that they could have found a way on the fly to make the new people question whether or not they belong in the good place. But who knows what the writers have planned for this season. It's entirely possible they did consider all of that and are going in a different direction.

Yeah this seems like a key point that is missing from the current experiment. Eleanor and Jason being mixed up as different people was the lynch-pin that was supposed to make the entire elaborate torture work by forcing them all the make each other miserable in very specific and personal ways. It backfired because being forced into this stressful situation was torture but it also forged a bond between them that caused them to actually grow as people.

The current newbies are all unfortunately doing their own thing and there doesn't seem to be a plan to actually get them to help each other or even realize that they need to get better, outside of Chidi probably helping Simone come to terms with the existence of an after life. I'm sure this will be addressed in the coming episodes but it seems like an initial oversight for them to make.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Yeah Vicki specifically has an entire arc about wanting to be recognized for her acting ability

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Sloth Life posted:

I wonder if playing Good Janet for bad reasons will become a habit and eventually Bad Janet will be Neutral Janet. The experiment itself fails miserably but team cockroach win because Glenn and BJ are no longer actually evil.

I was planning to rewatch the previous episode but I vaguely remember (Bad) Janet -- while giving genuinely terrible advice to Tahani to beat up John -- also seemed to actually be concerned for her: "I don't like the way he talked to you" etc. I figured it was all part of the act, but I do agree that this kind of thing (the humans flipping at least Michael and Glenn if not Bad Janet) will play into things.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

It makes practical sense that if the point rules were so badly broken, there’d be a lot of good people who could just start piling up points once you removed the complications of life on earth. And if Simone was just selected to mess with Chidi then she wouldn’t necessarily have a fatal flaw. From a storytelling perspective that would be super boring tho.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

I still think they made a major, major misstep with how they set up the experiment and wonder if they are going to address it. Especially with Brent: not only did they not give him any reason to think he shouldn't be there, they further played it up by implying to him he was one of the select few with the potential to go to Super Heaven. How is this guy at all supposed to think he needs to become a better person, except that the kind of people he wouldn't respect on earth are complaining to him?

On the other hand, them mollycoddling Brent doesn't bother me as much because they are obviously on a strict timeline, although I generally agree it's going to go south fast once someone starts forcefully questioning why they have to deal with racism in actual heaven.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Brent’s bad in a different way than original Jason and Eleanor who were both super trashy liars and petty criminals, original Tahani was probably at least as entitled and oblivious tho obviously not racist.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Mr. Powers posted:

Blowing it up in episode 7 is pretty slow. The experiment re-do in season 2 was blown up in, what, the second episode?

I mean, after the end-of-season-1 twist, they really could have only milked the premise of a re-do for maybe another few episodes before it got super redundant. Just watching them do essentially the same stuff but being in on the joke this time wouldn't really be sustainable, you'd just be waiting around for the humans to figure it out again and for the series to have some sort of forward momentum.

This new scenario could have been the premise for the entire season with them having ups and downs and exploring the expanded cast more, leaving the last 2 or 3 episodes of the series for wrap up. I feel like most sitcoms would have done it like that, so reaching that point halfway through the season I think is pretty notable.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

1glitch0 posted:

I dunno. I think I would have stayed and helped, but it's not like you're hiking and your friend falls off a cliff. They've been with this irremediable prick for a year and he is STILL being an irremediable prick as he's begging for help hanging in a pit and there's a giant clock in the sky counting down and you have reason to believe you're being screwed with in some weird experiment where you don't know what is going on. I think it's human nature to decide to bail. It's fight or flight. When that clock hits zero they probably didn't want to be near the hellmouth. Only Chidi had the moral fortitude to do it.

Remember, Eleanor initially bailed too.

I feel like it would have come off better if they were just too freaked out about the countdown and in a panic, or even referenced the fact that Tahani and Jason were on their way back with a rope and would be able to handle it better than they could with limited supplies.

There's a pretty big difference between "I don't know how to save this person and am in immediate fear for my own safety standing here" and "this person is just really too awful to be worth me trying to save them" and Simone's point seemed to be uncomfortably closer to the latter.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

That doesn't really work if your entire thesis is that this ISN'T the Good Place, and this person who admittedly sucks is also being manipulated by whatever shady forces and is in the same boat as you.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

curiousCat posted:

They had just found the board with only the four of them's pictures -- Tahani and Jason were threats to them at that point

True and I did consider this but, again, Simone is trying to rationalize fleeing anyway, so even if she personally believes (knows really) that Jason and Tahani won't be returning with a rope, it might be enough to convince Chidi that he doesn't have to personally risk his safety for Brent. Maybe Chidi would see through this, but there's other arguments she could make: like that she didn't believe he was in actual danger and this was just another test anyway, or even worse, a trap.

1glitch0 posted:

Simone does mention she really doesn't want to be there when the clock hits zero. And they seemed pretty panicked. It's not the altruistic choice, but...

Yeah she mentions it prior but her arguments for abandoning Brent don't really factor that in and lean heavily on "he's just really bad and doesn't deserve our help". That's my main point: she has a lot of reasons to want to get out of there, and to believe that things aren't what they seem anyway, it comes off badly that her reasons are focused on Brent as a person and not any of these other reasons to want to flee.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003


I don't need to remember any of that, I outlined most of it in my previous posts. All the various reasons you give are sound, and my entire point is that Simone would have come off better if she had used any of them in her speech to Chidi. Instead her reasons for abandoning him are that he is a jerk who is not worth saving. She also broke up with someone who was willing to risk their life, seemingly because he was willing to do that.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

He didn’t really choose one over the other, he chose to save someone who he knew to be in immediate danger. They could have just left together afterwards if they rescued Brent.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

McCloud posted:

Chidi and Jason are both ridiculously attractive, good lord

I love that they have a canon explanation for why Chidi is so jacked.

In all honesty the real downfall of the original Bad Place experiment was probably that they put 4 ridiculously hot people together supervised by a hot not-a-girl not-a-robot. Of course they're all going to fall for each other, good lord.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Sub Rosa posted:

What slice of the afterlife is Disco Janet over anyway?

The Worst Place

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Ishamael posted:

Biggest laugh of the episode for me was "I never knew my parents went to counseling" "I know, kids are stupid."

Or the red boots.

I love the extra little bit of torture Michael threw in at the very start of Chidi's time in the Bad Place -- "Chidi, come on in...or just stay out here if you're more comfortable" -- before cutting it short to move things along.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Lutha Mahtin posted:

It seems like it's been a very long time since there has been a full episode without something completely bonkers happening. It makes me suspicious. I am curious if Vicki will hold up her end of the deal.

With two episodes left I find it hard to imagine they have time for some evil double cross. It was also a really well done end to Vicki’s arc

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Actually that would be a good way to trick them since there's no real way to do the test otherwise without wiping their memories

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

u brexit ukip it posted:

Chidi's should be chili :colbert:

These are very obviously the actors since Tahani's would never in a million years be "farts" but Jameela is loving rad like that

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Catfishenfuego posted:

The door is totally a metaphor for suicide which is why it's painless, involves telling everyone you know and them being happy for you, leaves no body or mess behind and was explicitly explained as your essence moving onto something new, greater and unknowable on like, six occasions, including the end where they literally show that you still exist in the universe in some form and get to help people.

Also before your "suicide" you get to spend and ageless near-eternity with your friends and family doing anything you want in the known universe with no fear of sickness or poverty or any other kind of hardship

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

This show feels like it was not interested in talking about the sins of murderers or rapists and confined it's story to discussing the everyday morals of bad and good for minor interpersonal transgressions. Like some other more serious drama with a similar premise couldn't write a work on if a brutal rapist can get into heaven, but this was more a show about banal everyday mistreatment of others more than that.

Like eleanor rarely did anything truly bad, and her worst claims seem like throw away jokes more than anything the show dwelled on, if compared to anyone in real life that is actually actually bad, but within the scope of what the show was dealing with she was a huge dick.

Sure but Chidi drank that almond milk even though he knew about the environmental impact, that's pretty monstrous

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

It’s not a great line but Michael naming his dog Jason was my favorite part of the finale

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

I mean, was there even an official season finale for the post-real cast season? I thought it was a one and done that got cancelled when the ratings tanked.

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Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

I always like Jason but the finale made him my favorite, everything with him was perfect: him deciding to leave first, him waiting for Janet for a thousand years while effectively being a zen monk, the “wait up” like, and Michael affectionately naming his dog Jason. Everything was so well done and a perfect end to the character and his relationships, and most of it made me tear up.

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