Amarsir

Yeah that was interesting. I was amused on the last pitch where Manjit made her offer for 50% and then was undercut down to 10%. (And then excluded from the 4-dragon deal.) I will definitely have a closer eye on discussions between the two of them now.

Beat me to it. Economics is about the assignment of scarce resources. Since money is used in our society as a medium of exchange it's a handy way to summarize and compare values, but money is not required. If one were to study how a community goes about deciding who to date, that would be be (behavioral) economics. So yes, if the afterlife only has so many demons to assign, figuring out how to use them would be a real concern.

I thought the 6-dragon panel worked really well - better than I would have thought. Lots of room for different combinations in deals too. Nice to see Arlene back in form. I know viewing order doesn't equal taping order, but I didn't sense any hesitation in getting back up to speed. It was like she never left.

The Spanish card magician (Javi Benitez?) didn't really do it for me. For whatever reason my attention kept drifting while he performed. Which I suppose is a special risk silent acts, but not a problem I usually have. The rest I was very much into. I enjoyed the volunteers during Mike Bliss's bit. One was just on the verge of talking too much, which would be a problem he'd have to curtail. But as it turned out I felt she had just the right level of response for the kind of interaction he wanted to have with them. Ran Gafner's prediction with bells is a clever spin on the trick, and a lot of fun with the final effect. Ekaterina's move was a little obvious for me, but then I knew what to watch for. That aside, Banksy is a good excuse to use the balloon and she tied it together well.

For me it works when it's not forced, which is a fluctuating fraction of the time. When one of them makes a joke or reference (frequently Melissa) and they jazz it up, I'm OK with that. But I don't need a cartoon fire engine when someone says they're afraid of burning the kitchen down, or some of the other unnecessary animations.

It will be, for while it lasts. But they're not far off from that Hell right now. I don't know if the next stage is better or worse for everyone involved, but I believe it's less sustainable. Now that I'm reminded of that: how did Michael know to include that in the chaos mix? We haven't seen him be omniscient of the neighborhood; in fact we've seen clear signs that he isn't. Was he intentionally eavesdropping just for day 1 of attempt 1? Because in attempt 2 he clearly wasn't. If they wanted to, they wouldn't have to wait for a reboot. Just send Janet on a delivery as soon as they get back. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad plan to ingratiate themselves to Mindy even more once they knew this was a repetition thing. But then again, apathetic coke fiends aren't really the powerful allies one might hope for.

But if you forget a name you get shocked. And then after the test the philosophers get hit by hammers. It seems mental torment was the headline, but physical was the kicker.

That seems hard to keep up for long though. Chidi and Jason both seem incapable of maintaining a complex lie in all their interactions. (For different reasons.) Vicky and others are going to want roles with significant interactions, and the humans would have to convincingly play along with a pretense that's supposed to be torturing them. Hard to pull off. Also narratively it's a problem. This show is already difficult for someone to jump into midstream, but between flashbacks and retellings it does a good job of summarizing. However, if half the things the characters say are lies, and the audience is supposed to know that, it would be very confusing. So certainly that's where we'll be for an episode, but I don't see it being long-term enough to become the status quo. But then I don't even know what passes for status quo anymore.

I had a feeling we'd get to a point where Michael and the humans team up. But, like, by the end of the season. Not episode 3. Also I thought the reset last week was so the show could move more slowly. Clearly called that wrong. I think they did a good job establishing that resets = bad for Michael. In a vacuum, you'd have to say a short-term torture that resets is still a pretty good torture. Black Mirror certainly investigated this. But they've taken that off the table, not only because Sean isn't having it but also the demon workers. Of course it was predicted that they'd figure it out in about 10,000 years, at which point Michael would make a report and presumably the plan would be replicated. So he can't simply collude with them forever either. But I guess the show won't get to that 10,000 year mark for at least a couple more episodes. Since Mindy is both real and external, that does present a couple questions. As @arc wondered, what happens if they try escaping to a real Good Place? But also, what was the deal with Trevor and the Bad Place that he represented? How many times has he been involved, and is he cool with resets too? Appreciation for Eleanor mis-stating Chidi's name as both "Cheeto" and "Chili". Resetting like that must be fun for the writers, because if they have a good joke that doesn't quite fit in the story, they can fit it in on the next go around.

I keep circling around to this implication that "good people" enjoy themselves by not indulging. Sacrifices make sense on earth - a smaller home, less food, or volunteer work all are done so there's more for others. But in the infinite afterlife? To say "I don't *need* a bigger house" makes no sense - need is irrelevant. And if Real Eleanor existed, I'm sure she'd be proud of her hunger strike but I rather suspect her favorite meal would be whatever she ate *after* that. Michael is selling a concept that isn't necessarily true. So having jobs plays into that image. You can get the humans to suffer willingly if they think that's how they're supposed to *want* to act.

I did one, less for ancestry than for health profiling. Turns out I'm that I'm 89% Eastern European and 11% areas adjacent to Eastern Europe. Totally something I wouldn't have guessed from my Polish & Hungarian parents. Current events and politics has been a South Park thing since very early on. I think the turn that was most in evidence here was Randy going over the top. Because he was funny in the past as the guy whose overboard on trends, that's become his go-to thing. And it makes him inconsistent season-to-season or even week-to-week.

It's nice to see them fooled with big stage magic. Card and coin tricks are nice, and showcase years of work on mental and dexterity skills. But to hide big props takes a special kind of innovation. Kyle Littleton had very good character and banter, and made the trick a lot of fun. I'd like to say the same of the Beckers, but their dialogue didn't quite work. I think the problem is that they were trying to upend the "magician's assistant" thing, except that they never really established it. So she didn't come across like the put-upon assistant standing up for herself, nor the reluctant assistant rolling her eyes as she played along. She was basically established as the boss, and therefore not the underdog. Lion Fludd fooled me. Very likable guy and I was hoping he'd win. That sort of effect has been done with a force for a long time, so I understood Penn emphasizing the free choice thing. Doing it this way was great.

It's a neat idea. Not everyone's conversations would lend themselves to that, but the right people certainly worked. It reminds me most of the game they played in Vegas where one person is reading lines from a script and the other is improvising. (Although the similarity to Two-Line Vocabulary is strong too.)

Michael did have that great line in season 1: "There's something very human about taking something you enjoy and ruining it a little so you can have more of it." There seems to be an overriding implication that a truly good person doesn't want to enjoy visceral pleasure. Because of this whether they're faking it like Eleanor, or trying to convince themselves like Chidi and Tahani, the show can throw annoyances at them and they have to act like it's what they want. That alone makes it worse than a medium place because there's the air of self-torture.

I thought the act would be gimmicky with weak jokes. And at first it was, but by the end they had really warmed to me. Predicting the added up number is an old and fairly simple trick, but the showmanship is in how they dress it up. And using a well-trained monkey is some pretty good showmanship. Sword swallowing and other "carnie tricks" aren't really magic either, but the show has expanded its range in that regard. Passing through a wall (of glass bottles) is trick enough, even if not a fooler. There are gimmicks to the glass walk, but it's mostly just physics. Putting your weight across 30 pieces of glass is less impact than putting it on one piece above a hard, flat floor. You'll notice he thoroughly cleaned off his foot before stepping off the glass walk. It wasn't amazing, but it was fine. I agree with how it came across. I'll rationalize that he just wanted to be competitive and didn't realize how cocky and manipulative it would sound. They probably would have given him credit anyway, as they did last week with Jorge Blass - the main trick is known (Mike Close), but they missed the frog swap and so he won for just that piece. That said, if there are 3 gimmicks you don't want to lose because one of them is known. It was a really good trick and I understand his desire to win. But in the end, winning is not as important as coming off well. And as you say, it hurt him in that regard. Mine too. I know just enough card magic to appreciate well-done moves, but couldn't catch anything there. I was hoping he would fool them but they know too much. :) And I agree National Magic Trick needs more pomp and circumstance. For the live audience it's probably a long trick because they need to get the props and rehearse. But for us it's less than a minute.

This show is back and people here are talking about Joe Schmo? Am I in the Good Place? It was a weird choice given that the explicit purpose of a reset was to stretch the experience out longer. I really like the Michael / Mike Schur parallel now if we think of Michael as a studio head creating a sequel. He's ramping up stuff that doesn't need to be juiced and as a result not capturing the original magic. It's worth remembering that Michael's pitch for all of this was "The afterlife can be more fun ... for us." His scenario is turning out not to be fun for them. Which means he could plausibly fail even without the 4 humans figuring it out. That could add a lot of drama to the show even the torture is working properly and thus there isn't much new Eleanor development. The standard show is a half hour. This was a double length full hour. (I'm not sure where exactly the cut would be if it was split.)

If I recall she came out in 2012, and prior to that she never did the flirting thing. Afterwards it ramped way up when it made even less sense, like she was overcompensating or something. Certainly it's inauthentic. But she delivers in a very personable way that IMHO it feels like she's just having fun in the kitchen and I'm OK with that. So if there's some pressure for her to act that way, she's too much of a pro to show it. Melissa was going where the joke is, because there's no joke too obvious or too beaten for this show to use. It accomplished one thing: No longer will I complain when they needlessly teach contestants to cut up a chicken. It's unlikely they'll ever need to separate breasts and thighs from the bird. But they will never encounter a side of beef that needs to be custom-butchered.

I never took their statements as them not doing politics at all, so much as them not being beholden to it week-to-week. Although I am a little surprised that they did North Korea a week after "tuk ur jerbs". My expectation was for more self-contained kids episodes, which we haven't gotten yet. Great subtleties in the song with sign language, Turd Sandwich (and the chorus's response), and Kenny's photo.

That's a good point. I don't have quite the history (or investment) with this show that others do, but I definitely recall lines outside closed trucks in empty parking lots. There was definitely an overall effort to get customers then that there doesn't seem to be now. And I like it better this way. Finding spots and attracting crowds matters more than just ramping your price up to a $14 grilled cheese that people will pay just because there's a tv camera there. But it really doesn't make me want to go into the food truck business. Po Boy made $20 the first (shortened) day and the "best hour" they were shut down for cost them an estimated $60-100. And they came in second. I strongly suspect they're still just using gross revenue, although it would be very funny if Mickey's blowout came out of their total take.

Yeah, I saw that unintended flash too. Somewhat educational to those wanting to know how he did it. But on the whole, not a problem and part of a very smooth act.

Also, we the audience still don't know (unless you did from the start). We got drama about pushing the button and lots of people confused if baba ganoush was a dish or a country. At no point did anyone learn "baba ganoush is like hummus but with eggplant instead of chickpeas." It's not educational for them or the audience.

Mine responded all over the place, including adding "kitty chips" to my shopping list. I imagine Trey & Matt were delighted knowing that would happen. I feel bad for Heidi, but it feels right to have Cartman back to his true self. We never really got an explanation last season for his move to SJW, and they only really back-ended by implying Heidi had turned him into a mature person.

As an American, I liked that tea cakes were unfamiliar to several of them. I've heard the term before, but could only picture something like jaffa cakes. Which would certainly not fit in Bread Week. So this let me feel like I'm not completely out of the loop.

If the reviews didn't tell you it was stomach-churningly dark, they did you a major disservice. If you want to give the most optimistic of the episodes a try, look up San Junipero from season 3. But Black Mirror is not happy and fun and will leave you punched in the gut more often than not.

That Tire Salesman song was amazing. Not only was Wanya Morris great (in the Restaurant sketch too), but Jonathan subverting the bit had me rolling.