Amarsir

I was waiting for someone to bring that up. The original 4 had reasons to improve: Eleanor to avoid being thrown out; Chidi because he always wanted to be good and just didn't know how; Jason because he's now surrounded with good influences instead of bad ones; Tahani because she's no longer pressed into rivaly with her sister. Someone who believes "whatever I did was good enough" could easily get even worse. That would be wild. Of all the people with an incentive to get worse!

I don't think I could design some of those artsy cases. I can silhouette an MLB logo on a solid color but my skill set at the rest would be buying someone else's art that I hope looks good to most people. Of course they somehow had the budget to hire two designers so maybe that isn't even a requirement for them. I didn't think they looked bad, but I've never bought a designer case in my life. I used to get rugged cases and now I just get whatever solid color costs about $5. But I wouldn't look down on others for having any of those. A quick search on Amazon shows numerous existing pineapple cases, including this one I would look down on:

It isn't clear what the rules allow them to tell people. But presumably they can't know they're in an experiment so Chidi couldn't ever discuss anything from the breakup on. And it makes sense that Chidi couldn't pull off lying to her, even if the show does look the other way on that occasionally.

You know I would expect to be annoyed at another reset. But this isn't resetting the plot or most of the interactions. It's more like a weird twist on a breakup. Which makes it a creative and emotional thing to do and very much forward progress IMHO.

Maybe the best episode they've ever done. A combination of business math, sales skills, design choices, and relationship management. So much happened that the entire trip to Hong Kong was reduced to a 10 second voiceover. I'm sure I'll be watching this again later in the week.

That was an unexpected twist. I'm now rooting for him too, because I just never saw Jason and Janet as a good couple. She and super-rebooted Derek might be, although there's something odd about him still. If any show would drop in something wacky just for the heck of it, it'd be this one. And there was a lot of stuff here that's more important to come back to, like Derek's presence, whether all the created people work as intended, what Sean has set up for them, etc. That said, this show also loves to go back to stuff that seemed unimportant. I agree they can't keep this neighborhood going for long, if only because the cast is going to get unwieldy if we need to get to know a bunch of new characters while continuing our interest in the mains. I side with those who think Simone will come back. She disappeared abruptly, was namedropped this episode unnecessarily, would certainly shake up Eleanor + Chidi's currently comfortable position, and eases the problem I just mentioned by being a character we already know. The only issue is that she has to have died - which Jeremy Bearimy can answer, but not without raising the issue of how old she was. Bringing in a 70 year old Simone from the year 2060 would be a little too wild even for The Good Place.

Well that was different. We've seen product rotations before but not so frequently that this felt like a retread. I'm not completely convinced that's why they had a loss last year, but it's plausible enough.

Ok well then I’ll dive in. It wasn’t the surface statement I was talking about. It’s the derivative that it implies. Yes, they are saying that the world is more complicated and therefore every act has more repercussions. However, repercussions are both good and bad. If most interactions are good then point totals would have gotten higher the more interaction we have. But they are saying point totals are lower as a result. Therfore it must be true that negatives are outweighing positives on the whole. (Either that or negative repercussions count and positive ones don’t, but that would be a much more obvious flaw and therefore probably not the path they’ll choose. It also conflicts wih Mindy.) The math 2000 years ago may say 175 points for giving flowers to your mother. But now all the people involved in providing them got paid - not just a CEO who is bad because Writers’ Hand. And all the people they spent money on. And on the other end everyone who saw the flowers was probably cheered a little, not just the recipient. Which on average is more viewers as the world gets more populated. And the specialization created by division of labor allows for better flowers to exist and for the giver to have more time to do more things. So many cascading effects. Which the show says is a net negative. So like I said, it’s easier not to think of that. I can just go “rules don’t account for complexity, got it” and move on.

Your explanation of their chemistry is very apt. That was a good segue. The name "The Companion" conveys reassurance, despite more likely being a reference to something I don't get. Your sentences are the perfect length for expressing ideas. Spelling "complement" as "compliment" allows it to double as wordplay. Appreciating both sci-fi and reality shows indicates you are both a realist and a dreamer. Nice use of the word "shipper".

Oh yeah the segregation then was so strict and flagrant it's ridiculous. Davis was so in demand by the competing casinos that he was getting paid millions (in 1950s money) to be seen onstage but wasn't allowed to be seen literally anywhere else - not to stay, not to eat, nothing. There are some really great stories to be told about Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and others. I would have been thrilled to see more depth on that. Also a fascinating area to go deep on. Some of the CNBC specials I've enjoyed have gone into the complexity of the system and how they can use cameras and sensors to track big spenders as well as catch cheaters. For example, casino chips have microchips inside them and the tables have sensors. So they register your card number for your seat and the computer figures knows how much you bet on each hand. (What's more, the cameras can recognize the cards and tell if you're using optimal strategy or not.) Another fascinating area to go into. Maybe I'm being too harsh because I've seen all that before. But I felt Marcus was just surface-deep on the whole city and as a result didn't offer much value.

You could be right. I'd watch again to check but I really don't want to.

Well that was a pretty brilliant explanation that fits the evidence perfectly. Really well done by Mike Schur and the writers. (I do think it implies the world is getting worse, which I'm certain is not true, but I'll look past that.) Also a very creative way to have them in The Good Place but also not. Funny to see the Good representatives filling all the stereotypes: overly nice, overly trusting, overly rule-bound, etc.

Did we just watch Marcus's vacation? No, probably not - he doesn't seem the Vegas type. But I don't know what we did watch. What did we learn? A venue I don't know makes $20,000 per hour at the penny slots? That a large premium buffet goes through 2 tons of crab legs a year? OK. I liked the Cuba special and both of the Marijuana ones. And I've enjoyed other CNBC shows about casinos in the past. But there was nothing here.

Of all the offers withdrawn on this show, I think that was the most telegraphed and patient. But But she wanted Lori, was willing to pay more for Lori, and got Lori so I guess all's well that ends well. That Moki step was kind clever enough, but Robert was more than a little over the top praising it. It made me realize I haven't missed him when he isn't there.

If anyone is curious why there's a town named "Santa Claus, Indiana" there's some history of it on the Defunctland Youtube Channel. (Only the first segment is about that town. The rest is about other places with Santa-themed Theme Parks.)

Neither of those two are cut out to run anything. There are good qualities to them as well, but leadership doesn't jump out as one. Marcus is going to have a lot of hands-on work with this. I would say the makeover took them from "embarrassing dump" to "minimum standard for a town called Santa Claus". Not compelling as a destination though. If breakage is equal to 20% of their net profits, I'm not surprised the online market is dominating. That's a pretty stiff penalty.

It looked more like a hat box to me. Not until he explained did I get it. But other than the stripes it did look really nice. And I was totally down with the 8-bit tree. All 3 of the finalists had enough personality that I wouldn't mind seeing them again. The producers seemed a little more playful in the editing too, as a couple of the talking heads had the person responding to someone off-camera. It made the whole finale fun, even if they weren't the best bakes we've ever seen. I didn't catch that at all. But was it a baking sheet with sides? Raised edges can mess with the heat distribution for cookies, so perhaps she put something metal in the center to even it out? (Which still seems like more work than just using a sheet without edges.)

We've seen a lot worse from owners than being boring, so I can't hate on Amanda too much. She's probably good at non-communication things. (Unfortunately communication is pretty important for a boss.) Although it was touched on a little, I was surprised they didn't push the environmental/vegan angle more. One of the big selling points of cork is that it's not leather, and while I don't think Marcus is necessarily wrong to want to pair it with other materials that also seems like exactly the wrong direction for this segment of the market. It must be intentional that Marcus never says "People, Process, Product" anymore. He even touched on all 3 here but not in a list like that.

I laughed my ass off at Santa asking for Mr. Hankey. Of the many good callbacks and subtleties, that was the best. The main plotline felt like a copout more than a resolution. Nothing Bezos did in this episode actually made any difference. Nor did the people actively involved in striking or in scabbing. But as copouts go, "everyone got too high to care" is about as good as you get.

And not a single Golden Girl? Could be, although all of that is now in question too. The altruism question made sense when we thought she was just under the threshold. But when literally no one makes it in, her motivation wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

I will never again complain about the "same old products" if the variety alternative is a pimple popping simulator.

I don't know much about the Emmy process. How much of the show do decision-makers actually see? My concern is that if you only saw this episode, it's hard to realize just how well D'Arcy is doing at capturing the others because you haven't seen their characters. Only if you've seen a lot of the show can you really appreciate how Chidi that Janet was.

I have to say, you kind of made me want Panera there. Product placement works.

It has been a plot hole for me since episode one. It seems like the kind of person who would deserve The Good Place would never be happy knowing people were tortured and not trying to fix it. So the more screwed up the whole system is, the less of a plot hole that actually becomes.