arc

I've been suspicious of Michael all year, but last episode, where he could have fairly easily taken the easy way out and chose to not (permanently) kill Janet has convinced me he's no longer pure evil. So in this sit-down with Eleanor near the end of the episode, I finally wasn't suspicious of Michael any more.

Seems a bit out of character that Jimmy was (despite himself!) drawn into the scavenger hunt in last season’s Sunday Funday, but was pure shite at the escape room this season. And not just bad at it, but then cheated and expected these strangers who were obviously into it to appreciate his cheating. Boone is an awful jerk by now. But honestly his behaviour has been along the lines of the worst we’ve seen of Gretchen over the years. He’s way more of a male Gretchen than a counterpoint to her the way Jimmy is. I did like Lou Diamond Phillips and most of the Becca/Lindsay plot.

Clearly architects do have immense magical powers of their own, but it may be that no one has ever built a “neighborhood” without using a Janet. It might be like trying to build a new town on earth in the 21st century and deliberately leaving out an electrical grid.

Yeah, it seems like there’s a divide between what Janet actually consciously knows vs what she merely has instantaneous access to (plus nearly instantaneous assimilation of).

Yeah, sorry, I got confused by the different conventions.

Arthur Chu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/923975170993328130

(does scheduling talk go here?) In his review of episode 2x06, Alan Sepinwall offhandedly mentioned that 2x07 will be the last episode for the calendar year because NBC will be broadcasting Thursday night NFL games.

While this Janet is a Good Janet, I would imagine both kinds are made by the same neutral facility. Also, it's not clear to me that regular (or slightly upgraded) Janets are that much like people. Also also, those weren't small awkward errors: this Janet would have exploded or imploded the entire neighborhood, and probably soon. The episode was really delightful. D'Arcy Carden plays a funny but difficult character so perfectly. And yeah, like some of y'all I thought Janet's rebound guy would be Chidi. I'm so pleased it's Mantzoukas though, because I think he's hilarious.

AFAIK the writing staff is all back. It's always been a small staff, but I think the longtime writers assistant Philippe Iujvidin was promoted to full writer. What might have taken some of their brain time is that all of the original writers get some kind of show deal with FX, all under Stephen Falk. As for the directing, Falk has directed some great episodes before (like the one where Gretchen almost stole that cool couple's dog) and this season he's directed some episodes that people here have said felt off. Which may well be, but it wasn't because of crew changes there either.

BTW, from August of last year, here’s a real morals professor’s two year old son on the trolley problem: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_RZJUAQY4

Janet's reboots are considered deaths for her, and marriage is (on earth) typically just "till death do you part", so arguably Jason and Janet haven't been married since the end of attempt 1. Or at least, even if there have been some repeats over the last 800 attempts, starting fresh on 802 means Janet died yet again after 801 and is thus not married.

The episode glossed over my favorite part of (my loose understanding of) the Trolley Problem: it pits utilitarianism (saving the many vs the few) against making an active choice to kill that one person by switching tracks, vs standing by and letting a bad (equally bad? more bad?) thing happen through your inaction. As for Michael's apology, I kept waiting for a last second reveal. I think the way he was set up since the s1 finale to have been revealed to be a master liar means I can't trust what seemed on the surface as a wholly sincere apology. Like the saying goes, if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made. Michael once described Janet as a sort of "foundational mainframe" for the neighborhood, and to judge by the earthquake, he might have meant that literally.

Max is another writer at Doug Loves Sketches. Just a few weeks ago he had a different BFF but I guess that was the guy who left to launch Snuber.

Becca is the worst! But also Max. And Lindsay might well resent her co-workers for hating her but she really is pretty awful and not everyone's gonna be like Gretch and love her in spite of (or because of) that. Even from the first few moments of Edgar thanking Max for the party planner, I was internally screaming that of course Max wasn't gonna pay for it. He didn't even really phrase it like he would and Edgar was stupid to think that. (But on the other hand, even with a rush job, it seems unprofessional for a party planner to not sit down with Edgar to go over a budget...) Becca is super duper the worst though. Boone had a good point about not wanting to get Olivia hurt by letting her get attached to one of his girlfriends who might not be around that long, but that's not what he said to Gretchen about it. He said "you have to admit you're not exactly the kid type." Gaslighting is never cool, kids.

D'Arcy Carden played one of the other trainers at Soulstice.

All y’all who are surprised are clearly not regularly watching Broad City.

And appreciating them puts her ahead of a lot of the LA transplants I know who’ll talk about Taco Bell, Del Taco, or even Chipotle all the time but I never see them talk about real taquerias. I buy it. The Gretchen who lived on her own in S1 almost certainly never ever cooked for herself. She might not have ever even wandered down the aisle where spices are sold in the supermarket. Teen Gretchen probably wouldn’t have made it. Eighth grade Gretchen might have. Heidi did say Gretch changed after that year. And her room would have had stuff from her whole life (til she left).

I think this is gonna be a Rose from Golden Girls situation, where there’ll be a cornucopia of different reasons.

I loved this episode. It was hard to watch in spots but it felt so real to me. Yes, obviously moments are heightened because it's a comedy, but the emotional sense of having moved on and visiting an old hometown that's kept on living and changing without you, the emotion of Gretchen feeling at a loss and trying to fill that void with a dive back into her old life -- it's powerful and real.

- Mike Schur in an interview conducted after the end of the first season.

The s1 finale had Michael explaining that Jason having to be Jianyu would make him miserable. His obvious stupidity would make Eleanor miserable since she’d be sure he would get them both caught. And Tahani would be miserable that she would never feel a connection with her soulmate.

There's even a semi-canonical answer (IMO showrunner answers outside the actual text of the show aren't quite as canon as what we really see in the show) about how long "attempt 2" has been running! Also, Schur mentions that there may be longer cuts coming in the future, just as NBC did for s1.

And going back to the end of s1, he also fought for her when she wanted to end things because of the fight or finding the ring or both. Speaking of which, that ring misunderstanding from s1 was kind of a similar sitcommy trope as the Olivia misunderstanding. The AV Club review really nailed what made this episode so sad for me: Jimmy might be in real pain but rejecting Edgar was really tremendously shitty of him.

I'm on a rewatch binge right now and I just got to s01e07, where Eleanor tries to stave off Michael's retirement, and one of her first pitches to Chidi was "Can we somehow throw Tahani under the bus?", an idea that she came up with again in a subsequent attempt and brought to Mindy's.

Jason's story about Donkey Doug having a grudge for how Jason framed his girlfriend for boogie board theft is a callback to Jason's long story about utilitarianism in s01e05, wherein he saved his 60 person dance crew ("Donkey Doug was our best pop-and-lock-er") by framing his fiancee for boogie board theft.