arc

Eleanor's confession at the end of ep 7, "The Eternal Shriek", is where Michael's plan started unraveling. Until that point, the four humans were reliably torturing each other. Almost everything after that - Trevor, Shawn, Real Eleanor - was improvisation on the Bad Place's part. Probably on Michael's part, as the architect and local authority. Shawn appears to be a colleague or possibly underling of Michael's in the office flashbacks, after all. So anyways, I'm guessing Trevor is an architect as well (since he appears in that Medium Place video) and probably has more experience than first-timer Michael.

Shawn is a confederate of Michael's, so it's entirely possible that part was made up. But otherwise, yeah, Mindy's probably case #2.

Personally, I kind of like Start The Fire overall but I cringe hard at the opening bars.

A very short while. Everyone basically arrived around the same time. Didn't Eleanor snark in an earlier episode about how Tahani hosted the welcome party despite not really being any more senior in residency to the neighborhood?

There was an ad for perfume on the back cover of the baby celebs magazine... the perfume was from Pawnee's Dennis Feinstein.

The execution of the twist was probably a bit like what it would have been like to watch Westworld without reading fan theories along the way.

To be fair, deontology--the ethical position that one's intentions are more important than the actions' outcomes themselves--exists even independently from religious beliefs. It's a genuinely fascinating argument. Though I think the show argues for a blended approach because while Chidi's intentions are very good, his rigid morals (telling boot colleague the boots were awful) and more generally his overall inaction in life also qualified him for the Bad Place.

WRT to the discussion of jazz in the film, I wish Keith had quoted that line from MO' BETTA BLUES. (which, full disclosure, I've never seen. I'm only familiar with it because in a slightly edited form, it introduces the Root's "Things Fall Apart" album.)

I think it was intentional not because their characters weren't professional singers but because they weren't (at the start) professionals in their chosen fields. Seb was finding the worst gigs just to barely pay the bills, and Mia wasn't getting anywhere with her auditions.

This could have definitely been a misdirect because Schur has been cautious about showing his hand, but early in the season he explained Tahani's apparent superiority complex (which we now know is rooted in an inferiority complex?) and name-dropping as more than balanced by her good deeds. (Lotta consequentialism there compared to the deontological bent of ep 11 though...)

The score (as distinct from the soundtrack) is now on Spotify.

I thought Eleanor punched a cake and that caused the sinkhole?

Well, her decision to leave allowed her apologies to not be self-serving. But 300-ish (?) apologies + the same number of "Pobody's Nerfect" T-shirts really shouldn't add up to over a million points. The point counting system sucks. Yeah, weirdly, when Michael called Trevor on the phone, he said he was from Good Place neighborhood 12358W, but he just called the entire Bad Place, as if there were no specific neighborhoods in the Bad Place.

Ep 11 ("What's My Motivation") really took a definite stance on deontology vs consequentialism, huh. =)

He was great! "Plus he did a bunch of whippits while he was in there, which couldn't have helped," and esp "eh, I think he got roughly what he deserved." Tiya Sircar is crushing it as Real Eleanor. To play someone so next to perfect and yet not be insufferable is really something.

Schur: "He said the strict episode run times in particular – an episode of The Good Place normally runs 21 minutes and 30 seconds – have in fact made the show stronger." Probably true, but also NBC is releasing "producer's cut" versions that have some of the deleted scenes soooooooo

Well, the Good Place is very magical and in any case, there aren't that many people to house since not many people get to end up there.

Do soulmates live together? Jianyu is supposed to be a monk who's basically forsaken earthly pleasures, so that would explain why he'd be living at Tahani's mansion. And that couple that came to live at Eleanor's place during the sinkhole crisis shared a home. But does Chidi live with Eleanor regularly? On the one hand, kinda seems so. Not only have we never seen his place, I'm not sure it's even been mentioned that he has a house of his own. On the other hand, Eleanor's house was only designed with (real) Eleanor in mind, from its cozy size and style to having a "clown nook".

I guess I am a shipper because I sure wanted to know who Chidi was gonna choose.

Aw man, I've seen it twice and now today I see it's getting an IMAX release starting next week. I don't quite love it enough to see it three times in theaters.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. D'oh!!! That makes more sense, I do remember seeing some mentions of Nevada too. OK, quibble retracted!

I saw it a second time and the biggest quibble I had was that in Boulder, there are some palm trees in the distance.

I still haven't been able to watch about the last half of TL5Y, because the main guy character was so insufferable. I guess Seb is more than a little precious too, but it's not in the same scale.

In a similar vein to Dunkworld (everything scaled down so you're 7' tall in Dunkworld), what about BoxingWorld, where heavyweights are scaled down a bit and more importantly, slowed down so comparatively you're as fast as Muhammad Ali? In easy mode, they'd even signal with their eyes what punch they'd throw next.

The ending was an homage to a famous musical, one that's deeply inspired Chazelle. The protagonists of his first movie were named after characters from it, this film referenced it, and apparently (it's been a long time since I saw it) it also ended along similar bittersweet lines. Spoilers for an old movie, including the name: