jpollo02

If Michael's flashback is to be believed, there really is some sort of points system that is used to determine who goes to the good vs. bad place, since his boss in the flashback mentions something about meeting with the "Director of Points Calculations." But presumably the points allocations aren't as ludicrous as what we've seen.

I thought it was a possibility that she meant she's already there. But a few episodes earlier, she tells Jason not to tell Michael about their relationship because he would then know Jason was a fraud and send him to The Bad Place.

Count me among the people who thinks the big reveal isn't what it's purported to be. In other words, I don't think they're actually in The Bad Place. My reasons: Over and over, Eleanor complains about the lack of a "medium place" and how there should be such a place, and Chidi says something like, "well, it apparently doesn't work like that." But the ridiculousness of the scoring system, the fact that people like Florence Nightengale are apparently in The Bad Place, etc. etc., suggests that we're not meant to accept the binary system. Mindy St. Clair is put forth as evidence of an actual medium place, yet we're meant to believe that she's the only one in all of history that's merited going there. And when you look at the kind of person she was, she seems even worse than Tahani. One of Chidi's theories on his chalkboard is “test for me/her/others?” My concept of the show's purgatory is that it tests the person based on the various ethical theories discussed during the show. For instance, at one point, Eleanor says something to the fact that she would've been a better person had she been surrounded by better people. The first season suggests she's right about that, and the second season will test that theory because those people won't be immediately around her anymore. Additionally, the scoring system in s1 confirms to one of Chidi's theories: a person's ethical quality is equal to the sum total of their positive and negative actions. In s2, it could be based on something else (notably, the end of s1 didn't show us the scoring system again when the world was rebooted). Ted Danson's reaction to her "revealing the truth" seems more "pretend petulant" than genuinely upset, as if he's playing a role. In fact, it reminded me a lot of the petulance he showed at his retirement party. He certainly may have been surprised that she caught on that the place isn't what it purports to be, but I'm not sure she guessed correctly as to what it actually is. One of the pieces of evidence Eleanor gives for why it's actually the Bad Place is that Michael asks Eleanor to help him find the problem in the neighborhood, which of course is herself. However, Michael doesn't ask Eleanor; he asks Tahani, who demurs and suggests Eleanor in her place. And as to Michael getting Chidi to throw away his thesis, the private conversation that Michael has with Sean suggests that the thesis is truly as unreadable as Michael says it is. In ep1, Janet lets them hear a snippet of The Bad Place and all they hear is screaming. People have postulated that that must have been a different neighborhood, but I don't know why we should necessarily believe that. Part of my skepticism even extends to the veracity of the flashbacks. For instance, Tahani’s family seems too ridiculous to be true: her parents bid $5 million just to spend 1 hour with their own daughter, misspell Tahani’s name in their will, etc. At first, I chalked this up to the show going for a laugh, but then again, I did the same thing with respect to the seeming unhappiness of a lot of the characters in paradise.

Having watched the series through a second time, here are the things that baffle me a bit. Some of these probably have obvious answers I'm missing. I understand all of the imagery when the world first breaks down in ep 1 (rolling medicine bottles, giraffes, flying shrimp, etc) except for why everyone (except Eleanor) is wearing yellow/grey zigzag clothing. What does that represent? Can Michael reprogram Janet? This seems like it's key to her trustworthiness. I know he says she's from the Good Place (which could be a lie, of course), but in ep 2, he tinkers with her personality over and over again. In re-watching it, these scenes seemed kind of purposeless things for him to do (in light of the revelation about his true nature) unless they were to tip us off regarding his power in this respect. In a similar vein, is it possible that Bad Janet is just a reprogrammed Good Janet? I'm struck by Tahani seeing Bad Janet in action and saying, "what is even the point of having something like that?", to which Michael says, "Unclear." What exactly is the effect of rebooting Janet? We're told she eventually regains all of her knowledge of the universe, and logically, that would include the things that happen in the Good Place. But are we to understand that she regains her knowledge of everything *except* what happens in the Good Place? Why does Janet say that Tahani’s sinkhole joke is “exactly 9 days too soon”? Is that in fact how long the sinkhole took to repair itself?