Erin

Yeah, it's only four people now, but what if it works? What does that say about the potential of other people who are being sent to TBP? Maybe they'll deal with that in season 4.

Boy was I wrong! I guess what he meant was that the first thing that happens is Eleanor gets the note to "find Chidi." And she did.

I loved everything about this episode, even though I anticipated basically none of it. I have total trust in the writers at this point. The basic story continues to be that they need each other, to become better. Purgatory is other people? I'm so happy that Chidi got what he wished for in Best Self: meeting Eleanor when she knocked on his office door to ask about ethics/philosophy.

I assumed there were multiple Bad Janets you can summon at the Bad Place headquarters. In Rhonda, Diana, Jake and Trent, when the Bad Place guy is giving a Bad Janet orders to set up for the party, he doesn't seem at all surprised to see what appears to be a second Bad Janet (our Janet in disguise of course, "you piece of...butt"). So she probably created the fake marble, ran up to Shawn and told him she'd caught the Good Janet, and stayed with him and Michael so there'd be no need to call another Bad Janet.

So, the first thing that happened this season, other than the "previously on"s, was that Michael psyched himself up ("project confidence, Mikey") and talked to Shawn, right? What do we think the end is going to be, given that? Michael talking to Shawn again for some reason? Michael preparing to talk to some group of demons (and/or angels?) about starting a new place? Michael is now the boss and someone is psyching themself up to talk to him? I guess we'll know soon enough... and then have months to wonder what will happen next!

Oh, good point. The idea was to not make it "fair" or to test their ability to follow directions. It was to reveal if their character had changed.

Jen says to him, "If you play the game and you lose..." and he interrupts her (for the second time) and says, "Say no more!" Later, she says his mistake was never asking if he could opt not to play, and she points out how crazy it was to interrupt her instead of hearing her out. I'm assuming the instruction was going to be, "If you play the game and you lose, you and your friends will go to the bad place," and if he had more self-insight and self-control he should have said, "Wait. This is my favorite game, but if I have to play against the Jaguars, there's a real chance I might not win. I don't want to put my friends at risk. What if I don't play?" I'm undecided whether I think that was unfairly testing his intelligence as well as his selfish impulsivity. On the one hand, Eleanor probably would have figured out the catch just because she's smarter. On the other hand, we don't know if Jen would have dropped more hints for him if he'd let her finish. And I agree that the point of the show is that this is not a just way to judge people eternally, because people can grow and change. Jason has improved, just not enough. But if he could improve given more time, it's not right to torture him forever instead of giving him the chance to keep learning. I don't think we were ever supposed to think the current system is right.

I thought it was "partial decapitations." Which is... disturbing and hilarious.

I think that's Lonely Gal Margarita Mix (For One!), a bottle of which rolled away from Eleanor leading to her death. I'm not sure whether that's a torture or an "opposite torture." Presumably she likes the flavor, but on the other hand: too soon, Michael!

In the scene when all the other demons were yelling at Michael, Glenn and Vicki exchanged a look that makes me think he's in on Vicki's plan to take over. I don't know what Todd's deal is, though.

Well that took less time than I thought it would.

Yeah, I'm wondering whether it's a change of location, with a corresponding change in characters, or maybe just that Michael starts working more directly with Eleanor instead of interacting with his fellow demons as much.

I think there's no Purgatory yet, but this is how it gets started, by accident. I do think Michael is going to have to start working with at least Eleanor at some point. It's in everyone's best interest that Sean not find out the project has failed. But is it ethical to go along with torturing other humans psychologically if it's for their own good so they don't get sent to a place with twisting and butthole spiders? And what if they start torturing other humans the same way based on the "success" of the first "Good Place" - is Eleanor complicit in their torture if she knows what's going on and plays along? That could get interesting. My speculation is partly informed by upcoming episode titles here https://www.tvtime.com/en/show/311711/episode/6141748 - not sure how reliable that is but they seem plausible. One title is a name, and later an episode title is four names. New humans being tortured? And according to this interview http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/the-good-place-michael-schur-season-2-premiere-interview.html it sounds like tonight is going to involve multiple resets/memory wipes. I think it's going to get out of Michael's control and he's going to have to give up on fooling Eleanor. Another spoilery thing from that interview: