S04.E06: A Chip Driver Mystery

[Bruinsfan]

On 11/2/2019 at 8:32 PM, Amarsir said:

Maybe they brought in Aaron Sorkin to ghostwrite the final season?

If that were the case Brent would be female, run a TV criticism website, and wear a mumu.

[Omeletsmom]

On 11/1/2019 at 11:11 AM, Bruinsfan said:

I definitely heard "bitch" from Brent and was surprised by it in the moment. It made me wonder if the same rules about swearing weren't in play for this experiment in The Medium Place setting. If that was supposed to be "bench" instead, the actor pronounces n like t.

This is the first episode I can recall being mostly bored with. Tahani snapping and giving it to Brent was a highlight, as was Michael's conversation at the end with Bad Janet. But about 90% of the screen time was just meh.

I rewound it because I thought I heard bitch, too, but on the second listen it was definitely bench.

[aradia22]

I still don't love Brent as a character but I appreciate the disturbance he brings to the experiment. Like, yes, I can imagine people in the Fake Good Place and also the real Good Place not just wanting to get frozen yogurt or doing the assigned tasks. Someone would want to write a book or something more individualistic. And sure, we can assume that people who got into the real Good Place wouldn't write something so offensive but ideas change over the time that they all got into the Good Place. I'm curious how the real Good Place deals with potential conflicts that must arise. It's even as simple as these neighborhood-wide events. If everyone wasn't originally demons or now Janet-babies, why would they all go to a Tahani party or a Brent book release? I don't know that you could make a Good Place with humans without some level of hierarchy or inclusion/exclusion. People aren't going to be as excited about Brenda's embroidery as they are about Shakespeare's new play. And how will Brenda feel about that? 

Love the baby boomer comment from Bad Janet.

I do have to wonder where they're going with Brent ultimately. I'm thinking of what people said last episode. Maybe some people can't be redeemed. But if it's not just a test for the Soul Squad and they are supposed to help the new humans, Brent is tanking the others' scores.

[aradia22]

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not sure how I feel about this one.  I think it’ll depend on whether freeing Bad Janet has some payoff later in the series.

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I’m glad Eleanor and Michael realized that Simone is right. You can’t coddle racists and misogynists like Brent. And Chidi punching him was so satisfying. 

Maybe the writers have a surprise up their sleeves but according to the Soul Squad, they're halfway through the experiment and Brent has basically made no progress. I'm closer to thinking he's just there as a plot device for the others. It was a weird format for an episode to have Michael talk to Bad Janet. I'm assuming the framing device (their debates) or the book will pay off later and that will have been the point of this.

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I am so tired of the Bad Blace's inane type of humor, which is always some very childish level of insult and a fart noise. 

I mean, we're not watching Buffy or Constantine or even Reaper so I get why the demons just talk about torture and are more juvenile than threatening in the majority of their appearances. But yeah, I've never found that thing funny. I am still enjoying the show though.

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 find Simone to be a shade of Mary Sue - as much as Brent is being written as nothing more than a caricature of white male privilege and this is clearly written to be a bad thing (not that his behavior isn't bad, just that the show isn't trying to spin it otherwise), I feel like Simone tends to be written as, always the one in the right and thus the show wants us to find her to be superior, with not much more dimension than that. It's just not as forceful or irritating as Brent.

I feel like Simone is basically Chidi. That is, she generally gives good advice and she'll drop similar knowledge specific to her discipline (neuroscience?). But we like Chidi because he's riddled with anxieties in a way that makes him sympathetic. Simone doesn't have that vulnerability and because John and Brent are bad, we haven't even seen her bonding with the rest of the group in a human way. We just keep getting told that they were on a ski trip or at a lake house or whatever. Simone had more depth and humanity when they were in Australia last season.

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

I do have to wonder where they're going with Brent ultimately. I'm thinking of what people said last episode. Maybe some people can't be redeemed. But if it's not just a test for the Soul Squad and they are supposed to help the new humans, Brent is tanking the others' scores.

I’m also curious about where they are going with Brent. Simone and Chidi should be easily getting more points just  because of the simplification of the points system. John has reached the point where he can acknowledge and is working to overcome is biggest weakness (nice job Tahani). Brent’s lack of any real progress is deliberate so it will be interesting to see what the plan is. 

I don’t think Brent is tanking the others scores. Simone and Chidi would have gotten negative points in the last episode but they also would be getting positive points for all the times they have tried to help Brent. 

[aradia22]

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And pre-deceased Jason was much worse than either -- a stupid, violent, bomb-throwing criminal who was lucky he didn't wind up murdering someone.

I mean, yes, Jason was bad. But it's fundamentally different to talk about someone who is pure id because they were never given the benefits of education or nurturing and someone like Brent. The thing Jason has been learning this season is impulse control. But we know that he understands how to care about people. On the other hand, Brent was given every advantage. He should know better. He is willfully oblivious and when confronted with the way he has hurt people, he is completely unrepentant. He isn't just defensive. He feels no remorse at all. I don't know that we have any evidence he's cared about another person except as a vehicle to deliver compliments to boost his ego. For all we know, all the "friends" he expected to see in the Good Place went along with him because he was a bully and they were scared of him or because of the perks and they didn't actually like him. 

[Mockingbird]

Definitely in the minority because—while this definitely wasn’t my favorite episode—I still liked it and thought the ending especially was lovely. As was the framing with Michael setting Bad Janet free. Not sure of the timeline, but she had been around Team Cockroach for a bit, so they might have started to soften her up, too, the way they eventually won over Michael. 

Nothing was laugh out loud funny—maybe except Jason’s nickname and Bad Janet’s comment on getting books as gifts—but this show was still a bright point in my otherwise pretty rough week. The slower pace felt deliberate to me, in order to emphasize that even when the stakes couldn’t get higher, little attempts to do good and be better matter, too. 

[Paloma]

17 hours ago, aradia22 said:

we can assume that people who got into the real Good Place wouldn't write something so offensive but ideas change over the time that they all got into the Good Place.

You raise a good point, though I doubt that the writers thought this through. Did any people from less enlightened times get into the Good Place? For example, there were people in previous centuries (or even just before mid-20th century) who were considered good people in their time but thought of women and non-white people as inferior beings not worthy of human rights. Their peer groups (and probably even their religions) would have all had the same views, so they would have had no motivation to think they were wrong or to change their thinking. From our 21st century perspective, none of them deserved to go to the Good Place, but it's interesting to think about whether at least some of them would have gone there because the standards were different then. And if they did go to the Good Place, I am also curious about

18 hours ago, aradia22 said:

how the real Good Place deals with potential conflicts that must arise.

[Ray Adverb]

2 hours ago, Paloma said:

You raise a good point, though I doubt that the writers thought this through. Did any people from less enlightened times get into the Good Place?

Sure.  In fact, the entire reason for this experiment is because NOBODY has gotten into the actual Good Place for over 500 years.

[clack]

I miss Chidi's  moral philosophy seminars.

For Brent, philosophical discussions on racism and sexism would be a bit much for a light comedy, but for John? Gossip ; moral or immoral, truth telling or violation of privacy, and so on might have proved interesting.

Instead we got some banal psychology -- he gossiped about celebrities out of insecurity and envy, or whatever.

Any show can give you psychology, but only the Good Place gives the viewer moral philosophy.

[Paloma]

1 hour ago, Ray Adverb said:

3 hours ago, Paloma said:

You raise a good point, though I doubt that the writers thought this through. Did any people from less enlightened times get into the Good Place?

Sure.  In fact, the entire reason for this experiment is because NOBODY has gotten into the actual Good Place for over 500 years.

I forgot how long it had been since people got in, but that makes my follow-up to that question more relevant in a way. If the system was just based on random points earning, I guess they didn't need to be objectively good to get into the Good Place, just relatively good. But if there is a higher power guiding this (in the world of the show), shouldn't only people who are truly good be allowed in? If you are good in most ways in your daily life (love your spouse and kids, do charitable things, etc.) but hate people who are different from you and deny them human rights or even enslave or kill them, shouldn't you go to the Bad Place?

[Lugal]

4 hours ago, Paloma said:

Did any people from less enlightened times get into the Good Place? For example, there were people in previous centuries (or even just before mid-20th century) who were considered good people in their time but thought of women and non-white people as inferior beings not worthy of human rights.

I never really believed in the Progress theory of History (things are always improving as history progresses).  Some things are better now than previous eras and some things are much worse.  Not everyone believed that women and non-white people were inferior any more than everyone believed the earth was flat.  The thing that got everyone's (well, Michael's) attention was that no one got into the Good Place for 500 years, coincidentally about the time the modern world was beginning.

As for Brent, it kind of reminds me of what Machiavelli said: "I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles." 

Studies have shown that wealth deadens empathy, so I can see how Brent could be the way he is, not really having to care about the "little people" in the 18 years he was growing Norwalk Materials from a $90 million to a $94 million business. 

For people in the elite, that becomes part of their identity, (Tahani was in a similar situation until she actually did some serious self-examination).  Now that in the "Good Place" there is no elite, that part of Brent's identity is being challenged (whether he is oblivious or in denial we don't know yet) like he never had been in life and if he never bothered to expand who he is beyond "Elite Princeton Grad, head of Norwalk Materials" his whole identity could collapse.  Or as Bad Janet said: Boom!  They turn into babies.

[Dowel Jones]

3 hours ago, Lugal said:

As for Brent, it kind of reminds me of what Machiavelli said: "I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles." 

As Mark Twain also remarked, "Heaven for climate; Hell for society."

8 hours ago, Paloma said:

Did any people from less enlightened times get into the Good Place?

And to take that to the logical extreme, did people from pre-religion times go anywhere, as they may not have even had a concept of an afterlife?  Did the various Places even exist?

[Loandbehold]

13 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

And to take that to the logical extreme, did people from pre-religion times go anywhere, as they may not have even had a concept of an afterlife?  Did the various Places even exist?

Dante put those of good moral character who lived before Christ in the First Circle of Hell b/c they were unable to ask for last rites and be truly absolved for any of the sins they might have committed. They didn't suffer too much, but they also were not allowed to get into Paradise.

18 hours ago, Paloma said:

I forgot how long it had been since people got in, but that makes my follow-up to that question more relevant in a way. If the system was just based on random points earning, I guess they didn't need to be objectively good to get into the Good Place, just relatively good. But if there is a higher power guiding this (in the world of the show), shouldn't only people who are truly good be allowed in? If you are good in most ways in your daily life (love your spouse and kids, do charitable things, etc.) but hate people who are different from you and deny them human rights or even enslave or kill them, shouldn't you go to the Bad Place?

From what we've been told so far, nobody's been able to accumulate enough points to get into the Good Place b/c of the interconnectedness of society. Even if what you do locally is good (like growing your own food w/o using dangerous pesticides), that could hurt the people who work on the farms elsewhere who lose their jobs if too many people do the same thing.

So, to try to answer your question, then yes, the person who hates others, etc., would go to the Bad Place b/c they wouldn't accumulate enough points, even if they did a lot of good things for those close to them. In fact, let's not even go so far as to say that they hate others, but just don't give any thought to other people and their travails. That could result in them losing points if they buy goods from countries where these people work and are slaves or are paid horrible wages. They too would end up in the Bad Place.

[SomeTameGazelle]

21 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

And to take that to the logical extreme, did people from pre-religion times go anywhere, as they may not have even had a concept of an afterlife?  Did the various Places even exist?

Since no one had the Places imagined exactly correctly, and the options are limited to Good, Bad, and Medium, logically it doesn't appear that faith or belief could exclude (or include) anyone from this afterlife.

[BobH]

The visit to the accountants office established that the point system was established with the first act of human altruism (Og giving his rock to Grog) back in 201,993 B.C.E. 

[Zuleikha]

I found this episode tiring for many of the reasons people listed.

Mostly, it feels very of the current political moment in a bad way. I didn't find the Baby Boomer joke funny. The Baby Boomers were the social justice warriors of their youth, and they advocated for significant progressive changes to society. I don't really think they're all responsible as a generation for our current problems. Our current problems are very hard to solve, and most Baby Boomers haven't been in a position to be responsible. 

In a similar way, Brent is falling flat for me. He's been super annoying and bad stuff was implied, but we've never actually seen him be cruel or malicious or even overtly sexist or racist. Summoning Janet to fetch him things isn't sexist or bad--it's what he was told Janet was for! (and what WE were told Janet was for in the original version of the season) IMHO, using the filter to improve his golf game isn't cheating or lazy... he's in the Good Place. Of course, his golf game should be perfect! That's his version of perfection. 

His book was obviously poorly written, but I didn't think the Scarlet Pakistan excerpt that was read was offensive. He described Tahani as pretty in pulp genre appropriate language. Eleanor has also told Tahani she's pretty in colorful language. I've never seen Tahani as the type of person who minds being seen as and described as beautiful. I don't recall anything racist in the book excerpts either... I wasn't sure if it was simply the valet character being given a name that implied he was Latino or if there was something I missed.

But SIMONE was cruel. And IMHO, unnecessarily so. She doesn't need to spend time with him (and probably shouldn't). She wasn't calling him in or even working to help him understand why his actions were hurting people. She was shit stirring and trying to get people to mind Brent even when they didn't actually seem to mind him. That may be understandable, but IMHO, it's not Good Place behavior. Simone was likable last season because she seemed like a kind person who wanted to help people. This season, for some reason, the writers are placing her in contexts where she's mean. 

Which gets to the other problem of the season for me. In season 1, Tahani, Jason, Eleanor, and Chidi were drawn together in an organic way. Right now, Brent, Chidi, Jason, Tahani, Simone, and John are not drawn together in an organic way. Chidi has reasons to be hanging out with Simone, Jason, and Brent individually. Tahani and John are friends. But there is no reason for Simone to spend time with Brent, Jason, Tahani, or John or for Brent and John to spend time together or for Simone or Chidi to hang out with Tahani.

[piccadilly83]

If Simone is a condescending bench, then please let the world be full of more condescending benches. So far, the show has had her be friendly to everyone she's met. She appears to have gotten along with both hoity toity Tahani, gossipmonger John, sweet but dumb Jason, perpetually tortured Chidi, and once insecure and snarky, but now super mature Eleanor. When presented with a rational argument from Chidi about how she might not be living in some extended dream sequence, she accepted his premise and changed her behavior to one that respected her fellow Good Place inhabitants. 

As for her snark, I don't think a handful of snarky remarks makes someone a massive bench or jerk deserving of the Bad Place. If that were the case we'd all be damned. Add to that, practically every snarky remark we've heard Simone make so far has been about some untoward behavior Brent actually said or did. She has not made any false accusations. She really just wants him to start treating her and her friends as equals, but for that she's a bench I guess. Anyways, aside from the time she literally thought she was in an imaginary dream world and there were no consequences to her actions, I haven't seen her even reflexively act rude towards anyone. And when she did think she was in an imaginary world she wasn't going around judging people like crazy, she was like putting pies in people's faces and dressing up in crazy costumes or something. I just don't see condescending bitch from Simone. She seems pretty nice and reasonable. She just doesn't appreciate being treated like some lesser form of human being, and she doesn't appreciate other people being treated as such either.

On 11/8/2019 at 11:53 PM, Zuleikha said:

In a similar way, Brent is falling flat for me. He's been super annoying and bad stuff was implied, but we've never actually seen him be cruel or malicious or even overtly sexist or racist. Summoning Janet to fetch him things isn't sexist or bad--it's what he was told Janet was for! (and what WE were told Janet was for in the original version of the season) IMHO, using the filter to improve his golf game isn't cheating or lazy... he's in the Good Place. Of course, his golf game should be perfect! That's his version of perfection. 

Brent did not just summon Janet. Why would anyone care if he did that? Janet clearly stated that Brent sent her a bunch of sexually inappropriate outfits to wear when she sees him and has harassed her about it ever since. I know there were other things but that one stuck out most to me because it was so unnecessarily stupid and perfectly encapsulated the type of sexist hyperpriviledged asshole that Brent is. The golf scene was not meant to demonstrate that Brent is an asshole because he chose to use the cheat filter. It's supposed to demonstrate how incapable he is at facing reality and acknowledging his mediocrity. I can be sympathetic to this flaw, I mean who wants to admit they're mediocre? But that still doesn't give him an excuse for constantly treating the others as though they're beneath him because they've failed to achieve the same sort of success in life, especially because based off of where Brent has ended up in life, he hasn't actually had many successes. He's a 40+ year old mid-level manager at company that carries his family's name. There's no shame in that mind you, but don't go around acting like you're a bunch of hot stuff if that's all you've managed to accomplish in your lifetime despite a wealth of riches and resources at your beck and call. Brent is the classic example of someone who was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, piccadilly83 said:

If Simone is a condescending bench, then please let the world be full of more condescending benches. So far, the show has had her be friendly to everyone she's met. She appears to have gotten along with both hoity toity Tahani, gossipmonger John, sweet but dumb Jason, perpetually tortured Chidi, and once insecure and snarky, but now super mature Eleanor. When presented with a rational argument from Chidi about how she might not be living in some extended dream sequence, she accepted his premise and changed her behavior to one that respected her fellow Good Place inhabitants. 

Personally I think you can be condescending and friendly at the same time. I think Simone has an air of superiority about her. She can be friendly with someone and still feel like she is better than them. In fairness to her she actually is better than several of the characters but it doesn't really feel like she particularly cares that deeply about any of the other characters. It doesn’t make her a bad person but it can make her a difficult person to interact with. 

[manticoraus]

On 11/1/2019 at 10:36 PM, piccadilly83 said:

It's not smug to be repulsed by those who would look down on you for not coming from their background

First I want to apologize I didn't mean to cut and run I'm not really regularly browsing this place and I really only came back for the newest episode and then missed all the responses. To clarify of what I'm saying it's dismissal that's the issue not sticking up for yourself or judgment

Again in terms of things that rent does everyone from Eleanor to Simone has done the same or similar. In terms of classes looking down and pushing or treating someone like a sexual object hell in terms of treating tahani as a sexual object many other characters are guilty of this

And like I was pointing out there were ways to assert themselves or even help him when he was asking for help though in a very rude and inconsiderate way without its spiraling into an attack.

This is why I say it comes not from a place of self-confidence or watched correct or even defense but a place of envy or at least scorn

That's why I pointed out how Simone treated people in the good place as if they weren't real.

John's job with socially belittling others the fact that it was actual work for which he got money for it doesn't make it better. And I'm certainly not going to attribute Brent greater virtue than he's actually earned. But is hating on him an act of Justice or is it an act of well

A lot of people here are former Television Without Pity readers correct? In the original Charmed series there was an episode where they try to explore the concept of Karma. And the reviewer for that show pointed out that at the very least if not the type that's actually practiced by native and traditional Hindi then the one that people love bringing up inspired by that is actually kind of awful in Min. That is to say it's fun to imagine that the guy who cut you off in traffic is going to get theirs but it's awful to think that the person who is dying of cancer is suffering because of what a prick they are. For entertainment purposes Brent makes perfect sense.

he's meant to inspire that sense of I hope that guy who cut me off in traffic gets his. But the fact that you think that is also tied into its natural conclusion - to you deserve to die of cancer. This is where the mediation on morality runs in to the Entertain the audience conflict

And this is what I think is off about sjws or at least how they conduct themselves when they're interacting in fandom spaces. And at the very least when I see something that panders to them and entertainment like Brent. He's not in mediation on how people can be racist or Prejudiced and use that to cause harm because we've literally had nothing but characters who had certain privileges are favoritism and use that cause harm or be inconsiderate or perpetuate wrongness in the world. In fact the early season was pretty unflinching on how someone even from a poor background like Eleanor is still at fault for her horrible attitude even with poor input. But making him rich and Powerful means that the things that he desires are the ones that we desire because the good place is constantly been presented to us as a well-off urban neighborhood that just happens to be filled with these larger-than-life good people who are completely non offencive in nice. The Twist is that what we often think of as worthy of such admiration doesn't necessarily translate into Rewards or can hide inherent corruption

But I never feel like the show really followed through on that afterwards. With plenty of perving on tahani and mocking of Jason and Eleanor's class culture and background.

I mean where does the to lifelong academics get off looking down and being offended at someone who lives a privileged existence where they don't have to do anything it gets a judge everyone else? At least she desperately tried to be inoffensive even though that turned out to not be the way to go. In fact I'd say all of the for experiment subjects were all judgmental Pricks who believed that the world was against them and use what privilege and power they could to push people down. Simone actually isn't all that bad at least in life. But in death She's Like the straw scientist that I absolutely hate and television. This is not help with well the next episode but I'll go to that thread for my thoughts that regards that information

[manticoraus]

On 11/4/2019 at 8:29 PM, aradia22 said:

Simone had more depth and humanity when they were in Australia last season.

So true. Face it she's the Paulo of this season about to her credit she's not just a romantic obstacle. But almost everything she's done or been a part of has been to be a sort of road cone or block or speed bump. It's really annoying because I think it could have been interesting seeing someone who was so devoted to science and cognition see that there is in fact a new life after death and her in person how that goes forth. But instead she's there to be sort of well like I said the Paulo or whatever you call the nice but ultimately inconsequential existing love interests who's going to eventually in a clutch show this or that flaw so it's okay for the guy that you want or the girl that you want or whoever it is to break up with them

[aradia22]

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I never really believed in the Progress theory of History (things are always improving as history progresses).  Some things are better now than previous eras and some things are much worse.  

I don't want to start a whole thing but I feel like this is a big issue with crafting a religious philosophy that makes God in the image of humans. Human morality changes over time. A moral philosophy that does not adapt can feel dated. But it's also a stretch to assume that (at least as interpreted by prophets/religious leaders/etc.) whatever omnipotent force of the universe knows and has always known everything up to the morality of things involving technology today (e.g. sexting, revenge porn, doxxing, etc.). 

To bring it back to The Good Place, I am very curious if we'll ever meet a god or anyone with more authority than Gen.

Btw, I'm still not thrilled with the swerve last season to the conclusion that the world is too complicated for anyone to get into The Good Place. Sure, it's valid to critique consumerism in light of globalization, etc. etc. But that makes the problem almond milk. And most of this show has been about more than almond milk. Is Tahani's charitable work invalid because it wasn't altruistic? What about Eleanor and Jason (well, less so with Jason) knowing full well how they could be better people and still choosing to do bad things? What about Brent probably being well-educated enough to know better but still choosing to harp about political correctness instead of empathizing with anyone else? Gossip has been a nasty human behavior for centuries but John still chose it as the way he made his living rather than finding another job. 

In talking about morality in 2019, I don't think it's as much about technology and globalization as much as why we still choose to do bad things. Sure, progress as a straight line is a fallacy. But don't we all know better? Still we choose pettiness and gossip and racism and sexism and sloth and convenience and miserliness and selfishness and rudeness and individualism and ostracization, etc. etc. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

49 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

Btw, I'm still not thrilled with the swerve last season to the conclusion that the world is too complicated for anyone to get into The Good Place.

I didn't think that the world was too complicated as much as the point system was outmoded and cumbersome. 

[bros402]

On 11/4/2019 at 8:29 PM, aradia22 said:

I feel like Simone is basically Chidi. That is, she generally gives good advice and she'll drop similar knowledge specific to her discipline (neuroscience?). But we like Chidi because he's riddled with anxieties in a way that makes him sympathetic. Simone doesn't have that vulnerability and because John and Brent are bad, we haven't even seen her bonding with the rest of the group in a human way. We just keep getting told that they were on a ski trip or at a lake house or whatever. Simone had more depth and humanity when they were in Australia last season.

Maybe her year with the Soul Squad & dating Chidi on Earth helped her a lot.