S04.E10: You've Changed, Man

[Wanda]

The final episodes the screen will suddenly go blank and then we will see Michael wake up In a king size bed, next to Shelly Long, and say, “Diane, you won’t believe the dream I just had. I was a demon...” 

[foxfreakinmulder]

6 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

He swooped in on the roller skates provided by Disco Janet.  Such a small detail, but I loved it.

Me too and when he said "now for the twist" or something like that and he spins around, lol.

I'm going to miss this show :-( 

[Sarah 103]

On 1/9/2020 at 9:49 PM, SoMuchTV said:

Disco Janet marbelizes into a disco ball marble. 

I loved that we got to see Disco Janet's void, and that she marbelized into a disco ball marble. 

18 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I really do want to know more about Tahani's negotiations with Bruno Mars, Lebron James, and (I think) Dr. Ruth Westheimer that somehow led to Lebron performing surgery and Dr. Ruth apparently writing some of "Uptown Funk", but not getting the credit she deserved!

I know we'll probably never get to actually hear the story, but I'll bet it would be fantastic. 

[lucindabelle]

Doesn’t the judge realize:l that if she erases the earth no more justified, or disco, or Tim Oliphant?

[secnarf]

20 minutes ago, lucindabelle said:

Doesn’t the judge realize:l that if she erases the earth no more justified, or disco, or Tim Oliphant?

I kept waiting for someone to point that out to her - she was so eager just 'erase the earth' so she could get back to whatever it was she was watching. What she was watching wouldn't exist afterwards.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, sharifa70 said:

I thought the plan was to add a third place?

Really, really good people (highest points) still go to the Good Place

People with negative points still go to the Bad Place for torture?

New: Medium Place (I don’t think they named it that but the idea was sparked by Eleanor’s original medium place comment) where people can have a chance to learn and improve the way Our Four did?

That was the compromise that they came up with to try and appease Shawn. Once Shawn said no they decided to forget about making everyone happy and designed the system they wanted to see which eliminated the Bad Place altogether. 

1 hour ago, secnarf said:

I kept waiting for someone to point that out to her - she was so eager just 'erase the earth' so she could get back to whatever it was she was watching. What she was watching wouldn't exist afterwards.

Janet did point it out in the opening. The Judge brushed her off. Erasing everything on Earth doesn’t necessarily mean that recordings would cease to exist for the Judge. 

[bros402]

7 hours ago, whiporee said:

They aren't done yet. If this is what they settle on, then 'll be disappointed in the end. Not the show at all, but the end. 

Too much is falling into place too easily. I liked the stuff with MEJ, but his turnaround just doesn't fit. Same thing with a lot of it -- like why are there so many Janets if no one has been sent to the Good Place for 500 yeas. Why does Disco Janet exist at all? For a show that has worked as hard to be smart as this one has, this all feels too simplistic. 

Well there's the room full of Janets.

And the demons probably made a Disco Janet to experiment with a new form of torture.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 1/9/2020 at 6:30 PM, Loandbehold said:

"Joanie loves Tchotchkes."

 

22 hours ago, Catfi9ht said:

Also, the large restaurant behind them in that same scene was "Ponzu Scheme" which we saw briefly in one of the episodes that featured alot of reboots next to a Sushi and The Banshees cart. Screenshot from the original episode below.

 

As much as I love the show's writing and the cast, the business names and signs are the unsung heroes. They never fail to crack me up.

[albinerhawk]

Maybe I missed something but wasn't there another underlying issue...the massively large point total needed to gain admission into the Good Place. Even Doug with his large point total wasn't going to make it by this standard. The episode only focused on the fact that humans could get better, but could anyone still attain the ridiculous number of points necessary without being a human rights lawyer who freed innocent people from death row?

[Chaos Theory]

8 hours ago, albinerhawk said:

Maybe I missed something but wasn't there another underlying issue...the massively large point total needed to gain admission into the Good Place. Even Doug with his large point total wasn't going to make it by this standard. The episode only focused on the fact that humans could get better, but could anyone still attain the ridiculous number of points necessary without being a human rights lawyer who freed innocent people from death row?

The issue was never the massively large total of points you need but that every action had a opposite reaction that lost you points as well.   You give your GF flowers on her birthday but she has an allergic reaction to them.   You gain 5 good points for the flowers but then 5 bad points for making your girlfriend sick on her birthday.  You can even go deeper.  Good points for remembering she likes flowers.   Bad points for forgetting the flowers she was allergic to.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Chaos Theory

[Ailianna]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:57 AM, LBS said:

Great episode!  I'm so glad it is back but sad because we only have 4 more episodes.  My favorite throwaway shot was when Jason calls out Michael for not writing "bummer" down and then there is a brief moment of an exasperated Michael showing Jason that he did write it down.   I'm going to miss those moments!

I also appreciated that Jason is probably used to people pretending to take his ideas seriously and really just ignoring him.  I like that Michael did write it down, even if he didn't think it was a good idea.  Jason has had a number of good points and ideas (molotov cocktail metaphors!) but he doesn't always get credit and definitely people don't always remember that the next time they have a problem.  I think Jason could be smarter than he seems, but he's as convinced as everyone else in his stupidity.

[iMonrey]

5 hours ago, albinerhawk said:

The issue was never the massively large total of points you need but that every action had a opposite reaction that lost you points as well.   You give your GF flowers on her birthday but she has an allergic reaction to them.   You gain 5 good points for the flowers but the 5 bad points for making your girlfriend sick in her birthday.  You can even did dealer.  Good points for remembering she likes flowers.   Bad points for forgetting the flowers she was allergic to.

Yes but that's the problem I expected them to address and I'm not sure their solution does that. The points system itself needs to be scrapped or at least overhauled. 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, albinerhawk said:

Maybe I missed something but wasn't there another underlying issue...the massively large point total needed to gain admission into the Good Place. Even Doug with his large point total wasn't going to make it by this standard. The episode only focused on the fact that humans could get better, but could anyone still attain the ridiculous number of points necessary without being a human rights lawyer who freed innocent people from death row?

 

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Yes but that's the problem I expected them to address and I'm not sure their solution does that. The points system itself needs to be scrapped or at least overhauled. 

The new plan does not scrap the point system but it does completely overhaul how the points are evaluated. The points just impacts the difficulty of the test that determines if your ready for the good place. 

It really does sound a lot like the system in Defending Your Life. 

[SmithW6079]

On 1/10/2020 at 12:03 PM, Rinaldo said:

The Judge definitely has a "type," what with her past obsessions with Mark Harmon and Kyle Chandler, before moving on to Timothy Olyphant this season. Craggy courtly gentlemen of a certain age.

She's not the only one. 😉

[FormerMod-a1]

Whoo-hoo!  A cameo (well, more than a cameo) by Timothy Offwithhispants! 

[Endeavour]

Always enjoy this show and all the small moments already mentioned make it such fun to watch. Also, can never go wrong adding a little Olyphant into the mix.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I will never complain about having Tim Olyphant on my screen, especially in the form of Raylan Givens.

[appositival]

23 hours ago, Ailianna said:

Jason has had a number of good points and ideas (molotov cocktail metaphors!) but he doesn't always get credit and definitely people don't always remember that the next time they have a problem. 

Jason isn't limited by reality because he doesn't understand it. He is very creative, and he just blurts whatever is passing through in his stream of semi-consciousness. You shouldn't arbitrarily dismiss his ideas because he occasionally hits a homerun from the dugout.

[companionenvy]

Honestly, after loving the last few episodes, I was a little disappointed with this one. Still loved the small touches - including, of course, Timothy Olyphant, though as a non-watcher of Justified I know I couldn't fully appreciate it -- but had serious issues with the big picture.

First, and probably most significantly, I really don't buy Sean's about-face. Sean and Michael existed for a long, long time before they became best enemies. And now we're supposed to believe he'll agree to essentially ending the bad place--meaning that Michael wins--because he's bored?  Absent a real change of heart, I don't see it, and while an individual bad Janet, or a hapless demon henchman like Glenn having a moral crisis is one thing; we really haven't seen evidence of a softer side for Sean. Even on a show about redemption, this seems like a step too far. I'd rather they just had the judge go with Chidi's plan without needing Sean's agreement, which didn't make much sense anyway. She's supposed to be deciding between them, not brokering a compromise.

Another issue is that as much as the gang has changed, I'm not sure that I find it authentic that all four would offer themselves up for a lifetime of torture in return for the rest of humanity -- and at the very least, that if they were going to go that route, the offer needed to be treated with a lot more gravity, and with less of a sense that this was simply the logical and natural thing for good, redeemed people to do. 

I guess what bothers me is that I like this show best when it is about ordinary, flawed people becoming better. Having these four offer this kind of sacrifice would put them up there with (if not beyond, given that we're talking eternity here) the most selfless people in the history of humanity. And for me, half the point of this show is that you shouldn't have to be that in order to be entitled to, if not the good place, than something a lot closer to it than Sean's domain. 

This ties into a problem I had with the show's treatment of Simone. Chidi's willingness to risk himself for Brent was undoubtedly noble. But...I don't think Simone deserves to be dismissed, let alone vilified, for refusing to risk her eternal existence for an admittedly pretty lousy person who brought a lot of his problems on himself. In the end, Chidi broke up with a woman he supposedly loved because she wasn't capable of rising to what would have been an extraordinary standard of heroism. That's pretty harsh. 

Again, I'm not saying that what Chidi did in going to save Brent- and what the whole gang was doing in this episode -- wasn't the right decision, ethically speaking. I think it was. But it isn't actually one I think most people are capable of making, and it isn't one I necessarily want all four members of the Soul Squad to be capable of making either. The transformation of an Arizona trashbag to a girl from Arizona was sublime enough without having her to also be St. Eleanor of Phoenix. 

Edited January 12, 2020 by companionenvy

[Ailianna]

I think it's a lot easier to do the right thing when your best friends are also doing the right thing beside you.  Also, if the choice is eternal torment versus non-existence--I think it's an easier cal than eternal torture versus regular life.  I guess situationally the level of heroism doesn't bother me.  Eleanor already made this call back in S2, though, remember?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, companionenvy said:

First, and probably most significantly, I really don't buy Sean's about-face. Sean and Michael existed for a long, long time before they became best enemies. And now we're supposed to believe he'll agree to essentially ending the bad place--meaning that Michael wins--because he's bored?  Absent a real change of heart, I don't see it, and while an individual bad Janet, or a hapless demon henchman like Glenn having a moral crisis is one thing; we really haven't seen evidence of a softer side for Sean. Even on a show about redemption, this seems like a step too far. I'd rather they just had the judge go with Chidi's plan without needing Sean's agreement, which didn't make much sense anyway. She's supposed to be deciding between them, not brokering a compromise.

I don’t see Shawn agreeing as redemption. He’s still bad. The judges plan was a loss for Shawn. Literally the only upside to saying no was preventing Michael from winning. His options were to go along with the new plan or have nothing to do for a billion years. The bad place is still going to torture humans but just in more subtle and creative ways. 

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, Ailianna said:

think it's a lot easier to do the right thing when your best friends are also doing the right thing beside you.  Also, if the choice is eternal torment versus non-existence--I think it's an easier cal than eternal torture versus regular life.  I guess situationally the level of heroism doesn't bother me.  Eleanor already made this call back in S2, though, remember?

I take your point on torture vs. non-Existence vs. torture vs. life, but as we saw when Shawn rejected that compromise, the team still had more moves in their arsenal. They proposed this option before the "if he's going to reject a reasonable compromise, let's go for actual justice." Which means they were offering themselves for eternal torment before they had exhausted all other options.

In S2, are you referring to when the four of them decided to be judged together (which was, as the Judge said, frankly insane)? If so, I think that was different, because though it was indeed an insane risk on any objective terms, that was a matter of excessive optimism and/or human sentimentality. There was still the chance they'd all pass - just less of one. This was certain torture. Which Eleanor had agreed to before, namely in the season one episodes before she knew they were in the Bad Place. But in that case, I think it was presented differently: Eleanor was dealing with a one to one tradeoff where she could only avoid the punishment that was actually supposed to be hers by foisting it off on an innocent person. Far more concrete than this situation, and a case in which greater moral logic applies. Eleanor "knows" she is less deserving than real Eleanor, whereas here, none of them think they deserve the punishment or that they are any less valuable than any random other person one could name. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Another issue is that as much as the gang has changed, I'm not sure that I find it authentic that all four would offer themselves up for a lifetime of torture in return for the rest of humanity -- and at the very least, that if they were going to go that route, the offer needed to be treated with a lot more gravity, and with less of a sense that this was simply the logical and natural thing for good, redeemed people to do. 

I could see Chidi making the sacrifice but I agree with you on the others making the sacrifice for all of humanity. However I can see them making the sacrifice for Donna, Donkey Doug, Pillboi, Kamalah, Chidi’s parents and all the others they cared about on Earth. 

1 hour ago, companionenvy said:

I take your point on torture vs. non-Existence vs. torture vs. life, but as we saw when Shawn rejected that compromise, the team still had more moves in their arsenal. They proposed this option before the "if he's going to reject a reasonable compromise, let's go for actual justice." Which means they were offering themselves for eternal torment before they had exhausted all other options.

I pretty sure that was another political allegory. The fact they didn’t exhaust all options does not bother me because there was a focus on it being a time crunch. They first went with what they thought was their best chance and only went for the Hail Mary once they realized Shawn would probably never agree to anything short of total capitulation. 

[bros402]

12 hours ago, companionenvy said:

Honestly, after loving the last few episodes, I was a little disappointed with this one. Still loved the small touches - including, of course, Timothy Olyphant, though as a non-watcher of Justified I know I couldn't fully appreciate it -- but had serious issues with the big picture.

First, and probably most significantly, I really don't buy Sean's about-face. Sean and Michael existed for a long, long time before they became best enemies. And now we're supposed to believe he'll agree to essentially ending the bad place--meaning that Michael wins--because he's bored?  Absent a real change of heart, I don't see it, and while an individual bad Janet, or a hapless demon henchman like Glenn having a moral crisis is one thing; we really haven't seen evidence of a softer side for Sean. Even on a show about redemption, this seems like a step too far. I'd rather they just had the judge go with Chidi's plan without needing Sean's agreement, which didn't make much sense anyway. She's supposed to be deciding between them, not brokering a compromise.

Well, now you have something to watch after The Good Place! Justified was great.

I think Sean agreed to it because he'd rather be stimulated by the challenge Michael poses than be bored for a billion years.

The Judge was already annoyed at the Soul Squad for Janet taking her doohickey and was not going to listen to them unless they had something big like "Shawn agreed" to stop her in her tracks

[Ray Adverb]

So the new version of the afterlife is that everyone, no matter how good or evil, gets infinite tries at some test of virtue?  Demons are going to switch from torturing souls to running after life tests?  For every human who ever dies?  That sounds unsustainably labor intensive.

[SomeTameGazelle]

6 hours ago, Ray Adverb said:

So the new version of the afterlife is that everyone, no matter how good or evil, gets infinite tries at some test of virtue?  Demons are going to switch from torturing souls to running after life tests?  For every human who ever dies?  That sounds unsustainably labor intensive.

Isn't the existing afterlife already extremely labour-intensive -- and the work is falling disproportionately on the Bad Place the way things are now. Think of how many demons Michael had in his neighbourhood to torture just our 4 humans. I assume that Jeremy Bearimy renders the calculation of demon-hours rather elastic in any case. 

If demons who would be torturing humans in the Bad Place are simply redeployed to help humans develop better consciences in the Medium Place then it seems just as sustainable as the current system, especially if whatever angels there are in the Good Place are also employed to keep the system running. They apparently haven't been concerned about population explosions as the number of humans increases.

[bros402]

5 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Isn't the existing afterlife already extremely labour-intensive -- and the work is falling disproportionately on the Bad Place the way things are now. Think of how many demons Michael had in his neighbourhood to torture just our 4 humans. I assume that Jeremy Bearimy renders the calculation of demon-hours rather elastic in any case. 

If demons who would be torturing humans in the Bad Place are simply redeployed to help humans develop better consciences in the Medium Place then it seems just as sustainable as the current system, especially if whatever angels there are in the Good Place are also employed to keep the system running. They apparently haven't been concerned about population explosions as the number of humans increases.

318, I believe - so 79.5 demons per human (if they keep the 4 humans in a neighborhood)

[Ray Adverb]

6 hours ago, bros402 said:

318, I believe - so 79.5 demons per human (if they keep the 4 humans in a neighborhood)

But that was a special project.  The ratio is not usually that high.  If you had 10 billion humans being tortured by 5 billion demons, that's workable.  If you had 10 billion humans being tested, requiring roughly 80 billion demons, that's not.

[Xantar]

While Team Cockroach was describing their plan for testing and redemption, I was expecting them to also describe how it could work in the other direction. Theoretically, there's no reason why someone who originally qualified for The Good Place can't start becoming more selfish, short-sighted, and hypocritical. An argument could be made that the Committee Members have done great harm by their indecision and lack of sense.

[ajsnaves]

Im not sure what I think of their solution either.  I think there needs to be a bad place option in the end.  After all that’s a lot of penises to largely ignore and not flatten. And what will they do with all those butthole spiders. Well at least they have Shawn there to advocate for the Butthole Spiders and Nostril Wasps.

My thought is that they should just do what they’ve all just did. You die, you live a year of your life without all the external issues that causes us all to lose points.  If you improve a certain amount you move onto the Good Place. If you fail to improve enough, you go to the bad place.  Maybe there can be do-over rules for people who have clear improvements but it was too little too late. (Like to see if Brent’s last minute realization lead to actual improvement.  Maybe have people from both sides there to encourage/discourage improvement.   Maybe each neighborhood gets their own Chidi, in addition their own Janet.

[bros402]

17 hours ago, Ray Adverb said:

But that was a special project.  The ratio is not usually that high.  If you had 10 billion humans being tortured by 5 billion demons, that's workable.  If you had 10 billion humans being tested, requiring roughly 80 billion demons, that's not.

I mean there is no limit to the number of demons - there could be hundreds of billions of demons. They could just poof into existence as they are needed. There are always more humans being born, and I really doubt the demons sexually reproduce, so it is probably a "oh look, a new guy" kind of thing where they just appear.

Or maybe they have a room similar to the Janet room, where demons just walk out of every once in a while.

[companionenvy]

13 hours ago, ajsnaves said:

Im not sure what I think of their solution either.  I think there needs to be a bad place option in the end.  After all that’s a lot of penises to largely ignore and not flatten. And what will they do with all those butthole spiders. Well at least they have Shawn there to advocate for the Butthole Spiders and Nostril Wasps.

My thought is that they should just do what they’ve all just did. You die, you live a year of your life without all the external issues that causes us all to lose points.  If you improve a certain amount you move onto the Good Place. If you fail to improve enough, you go to the bad place.  Maybe there can be do-over rules for people who have clear improvements but it was too little too late. (Like to see if Brent’s last minute realization lead to actual improvement.  Maybe have people from both sides there to encourage/discourage improvement.   Maybe each neighborhood gets their own Chidi, in addition their own Janet.

I agree that they're kind of ducking the question of what ultimately happens to the worst of the worst, though they at least obliquely addressed it by suggesting that the punishment would be targeted to severity of crime; presumably, Hitler's going to get something a lot closer to conventional torture than Chidi, who would get something closer to the original neighborhood. But I think the problem with your solution is that it is still too blunt an instrument: Brent is an ass who has caused genuine harm to people, but even if he hadn't had his eleventh-hour maybe revelation in that single year, it seems disproportionate to punish him with horrific physical tortures for eternity.

[Sarah 103]

13 hours ago, companionenvy said:

I agree that they're kind of ducking the question of what ultimately happens to the worst of the worst, though they at least obliquely addressed it by suggesting that the punishment would be targeted to severity of crime; presumably, Hitler's going to get something a lot closer to conventional torture than Chidi, who would get something closer to the original neighborhood. But I think the problem with your solution is that it is still too blunt an instrument: Brent is an ass who has caused genuine harm to people, but even if he hadn't had his eleventh-hour maybe revelation in that single year, it seems disproportionate to punish him with horrific physical tortures for eternity.

Under the new proposed system, I thought below a certain number of points, someone was automatically going to the Bad Place. Above a certain number of points, someone was automatically going to the Good Place. For people who fell in the middle, it would be a chance to redeem themselves. 

[companionenvy]

1 hour ago, Sarah 103 said:

Under the new proposed system, I thought below a certain number of points, someone was automatically going to the Bad Place. Above a certain number of points, someone was automatically going to the Good Place. For people who fell in the middle, it would be a chance to redeem themselves. 

I think that was the first proposed system, which they intended as a non-ideal compromise that would allow them to save at least a good chunk of humanity. Once Shawn rejected even that, they decided to try to propose something they actually believed in, which was a system in which everyone who didn't qualify for TGP right off the bat (so, in effect, everyone) would get endless chances to improve. 

[whiporee]

If you really think about it, none of it makes much sense. Nothing dealing with any kind of point accumulation/subtraction is going to be able to be fair. Do all the already dead suddenly find themselves in the Good Place, with their memories of millennium of torture erased? Do the Portland Trailblazers now have a chance? 

And what exactly is The Good Place, anyway? Again, it seems to me like the Good Place reps we've seen sure are a lot like the do-gooders on Earth that irritated Eleanor so much. Are we to believe that Paradise is just a collection of perpetual acquiescing? 

To me, it all feels like scrambling at this point. That might be why Schurr decided to end it after this season; he realized he actually was asking much bigger questions than he could answer, and all he was doing was digging himself deeper and deeper. Part of me is worried that he knew the premise, and he knew the holy-motherforking-shirtballs moment, but he didn't really know what happened next. A lot of the issues they seemed to want to tackle (the redeemability of Brent's Brenti-ness, or Simone's self-righteousness, or John's intentional cruelty. Or even Tahani's self-centeredness, or Jason's impulse control, or even -- even -- Chidi's inability to choose) they just seemed to decide not to and give us Disco Janet instead. It's like they've been hitting us with a  lot of ideas that we answer for ourselves while watching and discussing, but the show itself has given us very little concrete at all. Even unintended consequences -- a really brilliant observation for a network sitcom -- seems to have passed by the wayside in the current discussions. 

I'm hopeful -- really hopeful -- that they've thought this out enough to have it make some sort of sense beyond an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter. I would hate for a show that has been so smart end up so, so dumb. But I have to admit I'm getting worried that what we'll get is a lot of what we've seen -- after four years of asking complex questions and throwing us more than few twists and turns, I think we might be headed for a "can't we all get along?" sort of ending. I hope i'm wrong, but with two hours left, I'm not convinced they've got it in them.  

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by whiporee

[Schweedie]

On 1/10/2020 at 6:03 PM, Rinaldo said:

The Judge definitely has a "type," what with her past obsessions with Mark Harmon and Kyle Chandler, before moving on to Timothy Olyphant this season. Craggy courtly gentlemen of a certain age.

She didn't have a dad. That's why she's attracted to all the father figures on the TV shows she watches, mm-khmm? (I loved that bit.)

[HunterHunted]

Olyphant and Kristen were on Deadwood and he loves comedy. He was probably the easier get.

On 1/11/2020 at 3:34 PM, Dani said:

The new plan does not scrap the point system but it does completely overhaul how the points are evaluated. The points just impacts the difficulty of the test that determines if your ready for the good place. 

It really does sound a lot like the system in Defending Your Life. 

Does anyone here watch Infinity Train? I was over on the Infinity Train subReddit where someone asked what was the purpose of the train? I joked that it's the new afterlife testing system on the Good Place. The premise of Infinity Train is that people arrive on the train. They don't know how or why. There's a glowing green number on their hand. As they make their way through the train cars, meet people, animals, and other denizens of the train and face challenges, the number can either go up or down. They're rarely counseled explicitly about what the change in their number means. They're sometimes told that they need to see the conductor to sort out things. Sometimes the train will add cars between the passenger and the conductor car. It's animated and on Cartoon Network, but it's also surreal, funny, and kind of terrifying at times. I'd honestly recommend it for fans of the Good Place.

 

[BoogieBurns]

4 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

Olyphant and Kristen were on Deadwood and he loves comedy. He was probably the easier get.

He was also on The Office (same casting people), so he was definitely the best option of Gen's crushes to appear.

[aradia22]

It's not just because she's currently an antagonist, but I no longer think Maya Rudolph was the right fit for the judge. The more screen time she's gotten, the less funny she is. 

On the other hand, William continues to be brilliant as Chidi. I'm going to miss this character.

Joanie Loves Tchotchkes is so perfect I can't believe it's never been used before.

Olyphant was a great running gag. And he delivered the charm when they needed him.

I'm glad that Shawn was the big hurdle this episode. It wouldn't have made sense if he was easily convinced to go along with their plans.

[aradia22]

Quote

It's surprisingly very close to an idea I've had of another possibility of what comes after: each person being that person, only after they die they go back to their conception and start over again, and again, etc.  Allowing for free will - everyone's - there would be differences each time.

That's something I didn't really consider. Are you only reset to yourself (age, weight, health, etc.) when you died? That's what we've been getting with our original Soul Squad but in that case you're talking about 4 attractive actors in their thirties. I do think reality (outside of the show) is still more complicated than the show wants to present its version of ethics. What if your negative behavior stems from how you're treated as a person in a fat body? Are you never given the ability to lose weight? What if you became bitter and hostile after developing a disability or disease later in life? Is the goal of your afterlife reset to learn to be content with your disability or health issues for the rest of eternity? And putting aside those sorts of changes, when does your soul become your soul? When do you become you? Surely it would be easier to reset Brent if he hadn't grown up with privilege in an environment that kept reinforcing his worst qualities. Why not reset him earlier in life? Why does it have to be the moment he died? The show Being Erica dealt with this in a different way. The last season or two are a mess but before that, it allowed her to go back to different points in her life and change things. Even though that show wasn't really about the afterlife, I think it's idea of ethics and identity are more appealing to me than where The Good Place seems to be going right now.

Quote

I don’t know how I feel about the afterlife redesign. I like it in theory, but I have a hard time believing that Shawn would go for a plan that would not include sending at least some people to the Bad Place for traditional torture. Especially after how much the demons started complaining in the fake Good Place reboots about how they’re not actors. 

I am holding out hope for when the Good Place Architect and Bad Place Architect get together. Surely the Bad Place Architect will advocate for some torture besides the demons having to be actors in a fake Good Place. 

[chaifan]

A few fun things spotted on rewatch...

Bad Janet neutral place - among an actual burning dumpster fire and the Pirates of the Caribbean 12 billboard, there are a bunch of mayonnaise jars next to the computer. 

Storefronts - behind Joanne Loves Tchotckes is "Everything Fits!"  Now that's my type of store!

The jar of Janet marbles on the Judge's desk in the end scene.

Notes from Chidi's blackboard on the "new" Afterlife: 

Under "Life on Earth it says:

No longer a "test".  Now a "class".  Results studied by architects.

Under "New Afterlife" it says:

Points = baseline for test difficulty.  Good/Bad Architects design scenario (which Tahani explains "to make you confront your moral shortcomings") - scenario can be any length.  Evaluation. (Which Chidi explains the architects will explain what you did badly and what you did well.)  Repeat with some memory of eval.

 

[cleo]

Am I the only one that couldn't follow the conversation bc I wanted to look at Timothy Olyphant? They should have had him explain the concept. So it's reincarnation or something?

In all seriousness I found some of this kind of boring. Sadly it is time for this show to end.

I did love Chidi's expression when he twirled on roller skates.