Good Speculation: Non-Spoilered Thoughts About What's Really Going On

[Dots And Stripes]

I think the long game for this show involves more than saving Team Cockroach. I feel like a system that lets the four humans in Team Cockroach sneak through but still dooms most "medium" people to the Bad Place is too pessimistic for Schur. Either we'll find out that there's more to the system than we think (like maybe the Bad Place rigged the points system or something) or they'll need to try and change the whole system to save more people like them. 

[Fukui San]

My guess right now is that they all will reach the real Good Place eventually and voluntarily decide to leave because Michael can't be there and/or The Good Place kind of sucks. Not sure where they'd go after. Maybe go in with Mindy to try push The Medium Place as an afterlife alternative. 

[Notwisconsin]

I hope they planned this out as a "trilogy' and there's no fourth season. It looks as this second season is all about change and Michael's growth, and I suspect that the third season will be a recapitulation of the first with it REALLY being the Good place and the four not being sure whether or not it is....

[JessDVD]

I keep hoping we'll see the real Bad Place and/or Good Place but my guess is that both will remain unseen. Like "the noodle incident" for those who remember Calvin & Hobbes, more or less.

[Kromm]

On 10/23/2017 at 1:17 AM, MonkeyChoker said:

End of Season Twist speculation:

The Fab Four and Michael do too good of a job at pretending the humans are miserable...

...and four MORE humans get added into the mix, as Shaun decides to try 'expanding' Michael's plan.

This would only work if they were minor background characters.  Wallpaper who's struggles were used to forward the stories of our four.

Why?  Because this show already has six major characters, five of who can be point of view characters. Dilute it anymore and we won't get to spend any major time with any of them or develop their characters more. You can add more characters, sure, but they can't be point of view characters, they can't be in every episode--at least not more than a little--and they can't matter enough where they can't be banished when a plot twist demands it.

I'd do the equivalent to what Seinfeld (albeit that show only did it very briefly). Have mirrored versions of the protagonists, who serve to illustrate for them how annoying they seem from the outside.

[Kromm]

On 1/7/2018 at 6:43 PM, Dots And Stripes said:

I think the long game for this show involves more than saving Team Cockroach. I feel like a system that lets the four humans in Team Cockroach sneak through but still dooms most "medium" people to the Bad Place is too pessimistic for Schur. Either we'll find out that there's more to the system than we think (like maybe the Bad Place rigged the points system or something) or they'll need to try and change the whole system to save more people like them. 

 

18 hours ago, Notwisconsin said:

I hope they planned this out as a "trilogy' and there's no fourth season. It looks as this second season is all about change and Michael's growth, and I suspect that the third season will be a recapitulation of the first with it REALLY being the Good place and the four not being sure whether or not it is....

My instinct is that eventually there will be another huge fakeout (bigger than the first actually, since a good percentage of us kinda knew from the first episode this was actually The Bad Place). The target of this fakeout will be more about the "why" of this system rather than the "what". We think we know from the narrative why The Good and Bad Place exist. I'd argue we really don't. There's going to be a reason we don't expect, and it will be the final time the show turns itself on it's head.  What number that season is I'd not want to guess. My assumption is that they'd build it modular, so if they know the show isn't likely to get a renewal at some point they can insert it at the end of any season.

[nicgwatchingtv]

I keep expecting and waiting for the childhoods/families of the four main characters to make a real impact on the story line. We know that both Elinor and Tahanis' issues in life were very much in response to how their parents treated them. We've heard enough about Jason's childhood to assume that he is not the product of 'good' parenting. I can't remember ever hearing about Chidi's family/childhood but I expect that, when we do, we'll see/hear about them neglecting Little Chidi due to indecision.

I suppose it could be as simple as the idea that the goodness or strength of a person can be directly tied to their willingness and ability to overcome childhood issues. But I hope it's not that simple. 

[Loandbehold]

10 minutes ago, nicgwatchingtv said:

I can't remember ever hearing about Chidi's family/childhood

Not about his family, but we did see a little of Little Chidi at school. It took him so long to think about who to pick first for his futbol team that recess ended before he made the choice.

[GaT]

Now I'm starting to wonder if Michael is who he thinks he is, & if it's possible that all this is for him, & not the other 4 people.

[Fukui San]

Prediction for the end of this season. The four go and meet the judge and have some sort of trial. The demons get involved again. At the end the judge makes some sort of judgment but we don't know what exactly the decision is. We cut to a fadeout, and then we are returned to Eleanor sitting in the waiting room with "Everything is Fine!" on the wall.  Someone knocks on the door and says that he or she is ready to see her now (could be Michael, could be someone else), and we spend the summer wondering what the heck is about to happen.

[whiporee]

This just started bothering me. Why doesn't Eleanor recognize Tahani from life? Tahani was famous -- not as famous as Kamila, but famous enough for magazine covers. So why didn't Eleanor recognize her? Eleanor knows celebrity culture -- Tahani should be one of those people Eleanor knows from celebrity gossip. 

That leads me to a new conclusion. Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason are all part of the same person, just different aspects of their personality. Let's just say it's Eleanor, because Kristen Bell is the biggest star. Chidi would be her conscience, Tahani her vanity, Jason her id and Janet her superego. Or however you want to break it down. I thought for a while that TJ&C were just creations, too. but there's been too much from their perspectives to have them not be characters in their own right. But if they were all parts of one person acting independently .... 

Just a thought. 

[nicgwatchingtv]

I come up with different theories on almost every viewing, so take this as such:

So, right now I'm thinking that S2 has been largely about Michael trying to trick the humans into telling him how they keep figuring things out/why they keep trying. I think Shawn is in on it, but no one else. But it'll be turn out that Michael has changed even though he didn't intend to.

But I also think that it'll turn out that not only the humans and Michael have changed, but so have the many demons that have worked in The Good Place. We have, after all, seen several of them talking about how weird it is to not just twist, burn, whatever humans but to actually talk to them. Does this unique interaction influence them? Does Vicky atually care about Chidi. Does Mailman Chris fondly remember hanging with Eleanor?  Does Chuck miss not the challenge of working in the good place environment? 

[biakbiak]

I think it's important to remember that Michael literally has a Janet in his pocket, sure it's a Bad Janet but she does what she is told after she insults you, shrinking to the size of a marble was just supposed to make her easier to dispose of her not the final phase in destroying her.

Edited January 21, 2018 by biakbiak

[biakbiak]

Also, again knoe nothing about the Judge but the person who Eleaanor used to convince Chidi to lie is Jonathan Dancy and is not only still alive he is father to Hugh Dancy and father in law to Claire Daines, for added speculation Jonathan Dancy was a guest pn Craig Ferguson, also a good potentional judge.

Edited January 21, 2018 by biakbiak

[shantown]

I want the judge to be Judge Judy

[possibilities]

I totally forgot about Bad Janet in the marble!

I've decided not to guess anymore, because this show has consistently exceeded my expectations with what they come up with, even when I think I have a great idea. But I enjoy other people's ideas, because the show is so rich, it offers numerous potentially great directions.

[whiporee]

If Jason wasn't already in hell, the game today would have felt like it. 

[BobH]

On 1/20/2018 at 2:22 AM, whiporee said:

This just started bothering me. Why doesn't Eleanor recognize Tahani from life? Tahani was famous -- not as famous as Kamila, but famous enough for magazine covers. So why didn't Eleanor recognize her?

In fact, I think we see one of Tahani's magazine covers in an Eleanor flashback. Interesting point. We know their memories are suppressed about how they died until Michael makes a point to have them remember. Maybe he also suppressed Eleanor's memories of Tahani if those would distract from the torture plans he had?

[Ailianna]

Although if Eleanor remembered Tahani's sister....that could have added to the torture...

Maybe that was something--Tahani wasn't as famous as she thinks/wants.

[Chaos Theory]

Michael gets tortured.  

But it’s the kind of sad boring pathetic torture that made a place like Michael’s neighborhood necessary and with Michael being on some weird sort of redemption the tortured barely effects him at all which only annoys the other demons.

[JessDVD]

On 1/20/2018 at 2:22 AM, whiporee said:

This just started bothering me. Why doesn't Eleanor recognize Tahani from life? Tahani was famous -- not as famous as Kamila, but famous enough for magazine covers. So why didn't Eleanor recognize her? Eleanor knows celebrity culture -- Tahani should be one of those people Eleanor knows from celebrity gossip. 

That leads me to a new conclusion. Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason are all part of the same person, just different aspects of their personality. Let's just say it's Eleanor, because Kristen Bell is the biggest star. Chidi would be her conscience, Tahani her vanity, Jason her id and Janet her superego. Or however you want to break it down. I thought for a while that TJ&C were just creations, too. but there's been too much from their perspectives to have them not be characters in their own right. But if they were all parts of one person acting independently .... 

Just a thought. 

I wouldn't call myself an expert on celebrity culture by any stretch but I do pay attention, read People magazine, etc, and there are celebrities that I don't recognize (there are an awful lot of them), so I don't think it's out of the question that Eleanor wouldn't recognize Tahani. I can think of several celebs that I know the names, know a bit about them, but probably couldn't pick out of a lineup.

That said, I do think your theory is interesting.

[wilnil]

1 hour ago, JessDVD said:

I wouldn't call myself an expert on celebrity culture by any stretch but I do pay attention, read People magazine, etc, and there are celebrities that I don't recognize (there are an awful lot of them), so I don't think it's out of the question that Eleanor wouldn't recognize Tahani. I can think of several celebs that I know the names, know a bit about them, but probably couldn't pick out of a lineup.

This, plus Tahani is only famous for being (1) Kamilah's sister and (2) a socialite who hangs out with big names and raises big money for charity. I think that from Eleanor's perspective, Tahani would be the boring kind of celebrity who's not worth reading about -- as far as socialites go, Eleanor would only be interested in the ones known for scandals and general bad behavior, like Paris Hilton. I think Eleanor, like a lot of celebrity-watchers, is really into it just to see the train wrecks (she tells Chidi something to the effect of "I actually read a book that wasn't written by a 'Real Housewife'!"). And Tahani would avoid scandal like she'd avoid last month's fashions.

[ByTor]

My lame prediction...for some reason the trial will not be able to go on without Michael there, so it will be the core 4 trying to figure out how to get Michael through the portal.

[Dots And Stripes]

5 hours ago, JessDVD said:

I wouldn't call myself an expert on celebrity culture by any stretch but I do pay attention, read People magazine, etc, and there are celebrities that I don't recognize (there are an awful lot of them), so I don't think it's out of the question that Eleanor wouldn't recognize Tahani. I can think of several celebs that I know the names, know a bit about them, but probably couldn't pick out of a lineup.

That said, I do think your theory is interesting.

I think geography also has a lot to do with Eleanor not recognizing Tahani. Tahani is a London socialite and Eleanor lived in Arizona. I’m an American who watches a few British reality shows and I can tell you I know very few of the British celebrities before they appear on Strictly. Someone who is part of the social elite on London probably isn’t well known to your average American.

[Enginerd]

I think Eleanor paid as much attention to the upscale society magazines as she did to The Atlantic and Utne Reader, which is to say, none. Even though Tahani was right in front of her on a magazine at the checkout, she would not have noticed. She'd gravitate right to the most garish and trashy tabloids. Even if Tahani were in a photo with Stone Cold Steve Austin (which seems like a rare celebrity "friendship" Tahani would probably not embrace), Eleanor would barely even see her. She wouldn't remember some woman she didn't recognize in the photo.

[JayTab]

Newest theory.... Michael is an Angel who has been posing as a demon/devil. His whole plan has been to prove that the humans being sent to the bad place after death...can be redeemed! The point system is flawed and he wants to save the poor souls trapped in the bad place. (i mean...Chidi in the bad place?.......)

[arc]

Tahani-on-Earth is going to be exciting to see (1) how many celeb guests the show can line up and (2) how they write around the ones they want but can't get.

[Kromm]

7 hours ago, arc said:

Tahani-on-Earth is going to be exciting to see (1) how many celeb guests the show can line up and (2) how they write around the ones they want but can't get.

You only need a small number of them. The setup for her would be her in her normal life, and we'd see some celebs there. Her near death would cause her rethink, and thereafter we'd see her in environments where she's not a celeb hanger-on-er.

[JayTab]

I amm convinced Michael has been an angel the whole time. In Catholic tradition: Michael descends at the hour of death, and gives each soul the chance to redeem itself before passing; thus consternating the devil and his minions. Catholic prayers often refer to this role of Michael. In his third role, he weighs souls in his perfectly balanced scales. 

 

I am unsure if the demons were actually demons or were angels helping Michael though

[BoogieBurns]

On 6/2/2018 at 3:08 AM, JayTab said:

I amm convinced Michael has been an angel the whole time.

The name Michael does mean "he who is like God." I can't imagine Mike Schur just carelessly named him after himself for no reason other than narcissism.

[arc]

Simone seems almost too good to be true. She has a sketchy Australian accent, possibly by design and possibly not. She has a romantic connection with Chidi.

Who else fits all those points? Vicki. I have this theory -- and it probably won't pan out, but it is truly speculation and not based on any spoilers -- that Simone is secretly Vicki in disguise.

[cpcathy]

OH snap!! Wow, that would be a revelation!

[whiporee]

This is my overarching idea about the show. it is almost certainly wrong. 

The doorman is God, or at least this Earth's God. 

He's a frog guy. Frogs are amphibious, and amphibians were the first kind of life to leave the seas. He would have attachment to the first of his creations to make that drastic a jump in evolution. They are also two distinct and different things in a single life -- if you extrapolate that out, you could say that every piece of creation is capable of multiple things, and just because you are born in the water it doesn't mean you have to stay there. If you're a frog, that is. But Michael is more than one thing; and now so is Janet. So is team cockroach -- and maybe that's his overall point about the Good and Bad places. So maybe he's trying to find out what changed Michael and Janet to make them more than they had been -- how they are evolving. 

He's been in control of everything that has happened this season, because he let Michael through several times. He let Janet through. He let Trevor through. And then he let Michael and Janet escape for no real reason. If he's just a celestial bureaucrat, that's a power he wouldn't have. 

He's running his own experiment -- can immortal beings change? The people taking the test at Michael and Janet and maybe the Judge. Or the Judge is part of it. But he's much more than he seems, and I think it has to do with frogs.

I also think there's a Jungian collective unconscious running through our team. I've never head the term trashbag used to describe a person before I heard Trevor use it in the first season. But now Eleanor self0describes that way. She's connecting with people -- I still think that, not selfishness, is what kept her from the Good Place -- much faster and less reticently than she has any any previous incarnation. Jason had a look when it came to Janet that was unearned, unless it wasn't. Tahani's head went to Jason's shoulder awfully quick. And Chidi recovered from his indecision much quicker, and he wasn't burdened by the triangle implications. So while it appears they are all meeting each other for the first time, my guess is that parts of them remember. And my guess is that sometime in the near future, all those memories will come out. 

part of this is shaped by a book I read a long time ago called Replay. After dying, the main character kept replaying his life, making changes -- sometimes big, sometimes small -- but each lifetime being remembered as he moved into the next. I don't thin that's what is happening here, but I do think there is an aspect of remembering former lives that is getting integrated into the overall person that is a cockroach. 

[Loandbehold]

Quote

What I started wondering is, if they did this "reset" and saved their lives, and if the premise is that their flaws in many ways caused them to die in the first place, if they change now, won't they theoretically live for a long time?  Which means we may not see them again in the afterlife for a long time, until they "die" in the reset. 

On the other hand, if they don't change, they will likely all die again soon and end up in the bad place once again, but this time for real. 

From the 3.3 thread.

I've been thinking about what a possible season 4 could hold. Team Cockroach can't stay alive and on Earth or else the overarching premise of the show is gone. How can we get them back to the afterlife w/o having them live for another 50 years? Or dying right away and being subject to unspeakable torture and butthole spiders.

If someone higher up comes down on Gen for losing control of the experiment - it was outside the box and she was distracted by binge watching 73 seasons of NCIS - then the experiment can be terminated. However, it wouldn't be right to send them to the real Bad Place since they have made some strides to improve themselves. Another Medium Place can be created, but Michael obviously wouldn't be in charge and would likely be a resident as well. But, someone needs to be the architect. Someone from the real Good Place. And Shawn. Unlike w/ Mindy St. Clair, this Medium Place would be a weigh station. The end of the series would be them "graduating" to either the real Good or real Bad Place. Now, how TPTB go about differentiating this Medium Place from Michael's original design I will leave up to them.

[Fukui San]

If I'm in the writer's room, my pitch for Season 4 would be this: Team Cockroach has to run some version of The Good Place.

I don't know why that happens, how that happens, or anything like that. But that'd be my starting point.

[Enginerd]

I think they need to go to the real Good Place at some point, even for some sort of visit or experiment. We've seen the fake Good Place, the Bad Place, and even the Medium Place, but we've never seen the actual Good Place. Has Michael been to a real Good Place? I'd think they'd try to keep demons out.

[Athena]

2 hours ago, Enginerd said:

Has Michael been to a real Good Place?

I don't think he has. He's been in the storage area where they keep the Janets, but it seems the actual door to the Good Place is kept from him. I agree that the show needs to go to the real Good Place at some point, but I am not betting on it this season. Maybe the next one? 

[Zuleikha]

I'm wondering if we're going to get a twist that Gen returned the main four to a simulated Earth rather than a real Earth, and she's really testing Michael and Janet. I don't think that would be a great twist, mind you, but Michael and Janet have intervened waaaaay too much for the original proposed test of Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason to be valid. Also, that would solve the problem of getting the show back to the Afterlife without killing everyone tragically.

Michael's and Janet's evolutions are also the most unexplored at this point. 

[whiporee]

That would make sense, but MS has unequivocally said they are on Earth. 

But ...

I'm wondering whether Simone is actually Gen. She's got a thing for Chidi, it's a much more interesting name, and sh'e bored all the time so she might be tempted to intervene. 

There's got to be something more to the character, so maybe it's that. 

[JayTab]

I'm still convinced Michael is the Arch Angel Michael who weighs souls before going to heaven or hell...though its possible The Judge is supposed to be like st michael....I just feel like there would be some kind of fail safe for an angel or demon to run amok in the world or wherever they are and i think it's too much for a reversal of what happened on earth so that 4 souls can return and change the future that was supposed to happen (unless i am mistaken and the show explains its not the real earth). I think it just makes sense that the Elanor/Chidi/Tahani/Jason are still being judged by Michael the arch angel

I also am fairly certain Simone is somehow in league with the demons...either being one or deciding to help them for some materialistic reason

also the doorman might be st peter (or Pete lol)

Idk if the show is overly religious but I think there are connections/clues with character names as well as the actor's body language. 

Edited October 23, 2018 by JayTab
edited to include my rant about run amok angels and demons/time reversal and the "just makes sense" sentence

[Peace 47]

I caught up on the last two episodes (Jeremy Bearimy and The Ballad of Donkey Doug) at once today, and I was thinking about how they said time was twisty like “Jeremy Bearimy in English cursive” and the random thought occurred to me that these 4 are establishing the point system/ afterlife qualifications right now, for all who came before and all who come after.

Like, Mindy is the only other human we have seen in the afterlife, and it has always seemed strange that she was the only one in all of time to merit a medium place (maybe she is the dot on the “i”).  We’ve heard stories about those who didn’t make it to the Good Place, but I don’t know, we’ve heard about their torture but never seen them, never seen anyone from the Good Place, and why are Trevor and Sean so concerned with Michael and these 4 particular humans when there are billions they could be having fun with, and why doesn’t Gen have anything to do other than deal with these 4 (why do these 4 cause so much trouble?), etc.  Anyway, just a random thought.

[arc]

We probably haven't seen traditional Bad Place torture because it is really way beyond network TV standards, but certainly the demons talk like they have a lot of experience with twisting and whatnot.

[RainbowBrite]

Someone in the Janet(s) epidose thread mentioned that Mindy St. Clair may play a role in the future and now I'm wondering if maybe she's not who she said she is, and whether she may not have really been a human. Perhaps she has something to do with the points system failure?

[Fukui San]

On 10/10/2018 at 1:43 PM, Fukui San said:

If I'm in the writer's room, my pitch for Season 4 would be this: Team Cockroach has to run some version of The Good Place.

I don't know why that happens, how that happens, or anything like that. But that'd be my starting point.

Like I said...

[Loandbehold]

Which begs the question, Fukui San: are you in the writer's room?

[scarynikki12]

Pandemonium is the capitol of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost.  This next episode should be interesting.

[Fukui San]

On 1/18/2019 at 1:26 PM, Loandbehold said:

Which begs the question, Fukui San: are you in the writer's room?

No but I’d be willing to discuss it!

[cpcathy]

The writers of this show sound really goofy, I hope you’re up to it!

[Jamoche]

My Michael theory: he's not really having a Chidi-style indecision crisis. He's doing it on purpose. Bad Michael is ready to step in and cause chaos, and Sauntering Vaguely Upward Michael is unable to tell his humans about it. He could hope that they'd figure it out, but they may think it's SVU Michael backsliding instead.

But if he's completely out of the game that'll be harder to pull off - one minute "Michael" is cool, collected, and chaotic, and the next he's still having a meltdown? Even Jason will catch that! Probably with some anecdote about one of his crew who was on some, like, really good drugs man, but then he got a bad batch, and, well, you know.

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

10 hours ago, Jamoche said:

My Michael theory: he's not really having a Chidi-style indecision crisis. He's doing it on purpose. Bad Michael is ready to step in and cause chaos, and Sauntering Vaguely Upward Michael is unable to tell his humans about it. He could hope that they'd figure it out, but they may think it's SVU Michael backsliding instead.

Nice Good Omens reference!