S02.E03: Dance Dance Resolution

[Blakeston]

I've been assuming that Janets work how they're programmed to work (except for a few bugs in their systems, like Janet falling in love with Jason.)

The Janet who Michael stole is only programmed to work in Michael's neighborhood, so she's useless in other neighborhoods. Whereas Trevor programmed his Bad Janet to operate in Michael's neighborhood when he found out he was going to travel there.

Michael may have programmed his Janet to believe that she's actually in The Good Place. Or at least to give very specific answers to questions about The Bad Place that won't give away where they really are.

[DrScottie]

On 10/1/2017 at 10:19 AM, Milburn Stone said:

Re the need for efficiency, a "factoid" in my brain helps justify it. I think I remember hearing that due to the growth of earth's population, there are as many people alive right now as all the dead people who have ever lived. If the trend continues, all the Afterlife Places are going to be completely overloaded with new admissions in very short order. There won't be enough already-dead-torturers (if the torturers are indeed previously-alive humans, which I'm not sure about) to handle the crush.

I've heard that factoid many times. It's not true. There have been upwards of a 100 billion people who have ever lived. Regardless of what the real number is, there are far more people who have died than are alive right now. 

[Chaos Theory]

Honestly I think people are thinking too much about the semantics of the show at this point.  I guess it makes some people happy to think if a shows logistics actually work in a big picture sort of way.  

I wonder how nitpicking and otherwise good show gets rated.

I doubt money is an issue for the afterlife.  Economics is a purely human construct. As for the middle place I always saw it asakind of purgatory where people who didn't make the cut of the good place but weren't in the negative numbers.  I would expect a lot more people but then again having a single person the group goes to makes things less complicated for the writers.  

[Mabinogia]

1 minute ago, Chaos Theory said:

I would expect a lot more people but then again having a single person the group goes to makes things less complicated for the writers.  

It makes sense to only have one, or very few if you think of it as getting a perfect 0 rating. +1 through infinite positive numbers go to the Good place, -1 through infinite negative numbers go to the bad place and only people with a perfect 0 go to the middle place. It's a shit system, unless there are gradient good and bad places, and that is how people are put into specific neighborhoods How good or how bad they were dictates how much torture or pleasure they get.

[DrScottie]

37 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

It makes sense to only have one, or very few if you think of it as getting a perfect 0 rating. +1 through infinite positive numbers go to the Good place, -1 through infinite negative numbers go to the bad place and only people with a perfect 0 go to the middle place. It's a shit system, unless there are gradient good and bad places, and that is how people are put into specific neighborhoods How good or how bad they were dictates how much torture or pleasure they get.

That's a very valid point, but I don't know how much we can read into the point totals. In Mindy's case, the good she did perfectly balanced the bad. As for the rest of them the totals are arbitrary as most of the people on the list are demons and all of them are in the bad place. They all should have negative numbers.in reality. The point was just to torture Tahani when she saw her name second to last. Even Eleanor still was only at -4008 despite every nasty thing she did on Earth and according to the chart, there were a lot of them. 

[Mabinogia]

Hmmm, now I want to know what she did to get a lifetime ban from Build-a-Bear. Something involving dishonesty. Hmmm

I do like how they had them categorized. Very organized, that Sean.

[secnarf]

7 hours ago, Tetraneutron said:

These are supernatural entities. I don't think money is an issue. They don't have a "budget" at all. 

Besides, they were very specific about what the Middle Place is for. It's not for people who've led average lives. It's for people with extraordinary circumstances about the lives they led. Mindy used all her money to establish a foundation that helps millions - easy Good Place stuff. But she died before she could carry it out. Does she get the credit or not? 

Resources doesn't necessarily mean money. The demons are resources, and presumably there is a limited (or at least, finite) number of them. If they were not in Michael's fake good place, I wonder what they would be doing.

[Amarsir]

1 hour ago, secnarf said:

Resources doesn't necessarily mean money. The demons are resources, and presumably there is a limited (or at least, finite) number of them. If they were not in Michael's fake good place, I wonder what they would be doing.

Beat me to it. Economics is about the assignment of scarce resources. Since money is used in our society as a medium of exchange it's a handy way to summarize and compare values, but money is not required. If one were to study how a community goes about deciding who to date, that would be be (behavioral) economics.

So yes, if the afterlife only has so many demons to assign, figuring out how to use them would be a real concern.

[EyewatchTV211]

As a dog lover, I think she should have gotten more negative points for drunkenly adopting a dog and then returning it the next day.

[topanga]

On 9/29/2017 at 11:26 AM, NJRadioGuy said:

rebooting randomly without a full memory wipe, for eternity, would be real torture. Leave fragments out here and there. Constantly forgetting vital crucial events from previous reboots that would be critical in the current timeline. Would make for crappy TV, of course, but that would be just awful.

There was an episode of the Netflix show 'Black Mirror' with this same premise. The 'victim' wasn't a good person, but it still seemed like a cruel, cruel form of punishment. Yeah, that episode disturbed me. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

On 9/29/2017 at 11:26 AM, NJRadioGuy said:

But rebooting randomly without a full memory wipe, for eternity, would be real torture. Leave fragments out here and there. Constantly forgetting vital crucial events from previous reboots that would be critical in the current timeline. Would make for crappy TV, of course, but that would be just awful.

Even though their (after-life) memories have been wiped, they seem to repeat behaviour and language. In fact at the beginning of this episode it took me more time than it should have to realize that I wasn't seeing "previously on" but instead the highlights of the beginning of attempt #3. Is the repetition (Eleanor calling Tahani a giraffe or saying "bring it in, Dude" to her soulmate; Tahani booping Eleanor) because people are predictable and limited, or because there is some unconscious familiarity with the situation?

[arc]

Jason's story about Donkey Doug having a grudge for how Jason framed his girlfriend for boogie board theft is a callback to Jason's long story about utilitarianism in s01e05, wherein he saved his 60 person dance crew ("Donkey Doug was our best pop-and-lock-er") by framing his fiancee for boogie board theft.

[arc]

3 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

because people are predictable and limited, or because there is some unconscious familiarity with the situation?

I'm on a rewatch binge right now and I just got to s01e07, where Eleanor tries to stave off Michael's retirement, and one of her first pitches to Chidi was "Can we somehow throw Tahani under the bus?", an idea that she came up with again in a subsequent attempt and brought to Mindy's.

[bros402]

11 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

It makes sense to only have one, or very few if you think of it as getting a perfect 0 rating. +1 through infinite positive numbers go to the Good place, -1 through infinite negative numbers go to the bad place and only people with a perfect 0 go to the middle place. It's a shit system, unless there are gradient good and bad places, and that is how people are put into specific neighborhoods How good or how bad they were dictates how much torture or pleasure they get.

I believe they said in the episode that introduced Mindy that she was the second case

[DrScottie]

2 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

Even though their (after-life) memories have been wiped, they seem to repeat behaviour and language. In fact at the beginning of this episode it took me more time than it should have to realize that I wasn't seeing "previously on" but instead the highlights of the beginning of attempt #3. Is the repetition (Eleanor calling Tahani a giraffe or saying "bring it in, Dude" to her soulmate; Tahani booping Eleanor) because people are predictable and limited, or because there is some unconscious familiarity with the situation?

I don't think it's an unconscious familiarity with the situation at least to start with. 

It's like Groundhog Day, the likely inspiration for this episode. Like Michael, the viewers are seeing this from Bill Murray's perspective. All the people in Punxsutawney say the same things to him when they see first meet him. So I think the four humans introduce themselves in the same way too. Ned introduces himself in the same way. Regardless of how many times the kid falls out of the tree, he never thanks him for catching him. 

[CherithCutestory]

Quote

In Mindy's case, the good she did perfectly balanced the bad. As for the rest of them the totals are arbitrary as most of the people on the list are demons and all of them are in the bad place.

I don't think the issue with Mindy is that the good balanced the bad.  That is something that must happen a decent number of times. I think the issue was as Eleanor said. Did she get credit for the good work? Because it wasn't Mindy who did it it was her sister. Mindy died before she could put her plan into action. Knowing Mindy there is at least a 50/50 chance she would have taken all of that money and spent it on coke and forgot all about her plan if she had lived. So they couldn't decide if she should get the points or not.

If Mindy gets the points she would go to the Good Place. If she didn't she'd go to the Bad Place. But they couldn't ever decide if she should get them or not. Because it's genuinely impossible to know what she would have done. So they had to compromise.

Quote

 Even Eleanor still was only at -4008 despite every nasty thing she did on Earth and according to the chart, there were a lot of them. 

It is very possible that Eleanor had a lot of small good deeds that accumulated too, though. Small things she did without thinking. Like taking her cousin to the mall. Or how she was bringing her boyfriend coffee before they got into a fight about it.  Eleanor's flashbacks all focused on the bad stuff she did to get there. But even in those there were hints that she occasionally did good things. Just not nearly enough to offset the bad.

And most of her bad actions were really just minor inconveniences to most people. Don't get me wrong I think people who regularly scream at waiters should burn in hell. But it's still just a terrible encounter for that other person. At the end of the day, the person who suffered long-term for her actions was her. Not other people. She is the one who had isolated everyone and was all alone and miserable by the time of her death. 

The big exception being that poor dog she overfed.

Quote

The Janet who Michael stole is only programmed to work in Michael's neighborhood, so she's useless in other neighborhoods. Whereas Trevor programmed his Bad Janet to operate in Michael's neighborhood when he found out he was going to travel there.

I think Janet could likely work in any neighborhood of the Good Place or the Bad Place. But she can't work in Mindy's house because it's off the grid.

As long as the neighborhood operates on the mainframe (which she is) she can function. But Mindy's place doesn't even have a mainframe.

Quote

If they’re using 300+ demons to torture 4 humans, it’s not really very efficient. 

It's only for a thousand years though. Even in Michael's original plan he didn't intend it to go longer than a thousand years. So, that's like an afternoon when you are working with eternity. At most, it's a weekend.

It's only reassigning those demons for a short period of time, for them. It's like an office retreat.

And, as was said above, if the Pilot did well then they would be able to introduce more humans and eventually it would be majority humans torturing each other.

But it isn't all about the economics. They presumably have plenty of demons. It's also about making the whole thing more fun (for them.)

Edited October 3, 2017 by CherithCutestory

[Mojeaux]

Michael’s fatal flaw is that he throws them together immediately. If he let them find each other organically and have them wandering around alone being shunned by demons, they’d be tortured before eventually finding each other. That might make them allies at first, but Eleanor and Tahani would fight until they said “laterz” and none of them would be able to put up with Jason for long.

[CherithCutestory]

Quote

Michael’s fatal flaw is that he throws them together immediately. I

But Michael has tried to not bring them together immediately. He's tried to let it happen more organically.

It appears as though Janet has brought Eleanor and Chidi together most of the time. It appears that Eleanor always figured out she needs someone to teach her to be a better person. She always asks Janet for help finding someone. Janet always brings her to Chidi. (And Eleanor always asks for someone less dorky. Chidi always helps her anyway.)

Michael probably doesn't know about that pattern.

[biakbiak]

7 hours ago, CherithCutestory said:

think Janet could likely work in any neighborhood of the Good Place or the Bad Place. But she can't work in Mindy's house because it's off the grid.

I agree wasn't the Bad Place of Adam Scott's neighborhood able to work when she was in Michael's neighborhood?

[Bruinsfan]

On 10/2/2017 at 4:32 PM, secnarf said:

Resources doesn't necessarily mean money. The demons are resources, and presumably there is a limited (or at least, finite) number of them. If they were not in Michael's fake good place, I wonder what they would be doing.

Biting and twisting people are apparently options...

[Anisky]

3 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Biting and twisting people are apparently options...

And burning them!

[NJRadioGuy]

4 hours ago, Anisky said:

And burning them!

And bees. And flattening things....

[Mabinogia]

No wonder the demons are pissed. All those glorious options and Michael wants to use fro-yo and couples therapy? I'd be dissatisfied too. It's like being hired as the fry cook at McDs and then being told your job is to sweep the floors. To never, ever touch the fry machine, just sweep the floors, and occasionally empty the trash.

[SmithW6079]

On 10/2/2017 at 4:35 PM, Mabinogia said:

Hmmm, now I want to know what she did to get a lifetime ban from Build-a-Bear. Something involving dishonesty. Hmmm

I do like how they had them categorized. Very organized, that Sean.

Maybe she tried to build conjoined twin bears to get two-for-one.

[Lady Calypso]

So, I fell behind on this show around episode 4 of last season, but have finally caught back up. I think it's a good show to watch, though comedies aren't always my cup of tea. 

I get why Michael kept going through attempt after attempt, trying to keep all four in his built universe, but he didn't seem to find the actual pattern, which was Eleanor finding Janet and her being taken to Chidi that way. I mean, if I had been Michael, I would have realized the problem was Eleanor and taken her out of the equation. I get that would defeat his whole experiment, but if he went through over 800 attempts and Eleanor figured it out pretty much every single time, maybe take away that component and see what happens. 

I'd be annoyed if I was one of the 318 demons too. Being stuck, watching Michael fail time and time again, and not really getting anything out of it? They were bound to snap sooner or later, especially since they are demons and have their own needs to fulfil. 

Michael teaming up with the four is not that surprising, but I think I would have preferred seeing them at odds for a lot longer. I'm not sure whether Michael's inherently evil, though, since his psychological torture is mediocre, at best, or whether this is going to lead to him being more of a good guy with morally grey values and we'll see the even worse Big Bad later on. I mean, Michael's whole idea centers around the humans torturing each other, but since this is a comedy, it's not extreme enough as it could be. His attempts have also raised a lot of suspicion whenever he tries to make them too miserable. 

I mean, again, if I was Michael, I'd incorporate the memory wipes as a feature as well. But, as a twist, have pieces of those previous mind wipes be inflicted as part of their new life, as that would drive them crazy, remembering something that didn't even happen to them this time around, and just do that over and over. I think I'm more devious than Michael, though, since he has the right idea, but is awful at the execution, or doesn't seem to want to actually hurt the humans too badly. 

As for Eleanor/Chidi, I kind of expected them to go there sooner or later, but I'm unsure if I like them as a romantic couple. I love them as platonic friends, and I really liked the fact that they were friends and not soulmates. Now, they turned that around completely and I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. 

[ByTor]

On 10/3/2017 at 10:44 AM, CherithCutestory said:

I think the issue was as Eleanor said. Did she get credit for the good work?

Trevor, from Mindy's "welcome" video..."Yeah, so, Mindy, look. You mostly sucked, but then you did this one good thing. I mean, I still think we should get you..."  Mindy also said that she knew her case was pending & that both sides were fighting about her for a long time & a compromise was reached.  I assume the fact that there was a compromise meant that she got points for getting that charity started.
 

On 9/29/2017 at 9:23 AM, clack said:

The Good Place isn't actually the Bad Place. At worst, it's the O.K. Place. I would actually prefer it to Mindy's Purgatory.

So would I.

On 9/29/2017 at 0:07 PM, DrScottie said:

Also, for demons like Chris, he had no idea how to deal with Eleanor trying to confess to him.

Michael told him he was supposed to get away from Eleanor if she tried to confess, he only got yelled at by Michael because he used the same "I'm going to the gym!" excuse each time.  How to make good excuses to get away was the thing he couldn't deal with...along with being moved out of the twisting department!

Edited October 5, 2017 by ByTor

[arc]

On 10/2/2017 at 2:32 PM, secnarf said:

Resources doesn't necessarily mean money. The demons are resources, and presumably there is a limited (or at least, finite) number of them. If they were not in Michael's fake good place, I wonder what they would be doing.

Quote

 

What kind of resources does the Bad Place have that Michael could put this much effort and people and material into punking four random humans out of the millions and millions who die every day? Is there an authority above Shawn who could put a stop to this?

It’s not a question of “resources” — there isn’t like an “economy,” in the Bad Place. It’s more a question of protocol and procedure. What Michael did is sort of like suggesting a new way to organize the Army — it’s unorthodox, and the Bad Place is not super into change. 

 

- Mike Schur in an interview conducted after the end of the first season.

[SeanC]

On 9/29/2017 at 10:23 AM, clack said:

Love this show. That said, I have a nitpick.

Michael's plan makes no sense. He has to situate 4 young, attractive people in a setting that could plausibly pass as heaven, and then subject them to mildly stressful situations and relationships. Make the relationships too stressful, and they will figure out that they are in the Bad Place.

And this is supposed to be an improvement in torture over subjecting them to unending screaming agony?

The Good Place isn't actually the Bad Place. At worst, it's the O.K. Place. I would actually prefer it to Mindy's Purgatory. At least you have variety of experience, and the possibility of friendship and even love.

He's basically trying to replicate what Sartre was going for in No Exit, i.e., "Hell is other people."  Actually, I've wondered why moral philosopher Chidi has never brought up Sartre in relation to Michael's plans, because the connection is pretty obvious.

[Chaos Theory]

On 10/4/2017 at 8:00 AM, Mabinogia said:

No wonder the demons are pissed. All those glorious options and Michael wants to use fro-yo and couples therapy? I'd be dissatisfied too. It's like being hired as the fry cook at McDs and then being told your job is to sweep the floors. To never, ever touch the fry machine, just sweep the floors, and occasionally empty the trash.

This would actually be a great vacation spot for demons.  I was thinking about that.  Stop actually torturing humans and then spend a couple weeks in Michaels little town and just be a little passive agressive with them and drive them nuts.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[biakbiak]

Watching this today I am pretty sure Vickie is Omarosa and between this and the Cubs win I think that Mike Schur is a prophet.

Edited August 19, 2018 by biakbiak

[John Potts]

So I guess Janet really does get memory wiped (and doesn't want to) when you press the big red button. Does that mean she has to go through the whole reboot process we saw before? I guess that means she really can't lie.

When they showed up in the Neutral (Medium?) Place, I thought, "They're lucky she's not naked and/or masturbating", but it makes sense if they keep showing up (shame they never remember to bring cocaine, though). I guess she waits until they're gone? Although she did state that they had walked in on her a couple of times, so maybe she just doesn't care (especially as they won't remember). 

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 3:02 AM, mammaM said:

Michael saying, "Jason figured it out!?!?!, My stomach hurts". The best. This show makes me so forking happy

I would have LOVED to see how that happened! Particularly given how he seemed to think he was in the Good Place even after he'd been told he was in The Bad Place. Or he's just the sort who always see the best in any situation.

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 3:21 AM, Dots And Stripes said:

I didn't think the demons would tolerate more reboots.

I don't understand how Michael has kept it going so far. Surely somebody would have ratted on him by now. Maybe it really is Michael's torture? Or maybe it's deeper than even that and that it's hell for everyone, demons included. If we're going with Christian Theology, they did rebel against Heaven, after all.

Though I don't quite understand why Michael doesn't just let his underlings have their head and go nuts with the biting and the red hot pokers (obviously, we wouldn't see that particular iteration). You know, just as a fun break for the demons!

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 5:21 PM, Danny Franks said:

So [Michael's] rationale of making things more interesting for the demons would actually be a good pretext for a true desire to help humans. I'm not saying that's what he's doing, but it could work if the writers chose.

You're saying Michael is Crowley?

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 6:44 AM, Traveller519 said:

A "Busty Alexa" sounds like a sexual maneuver.

It probably is (experience has taught me there are some things I'm happier not knowing)!

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 2:43 PM, Fukui San said:

J. Crew. The official clothier for fake heaven.

"Heavenly clothing at hellishly good prices!"

On ‎9‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 3:00 AM, Anisky said:

Hell. I don't care how apathetic she is or how much she likes cocaine, her good will is incredibly valuable to them. So yeah, send that woman a boatload of cocaine, STAT!

Or send her some of the free porn they get in The (Not) Good Place!
 

[ByTor]

On 6/14/2019 at 7:50 AM, John Potts said:

On 9/29/2017 at 9:43 AM, Fukui San said:

J. Crew. The official clothier for fake heaven.

"Heavenly clothing at hellishly good prices!"

LOL!

[aradia22]

Quote

On the other hand, I'm simply not buying Eleanor/Chidi. As friends, they're great, but the sexual tension is non-existent, as far as I can see. The idea of them as a couple is interesting, but I don't think it works. Mindy's right, them saying "I love you" was like anti-porn. Just felt so flat, which I don't think it was supposed to.

Oh good, I thought it was just me. I love a good ship but I'm happy for this to be one show without a tiresome OTP. Just let them be friends. There's enough going on without adding romantic entanglements. Though if they ever escape Michael's world I support Tahani and Chidi finding love with characters we haven't met yet since they're the two who seem to want it the most.