S02.E12: The Burrito

[Amarsir]

22 minutes ago, possibilities said:

His flaw is impulsiveness, according to the Judge. He didn't let her finish telling him what the rules of the task were, and that's why he failed.

They did explore how he turned out the way he did. His childhood was apparently as bad as Eleanor's, and possibly worse. I can't remember which episode it was, but I do remember the story was brutal.

You can be intellectually dim but still thoughtful and kind. Jason in life was thoughtless and destructive, hurting others, even if his motive was not TO hurt others, he didn't care about them enough to notice or care about or refrain from destructive actions. All he was able to focus on was his own  immediate gratification. If he hadn't been so dimwitted, he would have been WAY more dangerous, but even so he did damage, and fails both the intention and the impact standards.

And now that the impulsiveness has been pointed out, it's easy to see how consistent they've been with his character. Jason frequently calls "dibs" on something (like Optimus Prime's right nipple) before it's established what they're even talking about. Yeah it's played for a joke, but that also establishes he does whatever he feels like without regard to anything else - including facts, the feelings of others, etc. Now that its established I look forward to seeing character growth from him.

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, Amarsir said:

Yeah it's played for a joke, but that also establishes he does whatever he feels like without regard to anything else

That's what makes this show so great. It plays to the joke but the joke fits perfectly into the characters. Jason is freaking hilarious, but he is also so completely...Jason. And there is some sadness behind it, the horrible childhood, the bad decisions that lead to his death (but only one of his choices led to death so, trust him). It's all so well thought out. 

[Erin]

5 hours ago, Kromm said:

Jason's test is the only one I question. Is being too dumb to even question the structure of the test a signpost of his actual moral failing? 

Jen says to him, "If you play the game and you lose..." and he interrupts her (for the second time) and says, "Say no more!" Later, she says his mistake was never asking if he could opt not to play, and she points out how crazy it was to interrupt her instead of hearing her out.

I'm assuming the instruction was going to be, "If you play the game and you lose, you and your friends will go to the bad place," and if he had more self-insight and self-control he should have said, "Wait. This is my favorite game, but if I have to play against the Jaguars, there's a real chance I might not win. I don't want to put my friends at risk. What if I don't play?"

I'm undecided whether I think that was unfairly testing his intelligence as well as his selfish impulsivity. On the one hand, Eleanor probably would have figured out the catch just because she's smarter. On the other hand, we don't know if Jen would have dropped more hints for him if he'd let her finish.

And I agree that the point of the show is that this is not a just way to judge people eternally, because people can grow and change. Jason has improved, just not enough. But if he could improve given more time, it's not right to torture him forever instead of giving him the chance to keep learning. I don't think we were ever supposed to think the current system is right.

[Lugal]

Jason's test was interesting.  It was to see if he could actually think things through.  He reacts on the spur of the moment without really knowing what is going on (like Eleanor said, he gets about 20% of what's happening) like throwing a molotov cocktail at his problem to get a whole new problem.  I think we all know someone who reacts to things without thinking it through and then they wonder why their life is crap, and they may not be as sweetly dumb as Jason.

I like the contrast between Jason and Chidi since they are pretty much opposites.  Jason reacts without thinking of consequences while Chidi agonizes over every potential consequence of nearly everything he does.  It's funny as a thought experiment to think of reversing Jason and Chidi's tests.  If Jason had to pick a hat, he would have done it in under a minutes, while Chidi would have asked if it was possible to opt out of playing Madden Football (among all the other possibilities).  Remember when he tried to pick a soccer team at recess?

Eleanor and Tahani are much more alike: they are both selfish and overcompensating for an inferiority complex.  Eleanor hides hers behind nihilism and Tahani behind narcissism.  I think Eleanor has progressed much quicker is because she has seen that her nihilism is completely wrong, while Tahani has not been able to shed her narcissism, which is why she had to know what her parents said about her.

[JessDVD]

I'm terrible at speculation but my guess is that Jen's direction to Jason was going to be something other than "If you play the game and lose, you and your friends go to the Bad Place", which is what Jason assumed she was going to say when he cut her off. I don't know what exactly she might have said (again, terrible at speculation), but the way she sort of smirked a bit after he put his hand up, and then later commented on how he didn't even let her finish the directions, I'm thinking she was going to say something else.

I'm also thinking there's something up with Tahani's directions/results because I've rewatched it twice and Jen never says to not open any other doors. I know it's implied, but she doesn't say it and I think that there's potentially some discussion there.

Is it Thursday yet?

[calliope1975]

I can't see any amount of ethics lessons or growth that would have Jason asking if he didn't have to play the game. I doubt I would have reached that conclusion, and I'm typically aware of more than 20% of what's going on.

[Chaos Theory]

13 hours ago, Lugal said:

 

Eleanor and Tahani are much more alike: they are both selfish and overcompensating for an inferiority complex.  Eleanor hides hers behind nihilism and Tahani behind narcissism.  I think Eleanor has progressed much quicker is because she has seen that her nihilism is completely wrong, while Tahani has not been able to shed her narcissism, which is why she had to know what her parents said about her.

Here is where we disagree.  Is it really Narcism to want to know what your parents think of you?  Who doesn’t?  I know I wouldn’t have been able to resist.  Does that make me a narcissist?  I am not sure Eleanor would have been able to resist it either.  It’s especially true of children with horrible parents like Tahani and Eleanor.  Are their parents just terrible people that actually do love them (which I suspect  is true for Eleanor) or are they just all around assholes who would never see you as anything other then a failure (like Tahani).  Yes Tahani is a bit of a Narcissist but the irony is that by confronting her parents the way she did she did improve.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[Mabinogia]

30 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Yes Tahani is a bit of a Narcissist but the irony is that by confronting her parents the way she did she did improve.

That's what is so interesting about it, and why, though she technically failed that particular test, I think she really won because she finally understood that she is never, ever going to win those asholes over and she will be a better person if she just stops trying to please them. The test wasn't really about growth because tahani grew the most in that moment. It was more about following orders which, she didn't follow the unsaid order to not open other doors.

And yes, I would not be able to pass that door myself. We all crave our parents approval, even when those parents are total asholes. It's human nature.

I still think it's hilarious that Chidi's epic challenge was to choose a hat. BWAHAHAHAAA He really does make it so very easy for them to torture him.

[CherithCutestory]

1 hour ago, Chaos Theory said:

Here is where we disagree.  Is it really Narcism to want to know what your parents think of you?  Who doesn’t?  I know I wouldn’t have been able to resist.  Does that make me a narcissist?  I am not sure Eleanor would have been able to resist it either.  It’s especially true of children with horrible parents like Tahani and Eleanor.  Are their parents just terrible people that actually do love them (which I expect is true for Eleanor) or are they just all around assholes who would never see you as anything other then a failure (like Tahani).  Yes Tahani is a bit of a Narcissist but the irony is that by confronting her parents the way she did she did improve.

I agree but I  think the whole thing was playing with audience expectations. By any adult standard Tahani showed great improvement. But the afterlife isn't run by human adults.

The afterlife plays by child playground rules. Tag you're out. If your foot is over the line in dodgeball you're out. You go out of bounds you're out. The reason why that technicality happened is irrelevant. You still lose the game.

Quote

I'm undecided whether I think that was unfairly testing his intelligence as well as his selfish impulsivity. On the one hand, Eleanor probably would have figured out the catch just because she's smarter. On the other hand, we don't know if Jen would have dropped more hints for him if he'd let her finish.

Yes, honestly, I think Jason failing was totally and completely fair. He eventually did come around but he is still so impulsive that he cut the freaking judge off. And his being impulsive isn't just a bad trait. It lead him to commit arson multiple times, try to rob restaurants, be an EDM DJ. Really horrible things. I don't think he has improved all that much. Now, I also don't think people like any of the four should be in hell. But Jason and Eleanor both did genuinely bad stuff on Earth. Eleanor has improved immensely to the point that she's willing to sacrifice herself for her friends. Jason has not. (And remember in Season 1 when they found out Tahani and Chidi would go to the Bad Place instead Jason was psyched to be off the hook and Eleanor wanted to return immediately.)

And I don't think she was unfairly testing his intelligence because she seemed prepared to explain the whole thing to him like he was a small child. Her instructions to the others were more broad. When she returned and Jason finally "figured it out" she responded that no she had actually explained that to him at great length it wasn't a trick. So, it seems that even after we stopped seeing them she tried to explain the rules t him.

Honestly the only test that had a real gotcha! trick was Eleanor's. Which makes sense because she's the most clever so you have to devise something she wouldn't just immediately see through (not necessarily smartest but definitely the most clever.) The rest were fairly straightforward.

Edited January 29, 2018 by CherithCutestory

[Chaos Theory]

15 minutes ago, CherithCutestory said:

I agree but I  think the whole thing was playing with audience expectations. By any adult standard Tahani showed great improvement. But the afterlife isn't run by human adults.

The afterlife plays by child playground rules. Tag you're out. If your foot is over the line in dodgeball you're out. You go out of bounds you're out. The reason why that technicality happened is irrelevant. You still lose the game.

 

I like this explanation.  

 

16 minutes ago, CherithCutestory said:

 

Yes, honestly, I think Jason failing was totally and completely fair. He eventually did come around but he is still so impulsive that he cut the freaking judge off. And his being impulsive isn't just a bad trait. It lead him to commit arson multiple times, try to rob restaurants, be an EDM DJ. Really horrible things.

And I don't think she was unfairly testing his intelligence because she seemed prepared to explain the whole thing to him like he was a small child. Her instructions to the others were more broad.

 

I think the only person who truly failed was in fact Jason.   Both Tahani and Chidi failed on technicallities.  Jason just didn’t listen to the rules and his impulsiveness and his throw a Molotov cocktail at a problem is what ended up failing him.  

[Lugal]

2 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

Here is where we disagree.  Is it really Narcism to want to know what your parents think of you?  Who doesn’t?  I know I wouldn’t have been able to resist.  Does that make me a narcissist?  I am not sure Eleanor would have been able to resist it either.  It’s especially true of children with horrible parents like Tahani and Eleanor.  Are their parents just terrible people that actually do love them (which I suspect  is true for Eleanor) or are they just all around assholes who would never see you as anything other then a failure (like Tahani).  Yes Tahani is a bit of a Narcissist but the irony is that by confronting her parents the way she did she did improve.

But Tahani already knows what her parents think of her.  She's known her whole life, from when they dismissed her bird drawing to when they misspelled her name in their will.  And that's why she seeks the adoration of everyone else.  The test was about her narcissism, not her inferiority complex.  By seeing her parents, she failed the narcissism test even though it helped her transcend her feelings of inferiority.

[Mabinogia]

53 minutes ago, Lugal said:

But Tahani already knows what her parents think of her.  She's known her whole life, from when they dismissed her bird drawing to when they misspelled her name in their will.

I see it differently. I think Tahani thought that her parents would love her if she were as good as Camilla when the truth is, she could have saved the universe and they still would have preferred Camilla. She always thought there was hope. She now knows she never stood a chance. So she can stop trying so hard to please them.

I do think the test was more about her narcissism but I think her going through that particular door was more about her hope that her parents really did love her. Now that she can let go of that hope she can move on with her (after)life. That was a HUGE step for her. I feel like she will be the next one to fully change now. Eleanor has, I think Tahani is next. Then it's a toss up on Chidi and Jason. Once all four of them are ready they can move on, as a unit

[Bruinsfan]

3 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

Here is where we disagree.  Is it really Narcism to want to know what your parents think of you?  Who doesn’t?  I know I wouldn’t have been able to resist.

 

I think I could have if I'd known there was a reason NOT to open the door, but I'm an only child with supportive, loving parents. I'd only be overcoming my urge to enjoy their company, not fighting against insecurities or doubts about what they might be saying about me in my absence. I think that test was immensely unfair for anyone who had a problematic relationship with their parents—those insecurities would be hard baked into them from childhood, and difficult to even recognize as a flaw let alone overcome. Not caring what others think of you is easy enough to manage when the people in question are incidental acquaintances, but parents tend to be the dominant force in people's lives at least until they have years and years of a stable romantic relationship under their belts. Even people who reject and cut ties with abusive parents largely have their personhood shaped by those parents, by opposition if nothing else.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Bruinsfan

[mammaM]

On 1/27/2018 at 8:51 AM, Chris24601 said:

 

Initially my soul wanted to weep, but then I remembered this is the English language we're talking about... the language that doesn't just borrow a few words from other languages, it drags other languages into dark alleys, beats them senseless and steals their internal organs.

God, I love you! I love this sentence and I love this show.

That is all

[Lugal]

38 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I see it differently. I think Tahani thought that her parents would love her if she were as good as Camilla when the truth is, she could have saved the universe and they still would have preferred Camilla. She always thought there was hope. She now knows she never stood a chance. So she can stop trying so hard to please them.

I could see it that way, that Tahani had hope for the future, but I think deep down, she always knew that she was not good enough, which was why she sought out all her famous friends and the adoration of the world.

[Sakura12]

The test was supposed to be how much they changed from the person they were on Earth, the rules of the test didn't really matter, how they react to the scenario is what mattered.

Eleanor changed a lot from the person she was before. She did nothing her old self would've done. While Tahani and Chidi did what their old selves would've done, need to hear what her parents thought of her and being unable to make a decision.  They showed change after doing the same thing their old selves would've done, but it was too late since they already failed. 

If Tahani just passed the door with her parents knowing she didn't need their approval anymore she would've passed. Same if Chidi picked a hat quickly without thinking about for 80 minutes. The system is definitely flawed, but we have to remember it's not based on human definitions of change , these are omnipresent beings that have been around forever. Seeing a human do the exact same thing they would've done on Earth is a failure to them. What happened afterwards doesn't matter. They needed to see a complete turnaround right away.  

Their system doesn't seem fair and their should be more people in the middle place, where you are not perfectly good, but not bad enough to deserve eternal torture. That's where our characters belong. Mindy still suffers a little bit of torture by not having her coke or having anyone else to talk too most of the time. 

Edited January 29, 2018 by Sakura12

[arc]

18 hours ago, Erin said:

And I agree that the point of the show is that this is not a just way to judge people eternally, because people can grow and change. Jason has improved, just not enough. But if he could improve given more time, it's not right to torture him forever instead of giving him the chance to keep learning. I don't think we were ever supposed to think the current system is right.

It's fascinating that this universe posits an eternal afterlife earned one way or the other for what one did with just one human lifetime.

Edit: well, I guess many real religions that don't preach reincarnation but do preach an afterlife do that.

Edited January 29, 2018 by arc

[Erin]

57 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

The test was supposed to be how much they changed from the person they were on Earth, the rules of the test didn't really matter, how they react to the scenario is what mattered.

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

[DrSpaceman73]

I wasn't really clear on how Jason failed his challenge or the outcome of it.  Didn't he win the game? 

Seemed like a trick.  He was supposed to figure out that the best choice was not to play at all?   But even so, he played the game and he won, he didn't lose the game, from what I understood, even though it was against his Jaguars. 

I can easily see why Tahani and Chidi failed.  Straightforward.   Walk done the hall and don't listen.  Pick a hat, ANY of TWO hats. 

Even Eleanor's I don't think was a "trick".  She as offered a simple choice.  ditch your friends or stay with them.  It didn't really matter if she figured out that was CHidi or not, though she did and that helped.  She stayed with her friends. 

Eleanor, Tahani and Chidi had binary options.  Win/lose based on a choice

Jason had to figure out there was a 3rd option not to play at all. 

 

However beyond that, it struck me that Tahani's parents most certainly end up in the bad place for how they acted.  They caused her to be like she is, only caring about impressing others, but continuously favoring one daughter and ignoring the other, forcing a game of "win my love" between them.  Just awful parents. 

And I wonder if they take that into account, environment, when considering a person's actions and how it affects them.  With different parents Tahani may have turned out every different.

ANd Tahani's sister, is she in the bad place too for how she affected her sister?

[secnarf]

1 hour ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I wasn't really clear on how Jason failed his challenge or the outcome of it.  Didn't he win the game? 

Seemed like a trick.  He was supposed to figure out that the best choice was not to play at all?   But even so, he played the game and he won, he didn't lose the game, from what I understood, even though it was against his Jaguars.

I think he did lose the game.

[CherithCutestory]

I thought when she came back Jason was taking a break to meditate before continuing the game? And that he hadn't won or lost, yet? He was struggling to play against the best team in football with the best quarterback in history.

Then it occurs to him that the trick is he could opt not to play. But she says that was an always an option and had explained that at the start.

Edited January 29, 2018 by CherithCutestory

[Kromm]

4 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

I think I could have if I'd known there was a reason NOT to open the door, but I'm an only child with supportive, loving parents. I'd only be overcoming my urge to enjoy their company, not fighting against insecurities or doubts about what they might be saying about me in my absence. I think that test was immensely unfair for anyone who had a problematic relationship with their parents—those insecurities would be hard baked into them from childhood, and difficult to even recognize as a flaw let alone overcome. Not caring what others think of you is easy enough to manage when the people in question are incidental acquaintances, but parents tend to be the dominant force in people's lives at least until they have years and years of a stable romantic relationship under their belts. Even people who reject and cut ties with abusive parents largely have their personhood shaped by those parents, by opposition if nothing else.

 

I kind of split down the middle here. I think confronting her parents once in front of them was no sin, and no failure of the test. But opening the door in the first place was. The failure was risking the fate of her fellow damned souls based on an impulse.

It's actually really similar to Jason's failure if you think about it. Jason's impulse was to go ahead and charge into his test without even listening. Tahani's impulse was to open that door knowing full well that it likely caused a failure, not only for herself but for the others. And if you think about it, even though on the face of it Chidi's test was the opposite, him not being impulsive but the very opposite, I think the root cause is similar. Chidi on some level ALWAYS knows that his indecisiveness hurts people and causes harm. Here he overtly knew so. He self-deluded himself that the test was about finding the proper hat, while internally likely knowing how ludicrous that is. His NOT deciding was in an odd way a result of an impulse, even if a subconscious one. Chidi always chooses when he doesn't chose, except his choice is to linger in a state where he doesn't have to face consequences.  Jason doesn't even consider consequences at all. And Tahani?  She shoves them aside, even knowing they exist, because she can't let go of being a hurt child and so takes the childish route of ignoring consequences.  Eleanor did this too in her former life, but has stopped doing so, which is why she's now "good" according to this admittedly unrealistic system.  Being unselfish is indeed good, but being selfish isn't always evil. It's just being human, and the real moral issues are a lot more complicated.

1 hour ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

ANd Tahani's sister, is she in the bad place too for how she affected her sister?

We've only seen the sister through Tahani's subjective lens through flashbacks. I wouldn't at all be surprised if even the actual words we've heard her say might not actually be accurate, or at least tonally how she speaks.  Not that this show has fully approached the idea of subjective reality and unreliable narrators (they've dabbled with it a few times with both Jason and Eleanor I believe), but a bigger character trait hanging on her being an unreliable narrator is not a big leap from the themes we've already seen on this show to consider the possibility. 

Edited January 29, 2018 by Kromm

[Jamoche]

5 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Even people who reject and cut ties with abusive parents largely have their personhood shaped by those parents, by opposition if nothing else.

If I saw a door with my father's name on it, I'd flip it the bird and keep going. I'd figured him out by my teenage years.

My brother, OTOH, would've opened it for the same reason Tahani did - he can't really be that bad, right? Wrong.

[Anela]

6 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

I think I could have if I'd known there was a reason NOT to open the door, but I'm an only child with supportive, loving parents. I'd only be overcoming my urge to enjoy their company, not fighting against insecurities or doubts about what they might be saying about me in my absence. I think that test was immensely unfair for anyone who had a problematic relationship with their parents—those insecurities would be hard baked into them from childhood, and difficult to even recognize as a flaw let alone overcome. Not caring what others think of you is easy enough to manage when the people in question are incidental acquaintances, but parents tend to be the dominant force in people's lives at least until they have years and years of a stable romantic relationship under their belts. Even people who reject and cut ties with abusive parents largely have their personhood shaped by those parents, by opposition if nothing else.

Same here. I would just want to see my parents again - but my relationship with my mother went bad, a few years before we lost her, and we were in the process of fixing it, I guess, when she died. My dad, I still have (hopefully for a long time), but we went through a bad spell recently. So I'd be opening that door for both reasons. 

With others, I've had that realization hit me: that you can't do anything right, so stop worrying about it. When it's an immediate family member, though, it's more difficult. 

[Bruinsfan]

4 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

ANd Tahani's sister, is she in the bad place too for how she affected her sister?

I want a fourth season reveal of the characters confronting the head honcho in charge of The Bad Place and a high backed chair spinning around to reveal Kamilah.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Bruinsfan

[possibilities]

Maybe in Season 4 they will introduce the people Our Four have history with, as newcomers to the afterlife. Our Four by then will be tasked with designing tasks to cause them to grow, as Michael accidentally did in his original experiment.

[DrSpaceman73]

I guess Tahini's relatives are likely still living, so not in the good or bad place right now

But would be a nice topic for future episodes when one of them dies. 

4 hours ago, Kromm said:

I kind of split down the middle here. I think confronting her parents once in front of them was no sin, and no failure of the test. But opening the door in the first place was. The failure was risking the fate of her fellow damned souls based on an impulse.

It's actually really similar to Jason's failure if you think about it. Jason's impulse was to go ahead and charge into his test without even listening. Tahani's impulse was to open that door knowing full well that it likely caused a failure, not only for herself but for the others. And if you think about it, even though on the face of it Chidi's test was the opposite, him not being impulsive but the very opposite, I think the root cause is similar. Chidi on some level ALWAYS knows that his indecisiveness hurts people and causes harm. Here he overtly knew so. He self-deluded himself that the test was about finding the proper hat, while internally likely knowing how ludicrous that is. His NOT deciding was in an odd way a result of an impulse, even if a subconscious one. Chidi always chooses when he doesn't chose, except his choice is to linger in a state where he doesn't have to face consequences.  Jason doesn't even consider consequences at all. And Tahani?  She shoves them aside, even knowing they exist, because she can't let go of being a hurt child and so takes the childish route of ignoring consequences.  Eleanor did this too in her former life, but has stopped doing so, which is why she's now "good" according to this admittedly unrealistic system.  Being unselfish is indeed good, but being selfish isn't always evil. It's just being human, and the real moral issues are a lot more complicated.

We've only seen the sister through Tahani's subjective lens through flashbacks. I wouldn't at all be surprised if even the actual words we've heard her say might not actually be accurate, or at least tonally how she speaks.  Not that this show has fully approached the idea of subjective reality and unreliable narrators (they've dabbled with it a few times with both Jason and Eleanor I believe), but a bigger character trait hanging on her being an unreliable narrator is not a big leap from the themes we've already seen on this show to consider the possibility. 

 

Based on how we saw Tahani's parents act in this past episode, assuming that really is their true and accurate feelings of her and were not done just as part of the test, it seems Tahani's perception of her other family members is pretty accurate and not clouded in any way.  She was told by her parents pretty much what she expected in the situation, which as mentioned is its HER afterlife and they are STILL talking about her sister. 

Maybe with her sister its different, but it seems Tahani's perception of her parents was pretty accurate and not biased by her own view. 

[secnarf]

31 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I guess Tahini's relatives are likely still living, so not in the good or bad place right now

But would be a nice topic for future episodes when one of them dies.

Well, we don't really know how much time has passed on Earth during the 800+ reboots and everything. It's not unreasonable to assume they are long dead.

[Milburn Stone]

On 1/26/2018 at 2:07 PM, Rinaldo said:

I laughed at the idea of that torture, knowing that I have a stack of about a dozen New Yorkers next to my TV chair, that'll increase by a few more before I can allot the time to get to them. (And that's after I finally bit the bullet and went through 30 last week, so I could get them into Recycling.) Highly relatable for me.

The gag had a beneficial therapeutic effect for me, because it made me feel less guilty.

[DrScottie]

8 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

ANd Tahani's sister, is she in the bad place too for how she affected her sister?

Kamilah might still be alive. Remember, they are still waiting for Joe Francis from Girls Gone Wild. Time may have passed differently in the neighborhood vs the rest of the afterlife.

[Bruinsfan]

I suppose it's possible that the only intersection of objective time in the world of the living and subjective time in the afterlife is the moment of a person's arrival in the latter. Maybe the afterlife is eternal and once you're there the progression of subjective time has no relation to what happens back on earth.

[MDKNIGHT]

Kamila might be alive but we know the parents are dead because we saw the reading of the will where they left some stuff to Tahini because they were such self absorbed snobs that they misspelled their own daughter's name.  

 I too look forward to what next.  I can tell you who dunnit in an Agatha Christie movie in the first 5 min but this show is really good at doing the unexpected.

[CurlyATX]

On 1/27/2018 at 6:12 PM, April Bloodgate said:

But if you're able ask for forgiveness on your death bed, you're all good. Feels like a cop out to me, but I'm no longer a Christian, so... (Of course, the church isn't encouraging you to sin and just go ask for forgiveness, and there's a lot of guilt, but you are supposed to be free and clear as soon as you ask.)

My parents are Hindu and I went to Catholic school for years and one of my biggest frustrations was this notion that you heaven was only for those who believed in Jesus.  So millions of people who grew up in non Christian faiths are just screwed.  You have classic arguments like "what about Gandhi"?  I guess I'm still grappling with a concept that being in heaven needs to be "fair".  

I do want to chime in late to the party that I didn't agree with Jason's test.  He is selfish but I almost think he has the intellect of a young child.  Didn't they say his IQ is that of a seven or eight year old?  I have a child that age and he often makes very selfish decisions or doesn't ask follow up questions.  The test to play the Madden game seemed very straight forward and I could imagine my son assuming that NOT playing is not an option.  

[rab01]

On 1/29/2018 at 10:10 AM, CherithCutestory said:

... Honestly the only test that had a real gotcha! trick was Eleanor's. Which makes sense because she's the most clever so you have to devise something she wouldn't just immediately see through (not necessarily smartest but definitely the most clever.) The rest were fairly straightforward.

This brings up an interesting point -- if Eleanor had rejected the offer just because she realized it was a test, she wouldn't have passed either.  She's always been clever at seeing through the twists.  She passed because she (1) instantly thought that she shouldn't leave behind her friends and (2) considered someone else's opinions and feelings (fake Chidi) in making the decision.  

I don't think there is any reason why the Judge should give any of them straightforward tests.  I don't honestly think that would have adequately tested them so it's "fair" to hide the real goal and the standard against which they are being measured.

I agree with Curly and others that Jason's test doesn't make a lot of sense -- are they really testing whether or not he's a dumbass?  

On the question of whether Tahani is a reliable narrator, I can believe that Tahani wasn't famous enough for Eleanor to have heard of her in the living world but Eleanor should know all about her sister if she really swept the grammy awards, right?  If so, either (1) Camilla is not quite so successful in reality, (2) the show just decided that it wouldn't be all that funny for the Eleanor to make jokes about Camilla, or  ...  ?

[Big Mother]

Looooved the episode! Love this show!

I have so many thoughts... and questions...

 

1) Tahani should've ideally walked straight down the hallway and through the red door without even looking at the doors. Heaven beckons!! Screw everything else!!

2) I don't understand how Eleanor realized it's a fake Chidi. I wouldn't have guessed.

3) How was Janet able to manhandle Shawn like that??? I thought he's an allpowerful invincible being.

4) How did the real bad Janet, i.e. the one who was in the conference room before, not materialize the entire time? They were very lucky she didnt show up to unmask good janet.

5) With regards to heaven and hell being absolutes, in Judaism it's believed that even when the wicked go to Hell, they come out after a year. There's almost no such thing as eternal damnation, unless the person was truly truly wicked and never repented. But there's no such thing as being in Hell forever - everyone has a chance for salvation.

[CherithCutestory]

18 minutes ago, Big Mother said:

4) How did the real bad Janet, i.e. the one who was in the conference room before, not materialize the entire time? They were very lucky she didnt show up to unmask good janet.

It was sort of blink and you miss it but the real Bad Janet was turned into a marble. A callback to earlier in the season Good Janet told Michel to do to her when she was malfunctioning. Michael initially thought it was Good Janet that had happened to.

Edited February 1, 2018 by CherithCutestory

[Big Mother]

I saw the marble. but i didnt know the bad janet was in there. it takes quite a bit of work to turn someone into a marble. The bad janet wouldve resisted. If anyone can turn anyone into a marble wouldnt there be rampant murder among the demons?

[wilnil]

17 minutes ago, Big Mother said:

I saw the marble. but i didnt know the bad janet was in there. it takes quite a bit of work to turn someone into a marble. The bad janet wouldve resisted. If anyone can turn anyone into a marble wouldnt there be rampant murder among the demons?

You can only marbleize a Janet. It's a failsafe for getting rid of defective Janets, so presumably even a Bad Janet has to hold still for the procedure (press her nose and insert the point of a paper clip into a little hole behind her ear to do it, I think).

Edited February 1, 2018 by wilnil
Fixed a bad autocorrect

[arc]

Michael did turn one Bad Janet into a marble very easily a few episodes ago. He kind of surprised her with it, but like @wilnil just said, Janets probably shouldn't be designed to resist the process. Also, he didn't have to work hard at surprising her since she was on her phone the whole time.

[Big Mother]

so i cant imagine how good janet waltzed over to bad janet in full view of everyone and marbelized her. and I didnt think janets could marbelize each other. I'm confused.

I hope next episode explains some things. Like, how they got pins to go through the portal  from one minute to the next.

1 minute ago, arc said:

Michael did turn one Bad Janet into a marble very easily a few episodes ago. He kind of surprised her with it, but like @wilnil just said, Janets probably shouldn't be designed to resist the process. Also, he didn't have to work hard at surprising her since she was on her phone the whole time.

okay that makes a little sense., thanks.

[bros402]

1 hour ago, Big Mother said:

so i cant imagine how good janet waltzed over to bad janet in full view of everyone and marbelized her. and I didnt think janets could marbelize each other. I'm confused.

I hope next episode explains some things. Like, how they got pins to go through the portal  from one minute to the next.

okay that makes a little sense., thanks.

Janet's luggage

 

He probably took Shawns

[Erin]

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

[diadochokinesis]

On 1/26/2018 at 11:14 PM, meep.meep said:

Didn't Stephen Sondheim write a whole song about that?

After "aluminum" my word to ask a British person to say is "controversy."

I wouldn't mind the New Yorker torture at all.  Unless someone took out all the cartoons.

The one that drives me nuts is Jaguar.  My Brit and South African friends find it hilarious how we say aluminum. 

On 1/28/2018 at 4:12 AM, April Bloodgate said:

 

I certainly can't speak for all Christian denominations, but the Protestant church I was raised in taught that it doesn't really matter what you do on Earth. As long as you accept Jesus and ask for giveness for whatever sins you may have committed, you're good. (And that's the impression that I get from Catholicism too, as long as you go to confession, you're fine. But I'm not Catholic, so there could be more to it that I don't know.) So it's actually really simple, just as long as you're able to ask for forgiveness before you die. So if you committed a sin since the last time you prayed/went to confession and then die suddenly, you're screwed. But if you're able ask for forgiveness on your death bed, you're all good. Feels like a cop out to me, but I'm no longer a Christian, so... (Of course, the church isn't encouraging you to sin and just go ask for forgiveness, and there's a lot of guilt, but you are supposed to be free and clear as soon as you ask.)

I was raised United Methodist (still am).  So, we are a bit different from most Protestant denominations.  It isn’t enough that you believe that Jesus died for your sins.  You also have to live “right” to get into heaven.  You have to earn your salvation and even once it is earned, you can lose it by being a shmuck.  So, don’t be a shmuck. 

On 1/28/2018 at 6:07 PM, Ailianna said:

I got in so much trouble in Sunday School as a 4 or 5 year old for arguing with my teacher that it didn't seem fair that all the American Indians who never even heard of Jesus have to be in hell for that, even if they were good people.  So, yes, that has always bothered me!

I never thought of that, but you're right.  They did look a lot more comfortable and physically at ease once they were dressed as themselves.  And since we have never seen either dressed that way, it's a tribute to the character development that the costumes looked exactly right for who each was without attention being drawn to the clothes.

See, we were taught that you weren’t punished if you were never given the opportunity to know Jesus.  So, for example, if you grew up in North Korea, you wouldn’t automatically go to hell just because you never accepted Jesus as your savior.  It still went down to how you lived your life—were you a good person?

[Notwisconsin]

9 hours ago, Big Mother said:

1) Tahani should've ideally walked straight down the hallway and through the red door without even looking at the doors. Heaven beckons!! Screw everything else!!

Where's the fun in that? She's supposed to lose, after all.

Quote

2) I don't understand how Eleanor realized it's a fake Chidi. I wouldn't have guessed.

Because he said something that wasn't of a masochistic morality.

Quote

3) How was Janet able to manhandle Shawn like that??? I thought he's an allpowerful invincible being.

This is about personal growth, Good Janet is now the all-powerful invincible being. Shawn is only upper management claiming to be all powerful and invincible in order to keep his subordinates in line.

Quote

4) How did the real bad Janet, i.e. the one who was in the conference room before, not materialize the entire time? They were very lucky she didnt show up to unmask good janet.

Our Janet, being all powerful and invincible, can do anything she wants.

Quote

 

5) With regards to heaven and hell being absolutes, in Judaism it's believed that even when the wicked go to Hell, they come out after a year. There's almost no such thing as eternal damnation, unless the person was truly truly wicked and never repented. But there's no such thing as being in Hell forever - everyone has a chance for salvation.

 

Where did you read that? When the temple stood, it was believed that there was no life after death at all. Although in some Midrashim (holy folklore explaining and expanding upon the Tanach (Bible)), they mention reincarnation. Gehanna (Hell) is based on a Christian concept from late antiquity or the Middle Ages.

I hope this helps.

[cpcathy]

11 hours ago, Big Mother said:

2) I don't understand how Eleanor realized it's a fake Chidi. I wouldn't have guessed.

 

Also, perhaps it was subtle, but he took her hand, which (in retrospect, of course) said to me it wasn't Chidi--he had said he didn't have any romantic feelings for her.

[Big Mother]

1 hour ago, Notwisconsin said:

 

Where did you read that? When the temple stood, it was believed that there was no life after death at all. Although in some Midrashim (holy folklore explaining and expanding upon the Tanach (Bible)), they mention reincarnation. Gehanna (Hell) is based on a Christian concept from late antiquity or the Middle Ages.

I hope this helps.

I have no idea what you're talking about here :D. I'm Orthodox and that is *ALL* we literally learn about - how every single action we do affects  our afterlife, and that we're *ONLY* here on this earth to accumulate good deeds for after our 120 years are up.  This world is only an anteroom for our real life, which is after death...  This world is actually called the "World of Lies" and the afterlife is called "The World of Truth."

[Bruinsfan]

Huh, Orthodox Judaism must be very different in dogma from the Reform version my Jewish relatives follow. I can't recall them ever having mentioned any notion of an afterlife, and was in fact under the impression that the religion doesn't have one.

[Rumsy4]

Quote

The test was supposed to be how much they changed from the person they were on Earth, the rules of the test didn't really matter, how they react to the scenario is what mattered

I absolutely agree. If the judge had told them what they were actually being tested on, it wouldn’t be a test. The test was to see if they had become self-aware enough to figure it out on their own.

Of the four, only Eleanor has truly grown by leaps and bounds. So, she figured it out. Chidi is still mostly rigid and indecisive. Tahani is still quite selfish and snobbish. Has she improved? A lot. But she still continues to say and do selfish things. I don’t see how poor dumb Jason is ever going to become more self-aware. I do think the Show is leading to a reform of the whole afterlife judging system. 

34 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

I can't recall them ever having mentioned any notion of an afterlife, and was in fact under the impression that the religion doesn't have one.

I’m not jewish, but that seems odd. I don’t think there is an ancient religion that doesn’t believe in either an afterlife or in reincarnation. It may be ill-defined, and there might be sects and sub-groups within that don’t believe in god or an afterlife, but that wouldn't be the universal tenet. 

I wonder if the Good Place will introduce the concept of a god, or if the judge is supposed to be the ultimate top executive. At the very least, I hope they get into how this whole system came to be designed and implemented. It would be hilarious if the afterlife was itself an experimental system set up by another higher group of beings. 

[Big Mother]

8 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

Huh, Orthodox Judaism must be very different in dogma from the Reform version my Jewish relatives follow. I can't recall them ever having mentioned any notion of an afterlife, and was in fact under the impression that the religion doesn't have one.

Yes. Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism are not the same thing at all!

In orthodoxy every little thing we do is governed by halacha (jewish law), with the understanding that the more good deeds we attain in this world, the bigger our portion will be in the World to Come.

Anyway, I think I'll rest the conversation at this point :D.  If you google "Do Jews believe in afterlife" it's interesting to see the results; the first result is from Chabad, and the second is from Reform, and the replies are very different !

[Jal]

On 1/26/2018 at 8:33 AM, JessDVD said:

I just about died at Michael's "Ya basic" to Shawn.

The line that made me laugh the most in the last few episodes.