S02.E12: The Burrito

[Isazouzi]

47 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I know it's just a sitcom, but on a fundamental level, it's kind of disturbing what this show is saying about consequences. Tahani has done a lot of wonderful things for charities, and even if she did them for selfish reasons because she's obsessed with having approval, does that mitigate the wonderful things she's done for charities, etc.? So much so that she deserves to go to hell for it? Same for Chidi - his indecisiveness is almost debilitating and drives everyone around him crazy, but does that make him such a bad person he deserves to go to hell for it? It's really a sobering thought.

 

It depends on if you're like Kant and believe intentions are more important than consequences, or if you're a consequentialist and believe the end justifies the means. ;-)

[dabbrusc]

5 hours ago, Linny said:

I was dying over the names on the doors in Tahani's hallway. "Prince William, Prince Harry, and Prince" is an interesting mix, and naturally Tahani cares about the opinion of Blue Ivy Carter and North West. Her reaction to her parents hit just the right tone; it's not so important that she doesn't have their approval because she's accomplished amazing things all on her own, she doesn't need them to validate her.

I enjoyed "Fergie (Princess) & Fergie (Black Eyed Peas)".

[Sakura12]

Tahani failed because she couldn't just let it go, she had to confront her parents. So while that was probably liberating for her, she still cared enough to forgo the one rule she had to get into the Good Place. If she had truly changed she would've just walked to the end of the hall and out the door. Maybe now Tahani will really start to change, since she finally let go of the thing that was holding her back. 

For Chidi it seems just being really annoying to others gets you into the bad place.  And Jason only understands 20% about whats's going on.  Until Chidi makes a decision on the fly, he'll be stuck in the same spot forever and Jason will have to understand at least 45% about what's going on. 

Eleanor passed because she really changed from who she was before, old Eleanor never would not have gotten to know someone so well she would know if they were a fake person, Old Eleanor would've climbed over others to get what she wanted. New Eleanor even spared her friends feelings by saying she failed her test miserably too. 

[ItCouldBeWorse]

9 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

Tahani failed because she couldn't just let it go, she had to confront her parents. So while that was probably liberating for her, she still cared enough to forgo the one rule she had to get into the Good Place. If she had truly changed she would've just walked to the end of the hall and out the door.

She did it while knowing that the whole group would pass or fail together, so it was a very selfish move.

[meep.meep]

5 hours ago, Affogato said:

When is a hat not a hat? 

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.

[BobH]

32 minutes ago, dabbrusc said:

I enjoyed "Fergie (Princess) & Fergie (Black Eyed Peas)".

"Fergies are plenty in the Good Place"

Was there some reference I'm not getting in Tahani's childhood friend's being Simon, Quentin, Rebecca and Catherine?

[mammaM]

Mmmmmm, burrito with envy.

I think our little group has changed enough not to deserve the bad place but not enough for the good place so.....next season at the middle place doing lines with Mindy and Derek!

But I've been wrong every time I tried to guess what happens on this show so who knows

[TheOtherOne]

I didn't watch the aired version, but did Chipotle advertise during the show? If not, that seems like a wasted opportunity.

I've been dying for a burrito since last night now....

[cpcathy]

17 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

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

 

No, he was just finishing a hat.

[Chaos Theory]

The tests themselves were impossibly strict and left little wiggle room.  I think that is the whole essence of this version of the afterlife.  A bunch of otherworldly creatures making rigid judgements on a persons life.   None of the tests were fair. (yes fair is the dumbest word humans came up with.)  Of course Tahani wouldn't be able to resist knowing for sure what her parents really thought of her.  Were they just horrible parents who actually did love her?  At least now she knows for sure that no matter what she did she would alway have been second best in their minds to her sister.  Even in a scenario that should have been all about her, her parents focus was on her sister.  And Tahani took it well.   That is something that SHOULD have been important to a judge but it wasn't because the test was so strict.  The same with Chidi and his choice between two hats.  If that very same test had been given to him during the pilot he would have been stuck not for hours but for days if not an eternity.  So the fact that he made a choice is something that should have been taken into consideration.    And with Jason the fact that he figured things out at all......

 

Maybe that is what the final episode is going to argue.  

Edited January 26, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[bethy]

I love that Tahani's comment when she saw Stephen Hawking and Quvenzhane Wallis in a room (talking about her?!) was, "Huh. They must have made up." The randomness of those two together AND having gotten into some sort of argument that required making up was hilarious to me.

[lucindabelle]

1 hour ago, Isazouzi said:

It depends on if you're like Kant and believe intentions are more important than consequences, or if you're a consequentialist and believe the end justifies the means. ;-)

Or of course you could be Jewish in which thoughts are not actions. Actions are actions. That doesn’t mean the ends justify the means. 

 

Of course we also don’t believe in Hell so it’s pretry moot.

 

br if she were Jewish, Tahani wouldn’t have to atone for doing good for the wrong reasons.

 

vanity etc are things we atone for however.

[thuganomics85]

Maya Rudolph as the Judge didn't cross my mind, but it does fit the bill.  A familiar face and comedian, and no stranger to Mike Schur shows (Brooklyn Nine-Nine.)  I really enjoyed her here.

I predicted most of what was going to happen, but I still enjoyed it, and I actually found it fitting and believable that only Eleanor ended up passing the test.  Out of the four, she really is the character that has had the most growth as a person and has changed for the better (while still maintaining her snark and wiseass moments), and has lost enough of her selfishness to not abandon the team.  And she knows Chidi enough now that she would see through the fake one.  And I loved that she lied about passing to the rest of the team at the end.  Our Eleanor is growing up!

The other three also failed in fitting ways.  Tahani clearly has also grown as a person as well and was the closest to passing, but in the end, she couldn't help but go into the door to hear what her parents really thought about her.  Even though I thing she still showed growth by not letting it get to her, I can see why the Judge still said she failed since she was suppose to go past all of the doors.  Still, it was a good moment for her and well-acted by Jameela Jamil.

As for the guys, Chidi is at least to the point where he can finally pick a hat (ha!), but he still takes way too long for simple decisions, and clearly has ways to go.  And then Jason is... well, Jason.  He's getting there, but he still has about 80% more left to go, clearly!

Had a feeling "Bad Janet" was going to be Janet, but I loved her reveal and taking out Shawn.  Did love Shawn's grand plan was to lock Michael in a barren room, with only copies of the New Yorker to pass the time (partially because it reminded me of Brooklyn Nine-Nine when Jake tried to impress Marc Evan Jackson's Kevin with a story from the New Yorker.)

I now really want to know the history between Stephen Hawking and Quvenzhane Wallis!

Can't believe the season is already almost over.  And with this show, I truly have no idea how it's going to end.

[Charlesman]

2 hours ago, DrScottie said:

 

Yes, but that wasn't the test. It was to see if she could ignore wondering what people felt about her. She failed. To quote Shawn, "You had one job." 

 

To be fair, the judge never said she couldn't open any other doors. She said "Your test is to go through the red door at the end of this hallway." Tahani did that. Technically. The judge did add "Oh, by the way, all the other doors are people talking about you", yes, but she never said "...and you're not allowed to open them."

[Rinaldo]

49 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

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

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.

48 minutes ago, BobH said:

"Fergies are plenty in the Good Place"

I thought the line was something like "There'll be Fergies aplenty in the Good Place."

[tominboston]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I know it's just a sitcom, but on a fundamental level, it's kind of disturbing what this show is saying about consequences.

I've been thinking along the same lines, again keeping in mind that this is just a sitcom. Tahani was raised by horrible parents, and it's amazing that she turned out as well as she did. Chidi suffered from an obvious anxiety disorder that might have responded to psychiatric help. Poor Jason just isn't very bright. None of those three was an evil person on earth. Eleanor actually was, at least at times... she was selfishly nasty and had little regard for others, although as many have mentioned she's the one who has changed the most in the afterlife. Last season Michael said that only some tiny fraction of people went to the Good Place; I forget the number but it was like one percent. With judging standards like these I can see why!

After last season's finale blew up the whole premise of the show I was ready to write it off but watched the season 2 opener anyway and immediately got hooked again. I'm looking forward to whatever weird twist this season ends on.

And can I admit that I was just a little disappointed that the judge was not in fact a sentient burrito?

Edited January 26, 2018 by tominboston

[MoreCoffeePlease]

I'm not quick enough to catch all of the references, so help me out ... didn't the judge say something about Friday Night Lights?  And something about Ken Burns' documentary about Vietnam?

Jason was adorable in his Madden challenge.

[Garden Wafers]

7 minutes ago, MoreCoffeePlease said:

'm not quick enough to catch all of the references, so help me out ... didn't the judge say something about Friday Night Lights?  And something about Ken Burns' documentary about Vietnam?

I don't remember the Ken Burns' reference, but Judge Jen was talking about Kyle Chandler's lead role in both Bloodline and Friday Night Lights. 

[Dots And Stripes]

47 minutes ago, Charlesman said:

 

To be fair, the judge never said she couldn't open any other doors. She said "Your test is to go through the red door at the end of this hallway." Tahani did that. Technically. The judge did add "Oh, by the way, all the other doors are people talking about you", yes, but she never said "...and you're not allowed to open them."

Thanks for catching the wording. The Judge’s instructions seemed off to me. Like I could see instructions that included a deeper meaning or a riddle to be decoded, but it feels like the instructions were impossibly opaque, or in Eleanor’s case, included lies. Knowing this show there is a reason for that.

[OtterMommy]

24 minutes ago, Garden Wafers said:

I don't remember the Ken Burns' reference, but Judge Jen was talking about Kyle Chandler's lead role in both Bloodline and Friday Night Lights. 

The Ken Burns reference was about the Vietnam War series.  She said something along the lines of yeah, she's immortal, but that series takes FOREVER!

[GaT]

Is there a missing episode somewhere? I keep seeing this week's episode referred to as both episode 11 & episode 12, & some places are calling it the penultimate episode. I'm not sure if next week is the finale, or if there's two more episodes.

One of my favorite moments was when Tahani came to the door that had the person from her spa & the person who did her waxing. The way she flinched away really made me laugh.

[Affogato]

1 hour ago, meep.meep said:

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

I wouldn’t mind, either. although enough is topical so it might get old if you didn’t have a society to connect it to i any way. All the movies you’ll never see and the restaurants you’ll never visit. Art museums, concerts.........

I love envy as a burrito sauce. 

I think it is wise to speak respectfully to burritos. 

I have no idea what will happen next week. 

[Mabinogia]

I love that this is a show where I didn't question the fact that the burrito could, in fact, be the judge.

[shantown]

2 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Tahani failed because she couldn't just let it go, she had to confront her parents. So while that was probably liberating for her, she still cared enough to forgo the one rule she had to get into the Good Place. If she had truly changed she would've just walked to the end of the hall and out the door. Maybe now Tahani will really start to change, since she finally let go of the thing that was holding her back. 

All four of them have showed continuous growth during the tests (known or not) they get from various Higher Powers. I hope this means something in the larger scope of the show.

[twoods]

That burrito looked amazing. I'm still thinking about it. 

Jason anguishing having to play as the Titans was absolutely hilarious. "I fumbled the kickoff? Titans suck!" 

Eleanor continues to show such great character growth. I loved how she didn't want the others to know that she passed, and that she's knew Fake Chidi was an imposter. I'm still holding out for the two of them. 

Poor Tahani. Her parents are pretty terrible. I hope they get tortured when they go to the bad place.

Edited January 26, 2018 by twoods

[Rinaldo]

43 minutes ago, GaT said:

Is there a missing episode somewhere? I keep seeing this week's episode referred to as both episode 11 & episode 12, & some places are calling it the penultimate episode. I'm not sure if next week is the finale, or if there's two more episodes.

This was discussed here a few comments back. There's no missing episode. This is the 12th half-hour episode of a 13-episode season, so next week is #13, the season finale. The discrepancy arises from Episodes 1 and 2 having been shown together, as a one-hour season premiere. So some sites counted that as episode 1, the following week as episode 2, etc., which leaves them one number short. Ignore them, and trust the site where we are, PTV, which has it right as usual (see the title of this topic).

Edited January 26, 2018 by Rinaldo

[DrScottie]

2 minutes ago, twoods said:

Poor Tahani. Her parents are pretty terrible. I hope they get tortured when they go to the bad place.

Their torture should be watching their precious Kamilah being tortured as she would be there too.  

5 minutes ago, twoods said:

Eleanor continues to show such great character growth. I loved how she didn't want the others to know that she passed, and that she's knew Fake Chidi was an imposter. I'm still holding out for the two of them. 

If it's anything like the fantastic finale to Parks and Recreation where everybody got a happy ending, I'm guessing wherever they inevitably end up, they'll be together. 

[arc]

9 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I thought Tahani passed the test because, while she did confront her parents, she rose above and left telling them to have a nice life rather than wallowing and having a tantrum or whatever. I thought she handled herself beautifully.

Yeah, without a full description of the test, I thought Tahani and Chidi’s tests might just be about completing the task at all, not that there was a time limit. Tahani as she was initially might very well have stayed in any of those rooms forever.

 

3 hours ago, Isazouzi said:

It depends on if you're like Kant and believe intentions are more important than consequences, or if you're a consequentialist and believe the end justifies the means. ;-)

In the show’s universe, both consequentialism and deontology are wrong. Tahani did amazing things for wrong reasons and wound up in the Bad Place. Chidi almost never did a wrong thing because he was so obsessed with doing right things for the right reasons, but his indecision and paralysis hurt his friends and family even so. (And there’s still that almond milk issue.) I think Schur and company are endorsing moral particularism, like Eleanor suggested last episode.

[Sakura12]

The test was to see if they had changed, Tahani and Chidi failed. Tahani could resist hearing what her parents thought of her and wanted their validation and Chidi couldn't make a decision to save his life. That showed that they were the same people they were before.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Sakura12

[Chaos Theory]

2 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

The test was to see if they had changed, Tahani and Chidi failed. Tahani could resist hearing what her parents thought of her and wanted their validation and Chidi couldn't make a decision to save his life. That showed that they were the same people they were before.

But they have changed.   Tahani might have wanted to know what her parents thought of her but when she heard it it didn't affect her the way it always had.  That is real change.  She no longer needed their validation and that encounter made her realize it.   Chidi made a decision.  It took him time but he made it.   

[Sakura12]

12 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

But they have changed.   Tahani might have wanted to know what her parents thought of her but when she heard it it didn't affect her the way it always had.  That is real change.  She no longer needed their validation and that encounter made her realize it.   Chidi made a decision.  It took him time but he made it.   

They made progress, if they really changed then Tahani would not have cared what anyone thought about her and Chidi would have made a decision quickly. I think the Judge even said they made some change but not enough. 

[CherithCutestory]

19 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

But they have changed.   Tahani might have wanted to know what her parents thought of her but when she heard it it didn't affect her the way it always had.  That is real change.  She no longer needed their validation and that encounter made her realize it.   Chidi made a decision.  It took him time but he made it.   

But they didn't change enough to pass the test. Currently, in this universe, almost isn't good enough. You either have enough points or you don't. You either pass a test or you don't.

I don't think that's OK. I don't think Schur and the writers are endorsing that as OK. But it seems to be the way things are now. Nobody said God or Whomever had to abide by human notions of morality. However, I wouldn't be surprised of Michael, Eleanor and Chidi eventually manage to convince The Powers That Be that things are wrong and should be changed.

Edited January 26, 2018 by CherithCutestory

[festivus]

My son told me I was basic one night and I was highly insulted so I thought that bit was pretty funny.

 

I was disappointed with Maya Rudolph being the judge. I don't have anything against her, but the only time I remember thinking she was funny was as Beyonce on The Prince Show.

[Panopticon]

7 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

When I saw the episode last night, and realized that PTV was still shut down, my first thought was "This is the bad place!"

 

My first thought was “this is not fair,” even though I know fair is the stupidest word humans ever invented, except for staycation.

[Chaos Theory]

As someone who watched Pretty Little Liars from the pilot to the finale I find it exceptionally humorous....and fitting that Michael used the show to fool Shawn into believing he was still torturing Team Cockroach.   Then again Rosewood being a neighborhood in The Bad Place goes a long way in explaining the plot and plot holes of that show.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[secnarf]

11 hours ago, Affogato said:

Yes I thought that showed real growth. But the test was to find out what part of the bad place she would go to? Is there a spot for people who subvert expectations and make the demons have to work late?

I thought that part about the test determining which part of the bad place Tahani and Jason would go was a lie - part of the set-up for Eleanor's test.

For Tahani's test, the Judge told her she had to walk straight through the red door. I thought that implied no going into the rooms, and Tahani certainly interpreted it that way, based on what she said to her 'parents' about risking a lot to go into that room.

I also wasn't too keen on the Judge character - she seemed too over-the-top for my taste.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Even though I thing she still showed growth by not letting it get to her, I can see why the Judge still said she failed since she was suppose to go past all of the doors. 

From what I gather, the whole reason Tahani wound up the the Bad Place to begin with was that she was entirely motivated by what people thought of her (as opposed to doing good deeds out of the kindness of her heart). So the test proved she hasn't changed in that respect. Likewise, with Chidi, his indecisiveness drives everyone around him crazy. Just because he's a "little" better doesn't mean he's changed. More than an hour to pick a hat? Yeah.

Jason, on the other hand, just isn't very bright. That seems to be the root of his problem and I'm not sure he can fix that. He's not an altogether terrible person but he isn't really capable of distinguishing between right and wrong sometimes because of his limited intelligence. 

[Smacky55]

I liked everything about this episode except the last interaction between Janet and Shawn. I thought it was unnecessarily violent and I didn’t find it funny. So that took away from an otherwise wonderful episode for me 

[Terrafamilia]

I'm crossing my fingers that they manage to get a do-over. At the beginning the judge said they didn't have an advocate or the right forms filled out. Now that Michael and Janet are here they can have both.

[Lugal]

7 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I know it's just a sitcom, but on a fundamental level, it's kind of disturbing what this show is saying about consequences. Tahani has done a lot of wonderful things for charities, and even if she did them for selfish reasons because she's obsessed with having approval, does that mitigate the wonderful things she's done for charities, etc.? So much so that she deserves to go to hell for it? Same for Chidi - his indecisiveness is almost debilitating and drives everyone around him crazy, but does that make him such a bad person he deserves to go to hell for it? It's really a sobering thought.

I noticed that many stories that have even a vaguely Abrahamic concept of the afterlife, the scales seem to be weighted toward hell, so you have to be a saint to get any heaven, but any mistake will condemn you to hell (as opposed to pagan traditions where if you die in battle, childbirth or some other way you get into the good place).  This show actually seems to be examining that, hence Eleanor talking about needing a medium place.  It reminds me of some tradition where hell is temporary until one's soul is cleansed.  Although it makes me wonder, if there is an omniscient being behind everything, maybe it knew Michael would design his neighborhood to help purify team cockroach and had them assigned to him in the first place.

The point of the tests was to transcend who they were before and Eleanor was the only one who was able to transcend her selfishness, by rejecting it when "Chidi" was telling her what she wanted to hear to get into the good place, and again when she refused to let her friends hear that she passed and she chose to go down with them.

Chidi, pretty much knew his indecisiveness would have condemned himself to hell no matter what, like he said before, "I make everything around me my own personal hell so they will have a lot to work with."  He proved he could not transcend that flaw when he took 82 minutes to choose a hat.

Tahani could not transcend her self-centeredness and just had to know what her parents thought about her.  The fact that she dealt with them in a mature way doesn't mitigate that she still cared what they thought and wanted the external validation.

Jason isn't very bright, but it was his poor impulse control that doomed him (literally). And he proved it when he started the challenge before the Judge even fully explained it to him, which could have given him a way out rather than playing as the Titans.

[tennisgurl]

1 hour ago, festivus said:

My son told me I was basic one night and I was highly insulted so I thought that bit was pretty funny.

 

A friend of mine told another friend of ours that his fiance was basic, and thats why he shouldn't marry her. He was super offended on her behalf, but they did get divorced a few years later, so...

[theatremouse]

12 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I thought Tahani passed the test because, while she did confront her parents, she rose above and left telling them to have a nice life rather than wallowing and having a tantrum or whatever. I thought she handled herself beautifully.

5 hours ago, Charlesman said:

To be fair, the judge never said she couldn't open any other doors. She said "Your test is to go through the red door at the end of this hallway." Tahani did that. Technically. The judge did add "Oh, by the way, all the other doors are people talking about you", yes, but she never said "...and you're not allowed to open them."

See, I think the whole point of that setup was to build suspense during the episode that maybe the second Tahani opened the door she might not have failed. But the instructions as I recall them were "Walk down the hallway and go through the red door at the end. That's it." I'm not certain I have the quote exactly right though, but I did think it was more than just implied that she was expected to go down the hall and through the red door and not do anything else. But by having her go in one, and not seem to care about the people talking about her inside, it seems like growth so maybe she might not fail. Except these people weren't even actually talking about her, and she called them out on that. So if the test is "resist hearing what they're saying" she fails the second she opens the door. But I think they only did it to make us wonder if she had an insta-fail or not.

 

10 hours ago, snowwhyte said:

Chidi was wearing tan pants, of course he should have picked the brown hat! 

See I thought he should've chosen the grey hat because it looked better with his shirt. Hat choices.

[Winston Wolfe]

Not sure what I love more, this crazy show or the wonderful, insightful folks that post here. :o)

I've never been big on Maya Rudolph as a performer, but she has all my residual love for her Mom, the late, great Minnie Riperton.  Having said that, she was pretty good, Betty White may have been the better choice if she's still up to working....

The tests were kind of hit-or-miss for me.  Jason will always be a lovable idiot, so his asking if not playing was an option isn't anything you could ever expect from him.  Chidi and Tahani, IMO, both failed miserably.  For all his smarts, and after all this time, he still hasn't figured out that all his problems start and end with indecisiveness?  Gee Whiz.  And Tahani should be at the point where gaining her parents' favor shouldn't matter anymore, making that choice to confront them again useless.

Eleanor truly has earned entry into the Good Place.  A former, self-identified selfish, garbage person, she's made a deliberate decision to make it all about the group instead of herself.  And as another poster pointed out, Ellie's street smarts beats Chidi's book-learning every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  As a former con artist, she almost always sees through the illusions thrown at them sooner as opposed to later.

I think Michael will be the game changer next week.  He's going to advocate for a move that sends the human somewhere other than the Bad Place.  But with this show, you can't be too sure. 

Edited January 27, 2018 by Winston Wolfe

[Rinaldo]

2 minutes ago, Winston Wolfe said:

Chidi and Tahani, IMO, both failed miserably.  For all his smarts, and after all this time, he still hasn't figured out that all his problems start and end with indecisiveness?  Gee Whiz.  And Tahani should be at the point where gaining her parents' favor shouldn't matter

One of the great truths that many of us have probably bumped up against at some point (I certainly have, repeatedly) is that you can know what your problem is and still find it near-impossible to change your behavior.

[possibilities]

7 hours ago, meep.meep said:

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

The New Yorker can be really awesome, sometimes. Even the non-cartoon aspects!

I thought it was interesting that they clarified that Jason's impulsiveness is his problem.

[DrScottie]

4 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

One of the great truths that many of us have probably bumped up against at some point (I certainly have, repeatedly) is that you can know what your problem is and still find it near-impossible to change your behavior.

Right. It's a point Chidi made also after Michael tortured him with the Trolley Problem and he kicked Michael out of the class. "A tiger can't changes its stripes." 

Having the metaphorical tiger change its stripes is quite possibly a Herculean task, but it seems that Eleanor and Michael (presuming it's not all an act) have managed to accomplish it. As for the others, they still have some work to do in that regard and it's a challenge to be sure. 

[Dowel Jones]

7 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I love that this is a show where I didn't question the fact that the burrito could, in fact, be the judge.

Who knows?  Maybe the burrito was sentient and Jen was a holographic projection.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

I suspect it means the Judge can't actually send her back to the Bad Place (there is no proper punishment that she could have inflicted on her... which is the point of the tests for everyone). My hunch is that and Michael having actually redeemed himself in the process of running the Fake Good Place is going to be enough to leverage a Third-Option out of the Judge that will give us our Season Three setup.

I don't think the Judge actually has any control over whether they end up going to the good place or the bad place because they just showed up and there is no paper work.

Two portals keep opening.  I don't think they are in or out.  They are Good Place and Bad Place.  There were two times when talking about going to the Good Place when the Judge motioned towards the left.  And once when talking about them going to the Bad Place, she motioned to the right just before Janet and Michael came through that portal.

I think they just need to figure out that they should go through the other portal.  It will probably involve Chidi needing to make a decision in some way.

[bros402]

16 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I think it's the latter. This was presented to him as a test of his worthiness, so he was especially neurotic about it.

But it might very well take him that long to choose an outfit every morning.

When the judge said that she hadn't heard a case in 30 years - does that mean her last case was Mindy?

Mindy was case 00002 or something like that, I believe - it was said in her debut episode

[DrScottie]

3 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Who knows?  Maybe the burrito was sentient and Jen was a holographic projection.

She ate the burrito, so that's probably not the case. 

2 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

I think they just need to figure out that they should go through the other portal.  It will probably involve Chidi needing to make a decision in some way.

To use the Bad Place portal from HQ, they needed to be wearing the pins otherwise Michael would have gone in too. It's likely not just a matter of picking the door on the left, Gen told Chidi and Eleanor to take the medallions and go through the portal. While the medallions were really just beverage coasters according to Gen, I would presume some type of pass is needed as well. 

41 minutes ago, bros402 said:

Mindy was case 00002 or something like that, I believe - it was said in her debut episode

Re-watching the episode on DVD, Shawn said that Eleanor's case was #00003 and the previous case was 30 years ago and as Mindy's been there for 30 years so that would have likely made Mindy's case #00002.