Was this a good episode ofThe Good Place?
Reply hazy, ask again the moment nothing never occurs.
Some of the chess moves feel a bit awkward.
Credit: Colleen Hayes/NBC
Just hearing this information has probably doomed them.
Their motivation to be good has been corrupted.
Their point score is frozen.
And everyone recognizes Michael.
Eleanor doesnt buy it.
She worked at a place raided by the FBI all the time.
And shes always been able to spot a con, especially one of Michaels cons.
It requires a whole nights exposition.
The humans get a little hung up on the chronology.
If they were dead almost three hundred years, how were they able to resurrect back into present-day Earth?
Because of Jeremy Bearimy, says Michael, writing that rhyming name on a whiteboard in cursive English.
The dot over the i represents Tuesdays, and July, and never.
The tenth-dimensional curlicue logic breaks Chidis mind.
Eleanors breakdown is less mental but quite moral.
The bartender cocks an eye at the idea that she only wants to do things her way.
Heck, if everyone did that, society would break down!
In America, Eleanor declares, Everyone does what they want, societydidbreak down, itsterrible, and itsGREAT!
Tahani and Jason have a different reaction to their prophesied eternal doom.
I have always been held captive by my desire for attention, Tahani says.
That has changed now.
I just want to be virtuous for virtues sake.
Learning about her eerie fate offers her a weird, divesting clarity.
She gives a big donation to the Sydney Opera House but demands that she remain anonymous.
Jason has a more straightforward idea for Tahani: Why not just give money to strangers?
They run around the streets of Australia performing random acts of spirituality, just like everyone inLeftoversseason 3.
NEXT: Chidi rejects all meaning and value
Eleanor finds a lost wallet left at the bar.
She snickers at her good fortune, preparing to pocket the Australian currency.
And then…something stops her.
A Chidi-shaped angel on her shoulder?
Memories of Immanuel Kant?
But the wallets owner, Fred Booth, has moved across town to 78 Palmer Street.
And while shes going to see him, would she mind bringing him his mail?
And his houseplant, and his hose, and a lamp?
She takes Freds wallet, and all his stuff, to his house.
Every time hes stressed at work, he looks at that picture and feels safe.
That brings Eleanor to tears.
Its been a weird day!
The students can tell hes going through something, but beg him to teach them something.
After all, the test is next week!
So Chidi launches into a straightforward lecture, offering them nothing less than the meaning of life.
The Good Placeconjures up a slightly more accurate comparison.
Consequentialism leads into Tahani and Jason giving money to various Australians.
And Deontology finds Eleanor giving Fred his lost wallet.
The world is empty.
There is no point to anything, and youre just gonna die.
So, like, point made!
Its didactic, which isnt necessarily bad.The Good Placehas always used Chidi as the academic voice of too-much-reason.
It makes the characters reactions in this episode feel a little too algorithmic, more clever than human.
She has a plan, a plan for everyone!
Which she explains in Michael and Janets office, joined by Tahani and Jason, who have big news.
But only their relationship is platonic (Socratic?
), just an easy way for Jason to get half Tahanis money out of her Florida-shaming bank.
They hope it will lead someone, sometime, to change the rules of the afterlife.
But Eleanor is more focused on the (before) life theyre leading right now.
The six of us are not getting into the Good Place, she says.
But there are still people in this world we care about.
I say we try and help them be good people.
Eleanor gives the super six a new mission, asking Chidi to join the Soul Squad.
At this point, do these characters evenhavea grind?
They spent a year learning morals in Sydney.
One of them just got fabulously rich (because another one just got slightly less fabulously rich.)
All to say, this is an episode I dont really know what to make of now.
Like I said, lets check in on this when we dot the i over Jeremy Bearimy.
