The Worst Possible Use of Free Will is nominally aGood Placeepisode about Eleanor and Chidi.
Theyre allies now, but that could change.
Its a complicated process, requiring an inoculation.
Credit: Colleen Hayes/NBC
The first time Eleanor experiences an afterlife memory, her brain gets zapped.
She adjusts; the banana probably helps.
Then Michael shunts her back into the telltale reboot.
The memory begins in familiar circumstances.
His latest plot is Pick-a-Pet Day, where the neighborhoods residents can choose a soulmate animal.
Blake wrote in iambictetrameter.)
(Also kidding, BLAKE BORTLES PENGUIN!!!)
Tahani gets herself a mirror centaur, a mythic being with her upper body named Tahania.
Eleanor gets a lizard, cool!
Chidi overthinks a choice between two cute puppies and winds up with an owl named Spencer.
Theres a big get-together planned where everyone will get to bodyswap with their animals.
His arrival confuses her.
Why isnt he flying like an owl?
I just decided Id rather be helping you, he admits.
she says, kissing him.
From there, as Michael tells it, their love blossoms.
They spend every moment together, got hooked on popcorn shrimp.
They return to the neighborhood with a message for Michael.
They know theyve been rebooted a hundred times, but this time is different.
Love is stronger than anything it’s possible for you to throw at us, Eleanor says.
No, its not, Michael retorts, insisting he could just throw an elephant at them.
Chidi insists Eleanor was speaking metaphorically.
Eleanor says her and Chidi are soulmates, but thats a gag that Michael just made up.
He snaps his fingers, rebooting them all over again.
In the present, Michael admits hes sorry about his actions, swears hes changed.
But Eleanor has absorbed a different lesson from this memory.
She wasnt watching herself fall in love.
I watched a puppeteer pull a bunch of strings to make usthinkwe were in love, she says.
Her love for Chidi wasnt a brave personal choice.
It was a response to Michaels social architecture.
Its simple determinism, a philosophy Eleanor describes in handy pop culture terms.
Once you made us bond, the romance was inevitable, she says.
Its Jim and Pam!
Its Jake and Amy!
Its basically every human in Pawnee, Indiana!
All characters on shows partially written or created by one Michael Schur,The Good Places offscreen puppetmaster.
Is love really love when theres no choice in the matter?
If two characters are designed to be a will-they-wont-they sitcom pair, do they actually belong together?
There is no such thing as free will!
says Eleanor, a TV character declaring that she has seen her own scripts.
Sort of like what everyone talked about duringWestworldseason 2, but this was funny and not terrible.
They leave the library because its closing time and that means theyre about to start shooting pornos there.
At a local diner, Michael collects some counterexamples.
You saw your friend in pain and you decided to sacrifice yourself to help him, Michael says.
He didnt plan forthat.
Wait, no, not that time!
(Though theres the very tantalizing possibility that there are ever-more-surreal adventures lingering in the several hundred neighborhood reboots.
Perhaps that can be aGood Placespinoff on Disneys streaming service in a few years when Disney owns everything!)
No, the memory Michael calls up is a very personal moment for our angelic demon.
Amidst the reboots, Michael brings a newly-arrived Eleanor into his office.
Hes out of sorts, furious at the demise of his latest attempt at eternal torture.
He asks Eleanor directly: Whatisit about her?
Hes studied her hopes, her fears, her psychology.
You keep making crazy choices, Michael says.
Am I missing something?
In the present, Eleanors still not convinced.
And maybethosemegademons are just fulfilling a destiny…set out for them by super intelligent tarantula squids!
Its the worst possible use of free will, he says.
But Im gonna do it anyway.
Because I care about them.
Do I buy it?
In Michaels estimation, Eleanor doesnt reallybelievein her deterministic argument.
Shes just using the philosophy as an excuse, a way to justify her own fear of vulnerability.
He tells her this and…well, she basically agrees.
By episodes end, shes telling Michael that their conversation has newly inspired her.
Which feels, well, a bit easy.
On a philosophical level, Michaels perspective makes sense, at least to me.
Are all our actions the result of structures beyond our control?
Yes, shrug, maybe, who knows, just be a good person, you dumbo.
But the personal tale here feels a bit lost.
Like, Eleanor has a right to question this whole situation.
that yes, the Eleanor-Chidi love was real.
I guess its a struggle I have in general with this season ofThe Good Place.
Its asking a lot of fascinating questions, but the answers its seeking are simple.
The soul-saving is reaching an apex, maybe.
its also fascinating to consider what it looks like whenThe Good Placecreates its own personal Messiah.
Plot momentum is carrying us towards a reckoning.
In the Bad Place, Shawn finalizes a devious plot to construct a backdoor portal to Earth.
To test it, he calls upon Vicky, whos been cocooned on a Zach Braff sitcom.
All hail the return of Tiya Sircar toThe Good Place, as Vicky steps into the mortal plane.
Trevor was just the beginning.
Now, the Bad Place has officially arrived on Earth.
Where will they go first?
Not Canada, I hope!
Cant we have just one nice place?
