The Good Place - Season 2 (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

I wasn't sure about Maya Rudolph at first, but I was sold by the end of the episode. Gen (short for Hydrogen, since it was the only element in existence at the time of her creation) was a slyly omniscient judge; she seemed frivolous and easily distracted, but by the end it was clear that she had all of them dead to rights.

And it felt completely right that Eleanor would be the one of the four of them to pass. Her lying about it to protect the feelings of the other three only confirms it.

 

[Jake Lipson]

And it felt completely right that Eleanor would be the one of the four of them to pass.

Congratulations. You called this result a while back:

I would argue yes for Eleanor, because she's the one who has made actual progress toward addressing the character deficits that got her sent to the Bad Place in the first place. It's no coincidence that Michael's plan started going off the rails in the first season when Eleanor stood up and confessed. It was a wholly selfless (and as such wholly uncharacteristic) act.

Tahani and Chidi have a much greater awareness of their character deficits now, but they haven't made much progress addressing them. They want to be better, but I don't think they actually are better. Tahani throwing Eleanor under the bus with the hot air balloon being the latest example.

I love that I have no idea where this goes from here.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I love that I have no idea where this goes from here.

I feel exactly the same way.

Ted Danson should get an Emmy for his delivery of "Ya basic! It’s a human insult. It’s devastating. You’re devastated right now." alone.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I wonder if Michael could somehow recreate the neighborhood and take them back there? Then at least they wouldn't be being tortured. Although this show never retreads itself or goes backwards, so I don't know.

Eleanor's suggestion that they all be graded together really was stupid. It was absolutely the right call for her to make on a character level, but it was also stupid. Did she actually think that they were all going to pass?

 

[Matt Hough]

Yes, each episode now seems to plumb new terrains, and the unpredictability of it is the show's greatest asset. Loved their various tests, too. Only one more episode this season (sob!)

 

[David Weicker]

So,

Gray or Brown?

 

[joshEH]

I actually have an ever-increasing stack of New Yorkers here in the room, next to my TV.

OH, SHIRT.

 

[joshEH]

Also, someone in the AV Club comments pointed out many similarities between The Good Place and The Wizard of Oz, during these past several episodes and during their expedition to meet the Judge. It makes perfect sense:

Eleanor - Dorothy

Chidi - The Lion

Jason - The Tin Man

Tahani - The Scarecrow

(Once you see it, you can't unsee it.)

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I love that observation, but wouldn't Jason be the Scarecrow ("If I Only Had a Brain") and Tahani the Tin Man ("If I Only Had a Heart")?

 

[Jake Lipson]

The NBC path to success: Play 8 episodes in 7 weeks, have a two month break so the audience forgets the show exists and then play the last 5 episodes & wonder why no one tuned in.

Sounds about right. NBC does love show-killing midseason hiatuses.

I'm not a fan of the hiatuses either, but I think it's worth noting that the entire reason this happened both of the last two years is because NBC had the Thursday Night Football contract in November. They simply didn't have room on the schedule for both their sitcoms and the NFL, and the NFL won. I don't like it (I couldn't care less about sports), but I understand it from a business perspective.

However -- look what Deadline just reported:

http://deadline.com/2018/01/fox-nfl-thursday-night-football-deal-sports-1202275050/

It looks like Fox is nearing a deal to take over NFL's Thursday Night Football. CBS and NBC recently housed Thursday Night Football for the last two seasons, but they were outbid by Fox by $45 million per game

If NBC no longer airs Thursday football, they will have space for their regularly-scheduled Thursday programming in November. This means that The Good Place could theoretically air more or less consecutively, without the long hiatus imposed upon it next year.

 

[Jake Lipson]

TV Insider has some quotes from creator Mike Schur about his favorite moments from season 2 so far:

https://www.tvinsider.com/659362/the-good-place-season-2-finale-mike-schur/

 

[Matt Hough]

Season finale tonight!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Great finale, with the absolutely perfect ending.

My only issue is:

Spoiler: Finale Spoilers

In the first season, it was established that the neighborhood was a construct that restored pre-Babel conditions before humanity was confounded by geographic distance and different languages. Even though Eleanor heard Chidi as speaking American English, he was actually speaking French, his native tongue after spending the vast majority of his life in Senegal.

I can accept that after the Gen instituted the "push" that saved him from getting crushed by the air conditioner, his journey over the course of the subsequent year would result in him teaching at an Australian university, and as such his lectures would be given in English.

What doesn't quite track for me is that he would speak fluent English in an American accent. Now they might explain that away next season as a tweak as part of this trial effort, but as it stands now it seems like a continuity flub.

 

[Matt Hough]

I loved the resolution for the episode, but Eleanor's "friends" were so annoying that every time one of them appeared, I got exasperated. It wasn't the season ender I was expecting, but I guess that's what was great about it. This is not a show that you can ever predict.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Spoiler

it seems like a continuity flub.

Spoiler

I thought about that too, but I think they moved away from that idea. It didn't seem like any of Chidi's flashbacks were taking place in France, so maybe they just decided to change course and viewed it as a one-line joke about the translations. You're absolutely right that it is a continuity flub, but the result is so good that I barely mind.

Once again, what a terrific season finale, and setup for next season.

Eleanor and Chidi are together, but how in the world is the show going to manage to have them intersect with Tahani and Jason? Also, how long will this experiment last? If it goes on for more than a couple episodes, that separates the core group from Michael and Janet for an extended period, which is interesting. If they get the test done in only an episode or two, then, what, the group dies again and they go to either the good or bad place? I love that I don't know how this is going to work out, but I'm betting the show does, and I'm so excited that this has already been renewed, so we know that we are going to get to see this play out. I also wonder: when they die again, will they be able to get their memories back, or are they permanently rebooted again without any chance of remembering this past season either?

Also, did anyone else notice that Chidi inadvertently-for-him, but, in retrospect, absolutely intentionally-by-the-writers foreshadowed this finale a couple episodes ago? While they were waiting in the Fake Good Place before deciding to go to the judge, he had that speech about how he wished that he and Eleanor could have met the way that normal people do, by her coming into his office after a philosophy lecture (I'm paraphrasing, but the gist of this exact thing was there.) Very smart work, writers.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the judge said, "You haven't improved enough to pass the tests I just gave you," which as we know is true in all but one case. Wouldn't Eleanor having passed the test prove that she genuinely improved, not because of the reward? By the judge's own rules, had Eleanor not asked to be graded together, she would have been admitted to the Good Place, and the other three would have been sent to the Bad Place to be tortured. I guess the judge didn't want to reveal that to the other three, since Eleanor didn't, but it is a fact that she still passed it. I wonder if that might come back later, assuming they ever get their memories restored.

Also, Janet told Michael, "Threre's no way to help," and then he appeared as the bartender anyway. Does the judge know about that? Will the judge argue that Michael tainted or invalidated the experiment by pointing Eleanor to Chidi? They never would have met in life under normal circumstances.

And, I love the show's attention to detail and to its own history. "What We Owe to Each Other" was the book title on which Eleanor wrote her "Find Chidi" note in last season's finale right before being rebooted for the first time. I'm sure that was not coincidental.

 

[Jake Lipson]

More thoughts since last night:

Spoiler

I also sort of wonder how long this "experiment" will last. Based on my first viewing of the season 1 finale, it seemed like they were going to play Eleanor looking for Chidi and being separated from the others a lot longer than they did. A lesser show could have played that out for an entire season and done the 800 reboots thing in the season finale leading to Team Cockroach forming in season 3. I'm so glad that this is not that show.

But if the experiment ends, then they either go to the Bad Place or the Real Good Place, and I sort of don't feel like there's a show in watching them be tortured forever. I feel like they will play with this alive-again angle as long as they feel they can mine story from it, but it might not be as long as we think. Then the show will have some other way of fundamentally reinventing itself, as it did when Michael joined Team Cockroach. I love that we can never tell exactly how it's going to go, but it always seems like exactly the right thing.

Also, I'm worried about Tahani; since she acknowledged that all of her progress is because of being "mates" with Eleanor, it stands to reason that she may slide back into her old habits once you take Eleanor out of the equation.

Also, thank you to NBC for already doing the right thing and giving this show an early renewal, , so we know that we will be able to see how this plays out. Last year, it took a couple weeks after the finale aired for them to make their renewal decision on season 2. It's nice that we don't have to sweat it out this year, because I can't imagine this being the end of the show.

 

[joshEH]

Is there any more welcome sight than Ted Danson as a bartender?

Not as funny as some episodes have been, but a well-done finale. Looking forward to seeing where they take this. I did love how the climax was a really-understated callback to four episodes ago when Chidi was listing off ways to meet people, and Eleanor was laughing at him: "Come into my office to ask for my help with philosophy..."

Also loved Chidi's ticker being so massively long that Michael just frustratedly shoved the paper aside.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Is there any more welcome sight than Ted Danson as a bartender?

No. No, there is not. No actor living or dead cleans glasses like Sam Malone cleans glasses.

 

[TravisR]

Is there any more welcome sight than Ted Danson as a bartender?

I haven't really seen Cheers in over 20 years and that was still awesome.

 

[sidburyjr]

All I have to say about Season 2 is "Hot, diggity dog!"

Eleanor and Chidi are together, but how in the world is the show going to manage to have them intersect with Tahani and Jason? Also, how long will this experiment last? If it goes on for more than a couple episodes, that separates the core group from Michael and Janet for an extended period, which is interesting. If they get the test done in only an episode or two, then, what, the group dies again and they go to either the good or bad place? I love that I don't know how this is going to work out, but I'm betting the show does, and I'm so excited that this has already been renewed, so we know that we are going to get to see this play out. I also wonder: when they die again, will they be able to get their memories back, or are they permanently rebooted again without any chance of remembering this past season either?

I'm guessing that they will be back together as a group after no more than two episodes. Somewhere up-thread someone commented on the fact that the group was in the bad place for only one episode where most shows would apply the Lost effect to drag that on for the rest of the season (I'm looking at you Agents of Shield [among others]). That, among many other things is what makes this show so wonderful.

What I'm wondering is, how far has the writing staff outlined the show -- i.e. do they have a plan for all of season 3 and 4 and ...