If Mindy turns out to be a real deceased human and not another demon, that would be fun plotting.
I can’t go back and check now, but the scene where Michael kicked a dog into the sun wasn’t witnessed by the main 4, was it? If not, what was the in-universe point to that scene?
The latter, I think. As Eleanor pointed out, Michael and Shawn had no intention of putting anyone on a train to the Bad Place, since they were already in the Bad Place. So if Eleanor didn’t figure it out, Michael would have to come up with a way to let them all stay that made enough sense to them that they wouldn’t question the decision but wouldn’t be absolved of the anxiety, either. I think that’s what Baba John was coming in to reveal.
Even if it’s just a cover story, it works as an explanation for why she’s there.
It also ties in with the show’s ongoing theme of what is moral.
In one of the Bad Place meetings, Mike said “I even stole a Good Place Janet we can use”, to fool the four test subjects into thinking they were in the Good Place. Since he was talking only to other Bad Place Managers/Architects at the time, I think it’s fairly assumed true.
If it turns out to be not true, then that’ll be a mark against the show, because if we the audience can trust literally none of the information presented, the show is pointless.
My assumption is that the system is real, but that it’s not quite as difficult to get into the Good Place as Michael makes it out.
I have this idea of future seasons turning into a sort of Mission Impossible/Columbo mashup, where Michael keeps coming up with strange fake situations that seem real, the test subjects eventually figure everything out, and we the audience enjoy seeing how they figure out the clues along the way.
All we need is for Eleanor to peel off her face and turn out to be Martin Landau.
Did anyone else think that Michael’s workplace seems sort of like a Bad Place? Straight desks, not even cubicles, a kid for a boss, coffee (or anti-matter) that always tastes wrong. In meetings with 14 million point plans. Michael’s stuck in the Bad Place, too!
StG
I will not soon forget Ted Danson’s evil smile and chuckle at the reveal. What a fantastic (and fantastically acted) moment.
Yeah, that was a forking mind screw. 
Agreed. Which means there really Good Places. I’m going to assume Mindy St. Clair was real as well since Janet’s real, and thus wouldn’t be in on the deception. Speaking of the Medium Place; did anyone else notice that was the Bad Place was represented by Trevor in the orientation video, the Good Place was represented by a character we’ve never seen before?
Still, Janet did identify the location as the Good Place several times, didn’t she? Her programming must have been altered, or at least her inputs, since she seems to “think” she’s in a Good Place neighborhood.
I’m guessing that if you go over the previous episodes minutely, there will be inconsistencies in the behaviour of Janet and Michael (and indeed any character other than the four [plus Mindy?] since they all seem to have been in on the joke), but as long as its not a total mindfuck (i.e. if we learn that one or more of the four test subjects is a fake), I’m willing to stick with the show. They could probably get a lot of humour out of this premise - Micheal trying to find a self-sustaining four-way torture circle, and it gradually spinning out of control each time, the characters getting mind-wiped but leaving clues for themselves and gradually figuring out the nature of their reality… it could turn into a much lighter-toned version of WestWorld.
I had sorta thought that all those people werent so great and maybe it was Hell, but then Ted Danson fooled me.
Now that Janet’s been rebooted, I wonder what she’ll learn this time around. Does she learn how to get angry? Does she learn about autonomy and starts resenting being at the beck and call of an architect? Does she learn how to retrieve old memories that were supposed to have been wiped away?
We already knew this was Michael’s first neighbourhood, Shawn is (thought to be at this point) impartial. We’ve never met any other ostensible Good Place adminsistrators, so the GP advocate in the video would have to be someone we’ve never met.
Mindy St. Claire being alone doesn’t make much sense, if we assume she’s on the level. There would have to be thousands baddish people who died after putting into motion something that did tremendous good.
Shawn is an agent of the bad place. He dropped the act in private with Michael, complaining about having to wear a goofy judge’s robe.
Hence the (thought to be at this point) bracket
She’s a Good Janet - so her default programming would be that any place she is is by definition a Good Place. If one of our four asked her to investigate if they are really in a Good Place, she might be able to figure it out - but there is no reason for that to happen. Note that they rebooted Janet, so she presumably has no memory of Eleanor’s insight.
Well, that was a heck of a twist. I do not see how they can go on after that.
Is a new season scheduled or what?
Yeah, I had thought that perhaps all of the four main human characters didn’t really belong in the Good Place, and that the Good Place could be a kind of hell if you didn’t belong there (I think I mentioned upthread that Tahani’s idea of hell probably was being constantly surrounded by people who were objectively better than her), and that there was something important about the Bad Place that was being hidden from us…but I had taken Michael at face value and was genuinely surprised when everything turned out to be part of his scheme to torment the main characters.
Real Fake Eleanor spoiled Michael’s plan because she figured out the scheme before 1000 years were up.
But what if she didn’t? What if she and Chidi both volunteered for the Bad Place as he expected? Wouldn’t that have ruined the plan just as thoroughly? What was he planning to do in that case?