Thank you for that; it answered a lot of questions.
Bumping this thread in preparation for season 3, which starts September 27.
Two things:
(1) There’s a several-minute promo scene that has been released, but, amazingly, I can’t find it anywhere on the internet. My DVR randomly recorded it, and it was pretty awesome:
(not very spoiler-y spoilers)
It features Mike O’Malley (Kurt’s dad from Glee, among other things) as a gatekeeper who lets Michael into earth, where we see him save all four of the humans from death (including pushing Eleanor out of the way as we saw at the end of last season)
(2) I’ve been listening to the Good Place podcast, quite entertaining and informative, but it has gotten me thinking that despite the complexity and consistency of the world-building, there’s one question I have no answer to: What does Janet actually know during season 1? Does she honestly think she’s a Good Janet in the Good Place? How can the demons all fool her? Doesn’t she notice that none of them ever ask her for help?
Season 1 Janet is a big ol’ dummy - she’s nothing but a kind-of-sentient encyclopedia. It’s only the constant reboots that happen at the beginning of Season 2 that elevate her into something else.
I doubt it was randomly recorded. If you’re like me, you have the DVR set to record new episodes of the series and this was marked as one.
So I rewatched Season 2 (it just dropped on Netflix), and there’s a nice little tidbit that I missed the first time around.
Chidi and Eleanor are talking, and he’s lamenting about the utterly ridiculous circumstances in which they met. He says something like, “I just think about what it would have been like if we’d met a normal way, like after a philosophy lecture. Or in a philosophy class. Or you come to my office to get help with philosophy.”
Eleanor makes fun of him for having a really weird idea of how people meet but, of course, that’s exactly how the season ends.
Oh, absolutely. What was random was that there was a 6 minute promo at 2 a.m. some random evening. I guess they expect it to be watched precisely by people like me, who have my DVR set up to record The Good Place. But it’s very odd that I couldn’t find it anywhere on the internet.
I’m really liking how this one’s turning out. After more than two months of utterly execrable reality TV, it’s going to be an incredible breath of fresh air. Simply put, it’s the total package. It’s sharply written, and it’s wickedly funny most of the time, and it has likable, nuanced, compelling characters, and it handles serious issues intelligently without getting preachy, and it has some truly spectacular moments, and it just looks really, really pretty. I’m actually intrigued as to just how deep it’s going to dig, something I used to dread on comedies.
The whole “moral dessert” thing is a discussion topic in itself, because when you really think about it…well, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Reciprocity…gotta give something to get something, risk/effort vs. reward, you scratch my back and I scratch yours, etc…has been a universal constant since living beings first existed. Why do you think inventors created so many wondrous machines and devices, or medical researches made countless lifesaving breakthroughs, or valiant activists marched for justice? Because they stood to benefit. Yes, of course many others benefitted as well, but the idea that these good people acted purely out of altruism and didn’t expect any personal gain is ludicrous. And not only did Eleanor not see any tangible benefit, she was actively harmed by her actions, AND the ones harming her faced no harm themselves! It’s easy to preach selflessness and greater good, but how do you convince an actual human being to fight thousands of years of human nature and fundamental concepts of give & take, particularly one who had a bad upbringing and already had to make considerable sacrifices earlier in life?
Intriguing questions, and one which a properly-written show will handle with both grace and humor. And from what I’ve seen, I’m optimistic enough that this is exactly what’s going to happen.
Here is the aforementioned preview scene.
I can’t wait. It’ll be really fun to see Michael on Earth without any powers.
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I see that NBC is running four episodes of the Good Place tonight. Season 2, episodes 2, 5, 6, abd 10.
And episodes 11 and 12 next Thursday.
I wonder why they’re running those particular episodes. I could see running episodes 7 through ten, but why skip around?
E5 is the trolley problem, and E6 is a glitch in the neighborhood. They were both godd as I recall.
Just a reminder, Season 3 starts tomorrow night.
StG
And that makes it tonight (Thursday, September 27). It is an hour long episode.
Brian
Rewatching in prep for Season 3 - this show rewards it - has me thinking.
Tahani’s redemption has to center on her relationship with Camilla. What do you guys think of Tahani having to rescue Camilla from The Bad Place for some sort of reconciliation?
Not really consistent with how they talk about Kamila.
It’s possible the demons are only trying to mess with Tahani by talking about her like that, but it seems more likely that Kamila’s in the Good Place.
Tahani’s redemption will certainly be about Kamila, but it’s going to be in her new life.
Tahani was in the Bad Place because her motivations were corrupt. She doesn’t need to reconcile with Kamila. She just needs to stop making Kamila her motivation. Ditto with impressing her parents.
Some of those Australian accents were nearly good. Mostly they were committed by Brits, though.
OK, I know I’m overthinking this… Michael’s accent was horrible. But then later when he and Janet were sitting at the tickers, didn’t he say something about how he nailed the accent? So, was that just another example of Michael’s cluelessness? Or… maybe in real life Ted Danson’s Australian accent sucks, and this was a way to have some fun with it?
Oh, and… Trevor’s back!
I think that was just a quick opportunity to show how good Janet has got at the “white lie” thing.