Jeremy Beremy, who knew? Do you think the little dot that represents Tuesdays, July, and those times that nothing doesn’t happen will become important later?
This seems to be an interesting setup- if knowing about the moral dessert makes it impossible to gain points, thus condemning the gang to the Bad Place by default, will continuing to do good despite believing themselves inevitably condemned gain bonus points? Seems to me it should.
Chidi- Surprisingly ripped. Also, way to creep out the friendly drug dealer.
That was the first thing I thought of. (But if the writers don’t confess, we’ll never know.)
Yes, “Bearimy.”
(If there’s no children’s-book bear character named Jeremy Bearimy, then…well, there just should be.)
Note also, for those missing explicit philosophy/ethics lessons such as the trolley problem, that we did get a lesson tonight (courtesy of gross-chili-eating Chidi).
Agreed; for example when Chidi went on his rant to his class I was certain he was going to repeat everything Michael told him about the afterlife and someone would post it on YouTube for the entire human race to see. :eek:
I think the little dot will become important later, but it could be just another red herring. It sure sounds Michael may have inadvertently created a loophole. I really hope we get to see Gen’s reaction to all this. And Chidi shouldn’t have stopped at his shirt, but this is network TV.
I hope the “Jeremy Bearimy” doesn’t get used for cheap resolution later, such as using it at some point in Earth’s future that is in the Otherworld’s past to avoid pissing Gen off at all.
Yeah, I expected Michael or the humans to explain the afterlife point system to everyone on earth to break the afterlife or undermine the whole judgement concept entirely. For all I know they still will, but right now “save as many souls as they can” seems like a good strategy too.
Mmmm. This is the first time the start of the season hasn’t wowed me. I remember getting caught up in all the colorful weirdness in season 1 and the incredible laugh-a-minute joyride of season 2. Season 3 is…showing some real potential pitfalls.
First off, I find it noteworthy (and a good idea, make no mistake) that this is an ongoing narrative with a definite beginning and (hopefully) definite endpoint. That’s why they’re called “chapters”. Unusual for a comedy, but it’s been working fine thus far, and it’s nice knowing that there has to be actual character development and the writers can’t hit the reset button every episode. (And of course, even when someone else hits the reset button, that has consequences. :)) The problem is that if the show starts going in a bad direction, it’s a lot harder to fix it, because these people do have histories and continuity matters.
Here’s a list of things I see all the time in afterlife-themed shows or individual episodes that I found almost always ruin them:
An absolute binary Heaven and Hell system (with maybe one tiny, unimportant middle ground that’s almost never actually used for anything)
A completely nonsensical point system where we see at most a microscopic fraction of the ethical decisions within an average person’s life
Completely arbitrary and ridiculous values within said system
The overwhelming majority of humanity going to Hell
Infinite punishment for finite evil (and devils being fine with this despite being seriously overworked as a result)
No attempt whatsoever to explain or justify the previous two items
An entire system of arbitrary or counterintuitive rules that are always enforced to the letter
A supreme judge or other authority who has the judgment of a drunk baboon and never thinks anything through
A moral system (usually instituted by the supreme authority) that is based on petty whims, completely fails to take into account human nature, or simply doesn’t make any sense
And I have definite reason to be concerned because I’ve seen all of these. In a shade over two seasons. Now “We’re screwed, but maybe we can prevent others from being screwed” is presented as a positive message, which is a gigantic red flag in my book. And listen to how pitifully defeatist Mike and Janet were in the most recent episode. One week ago they were sticking it to the judge, and now they’re going to capitulate, just like that?
Is The Good Place heading toward a very bad place? I don’t know. I hope not. I still have hope that all these lessons and setbacks and twists are leading to something big. But if it starts licking the boots of shopworn afterlife cliches, it’s doomed. We’ll see.
I’m looking forward to tonight’s Ballad of Donkey Doug, with any luck we’ll see more of Jason’s dancing.
To respond to the list of tropes, I’ll admit I’ve seen some of those on TV before, even if I can’t remember the source, but it’s not a widespread thing. “Touched by an Angel” and “Highway to Heaven” were both highly religiously oriented, popular TV shows and I’m pretty sure they used none of those tropes.
Shows that want to have a good/bad afterlife dichotomy but still have conflict are kind of trapped into the incomprehensible and arbitrary point system. If an actually omniscient, perfectly fair judge sorted people, how could any conflict exist? People understand point systems, and it’s easy to present people who are fundamentally good, but fail on points.
Not tv but movies went other ways with afterlife conflict too. Heaven Can Wait with the taken before should have been so sent back sort of riff. Albert Brooks’ *Defending Your Life * in which the judges were fine and it was having to present a case that you had overcome your fears while on earth (or else sent back to try again).
But since the most popular religions set up an absolute binary Heaven and Hell system with a middle ground that few understand, have various arbitrary ways to score where you land (heck that goes back to heart weighed against a feather don’t it?) … well satirizing that would seem to a writer’s point some of the time anyway.
This show does that satire of course … it just does not stop there.
Catholicism does have Purgatory, of which the Anglican and Methodist traditions along with Eastern Orthodoxy have a version.
And also the special non-punishment hell for the virtuous pagans and the unbaptized, via Dante, altho that is somewhat controversial.
So the “with maybe one tiny, unimportant middle ground that’s almost never actually used for anything” is pretty much JUST from The Good Place.
