I don’t think they’ve ever given a specific number. Which brings me back to my previous theory:
After this episode, I think it’s the other way around. It’s not that the limit has gotten higher, it’s just that modern human actions aren’t worth enough anymore. We learned that every time something new happens, dating back to giving a rock to another caveman, they figure out what it’s worth. As time has gone on, everything new is compared to all the “good” actions that have come before, and has gotten lower point totals. And everything is locked into place, regardless of context or time period. That’s how Mindy got into the Medium place. Her idea was so novel that it got more points than any other action before.
When Jason was on the couch talking with Chiti I thought to myself that it seemed off. Like, the impression was just noticeably weaker than others D’Arcy had done this episode.
Then we see that’s it’s not Jason. It’s Elenor. It was D’Arcy playing Janet playing Elenor playing Jason. I was completely blown away. Do you have any idea how fucking hard that is to pull off?
It’s Hank Azaria talking about Mel Blanc. The most amazing thing he saw was Mel playing Bugs Bunny playing Daffy Duck. And then Daffy playing Bugs. It’s just an almost impossible task for a voice actor to pull off well.
No, the issue is that the accountants, hacked by the Bad Place, are giving huge negative numbers to things which are actually innocuous. Like having sex with a vegetable.
On the podcast*, D’Arcy Carden talked about how they recorded the table read of the script with the cast playing themselves, and they also filmed a walk-thru with the full cast playing each part. She listened to the recording and studied the film for a week before shooting the episode. She recalled that how during the table read, William Harper (Chidi) was reading his long speech about David Hume and D’Arcy though “Wow, Will has a lot to memorize” and then remembered that it was actually going to be her pretending to be him.
*which I highly recommend; it’s hosted by Mark Evan Jackson (“I play Sean”) and each week he has excellent interviews with various members of the cast, writing staff and crew. It’s hilarious and interesting.
It made sense in the context they showed it, though. Because motivation and impact were factors, Tahani (whose motives were always impure) and Chidi (whose impact was always minimal because he couldn’t commit to anything) came out as fairly neutral. And neutral wasn’t good enough. It was always implied that the Good Place had a pretty high bar, since most of the fake inhabitants were suggested to be, essentially, paragons.
I fast forwarded – I found two times she boops out (around 1:15:10 and 4:19:20)
Must have been an interesting shoot “D’Arcy – just stand there for a few hours” (probbaly not one take…)
