noooooooooo. they got a captain marvel hating dudebro. shawn really sent the worst of the worst people, didn't he?
It's nice to have The Good Place back, but it's starting to get a wee bit tiring to see everything getting rebooted for the nth time. Still, we're on the final season, so I hope we've seen all the rebooting we had to see, by now.
Of course Michael would simply have to skip Jason when praising each person on his team. Jason may haven't accomplished much (or anything), but he's still one of my favourite characters. His naivety and oblivious ways truly provide for some genuine chuckles.
And that "Darth Vader's turd" comment totally hit me with a truck full of laughs!
"Dead eyes, eat hearts, can't lose!" Definitely tracks for a Bad Place motto.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-09-27T04:10:22Z
[7.6/10] A good start to the new season. The show teases out the intricacies and difficulties of this new situation nicely, and there’s a lot of good laughs to be had.
For one, the episode opens nicely by intercutting between the very different pep talks that Michael and Shawn give to their teams. And I like the introduction of the new residents of the neighborhood. For one thing, making the new guy a total misogynist douchebag works both as a neat way to get on Eleanor’s nerves and to satirize that type of person. And even though she turned out to be a demon, I really liked the idea of a resident who couldn’t be made better because she was just too damn dull. (Though I don’t know how much mileage there was in that set up, to be fair.)
That said, I love that when they’re bringing Simone back, she’s just not just their friendly, good-natured former buddy. Despite being a better person than the other subjects, she’s still a thorn in their side because of how she doesn't believe any of this is real. That’s a good conflict. Plus her ridiculous outfit-wearing, pool-pushing, Third Eye Blind-singing antics are a lot of fun.
She also connects to the nice emotional throughline of the episode, where Eleanor is leery of connecting Simone and Chidi for obvious reasons, but has to do it for the good of humanity. (Her muttering when Michael points this out was a comic highlight.) Kristin Bell does a great job, both at communicating the strain to have to introduce Chidi to the neighborhood knowing he’s forgotten her, and her self-interested reluctance to introduce him to Simone. The episode also ends with a nice tease toward the idea that Eleanor is questioning her own competence at this, which ought to bear fruit.
I also liked the Jason/Janet/Derek triangle here, and I say that as someone who doesn't usually care for love triangles! What makes this one work is that Jason and Derek are both just so ridiculous and childlike in their way, which makes their feud seem more humorously ridiculous than hackneyed. And I really like what they do with Janet here, making her more frustrated that she already has enough on her plate while everyone keeps adding to it, instead of things simply devolving into relationship drama.
On the whole, this one works nicely to build on the re-piloting that was set up in the last season, and throws in some nice twists and laughs along the way.