[7.6/10] Very good episode. The continues to make its points a little obvious via the flashback, i.e. “Eleanor used to not keep her promises on Earth but is making efforts to keep her promises here!” But it works pretty well in the show’s series of events where Eleanor slowly but surely masters basic moral concepts.
The notion that she needs to help Michael, but that helping Michael would expose her puts her in a real bind, and leads to some nice dramatic tension. Plus, Eleanor and Michael make for a good comedic pair. Michael’s alien fascination with humans is good for a laugh; Eleanor teaching him how to have fun is endearing, and the continuing references to Friends of all things are pretty darn amusingly deployed.
Again, it’s done pretty bluntly, but Eleanor having a moment of personal growth, promising to help Michael and sticking with it even when it’s not convenient or beneficial for her is a good beat. And the twist with Michael thinking he’s found the common denominator in all the strange happenings, revealing that he thinks it’s him rather than Eleanor, however predictable, is a nice tease for the next episode.
The B-story is pretty darn good too. I’ve harbored the theory for a little bit now that part of the mixup is that Tahani and Chidi are meant to be soulmates, and so seeing how Chidi implicitly understands Tahani and works to help Jianyu connect with her is a nice gesture toward that idea. Once more, the show isn’t subtle about it, but it works, and Jianyu using a magic 8-ball to come up with his phrases is a good laugh.
All-in-all, one of the better episodes of the show’s early run here, with all parts of it clicking.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-09-27T04:21:19Z
[7.6/10] Very good episode. The continues to make its points a little obvious via the flashback, i.e. “Eleanor used to not keep her promises on Earth but is making efforts to keep her promises here!” But it works pretty well in the show’s series of events where Eleanor slowly but surely masters basic moral concepts.
The notion that she needs to help Michael, but that helping Michael would expose her puts her in a real bind, and leads to some nice dramatic tension. Plus, Eleanor and Michael make for a good comedic pair. Michael’s alien fascination with humans is good for a laugh; Eleanor teaching him how to have fun is endearing, and the continuing references to Friends of all things are pretty darn amusingly deployed.
Again, it’s done pretty bluntly, but Eleanor having a moment of personal growth, promising to help Michael and sticking with it even when it’s not convenient or beneficial for her is a good beat. And the twist with Michael thinking he’s found the common denominator in all the strange happenings, revealing that he thinks it’s him rather than Eleanor, however predictable, is a nice tease for the next episode.
The B-story is pretty darn good too. I’ve harbored the theory for a little bit now that part of the mixup is that Tahani and Chidi are meant to be soulmates, and so seeing how Chidi implicitly understands Tahani and works to help Jianyu connect with her is a nice gesture toward that idea. Once more, the show isn’t subtle about it, but it works, and Jianyu using a magic 8-ball to come up with his phrases is a good laugh.
All-in-all, one of the better episodes of the show’s early run here, with all parts of it clicking.