4x07 Help is Other People

[7.3/10] Man, this moved at a crazy pace. I’ve liked the time we’ve spent doing The Experiment, and the twists and turns along the way have largely been strong ones. But even for a show known for blowing through plot, “Help Is Other People” just races through some of the biggest bombs this season could drop at the midway point.

The experiment is ending (and we’ve apparently jumped six months). Simone has figured out that something is amiss and has concocted elaborate theories. John spills the beans about Jason not being Jianyu to the group. We’re trying desperate maneuvers to get the four humans to rack up good deeds, like putting Brent in peril and telling them that they’re in The Bad Place.

That is, well, a lot. Most of it’s good! I like almost all of those developments, if not every slice of the execution. But man, that’s packing in a lot without giving any of it time to breathe. The rapidfire pace of this show is usually a feature, not a bug, but I walked away from this one excited for what’s to come next but also wishing we could have stretched some of this out and developed more connective tissue with what came before.

Still, there’s quality material here. We haven’t really had time to get to know Chidi and Simone as a couple (despite the amusing muffin/ducky appellations), but I appreciate the cause of their break-up here. It’s a little too conceptual rather than emotional, but I like the idea that it stems from a raw philosophical difference between the two. Simone is a scientist and evidentialist -- that means she keeps secrets from Chidi because she doesn't want to taint her analysis and walks away from Brent because he’s shown them no evidence that he’s a good person worth saving. Chidi is a Kantian and deontologist, which means he keeps secrets from Simone because he can’t bear to break his oath of secrecy and he goes to save Brent because he believes he has a moral duty to do so. The pair respect one another’s positions, but realize that it makes them incompatible when push comes to shove despite some on the ground chemistry.

I truly like that notion! It’s just a lot to get through in a single episode, and it’s harder to invest in that when we’ve barely seen them be a couple in the afterlife. There’s a level of chaos that’s introduced from Simone having identified that something fishy’s going on and snooping around to figure out what it is, but the destination is more impactful than the abbreviated journey.

On the other side, I like our heroes scrambling to get the humans in the best position possible before the experiment ends, and everything going predictably awry. Some of that is just standard sitcom storytelling, but there’s an enjoyable chaos that follows from Eleanor and company putting together their supposed perfect dash across the finish line, the humans completely thwarting that possibility, and then the good guys running around trying to react.

I appreciate their plan here, to try to earn them one more set of major good deed points by rescuing Brent when, for a guy that douchey, the only reason to save him could be pure altruism and respect for human life overall. The fact that it splits this quarter apart, when these sorts of events bonded the original group together, is an interesting shift away from our usual expectations and understanding, and I appreciate the desperation of it.

There’s also something interesting about the final ploy, to tell Brent and Chidi that they’re in the bad place (or rather, give Chidi enough to guess it), so that Brent has to confront the idea that he’s a bad person. Brent denying it, having his view of himself punctured, is a really intriguing idea that I imagine we won’t get to explore in any depth until later, if at all, and the notion of him apologizing to Chidi as a moral buzzer beater is compelling as a final monkey wrench in the experiment.

There’s also some good laughs here. Michael doing “earth magic” is amusingly lame. Janet trying to get into the obelisk and talking about how she’ll need to “violently eat” her Janet-babies were both laughs. Jason’s reaction to Tahani’s London references and Tahani’s shock at Jason’s two-for-two bits of coherency are both funny bits. And Eleanor going for the margarita pitcher rather than the glass at the end is a cheap laugh, but a solid one.

I just wish we got more of this. Maybe that’s me worrying that we have a Game of Thrones situation here, where there’s a good story to be told, but smushing it into a small episode order creates pacing and development plausibility problems. Still, I trust this show to make it work, and I hope that what comes next justifies that faith.

Stakes? Sure. Conflict? Yep. Tension? I guess?

The structure of The Good Place almost ensures this wasn't going to be resolved this episode. It negates a lot of momentum the writing here could have maintained had the aforementioned structure been subverted at any point. But it really hasn't and as a result I feel like I'm just watching a resolution being drawn out.

Listen. I know I am a bit more lukewarm on this series than most, but it comes from a good place. The show has a lot to prove and a ton to live up to. I have never really felt like The Good Place has been able to match the dramatic heights of other half-hour comedies (Barry, Fleabag, Atlanta) or the comedic brilliance of Schur's other projects. And I feel it's necessary on some level to point out these shortcomings particularly in critical moments like this.

That doesn't mean there aren't good bits to it: Jason has easily been the strongest character this season (which has surprised me) and John is a good addition. But even the strong bits of previous seasons have weakened: Janet doesn't click quite right and now that Eleanor's arc has shifted her away from her previously defining edginess she feels curbed as a result.

I feel like this is a show that really could benefit from being able to binge it all at once, so the cliffhangers don't feel so annoying and disruptive. It's season four. Your audience is going to keep watching.