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The Good Place: A Chip Driver Mystery

“Oh my Gaga.”

Finally, back to The Good Place I know and love.

This episode had a very season two feel about it. The story followed the publication of and fallout from Brent’s novel “Six Feet Under Par: A Chip Driver Mystery.” It was framed by Michael telling the story to Bad Janet, who has been imprisoned in Janet’s void for six months.

I think the writers were right to focus on Simone this week, as she is by far the most likable of the three new humans. Brent also got a fair bit of screen time, but all at his expense. I really liked the whole A plot. It was fun to see Chidi stand up for Simone (and himself), great to see Brent be taken to task, and every bit about Brent’s book was HILARIOUS. I bet the writers had fun writing that.

Michael really let go with the show’s ultimate thesis “What matters isn’t if people are good or bad. What matters is if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday.” I’m also…suspicious. This season’s spent precious little time on the test subjects and they’re not getting better if Brent is any metric. I’m wondering if The Good Place is going to pull off a season one finale-style twist on us where the test was about Eleanor, Tahani, and Jason the whole time. Or something even screwier like this entire series has been a test. I don’t know but my Spider Sense is tingling. I think Mike Schur is going to leave us with a big shock and I’m not entirely sure what it will be but I’m on the lookout for it. Bad Janet may be a factor, as she now may be harboring some doubts about her previous schemas and has Michael and Janet’s manifesto. What if more demons defect like Glenn and Bad Janet leads a demon strike?

Elsewhere, John faced the biggest test of his (after)life: keeping his mouth shut about Jason not being Jianyu. It was a minor development given all that was going on. I hope John and Jason get to know each other. I really love the Jason/Chidi dynamic we have going on right now.

Ethical Bits and Pieces

Eleanor and gang now give themselves two weekly awards: Humanity Savior of the Week and Hottest Savior of the Week. Michael never wins the latter.

Michael’s golfing outfit. That is all.

The Good Quotes

Chip Driver: “Her brown eyes were brown as the brownest crayon.”

Tahani: “Also, Chip Driver is either a private eye, or the quarterback for the Chicago Bears, or the world’s strongest president. He cannot be all three!”

Jason: “If you want to try something spontaneous, I’m your guy. Almost everything I did on Earth I did without thinking or worrying about what would happen. That’s how I got my nickname: The Defendant.”

Bad Janet: “Middle-aged male American fragility. You know why they’re called baby boomers, right? Because the tiniest little pin prick to their ego and boom, they become babies.”
Did ‘Ok boomer’ blow up this week BECAUSE of The Good Place or is this some fantastical coincidence?

honestly? Four out four golf balls. This episode was a great example of what makes The Good Place so great

sunbunny

3 comments:

  1. Lovely review, sunbunny, and I agree -- I really enjoyed this one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree also! I really enjoyed this one, and I was a bit disappointed by other review sites that dislike it lol. Serves me right for not sticking here.
    The only part I agreed with them on was it did feel a bit incomplete, like the story should have gone a bit further before the end. But I think that was the point... that it didn't need to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I thought it was a lot of fun - the detective is so clever that he solves the murder on page 10! That was hilarious.

    ReplyDelete

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