The Good Place on NBC

Universal forgiveness goes against the grain of most, if not all, ethical philosophers, because it renders their tortured wrestling with the nuances pointless.

I thought last night's was fantastic and got me really excited about this season (for a week until the season finale). The change in setting seemed to open up something that had been missing for much of the season, tons of laugh out loud moments.

I haven't watched it yet but I don't know if it's a good or bad thing about this show that literally anything could be at the end of the balloon ride and I'd probably buy it.

i've been suspicious they had an eight episode final season and have had to pad the shit out of it.

aka The Americans s5

It has felt like some wheel spinning for some time, but last night's really reminded me of what I love best about the show.

The ending was the ending of A History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters.

Looks like a feature length/double episode finale next week (according to IMDB anyway).

And the episode title seems like a massive fucking spoiler so don't look it up.

Oh! I thought that was the last episode...

Ha, the ending could certainly have scanned as a series finale, but more to come.

Schur on the Olyphant cameo: all this thread's questions answered

https://tv.avclub.com/mike-schur-on-making-the-judge-s-dreams-come-true-with-1840910984

ohhh that wasn't the finale

It's tonight, right?

90-min finale, yup

fuck

Well that was sweet.

i havente even finished watching & it has already destroyed ms

V good

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

it didn't really work for me overall and I'm not quite sure why

That's kind of my overall statement about the last couple seasons really

Clara Peller!

Lacking cable and uninterested in legal streaming options, I haven't seen S3 & 4. The UK has had single season blus which I passed on. For cord cutters like myself, there will be a US blu-ray set released May 19.

it didn't really work for me overall and I'm not quite sure why

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, January 31, 2020 7:32 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

eleanor/chidi imo

i was still often devastated and felt like it was a solid ending but michael schur's romantic couplings really alienate me from his shows

This did pretty much what I expected it to and it was perfectly satisfactory in achieving that. So fine, but otherwise underwhelming (a bit like the whole final series).

Lacking cable and uninterested in legal streaming options, I haven't seen S3 & 4. ...For cord cutters like myself

This show was on broadcast television, and also available via illegal means.

I liked what they did with Michael at the end. I was feeling pretty underwhelmed by the last episode's vision of heaven - like, really, this is all it is? But after watching this one I thought maybe that was the point. Because, you know, all these people are actually dead. And even in this universe where there's an afterlife that gives you everything you've ever wanted, nothing beats getting to actually live your life.

michael's ending was great, as was tahani's, i like that she essentially became an afterlife party planner

my favorite part was cosmic derek

Schur pointed out an (I think) important detail about Chidi's exit. Everyone else took a seat on the bench, but Chidi, who spent his whole life tying himself in knots to make decisions, walked through without any hesitation whatsoever.

that was lovely. I mean the decisiveness of chidi’s exit specifically, but also the whole thing.

The Mary Steenburgen cameo <3

Also the fact that she was a guitar teacher:

In 2007, Steenburgen underwent minor surgery on her arm, which required a general anesthetic; shortly thereafter, she began experiencing "music (...) playing in her head day and night".[12] She subsequently took music lessons so that she could write down what she was hearing, and by 2013 had almost 50 songwriting credits.[12] She has collaborated with musicians from Nashville and was also signed to Universal Music as a songwriter.

I teared up a bit during that.

I had no idea she was Ted Danson's wife. I was thinking "oh, another Justified connection"

I’m going through an amicable ish divorce and the Eleanor-Chidi part fuckin destroyed me.

Feel like this episode accidentally romanticizes suicide.

hey it also jokes about eternal torture

I disagree that it romanticizes suicide. They step through the door not to escape their life, or because they feel something missing from it, but the opposite: they feel like it is complete and they are at peace. It's more about acceptance of death and the unknown.

That’s why I said accidental. Because I worry people might feel like if they perceive they are at peace with the decision to go- which is not the same as needing to escape, but it’s an easy shift in interpretation to logically apply, and many times suicidal people DO feel a huge relief when they’ve decided that they are going to do it so it might feel similar to the way the characters “knew” (felt a calmness). I know it was different and that it applied uniquely to the afterlife scenario in the show’s universe. Just had some parallels.

They step through the door not to escape their life, or because they feel something missing from it, but the opposite: they feel like it is complete and they are at peace. It's more about acceptance of death and the unknown.

Suicide is suicide no matter the motive!

The show is very heavily tilted toward viewing everything through the lens of philosophy, where suicide has been treated as an existential moral and ethical subject for centuries. And like much of philosophy, the handling is strangely detached from the sensate and emotional reality most of us experience as "life".

That's kind of my overall statement about the last couple seasons really

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Friday, January 31, 2020 7:34 AM (yesterday)

Personally, I mostly disliked the last couple of seasons was because the show let its saccharine tone (which was always there) overtake everything else at the expense of its initially adventurous storytelling (and I'm not talking just about plot twists), not to mention everything felt so pat considering the show used to focus so much on grey areas - I felt the episode with Michael and Bad Janet was the show's absolute nadir

That all being said, I liked the finale more than I expected

I definitely found S3&4 a decline from the very high baseline of 2 and even more so 1 but this show is like wings, even when it's bad it's pretty good

Where by "wings" I mean wings as in Stupid Nick's, not the sitcom Wings, which I think was always bad

Suicide is suicide no matter the motive!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Saturday, February 1, 2020 1:28 PM (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Good point.

I think the show is trying to present it as, essentially, ghosts moving on when their last mission is completed, loose ends are tied up, etc. That's something we're all used to seeing in supernatural stories, and we usually see it as fundamentally different from suicide because we're very aware that an afterlife is not a life. It comes across as different here because up to now the show has presented the afterlife as essentially the same as real life - you change, you grow, you meet new people, you're afraid of what comes next, etc. It makes sense that they'd do that - a show where we're constantly reminded that the characters are well and truly dead would be pretty depressing. But they are dead, and they've already had their one shot at life, and everything else is just - tying up loose ends.

I think Michael's ending really underscored that. His joy at getting to tell a stranger to take it sleazy was lovely, but it's also a reminder of what the Good Place doesn't have - the ordinary, everyday delight of just being alive. So while I can see why it could look like romanticizing suicide, I saw it as just the opposite: a reminder that what we all have right now - just being alive and breathing and getting junk mail - is worth more than a universe full of free-flowing shrimp.

Great post. I was hoping they would edge a little closer toward a heaven-is-a-place-on-earth message, but it’s definitely there if you’re looking for it.

Thanks! I do think they confused the issue a little in "Patty" with the way they introduced the door. I would have liked it better if, instead of saying, "Here's this thing that will make eternal existence bearable: a way out!" they'd said, "You know what? Maybe eternal happiness isn't what the Good Place is for. Maybe it's to let you do all the things you didn't get a chance to do in life, and when you've done them, you can move on." Based on the last episode, I think that's where they were going, but initially presenting the door as a solution to existential ennui introduced a suicidal element that didn't need to be there.

I think the show is trying to present it as, essentially, ghosts moving on when their last mission is completed, loose ends are tied up, etc. That's something we're all used to seeing in supernatural stories, and we usually see it as fundamentally different from suicide because we're very aware that an afterlife is not a life. It comes across as different here because up to now the show has presented the afterlife as essentially the same as real life - you change, you grow, you meet new people, you're afraid of what comes next, etc.

This is a really interesting point, and it does make one imagine a version of season 4 that was about Eleanor realizing that she was actually NOT Eleanor the person who lived in Arizona but something more like the ghost of Eleanor, and had been ever since the shopping carts hit her. Making the bonding between Eleanor, Michael, and Janet more meaningful because it would come from Eleanor realizing that she, like them, was despite physical appearance not a person. But that would have been a REALLY different show.

all I know is this:
I experienced fear-of-dying, existential-level panic attacks so bad that they would wake me from my sleep from when i was around 10 well into adulthood. Bad. Really bad. Havent had one in a couple of years & feel like maybe I am finally past it.

But this episode, from the moment Jason said he was ready to go just dug into those fears so deep, i was crying pretty much non-stop. I even winced when the camera followed Eleanor through the door.

This episode was great but man it was hard going. Just grappling with the open conversations about finality. Maybe helpful too? I dunno. I loved the concept of the wave returning to the water, that really stuck w me.

manny jacinto has been a treasure since day 1 but man, his face at the moment he realizes he’s played the perfect game and he’s complete...