The Good Place (Season 2)

[Peng]

https://www.earnthenecklace.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/the-good-place-release-date.jpg

The show is too good (and pretty plot- and detail-oriented) to not have a thread. Good premier that burns through its season 1 cliffhanger quickly and entertainingly. Michael's ways of torturing Tahani are a hoot: "Oh God, what's happened to me? I'm praising off-the-rack separates!"

[Peng]

Also there's this video (http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/20/the-good-place-bad-place-video-kristen-bell/) Kristen Bell took last year of the cast learning about Season 1's twist from Schur.

[D_Davis]

I just finished season one. Incredible show.

[Russ]

Tahani has the worst luck with soul mates.

[number8]

Love the return episode. What a really smart way to go back on that cliffhanger while still advancing the plot.

People are already anticipating some kind of twist Michael being tortured too, I assume?

[number8]

Also there's this video (http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/20/the-good-place-bad-place-video-kristen-bell/) Kristen Bell took last year of the cast learning about Season 1's twist from Schur.

Oh my gosh I love this.

[Peng]

Holy forks that was even better than the pilot. A free-wheeling, hilarious, creative narrative free-fall; it contains so many clever variations of season 1 writ small, then blows them up, again and again. This one will reward so many rewatches.

Favorite jokes: Janet pleading (per her program) in so many ways then dying repeadtedly, Eleanor figuring it out at the very start of one attempt because she wandered in and overheard Michael, Jason figuring it out for once to the extreme hurt of Michael.



People are already anticipating some kind of twist Michael being tortured too, I assume?

Love that it alluded to this, even if it was just a tiny bit. “Make Michael think he’s the one in The Bad Place”

[Peng]

From the episode's writer:

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[Peng]

Kind of lower-tier for the show, but still solid and funny enough. Ted Danson enacting The Scream face is pretty amazing though.

[number8]

I wasn't that wild about last week's, either. I worry that their flanderization of Jason is going to become off-putting real quick.

[dreamdead]

One of the things that I found really sweet in the first season was the Jason and Janet relationship. It's a bit tricky in that such a plot move isn't much different than the Ex Machina, Her, and Blade Runner trope of the guy being attracted to a technology that can't really say no, but something about Jacinto's performance made it work. The movement away from that and toward Tahani is a bit more traditional and, given the Flanders-izing, less interesting.

Danson doing ennui = funny. Danson doing middle-age denial = less funny.

Get back to being awesome, show.

[transmogrifier]

I wasn't that wild about last week's, either. I worry that their flanderization of Jason is going to become off-putting real quick.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I've found most of Shur's shows to eventually wear out their welcome as they become increasingly one-note with one-dimensional characters (especially Parks and Recreation, but I've also given up on Brooklyn Nine Nine and The Office was only good from Seasons 2 to 5). I think he generally gets a pass because his shows are generally pleasant with "nice" characters (though there are weirdly unfunny attempts at "nasty" humor, like everyone hating Jerry, which is probably the worst running joke in all of his shows) and he has great actors working in them.

[Not to mention "Nosedive" is one of the clunkiest and least subtle episodes of [B]Black Mirror]

[dreamdead]

Jason is still a littttttttle too buffoonish, but yesterday's episode otherwise killed it. Love Michael's solution to the trolley scenario so, so much.

[Peng]

Yeah, not the best, but probably the funniest episode so far this season. Ted Danson joining the main group has paid off dividends; so many things to love about him this episode but one delightful minor note is his "hehehe, eh?" while wanting to high-five Eleanor about his Chidi crack.

Also, if the glitches are happening because of Janet seeing Jason and Tanahi together (dreamdead you might just have your wish of it not being swiped away), this is going to be the weirdest love triangle ever.

[Peng]

D’Arcy Carden is already a treasure, but she and Ted Danson together in an almost-bottle episode are just amazing. Danson admitting they were friends turns out to be unexpectedly affecting too. Reminds me of Anya processing unfamiliar emotions in Buffy's "The Body", but obviously far less severe.

[Sycophant]

I feel like this setting and these characters make for the best staging ground yet for Michael Schur's cartoonish-sitcom-with-feelings sensibilities (and obviously the writing staff he's assembled is key to making that work). I'm loving this new season--though i can admit a few of the earlier episodes after the premier were a bit subpar for this series. The Janet and Michael two-person showcase last week was maybe the funniest yet of this season.

[Peng]

"Maximum Derek!"

Kind of too much of a mad rush into a new status quo (really wonder now even more than past episodes how they will go from here) to be great, but I'm glad to be back in this show's world. So many delightful quips and jokes, but the reveal of "Something, something, Vicky, something, something" might be my favorite.

[number8]

This has got to be the only sitcom where I genuinely don’t know where they’re going with the story.

[Kurosawa Fan]

This is one of my favorite shows on TV right now. It is so much fun week in and week out.

[Peng]

A rare genuinely sweet episode from the show, to go along with its usual self-reinvention. Goodbye, the fake Good Place!

[Sycophant]

This has got to be the only sitcom where I genuinely don’t know where they’re going with the story.

After the most recent episode, I turned to my wife and said "Sure doesn't seem like there's going to be a third season at this rate because it feels like they're really wrapping up" and she's like "Nah, it's been renewed for a third season."

Yeah, I have no idea where it's going. And I never really have, so I don't know why I bother to speculate. The show always surprises me, and almost always for the best.

The picture they've painted of the bad place is so cartoonishly over-the-top gruesome and gory, I wonder how they're gonna deal with the characters traversing it. By keeping it mostly/entirely offscreen, I suppose. They've certainly got no bottom to the barrel of descriptions they can use.

Bad Janet is the best thing.

[number8]

The logical speculation is that they would have a third season set in the actual good place but really who fucking knows. This show is too good at subterfuge.

[amberlita]

Every time I watch this show I have impure thoughts about Ted Danson. I mean, it's fine...I was already going to the Bad Place anyway.