Tuesday, December 5, 2017

The Good Place 2.07: “Derek”

“We’re not starting over, we’ve come too far. Our only options are to reboot either Janet or Derek.”
- Michael

This week’s episode showed quite a bit of growth for many of our characters which was a nice change. Janet’s new boyfriend Derek is giving Michael quite the headache. He pops up every time Janet is called for and he’s worried that will blow their cover. But Chidi won’t let him just kill Derek. So, to keep as few people in the know, Michael sends Tahani and Jason on a little getaway. They start off playing croquet and then Jason convinces her to play some weird drunken version of golf. And then, as they are walking and talking, he suggests they get married. Tahani is surprised by the proposal but after a little while, she agrees.

That’s going to cause some serious issues because Chidi and Eleanor now know that Janet made Derek to get over Jason (and they now know that Jason was married to Tahani). Eleanor feels a touch guilty about the whole thing given that Janet did this on Eleanor’s word to get a rebound guy. But she’s got her own secrets to deal with. She’s been watching the creepy sex tape of her and Chidi professing their love for one another but she hasn’t shared that news with him. She does have more pressing matters to attend to when Janet and Derek start going through a huge fight and Derek just starts appearing places without Janet and acting really weird. Also, not that it is really that important but he kind of looks like a young Timothy Omundson which made me kind of sad because he’s such a great character actor.

When Michael, Chidi and Tahani get their wedding invitations, they come to the agreement that they need to stop the wedding and break up Tahani and Jason so that maybe Janet won’t feel sad anymore and get rid of Derek. They bust up the weird little ceremony (I swear these two really don’t have anything in common and don’t really make sense together) and Eleanor explains about the marriage from the first version of the neighborhood. And then, Eleanor gets real with Janet. She admits that she didn’t realize Janet’s feelings for Jason were so deep and that her loss of him was such a heartbreak. She gets kind of emotional and says that Janet just needs to sit with the emotions for a while and then move on. It’s actually some decent advice which is strange coming from Eleanor. But hey, she is starting to become a better person. Or at least she’s trying. The wedding is definitely off but Jason doesn’t know how he feels about all of this. He’s got no memory (obviously) of being married to Janet and he still likes Tahani. It does seem like they will slowly start to get to know each other and see if they want to move forward after that. I fi had to pick, I’d almost rather have Jason with Janet because it’s just a funnier dynamic and Tahani is my least favorite of the cast. But, Janet is now equipped emotionally to let Derek go. It’s slightly awkward that she has to reabsorb her memories from him by making out with him. And for whatever reason she gave him wind chimes in lieu of penis.

After Janet goes off to hide Derek in a cargo crate in her void, Eleanor bites the bullet and comes clean to Chidi about the video. He’s not entirely surprised she kept it from him. He’s more shocked he was able to tell her “I love you” so easily. She goes on to say that she can’t understand how she could say it to him so easily back then either. When Chidi admits he doesn’t think he has those feelings for her now, she tries to cover the fact that she’s hurt by that by insisting she’s relieved that he doesn’t feel that way because she doesn’t either. He clearly wants to talk about the situation more (I do hope they eventually get to that point again. I think they do make a good couple), but Michael barges in and needs to talk to Eleanor. He wants to know how she can stick with the whole ethics lessons when the whole neighborhood was designed to throw things at her that she would normally have just given up with in life. She says that even when she was alive, she had a little voice in her head that would kind of tell her when she was doing bad things. Oh, so she did in fact have a conscience! She likes now that the voice is gone because she’s at least trying to be a better person and work on herself. This seems to help Michael but as they are talking, given the camera angle, you know someone is watching them and may now be hip to their plan.

Well folks, I really did enjoy this episode and it’s the last one for a while as the show goes on hiatus (thanks football and your stupid schedule). Now we won’t know who caught Michael collaborating with the humans and what that means for our core four until sometime in 2018. I’m still not sure if the end game of the season is going to be them actually getting into the real Good Place or not. I mean, if the show goes on for another season after this, I can’t imagine them being in the Good Place would be all that interesting. As much as I enjoy the show, I do question the writing more often than not of what will happen and if they are writing themselves into corners they can’t get out of. But for now, we will have to wait and see if Michael can get himself out of the hot seat and avoid letting Sean know that not only are they not on trial number two, but that he's been working against the rest of the demons in the neighborhood to try and get out of there so he doesn’t get retired!

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