WiC Watches: The Good Place season 4

THE GOOD PLACE — “A Girl From Arizona” Episode 401/402 — Pictured: (l-r) Manny Jacinto as Jason, Ted Danson as Michael, Jameela Jamil as Tahani– (Photo by: Colleen Hayes/NBC)

Episode 401: “A Girl From Arizona (Part 1)”

“A Girl From Arizona” zeroes in on Eleanor (Kristin Bell), as you could probably guess from the title. Is she up for filling in for Michael as the Architect? Can she step over the roadblocks the Bad Place put in her way, most notably dealing with Chidi after his memory’s been erased and counseling newcomer Brent, a rich middle-aged white guy proud of his own ignorance and entitlement? (“You can’t make a joke these days. Everything is so PC…And by the way, I’m the furthest thing from racist. My dentist was a black woman.”)

The Good Place is all about ethical dilemmas, and the season 4 premiere starts erecting them one after the other. Is it right for Eleanor to keep Chidi away from Simone because she still has feelings for him even though getting the two of the together could help the experiment go smoothly? (Eleanor does eventually accept that it isn’t after Michael leans on her, but only begrudgingly. “Stupid ethical reasonable argument. With you were a cake. Push you over.”) Is Chidi really the same Chidi they knew now that his memories are gone? Is it okay for Jason to murder Derek for sliding into Janet’s DMs? Derek is, after all, not a person, and therefore the morality surrounding murder may not apply. But if Derek’s kind become more human with every reboot, is there a point where he would become so much like a person that killing him would be tantamount to killing the real thing?

All that and we get a joke about the evil of the Kars4Kids theme song — to this day I don’t know what that company does. This was a good episode.

The new arrivals look like they could cause all kinds of trouble. Brent seems like a very up-to-the-minute sort of dipshit, a casual bigot defensive about having his bubble burst. I’m sure they can do lots with him. I also really liked the idea of trying to improve someone as indifferent to life and living as Linda, and was actually disappointed when she turned out to be a Bad Place demon in disguise. I feel like they could have mined a character like that for some good laughs and maybe even a few moral insights, but the plot twist means Chidi is back in the mix as the fourth newcomer, which I’m sure will present new dilemmas aplenty.

Simone is another highlight. Of course a neuroscientist might rationalize being told she’s in the afterlife and figure it was just her brain going haywire. And Eleanor was right: she was wearing the hell out of those foam fingers.

The Good Bullet Points

• “Reading lights! I love reading lights. They’re great for reading.”
• “Dead eyes, eat hearts, can’t lose.”
• Could we get a flashback to Disco Janet at some point?
• Tahani name drop watch: Robert Downey Jr., Nelson Mandela, Patrick Stewart, and Peter Sarsgaard
• “This is all in my head. I’m gonna go eat a knife!”
• “Attention! Murder has been me!”
• “That’s like studying for a test and then acing the test. It’s cheating.”