WiC Watches: The Good Place season 4

THE GOOD PLACE — “Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy” Episode 404 — Pictured: (l-r) Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Simone, William Jackson Harper as Chidi, Ben Koldyke as Brent — (Photo by: Colleen Hayes/NBC)

Episode 404: “Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy”

So The Good Place has elected to go the potboiler route, with lies and betrayals and plots within plots. Janet wasn’t really Janet, but rather Bad Janet, rebooted like 40 million times so she could convincingly impersonate someone not completely unpleasant. Michael and Jason are off to the depths of hell to save the real deal! Glenn the demon, working off bad information, defected from the Bad Place to tell our heroes that Michael wasn’t really Michael, but rather Vicki in a Michael suit, which we know is a thing because we saw Michael see it at the end of season 3. And then Bad Good Janet “accidentally” exploded Glenn with a homemade demon lie detector, and now he’s a sassy pile of blue goo in a fish tank.

Don’t worry, he’ll get better once he goes through the normal stages of demon regeneration: “Larva, slug monster, spooky little girl, teenage boy, giant ball of tongues, social media CEO, and finally demon.” Genuinely looking forward to seeing that.

“Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy” was long on plot twists and storytelling depth charges dropped episodes back exploding at just the right moment. It was well done, and fun to watch as always, but didn’t dig into the heady philosophical questions this show has proved so adept at exploring: what does it mean to live a good life? Can people change? We checked in with the new human arrivals quickly at the top of the episode during a game of magical Pictionary, and Chidi only once after that. The closest the episode came to plumbing some deeper depths was Eleanor struggling with how to handle the revelation that Michael had lied to her, first about freaking out in the season 3 finale and then about the real reason for why he freaked out and then about getting a call from Sean about the Michael suit. “But that lie was only to cover my two earlier lies. I mean, that’s gotta be okay, right?”

And hearing Michael get insecure about his true form — a 600-foot fire squid with tentacles and lots of juice — was pretty affecting. Still, this episode was more about setup than arrival, which is okay. I can’t be too mad at an episode where someone explodes in a rain of blue goo. Funny is funny.

The Good Bullet Points

• “I wrote my college thesis on that back tattoo.”
• Between the baby elephant made of pure light in the season premiere and Chidi’s monster horse, the special effects on this show have really improved.
• “You guys want me to kill it? I’ve shot a lot of race horses.”
• “Could I get a hot glass of pig urine? I’m not picky. Whatever urine you have is fine.”
• “He might be our friend. He might be a lying trickster who just looks like our friend. A classic Mary-Kate Olsen.” Tahani out.
• “I was just about to launch an idea where Tahani was gonna give herself an asymmetrical haircut.” “You monster!”