This week's episode of The Good Place, took a very progressive step forward, by finally having Eleanor reveal to Michael that she was put in The Good Place, by mistake. How that will affect the show moving forward, remains to be seen, but last week's episode proved that it was time for the show to move in a new direction, so this was a smart move on the show's part.
"The Eternal Shriek" starts where last week's episode left off, with Michael announcing that he is leaving The Good Place forever and going into retirement. Believing this to be a win-win situation (her secret stays safe, while Michael gets to relax for eternity), Eleanor is content to let Michael retire, until she learns (from a hilarious monologue by Ted Danson) that retirement for Michael will essentially be his version of going to The Bad Place. Feeling guilty, Eleanor decides to "murder" Janet since only "she" can operate the train that takes Michael from The Good Place to retirement. Chidi, who does not approve of the plan, accidentally hits the button that terminates Janet while trying to keep Jason from pushing the button (because apparently stupid people love touching buttons?). After a huge screen appears in the sky playing a video of Janet saying she has been murdered on repeat, Michael learns that he at least is not the only thing wrong in the community and postpones his retirement. Eleanor seeing how much Chidi's guilt over "murdering" Janet is affecting him decides to spare him the eternal agony and admit to Michael in from of the whole community that she is the reason everything has gone wrong in the community.
There are two very important sides of Eleanor we see in this episode. Whenever she encounters a problem, her go to move is to lie until the problem goes away or someone else fixes it. She always comes up with justifications for her lies, but the reality is that this is the biggest roadblock preventing her from earning her spot in The Good Place. As long as Eleanor lies about deserving to be there, she could never actually deserve to be there (per the rules of the show). There's also the side of Eleanor that has genuinely started to become a better person who cares about those around her. She doesn't want Michael to experience the torture of retirement, or Chidi to have to suffer through the guilt of keeping a secret for the rest of eternity. Her choice to reveal herself, is the most selfless action she has ever taken. It's a necessary step forward for Eleanor as our protagonist, and a smart change of direction for the narrative of the show. Obviously the show can't get rid of Eleanor as the main character, so seeing how Michael and all of the other residents of the community react to this news will be an interesting way to spend the back half of the season.
Other Thoughts:
- The show pairs Tahani and Michael together a lot when it doesn't know what else to do with those characters. It's a pairing that has been pretty fruitless so far, but last night Tahani's increasingly misguided attempts at cheering Michael up made for one of the episode's best running gags.
- Janet rarely gets more than a few good lines in an episode, but this episode gave her a lot of great jokes. From her best approximation of human crying at the news of Michael leaving, to her default programming to realistically plead for her life when someone comes near the button that destroys her, Janet rivaled Michael as the comedy MVP of the episode.
- I'm glad Janet's "murder" was really just a hard reset. She's not the most vital character to the show, but she is often a great source of humor for a show that frequently relies more on "smart" comedy than laugh out loud jokes.
- Jason still isn't working for me. I understand the role he is supposed to play on the show, but the show would have to put in a lot of work to transition him from just a plain old idiot to a lovable idiot. At this point, the show hasn't done anything to prove that the character is worth all of that time and effort (especially given that the show is already halfway through its 13 episode season).
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