The Good Place Review: "Jason Mendoza"

Last season (September 2015 to May 2016) I decided to hone my reviewing skills by dedicating myself to at least one show through the entirety of its season. That show was The CW's excellent and underrated iZombie. Since iZombie, won't be on again until winter 2017, I've been looking for a show to fill its spot in my weekly review schedule. My original plan was for the replacement show to be the cult musical comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Also on The CW. You REALLY should be watching that channel.), but since that show also hasn't started yet, I've been reviewing the first few episodes of The Good Place for now. I don't know if I will review every episode of The Good Place going forward, but for now its mix of both episodic and serialized storylines makes it a fun show to take a closer look at each week.

"Jason Mendoza" picked up right where the last episode left off. After telling Eleanor that he also does not belong in The Good Place, Jianyu - whose real name is actually Jason Mendoza - explains that he was mistaken for a Buddhist monk upon arriving in the afterlife. In reality he was a drug dealer and an amature DJ from Florida. Jason, to put it kindly, isn't the brightest person, something that Eleanor is able to figure out pretty quickly. He hasn't even realized that he is in the afterlife until Eleanor explains the situation to him, and he has the mentality of a teenager.

I was quickly growing tired of how underdeveloped Jianyu was as the always silent monk whose one gimmick was to unintentionally infuriate the otherwise "perfect" Tahani. The episode made some efforts to add a little depth to his character through flashback glimpses of what Jason's life was like before he died, but at this point he's still coming off more as character type than an actual human being. That being said, I trust the show will spend more time developing Jason now that he is so central to the story. While "dumb" humor isn't always my favorite, Jason's enthusiastic declaration that he was ready to, "learn about ethnics," when he came to Chidi's ethics class, was the best joke of the episode.

For the show to continue to work, it needs to keep bringing people into the fold, and expanding the underlying problem that is plaguing The Good Place. So far each episode has done a good job of at least doing one of those two things. This was a very solid episode and the show is still in the early part of its thirteen episode season. I look forward to seeing what everyone does next.

Some other thoughts on the episode:

• Tahani was given very little to do here, which was okay for the most part because she's such a big personality that she's better in small doses. Still her exchange with Michael about suspenders was one of the episode's funnier bits. Janet was also very deep in the background, after a very funny episode last week. 

• Not everything about Jason makes narrative sense. He was too dumb to realize he is in the afterlife, but he somehow understood he didn't fit in and needed to stay silent to hide himself? It's a bit of a stretch. The show will have to find a consistent sweet spot of just how smart or stupid they are going to allow him to be.

•  In Eleanor's case Michael, mixed up the details of her life, but had her name correct. In the case of Jason, Michael was wrong about both his name and the details of his life. Is the real Jianyu stuck in The Bad Place?

• The show often deals in broad personality types with mixed success. While chef Patricia's intense personality was an amusing running gag, she's a character/joke I don't need to see again.

• Points to the show for naming the restaurant "The Good Plate," and for not having Michael get the joke until he said it out loud in front of everyone at the restaurant opening.

• Last week Eleanor accepted the job as Michael's assistant, but as of this episode she has yet to start it. This episode had a lot going on, so I'm glad the show didn't try to squeeze that in too. 

• At the end of the episode Tahani learned that the hole Eleanor created was actually getting bigger, instead of repairing itself like Michael said it would. I'm not a fan of cliffhangers, but it has been smart for this show to end each episode with a problem that can be picked up in the next episode.