"What We Owe to Each Other," is the most uneven, of what has been a very strong run of episodes for The Good Place so far. In one respect the episode expanded the show and its characters in some much needed ways. Namely this was the first episode to spend a good chunk of it's run time exploring who Michael is, and what makes him tick. Ted Danson has been a little underutilized on the show so far, besides a few hilarious one-liners or perfectly executed bits of physical comedy. Here he gets to let his freak flag fly.
Michael is so eccentric and obsessive, that he's often one of the show's greatest comic tools. From his love of paper clips (paperclip shower anyone?), to the way he puts on a hoodie like a sullen teenager when he can't solve a problem, Michael (in large part due to Ted Danson's excellent performance) is a gold mine for jokes. His obsession with the show Friends was a recurring joke that kept producing some of the episode's funniest lines, such as "Ross and Phoebe" being the first pairing from the show that Michael could think of as an example of true friendship. Eleanor's insistence that Michael needed to learn how to have fun, turned out to be more of a good deed for the audience than for Michael. From his line about liking frozen yogurt more that ice cream because, "There's something so human about taking something great and making it a little worse so that you can have more of it," to his description of a plush Minion he won from a claw grab arcade game as an, "ugly yellow toddler," Michael finally got the showcase episode he deserved this week. I hope Michael doesn't make good on his promise to leave the Good Place, because I'll never get tired of hearing him call a pile of rocks, "devious little bastards."
Most of the other characters had much smaller stories in the episode. Chidi and Tahani discovered that they have enough in common that in another situation they possibly could have been paired together as soul-mates. Given how nice Chidi and Tahani are, and how neither had a chance to be paired with a genuine soul-mate, it's nice that they are developing a connection, even if it makes the whole situation even more complicated. Jianyu/Jason hasn't been clicking for me. I understand the element of humor he is supposed to inject into the show, but for the most part it doesn't seem to be working. The show has just traded the "Jianyu never talks" gimmick for a half-hearted "Jason isn't smart" gimmick. Janet continues to be a good source of comedy, even if the show isn't completely sure how to use her. Her "does not compute" bit was the show's funniest non-Michael moment, but overall it seems like she's best used as a "straight man" to counter Michael's often spastic personality.
Eleanor's story this week was pretty basic as well. Seeing her teach Michael how to have fun was a great use of both Kristen Bell and Ted Danson (who have fantastic chemistry together). The episode didn't go too in depth on Eleanor's moral lesson from Chidi (which essentially boiled down to "keep your promises"), but focusing on building the Michael and Eleanor dynamic was a more rewarding use of time, so I applaud the writers on that. Where the episode took a big misstep was in the flashback. Past flashbacks have provided a lot of understanding as to why these characters have the bad habits and insecurities that they do, but this week's flashback served no other purpose than to show that Eleanor was a bad person on earth. That's something we already knew about Eleanor. Had the flashback been funny or illuminating, then I could have been okay with it, but here it seems like a contrived piece of formula the show is relying on. It would be a big mistake for the show to stick to this formula of including a flashback in every episode. At most they should be an occasional device the show uses, but really we are starting to know the characters well enough that the show would be fine dropping them all together. Other than that, the episode was mostly good, even if it was lacking in content.
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