The Good Place Review: "...Someone Like Me as a Member"

The problem with not being an actual TV critic, is that I'm not in the loop on a lot of what is going on in the industry. So when the post-episode previews for The Good Place said that new episodes would not be back until January, I was surprised. That means that "...Someone Like Me as a Member," is essentially a mid-season finale, and as such it was a bit of a mix of reliable humor and reverting to bad habits.

While The Good Place has had small hiccups in its storytelling over the course of this first season, the show has consistently been a great source of smart humor that has mostly been missing from network TV since shows like 30 Rock, Community, and Parks and Recreation left the air. Adam Scott's guest turn as Trevor, a demon who runs the Bad Place, was pure comedic gold. Scott proved that he is excellent as the "nice guy" on Parks and Recreation, but it is nice to see him play opposite that character in Trevor who is a smug jerk (It's worth noting that this is not the first time Scott has played this kind of role, but this is an excellent example of how he can excel at it). The running gag of having all of "fake" Eleanor's excuses for her behavior on earth be overshadowed by the hardships that "real" Eleanor (Tiya Sircar) overcame in her lifetime, was great. Unlike Tahani, "real" Eleanor is completely humble about her good deeds, and therefore is an even better comic foil for "fake" Eleanor. Speaking of Tahani, like all of the supporting characters, she was mostly underutilized, but her disgust at the supreme judge's name being "Sean," was one of the episode's funniest moments.

As far as the storyline of the episode goes, the show reverted back to a lot of bad habits that it had early in the season. Namely, not having any idea what to do with the supporting characters. Chidi being fascinated by "real" Eleanor makes sense, because she was his intended soulmate. Only time will tell what that means for the recently blossoming romance between Chidi and Tahani. Jason and Janet had a nice bonding moment (or as close to a bonding moment as either of those characters can have), but it kind of came out of nowhere. The show also continued to rely on its formulaic use of flashbacks. Here, we got a series of vignettes of times in Eleanor's life when she refused to become a part of an established group. The show vaguely hints that this has something to do with Eleanor's parents getting divorced, but overall the flashbacks are ineffective because there's very little motivation behind them. Trevor even pokes holes in Eleanor's divorce excuse later in the episode by pointing out that she's far from alone in that experience.

Unfortunately the episode also chose to pair Tahani and Michael, without giving either character anything to really do. This was a mistake the show made a lot in the early episodes. Tahani and Michael work well together when Tahani is trying to impress Michael, but he is in a bad mood. They were a great pair in the episode where Tahani's retirement party for Michael, keeps reminding him of how horrible the next chapter of his life will be, or even in last week's episode where Michael inadvertently revealed how frustrated he was with Tahani through his lie detector cube. Without that dynamic, the pair becomes arguably the least effective part of the show, as was the case here. It's a shame because Michael has been excellent in the last few episodes of the show. Still, the good outweighed the bad, as it always has with this show.

Other Thoughts:

• We didn't get to learn a whole lot about "real" Eleanor, but I could definitely see her becoming a full time part of the show. 
• There wasn't a lot of interaction between Chidi and "fake" Eleanor, but the moment when he assured her that he was still on her team was nice. 
• How the confrontation between Michael and Trevor over "fake" Eleanor will play out remains a mystery until January, but I think it's safe to say we'll probably meet Sean at some point. 
• Tahani finding out about Jianyu/Jason's secret was bound to happen at some point. She may be vain, but she isn't stupid. Michael and Trevor came up with a reason for why both Eleanors got mixed up when they went to the afterlife, but that explanation did nothing to explain how Jason somehow became mixed up with a completely different person when he died.