Loveday Writing

Eventually things settle down, with Chidi preparing ethics lessons for Eleanor. He asks her to tell him what she knows about him as a person, only for her to not remember anything he told her, while he remembered what she told him about herself. He tells her that she is the most selfish and self-absorbed person he’s ever known. This leads to the first flashback of Eleanor shirking the responsibility of being the designated driver at her work’s Thursday night drinks.

The next day, as part of day 2 of orientation, Michael tells the neighbourhood that they’ll get the chance to try flying. Moments later, Tahani gets on stage with Michael, Jianyu in hand, to volunteer to clean up the neighbourhood, requesting another 10-12 volunteers. Eleanor laughs at Tahani’s idea and some of the residents volunteering to clean up instead of flying to Chidi, only for him to volunteer her and himself, as it will help prove she’s not selfish.

While the cleaning up is occurring, Michael confides in Tahani that he feels he failed in designing the perfect neighbourhood, which culminates in a moment of him kicking a resident’s dog into the sun when he believes it’s a glitch.

After briefly helping out, Eleanor ends up abandoning her efforts and hides trash to go flying, only for a trash storm to start. When Chidi finds out, he refuses to help her. Eleanor eventually starts to feel guilty for her behaviour and gets up in the middle of the night to finish the cleaning by herself, Chidi sees her through his window, and comes down to see her. Eleanor admits she felt bad about abandoning her cleaning up responsibilities, Chidi points out to her that she’s cleaning up because she feels bad and that while feeling remorse for doing something bad isn’t the same as doing a good thing, it’s a good start to becoming a better person. He then agrees to help her.

After the cleaning up is finally done, Eleanor goes to see Michael in hopes of finally being able to fly only for him to tell her that he’s banned it for 1000 years, due to the injuries caused by the trash storm.

The episode ends with Chidi moving into Eleanor’s guest room and Eleanor finding a note slipped under her door, which says she doesn’t belong here, revealing that someone else knows her secret.

Overall I didn’t feel this was the strongest second episode of a season and a show, it fell a little flat after all of the action in the pilot. However there was solid character development in Eleanor as she was shown capable of feeling guilty for her selfish behaviour, which was perfectly contrasted by the flashbacks of her constantly shirking her responsibilities as a designated driver for her workmates when she was alive. Also a new element was added to the story arc of Eleanor not belonging in the Good Place, with the reveal of someone else knowing her secret.

Stray Observations:

-All requests that the residents make to Janet are confidential. When Eleanor asks about the confidentiality of requests, Janet assumes she wants access to pornography.

-Chidi’s throwaway comment of whether he should help Eleanor as any efforts she would make to be selfless would be undermined by her corrupt motivations, pays off in a later episode.

-People puking on rollercoasters brings Eleanor joy.

-Apparently designing an afterlife where to-go cups don’t leak where the seam meets the lid was one of the hardest problems Michael had to solve.

Hints of the Season 1 Finale twist:

-Michael isn’t human, which is obvious due to his role as an architect, however it is not explicitly stated what kind of being he is.

-The trash storm.

-The fact that Michael banned flying, flying should always be available in the afterlife, even if injuries occur. Injuries when flying, especially when residents are new at it would be a given and as the residents can’t die, why would injuries or the possibility of them even matter in the first place? Also how are injuries even possible in the afterlife?