Loveday Writing

When the group goes back to Mindy’s house, Eleanor comments that something feels off about the experiment. Just as Michael reassures her that everything’s going fine and they need to relax, they get an alert of an unknown train arriving in the neighbourhood. They go to the train station and see the hooded figure on the railroad hand car seen at the end of the previous episode, arrive. The hooded figure is revealed to be Glenn, the Bad Place demon that is seen constantly being put down by Shawn and his team. Glenn tells them that Michael is actually Vicky in a Michael suit.

When they bring Glenn back to Mindy’s house, Eleanor tells Michael that she trusts him, but she wants to make Glenn think that she doesn’t. Tahani asks Glenn why he’d help them, he tells her that Shawn believes everyone in the Bad Place is evil and beyond repair, but he is unsure he really believes this himself. Glenn presents the group with compelling but mostly circumstantial evidence that Michael is an impostor, such as photos of Vicky in the Michael suit that just shows Michael himself and not Vicky, and Michael getting a call about the suit, which Michael says he didn’t receive. Glenn suggests calling The Judge, but Eleanor is reluctant to do so as it could result in The Judge restarting the experiment.

The group take Michael into a spare bedroom (where they also find Mindy’s sex toys) to talk with him privately. When Eleanor asks him to take off his human suit, he refuses to as he’s a 6000-foot tall fire squid and if he took off his suit, he’d burst through the roof, the neighbourhood would see him and it would ruin the experiment. He also admits to lying about getting the phone call about the suit, and tells them about Shawn’s previous threat to torture them with demons in Michael suits.

Eleanor asks Janet to make a demon lie detector, however when they test it on Glenn, he ends up exploding into a blue goo. Janet tells them that wasn’t supposed to happen but Michael tells them not to worry as demons don’t die, but it will take a few months for Glenn to put himself back together. Eleanor goes for a walk to clear her head, whilst she’s out, she sees Chidi in the town square practising drawing in belief it will prevent further harm. Janet pours Glenn’s goo into a fish tank and tells Jason she feels terrible about what happened, he tells her that he’ll be there for her and she thanks him.

To prove his identity to the others, Michael tells them to use the detector on him, putting himself at risk of blowing up. Before they start to use it, Jason realises Janet is the impostor and cuffs her. When Tahani asks Jason how he knew she was a Bad Janet, he tells them that when he called her ‘girl’ she didn’t respond by saying ‘not a girl’ like she usually does. The Bad Janet tells them that she was able to disguise herself as their Janet as Shawn rebooted her 40 million times, and they made the switch when Janet put Chris on the train. Tahani says this all makes sense as Janet’s recent ideas have been counterproductive.

The Bad Place Janet tells them that their Janet is currently in the Bad Place. Michael and Jason use the railroad hand car that Glenn arrived on to go to the Bad Place to rescue Janet, taking the Glenn goo with them, leaving Eleanor and Tahani to manage the experiment.

Overall I felt that this was a weak episode, mainly because the Bad Place sabotaging the experiment is really nothing new. The new subjects of the experiment only appeared briefly in the beginning of the episode. That being said, I also felt that Michael being the saboteur was too easy, so I appreciated the twist that Janet was the impostor.

Despite how weak I felt the episode was, I am looking forward to finding out what happens next, and how Michael and Jason will rescue Janet.

Stray Observations:

-Brent used to shoot a lot of racehorses.

-One of Glenn’s jobs in the Bad Place was to re-inflate penises so they could be flattened again.

-According to Janet, a demon can take their own human suit off but no-one else can and in that regards, the human suit is like a complicated bra.

-According to Michael there are seven stages of demon growth: larva, slug monster, spooky little girl, teenage boy, giant ball of tongues, social media CEO, then demon.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “If it’s not too much trouble, could I get a hot glass of pig urine…I’m not picky, whatever urine you have is fine.” (Glenn to Eleanor)
• “If you’re a devil, how come you’re not wearing Prada?” (Jason to Glenn)
• “You sound so much like him that I want to punch you.” (Shawn to Vicky whilst she’s in the Michael suit)
• “What goes best with pig urine?” “Coconut rum.” (Eleanor-Jason)