Loveday Writing

Meanwhile, Eleanor tells the neighbourhood that Janet is undergoing system maintenance and has them complete activities doesn’t require calling Janet for help. Back at Mindy’s house, Bad Place Janet is attached to the fridge via the magnetic cuffs, and Derek offers to help run the neighbourhood in Janet’s absence. Eleanor has the four humans go to a remote lake house and has Tahani entertain them. When Simone, Brent and John get there, Tahani asks why Chidi isn’t with them and Simone tells her that he chose to stay at home and read.

Meanwhile Michael and Jason arrive at Demon Con – a demonic convention. Michael poses as Vicky in a Michael suit and Jason poses as Glenn in a Jason suit and they crash Shawn’s presentation on humans becoming desensitised to torture. While Shawn is caught off guard, he assumes they’ve arrived as part of the presentation when Michael says the “Jason suit” is a method to torture Janet. Shawn then brings Janet out on stage so they can torture her and they subtly signal to her who they are. Vicky then shows up and reveals their ruse. Michael tells the demons that the humans are capable of change and so are they. However, Vicky dismisses him and Michael uses the demon lie detector to blow her and Glenn up, and escape. On their way out of the Bad Place, Janet destroys the railway tunnel, preventing Shawn and the other demons from coming after them.

Back in the neighbourhood, Derek’s offer to help backfires when he quickly becomes overwhelmed and the simulated residents’ behaviour gets out of control, coming to a head when Derek reboots himself, which in turn reboots the residents. Eleanor and Tahani eventually make their way to Chidi’s apartment and Eleanor points out to him that he’s been in paradise for a month and still hasn’t tried anything new. She convinces him to go to the lake house and join the others.

Afterwards, Tahani laments to Eleanor that throwing parties seem to be all she’s good for and wants to be useful, where as Eleanor is running the neighbourhood so capably and can think quickly on her feet. Eleanor tells her that she has these capabilities as she had to scrape and crawl her way through life, where as Tahani’s life of socialising and throwing parties enables the four humans to bond and form friendships, which is crucial at this point of the experiment.

Overall I felt that this was a good but not great episode, but it was an improvement over the previous episode. This episode highlighted how much Michael has changed, and how crucial each member of the group is – Jason managed to keep his impulses under control for long enough to finally act on them at a crucial moment by giving Michael the demon lie detector to enable them to escape, as Eleanor points out Tahani’s party throwing skills enable the humans to bond and form friendships which will enable their development, and Eleanor is able to think quickly on her feet due to her rough childhood. I also appreciated that Jason of all people, was the one to point out to Michael that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his past and he should be proud of how much he has changed, especially as the same could be said for him, especially over the last two episodes.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens once Michael, Jason and Janet return to the neighbourhood. Again, the appearance of the four subjects was too brief, but at least they managed to get more screen time in this episode.

Stray Observations:

-Glenn is now in a paint can, with the label stating “Contents: 1 Glenn”.

-The episode title comes from Michael’s picture on the wall in the Bad Place listing the employees of the Bearimy.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “Suck it gardeners!” “Why do I feel like that’s not the first time he’s screamed those words.” (Brent, then Simone to Chidi on Brent)
• “When we get out of here, remind me to re-erase your teen years.” (Michael to Jason)
• “You said you could handle this!” “Well it turns out that being a single father to 300 kids is not that easy, Eleanor!” (Eleanor-Derek on Derek running the neighbourhood)