Loveday Writing

When the group walk around the neighbourhood and discuss their funerals, Tahani comes up with the idea of throwing themselves funerals to take their mind off The Judge’s ruling.

Tahani’s funeral is on a private jet where Jason says that she deserved to have people in her life that were nicer to her, and Eleanor says Tahani helped her a lot. Afterwards, they find an unconscious Chidi and have him join them in their funeral festivities. Jason’s funeral is in a swimming pool as his mother gave birth to him in a pool after doing a cannonball. When Eleanor points out that he’s never really talked about his mother, he reveals that she died of cancer. At his funeral, Tahani says that Jason was the most optimistic person she ever met, and Janet says he was the first person that asked her about her feelings, and made her realise she was worth more than helping other people.

Meanwhile, at the hearing, it’s revealed that while Simone, Chidi and John’s scores improved, Brent’s scored dropped over the course of the experiment, but it dramatically increased in the experiment’s final moments when he started to apologise to Chidi for his behaviour. Shawn argues that if humans can’t improve when they have their needs magically met, maybe they’re just not that good. The Judge tells Michael that she can’t turn the afterlife upside down for the sake of three people improving a little bit, but Michael counters that Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason also improved in the original experiment, so six people actually improved. Michael then has Matt pull up the files of Kamilah, Donna, Donna’s stepdaughter, Patricia, and Pillboi, where it’s revealed that their lives improved after the Soul Squad’s interventions.

Meanwhile, Eleanor’s funeral is in a bar at a house she was not invited to, and Chidi’s is in his apartment surrounded by books. The Judge then sends a portal to them so they can be in her chambers to hear her ruling.

The Judge rules that Michael was right, the points system is flawed and she is going to ‘cancel Earth’ to fix it, meaning she is going to erase the current human race, both on Earth and in the afterlife, and start over. When Tahani suggests that they tweak the points system instead of starting over, The Judge points out that Earth has become too complicated for the points to reflect the value of human behaviour.

Just as The Judge goes to press her ‘reset’ button, Janet hides it in her void. When The Judge tries to find it, she can’t, which surprises Janet. Bad Janet shows up with Michael’s manifesto and reveals that she sent it to all the other Janets and they agree with his findings, and they all playing a part in hiding the reset button. As The Judge searches the Janets one by one, Eleanor asks Michael to wake Chidi up and restore his memories, so he can design a better afterlife system as it is the ultimate ethical question.

Overall I enjoyed this episode, specifically finding out the results of the experiment and the twist that Bad Janet sent Michael’s manifesto to the other Janets, with the other Janets showing up like an army. I did feel that the funerals dragged on a bit and were really only there to fill time.

It will be interesting to see what happens next with waking Chidi up and The Judge continuing her search for the reset button.

Stray Observations:

-According to Jason, in Jacksonville the first stage of grief is graffitiing a Red Lobster.

-According to Eleanor, in Arizona you can have a regular funeral or you can donate your body to a shooting range and get a $200 tax credit.

-Apparently Eleanor mistook a men’s back support harness for a bra at Home Depot and kept buying them.

-Chidi is in good shape as someone once told him that exercise alleviates anxiety.

-The Judge asks everyone at the hearing to sign her petition to bring back Ally McBeal.

-Through the experiment Simone’s score increased by 12 percent, Chidi’s score increased by 26 percent, John’s score increased by 44 percent, and Brent’s score decreased by 1 percent.

-Michael tells The Judge that Monica, Joey, Ross, Rachel and Chandler from Friends belong in the Bad Place but not Phoebe.

-Pillboi’s real name is Steven Peleaz.

-After Jason visited Pillboi, he dedicated his life to caring for the elderly.

-After Tahani visited Kamilah, she started a scholarship in Tahani’s name which sent 213 women to college.

-After Eleanor visited Donna, Donna started helping Patricia with her homework, in turn Patricia taught Donna multiplication.

-The Judge’s purse contains multiple lip glosses, a button that wipes out all wars, and a Justified season 2 DVD.

-This episode was directed by Kristen Bell.