At this point, it seems like the show is just checking boxes before moving on with its story.
Ted Danson has some really funny moments in this episode, but it has been four episodes already, this season must start getting somewhere.
"It's Japan, in Chinese" and the "A FAMILY pack of tissues?!" xD
«And if you try and ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway. I’ve been there. Everybody’s been there. So, don’t fight it. And in the words of a very wise Bed Bath & Beyond employee I once knew, “Go ahead and cry all you want. But you’re gonna have to pay for that toilet plunger.”».
—
«Anche se cerchi di ignorare la tristezza, prima o poi esce fuori comunque. Ci sono passata. Tutti ci passano. È inutile combatterla. E citando le parole di un commesso molto saggio di Arredo letto e bagno, dico: “Piangi pure finché vuoi. Ma dovrai pagarlo comunque quello stura lavandini”».
M: Parties are mere distractions from the relentlessness of entropy. We’re all just corpses who haven’t yet begun to decay.
E: Yeah, but... balloons!
[...]
E: Okay, bud, whatever’s going on right now, shove your feelings way down deep, plaster on a fake smile and pretend you’re having fun, okay?
—
«Le feste sono una mera distrazione dall’inesorabilità dell’entropia. Non siamo altro che cadaveri la cui decomposizione non è iniziata».
[...]
E: Ok, Michael, ora non pensare più a niente, cerca di reprimere i tuoi sentimenti più che puoi, sfoggia un falso sorriso e fa’ finta di divertirti, ok?
Ok this episode is great.
“Aaaah I’m a human, my eating tube is next to my breathing tube and my arms end in little... sticks!”
And that existential crisis is really good hahaha
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-10-16T16:48:16Z
[6.4/10] The Good Place is getting a little too simplistic and didactic for my tastes here. The premise of the A-story is a good one -- Michael is an immortal being and so has never had to really consider morality because he’s never truly had to face the concept of death. So when he is facing the real prospect of “retirement,” at Chidi’s urging, he has a breakdown. That leads to some great comic acting from Ted Danson as his face practically melts with anguish and he curls up into a ball on Eleanor’s lap. It’s a heady thing to play for comic notes, but it works.
Buy then the show gets really broad and obvious about it. Having Michael shift from “existential crisis” to “mid-life crisis” is a clever enough twist, but the episode goes really cheesy with the humor, and it doesn’t land. At the same time, the flashbacks with Eleanor learning about death from her crappy mom have some decent laughs in them, but their message is too blunt. Eleanor considers how damaging ignoring your bad feelings about death is given the source, and then delivers an aesop to Michael about it. It’s too neat and too easy.
The B-story is solid, until the end. I like the idea that Tahani knows she’s intended to be “tortured” by having her great party be upstaged by one the demons are throwing, but that the realization that she still can’t beat them in party planning nevertheless bothers her. It’s an interesting opportunity for Tahani to have some self-reflection, and Jason offering her some comfort and support in his typically dim-witted way is sweet.
But man, having them sleep together feels like such a standard sitcom move. Not every instance of someone being nice to a member of the opposite sex needs to lead to romance. And it comes off like the show needing something for Tahani and Jason to do while bigger plot stuff is going on in the rest of the show. I’m not a fan of that choice, to state the obvious, though maybe I’m just salty because I was oddly compelled by last season’s Jason/Janet pairing.
Overall, one of the more standard-to-cornball episodes of the show thus far.