1x11 What's My Motivation

[7.2/10] Not bad. The notion that Fake Eleanor is trying to improve her goodness score but can’t do it until she figures out that her motivation matters is overly simplistic, but a good enough throughline for the episode. The gaggle of nerds who populate The Good Place loving her “pobody’s nerfect” joke is a good dorky gag. And she and Tahani make for a good pairing.

I was less compelled by Chidi being overwhelmed by Real Eleanor’s egg-based “I love you” and not knowing what to say in return. Chidi’s reaction in the moment is great, but it feels like such a stale sitcom plot.

I continue, however, to be oddly compelled by the “romance” between Janet and Jason. Michael’s exasperation that this even happened, and Jason completely failing Michael’s test are good bits from each of them. The same goes for Jason realizing he doesn’t deserve Janet in light of the flashbacks to all the dumb stuff he’s done. The rapid fire appear/disappear stuff with her was a big laugh, and the idea that through Jason’s stupidity and Janet’s first Bambi-like steps of emotion they have some weird simulacrum of love is an interesting one.

And the prospect of a neutral zone, where Eleanor, Janet, and Jason want to escape, is an intriguing one.

Overall, some milder material, but also some good laughs and again, a weird but amusing story about a dolt loving a computer program.

It struck me in this episode, most of the people we see in The Good Place (or at least this neighborhood of it) are pretty young. One could describe mortality statistics by age as something like a bathtub curve—a shallow spike through the first three years of life (ages 0-2) that drops off after "infant mortality" stops having an effect; the bathtub floor up through age 50 or so; and a somewhat sharper slope approaching ages 70-90 where the peak occurs, before dropping off again toward the upper limits of the human lifespan.

I'm referencing 2007 statistics from the CDC because they're the most recent I was able to find quickly (and I still spent much more time researching that than this show deserves), but I'm reasonably confident that the pattern won't change dramatically from year to year—or between countries. Humans are humans, after all. If anything, the uptick between the middle and upper ages will be steeper in other countries with healthier diets than America. And yes, I'm using what I learned in statistics class in college to make assumptions and avoid spending more time on this issue than I have to.

So, the question is then: Why does The Good Place's population consist of so many relatively young people? Could it be that the network was afraid a more geriatric cast wouldn't sell, so they forced the casting of unrealistically young actors?