4x02 A Girl from Arizona (2)

[7.6/10] This episode feels a little incomplete, like more of a hodgepodge of individual scenes than any kind of complete story or even a complete building block of a story. But maybe that’s OK. As The Good Place has become more and more serialized, it’s also become more and more telling one big story than a bunch of little stories building toward a common idea. That leaves episodes like this one feeling liking we’re getting individual chapters from a lot of different tales, but most of them are good chapters, which makes the whole thing go down a little easier.

The best of these is Eleanor’s story here. I like the idea that she is floundering while having to be team leader: The Bad Place slipped a demon right under her nose, her efforts to make Brent Norwalk realize he doesn't belong here fall flat, and she’s hesitant to do what it would take to turn Simone and Chidi because it would mean putting them together. So when her friends say that the pressure might be getting to her, that while her intentions are good, things are just going wrong and it might be time for a change in leadership.

Eleanor is understandably hurt by that, because she already feels in over head, like she’s trying her best under enormous pressure and emotional strain, and it’s still not good enough. She makes an embittered plea to Michael that she’s not up to this, she’s a normal human being, a regular, unremarkable person, not someone who’s capable of saving the universe. And Michael tells her about how a quartet of regular people thwarted his best efforts time and time again, and that she is not just the right person, but the only person, to save weird, unpredictable, humanity, because she has the heart, the strength, and the perseverance to mess things up and keep trying to get it right.

So she does. She renews the fight. She comes up with an idea to convince Brent to do the right thing for the wrong reasons until it becomes a habit. And she puts Chidi and Simone together, despite how much pain it causes her, because she knows it’s right. She earns the leadership role, and proves that she deserves it despite hitting maybe her lowest moment. That’s the closest thing to a complete story in this one, and it’s the best one.

Along the way, I like all the little touches and wisps of other stories we get. For one thing, I like that Eleanor’s initial plots to sway Brent are just remixes of things that happened to her, like hearing the other residents’ accomplishments or the you-centric chaos. I also like how it all just washes right off of Brent, who’s the perfect parody of the “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple” maxim that Eleanor references.

Things are also very compelling on the Jason/Janet front. I like Jason realizing that if he cares about Janet and doesn't want to make things chaotic for her, he needs to give her space and, more generally, not just do something because he wants to do it. It’s a simple lesson, but one that makes sense for the character, and I love he and Michael’s dynamic here. (The “saying Jason’s name 5 times makes my headache go away” and Michael realizing that Jason has a good point when he says that Eleanor is acting like him and they wouldn’t put him in charge are both big laughs.

Janet breaking up with Jason is an interesting, legitimate challenge for both characters, which portends rich conflicts and emotional material in the future. Tahani giving him support is a nice touch, and I just love that they worked in Blake Bortles getting cut from the Jaguars.

Oh, and Chidi and Simone are more adorable talking about solipsism in the froyo shop than they ever were in the neuroscience lab, which makes them both fun to watch and makes it harder to...well...watch Eleanor watching them.

Overall, this one feels a bit disjointed, but it has one all-timer scene for the series, and the various joints are all good, so it’s still a quality episode.