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italicwatches · 5 years

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The Good Place, season 2 - Episode 05

Tomorrow…Is gonna be busy. But today, at least, I’ve got some time to work with. It’s The Good Place, season 2, episode 05! Here we GO!

-We begin at Eleanor’s place, with Chidi putting the trolley problem in front of the class. One of the classic head scratchers. You know how it works. Your trolley’s brakes fail. On the track ahead are five people. You can do nothing, and they die. You can switch to a side track, on which there’s one person, but that means making the active choice to kill that person. What do you do?

-Eleanor’s questioning is remarkably…pragmatic in her own way. She wants to know about the people, and if there’s a nasty ex, or a judgmental shopkeep. …You do not. Okay, then, gotta go for the least harm. Better to live with the guilt of choosing one death than the guilt of un-choice making for five.

-Tahani gets lost in her lifestyle stuff. But, she also picks saving the five.

-Right, good! That’s a pretty common answer. But the trolley problem is interesting because of how data changes it. Say the one is a good friend of yours, or a loved one. Or what if you’re not, yourself, on the trolley, but just a bystander who might be able to reach the track switch in time? Or even, skip the trolley itself, look to another metaphor. You’re a doctor facing five people with organ failures, and you’ve got one healthy organ donor. You could save all five…If you shot the donor in the head right now.

-And so that does make things different. The raw arithmetic is the same, but the framework changes the moral quandary. And through the whole thing, Michael’s been awfully quiet. But to him, the dilemma is clear.

-How do you kill all six? His plan is a long pole arm hung out the window. to catch the one while we catch the five. …He’s wrong, isn’t he. Yep! Now write “People = good” ten more times on the blackboard.

-Chapter 19!

-After all of that, Tahani and Jay are gonna tap out and take their free hour before they’re expected at a thing…I assume they’re gonna go bone down again.

-I WAS RIGHT

-And so after their boning down, or as Jay puts it, ‘pounding it out’, Tahani is all worried about people finding out…But Jay thinks she needs to talk about this with someone. Of course, Tahani doesn’t have anyone she can go to in this place, because the only two fellow humans are the ones she’s trying to keep from finding out… (Janet’s right there, guys. Not, like, literally, that would be weird and also I have to clarify given the character but you get my point)

-Back at Eleanor’s place, Chidi’s struggling to get this stuff to stick with Michael…And aside from his attempt to form it into a rap musical, the core thing Eleanor leaves him with is…time. You’ve got time, use it. Michael’s gonna be a slow burn, but they’ll get him there. And very no on the rap musical.

-Back to Tahani! She hits on the idea that she can talk it out with Janet. And Janet even gets out a notebook and some quite frankly adorable glasses to be a sounding board slash therapist.

-New day, new scene, Chidi’s chatting with Michael about his…Complete and utter failure to grasp the ethical questions in Les Miserables. He’s relying too heavily on his concrete knowledge of how the back-end of the whole system works, and thus not doing the real work, which is about questioning assumptions.

-Back with Tahani’s therapy sessions, where Janet hits on a core element of Tahani’s problem: She has no experience with someone like Jay…And if I may interject? Tahani’s whole deal, aside from seeking fame and fortune to get all eyes on her, is sticking firmly in well-charted waters so she can memorize those charts and look like the smartest person in the room for following them.

-Speaking of Jay, he stumbles on in and Janet decides she wants to hear his side of things. Tahani, though, cuts it off with, and I quote: “He thinks I have to control everything and he has no voice in this relationship. Right? Good. Now, where were we?”

-And then she hears herself actually say it, and…Okay. Okay, she’ll step out.

-Back with Michael and Chidi, Chidi tries to get two concepts into Michael’s head: First, these things do not have concrete answers, that is their point. Second, when it comes to grappling with and explaining human ethics? Chidi knows more than you do.

-Michael’s not buying it. He’s not liking all this theoretical stuff, and so he decides they need to have a more concrete example.

-And that’s how they’re on a speeding trolley with the very real, concrete scenario in play. Five workmen on this track, one on that one! Here’s the levers! Do what you’re gonna do, Chidi!

-Chidi ends up doing nothing and hits all five. Good lesson, Chidi. What did they learn? Come on, they weren’t real people, he’d never make you kill real people. “Oh, well that’s reassuring, because some of the parts of the fake people FLEW INTO MY MOUTH!” Chidi is not having a great day.

-And, okay, back to the classroom. And fresh restart on the trolley! So, take another run at it? PULL THE LEVER, Chidi! Also this version of the problem has the one person be Henry, of the infamous boots.

-Which slap across Chidi’s face when he’s forced to run Henry the fuck over.

-The Ethics Express comes to a stop, as Chidi’s in screaming shock and Eleanor’s trying not to let her inner Michael Bay fan out too much.

-Baaack to therapy! Jay’s problem is that, fundamentally when you boil out all the jokes about his stupidity, is “I feel like Tahani’s embarrassed that I’m not some scientist who forecloses on banks.” Speaking of Tahani, cue Tahani who’s freaking out and she needs Janet. …Janet, what about couples therapy?

-She’s game! Also her upped thumb just came off, filled with helium, and floated into the air. She might be operating a bit out of protocol here and it might be making for some glitches in the physics engine.

-Let’s see how the trolley problem is going. Chidi chose to run over five Shapespeares to save one Santa Claus. Interesting! And Eleanor’s feeling like they need to call it on this trolley problem. Michael agrees.

-How about the doctor one?

-So that’s how they all find themselves in scrubs, and these five people all need organ transplants! Eleanor’s perfectly healthy! (You are so lucky that the afterlife makes that true) Slice her open and use her parts to save these patients! Wait, wait Chidi think about this, think it through man, she’s your…No, she’s your…She’s A friend!

-And Chidi takes a hardline stance. Look, in this scenario he’s a doctor, right? Right. Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm. He is not going to violate that oath. Cool, cool. …Tell the families.

-“Doctor Chidi? My daddy needed a heart transplant. Did you save his life? He was working, then a really bad man ran him over with a trolley.”

-I literally cannot outdo that. Like, my goal with these is generally to make the jokes just as punchy, to make the drama just as tasty, to get as much of the experience of the show in as possible. But I can think of no way to do better than just straight quoting that entire line right there.

-Even Chidi has to call bullshit and Eleanor realizes Michael is just torturing them. …Okay, yeah, it’s true, sorry but it was pretty fun right? …No, Michael. No, it was not. Your entire premise for why they’re working with you is that the alternative is being tortured. You have just undermined the entire justification for why you’re here, and you are no longer welcome in this class. Get the fork out!

-Chidi stomps off furiously, and Michael is legitimately confused.

-A full hour later, Eleanor checks in with Chidi…Who has been concentrating on a table of contents to help calm his nerves. It’s not working. But Chidi has decided this was all a sham from the start…But Eleanor’s got another theory she’s working on.

-Back to therapy. Where Janet tries to get Tahani to give all the things she likes about Jay. …He’s thoughtful, and kind. Deeply un-self-aware and has no reason for his confidence, but all of that confidence means he actually goes for it in the bedroom…

-But from Jay’s boiled down perspective, he tries to be nice to Tahani, and yet she’s often not very nice to him. That’s…Not okay. And all Tahani can ask for is time. …And then Janet vomits up a frog, which is very much not the plan.

-Meanwhile, Eleanor’s gone to Michael’s office and you’re doing what she used to do. You’re lashing out when you feel like you’re not good enough. You felt dumb and small, so you took it out on the teacher.

-Bullshit!

-Okay, prove her wrong. Go make it up to him, and make it right, and prove you’re better than she was. Or stay down in the mucky muck of Shellstrop conflict tactics.

-So that’s how Michael ends up back at Eleanor’s place, having done a lot of long hard thoughts to get them each something they will deeply enjoy.

-For Tahani…A diamond the size of her god damned fist, but she’s giddy. For Eleanor, you have a secret shrimp dispenser! Ohhhh yes this is good.

-For Jay? A Pikachu balloon awwww he popped it.

-And for Chidi? It took a lot of long, hard thoughts…But he figured it out. One of Immanuel Kant’s lost notebooks, plucked right from his history. Full of thoughts, and musings, and…some crude erotic doodles. Interesting guy, Kant.

-Cool, cool.

-Chidi chucks it right in the bin.

-He’s not interested in a bribe or having his forgiveness and love bought, Michael. So what DO you want? For Michael to admit that he felt lost and small and vulnerable?!

-…Well yeah.

-So, Michael does exactly that aaaand he was totally faking it if you ask me. Also, bribe or no bribe, Eleanor’s keeping the shrimp machine.

-Cut to a month later! Tahani and Jay’s relationship has become stronger, better. …And then Janet books it because an earthquake is running hard through the whole facility!

-She appears in Michael’s office because she is going wrong. Her glitches are getting worse and she can’t stop them. She is going to put this neighborhood at total risk of utter collapse. …So that’s her day, how are you doing?

-Credits!

Well SHIT

#where I watch #recap #live action #the good place #season 2 #spoilers

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