THE GOOD PLACE Roundtable

If there’s one show that the Nice Girls have been eagerly awaiting the return of this fall it would be The Good Place! We just can’t get enough of the show, its cast, and its smart humor. In season one, we found out that The Good Place was actually The Bad Place!!!! Then, in season 2, our morally challenged anti-heroes finally learned that truth as well and earned a final chance to avoid The Bad Place (culminating in several of the funniest episodes of the series – including the brilliant “Rhonda, Diane, Jake, and Trent“). Now the gang is all on Earth trying to redeem themselves and Michael’s little experiment and who knows where we’ll go from there? We can’t wait to find out!

This season we’re going to try out a new format for our roundtables: SASS – stupid, awesome, so-so

THE GOOD PLACE — “Everything is Bonzer! Pt. 2” Episode 302 — Pictured: (l-r) Ted Danson as Michael, D’Arcy Carden as Janet — (Photo by: Justin Lubin/NBC)

Episode 3.1 – Everything is Bonzer! Part 1 & 2

Stupid:

Roz: The not 83 questions from Tahani. Vogue does it so much better than what Tahani did. The questions are way too pretentious for that segment. The joke about giving all Tahani’s clothes to Prince William because he’s bound to know commoners. I doubt the Middleton family wants to think that they’re that poor.

Cay: Michael as “Zac Pizzaz”. So corny, I was kind of embarrassed for Ted Danson in that moment!

Cara: Michael’s joy at being able to pose as a human was definitely dampened by some of the choices for what those humans would look like. The attempted accent wasn’t really that funny (Although Janet’s reaction to it was better), and Michael’s human characters lacked the subtle jabs at humanity that we saw in the good/bad place. It was just too cheezy.

Awesome:

Roz: I adore that the Judge is binge-watching all of NCIS. There’s plenty of episodes for her to watch now. Oh and “Right Here Waiting for You” as Shawn’s evil music.

All of Jason’s dancing. Those are inspiring! Also, the Door Man’s reaction to the coffee cup.

Cay: As usual Jason’s story was hilarious. He tries so hard, but he’s so dumb…However, he can definitely dance!

Cara: I love Simone and kind of want her to be my BFF, and I’m really excited about Eleanor switching into wing(wo)man mode because I love that she instantly becomes an ally to both Chidi and Simone (rather than a rival for Chidi’s affection). The scene where Eleanor takes over Chidi’s MRI to get him to ask Simone out was not the funniest of the episode, but probably my favorite moment.

So-So:

Roz: Janet’s attempts at trying to understand mothers and fathers vis a vis the Judge and Michael. Forkin’ Trevor!

Cay: Overall, these episodes were a bit of a let down for me. Yes, they were good enough episodes of TV, but compared to the end of last season they were missing something. Maybe it’s just that Earth isn’t a good a supporting character as The Good or Bad Place?

Cara: I’m with Cay. I think this played more like a pilot in that it had a lot of ground to cover before things could get started. There were a lot of cute, humorous moments, but overall the episodes felt very functional and less entertaining.

THE GOOD PLACE — “Everything is Bonzer! Pt. 1” Episode 301 — Pictured: (l-r) William Jackson Harper as Chidi, Kristen Bell as Eleanor — (Photo by: Justin Lubin/NBC)

Favorite Quotes:

Cay:
“The mind reels…a Pizza Hut AND a Taco Bell?” – Michael
“This might sound crazy, but I’m starting to think that there might be more to life than amateur street dancing competitions” – Jason
“How’s Jason, is he still cute?” – Janet
“Arizona…our biggest exports are racist sheriffs and HPV” – Eleanor
“One of them is hot enough to be on The Bachelor, but smart enough to not be!” – Janet

Roz:
“I just like frogs; I’m a frog guy.” – Door Man
“Real mood ruin-er. Read the room, dude.” – Eleanor

Cara:
“Inappropriate” – Simone

The Good Place airs Thursday 8/7c on NBC