What I’m Watching: The Good Place

The Good Place: Season 4, Episode 7 “Help Is Other People” (B+)

One of the things that I like about this show and which also often frustrates me is how the end credits start to pop up on the bottom of the screen before something big happens in the final seconds of the episode. In this case, it felt much longer when Brent realized that he was actually headed to the real bad place and then got up to tell Chidi that he thought of him as a true friend…or something to that effect, since the experiment ended and they both froze. It seemed midway through the episode that Simone had pieced it all together, but choosing not to trust the others in their group wasn’t a good idea, and it took until almost the last minute for Chidi to be the one to figure it out. Michael’s eagerness to do human magic didn’t prove too helpful, even if it did allow them an excuse to nearly have Brent swallowed up in a giant hole. As has been the case recently, it was Jason to the rescue with the logic that it’s never too late to blow something up, providing a few solid ideas that made Tahani genuinely concerned that he might be a demon in a Jason suit. We’ll have to see how the judge rules going forward and what happens after that, and I’m also worried that, even if Brent somehow manages to be read as redeemed, John didn’t exactly make much progress, and, for that matter, Simone didn’t behave terribly kindly to those around her during the experiment. I suspect it will all work out, though we still have a few episodes to go before the final fates of all these characters are sealed.