What I’m Watching: The Good Place

The Good Place: Season 4, Episode 11 “Mondays, Am I Right?” (B+)

This show is almost completely done at this point, and I’m so glad to see a half-hour that was quite as productive as this one, working hard to develop the system that’s now going to be used to determine where humans are headed once they die. I was especially pleased to see a familiar face like Vicky, first introduced as the real Eleanor, who had time to take a break from ice cold yoga to demonstrate her flair for the dramatic and desire to be in charge of the new order of things. Tiya Sircar has always been one of the most underappreciated recurring players on this show, and I’m glad that she was given this formidable and purposeful sendoff. Michael didn’t seem to want to relinquish control, but I imagine that he knew exactly what he was doing all along. Tahani has grown enough as a person to realize that Vicky was just baiting her by pretending to be her sister, and I liked how she was immediately impressed by that angle of attack. It’s not entirely clear why Jason was hanging around with Chidi and Eleanor as they were trying to do actual important work, but he provided some almost entirely decent advice to Chidi that helped him realize the approach he needed to accept that Eleanor did in fact want to be with him. Eleanor’s preoccupation with trying to discover which presidents were secretly gay was an entertaining throwback to her less inspired self, which is part of what made her transformation as a character all the more completely watchable. The notion that they were automatically approved to go to the good place is appealing, and I’m so curious to see what the final two installments have in store.