The Good Place 4x12, "Patty"
Jan. 23rd, 2020 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enemyofperfectMajor spoilers for tonight's episode follow; spoilery content note available here.
So that was... a take.
I loved maybe the first ten or fifteen minutes of this episode. Shenanigans, clever little signs to read, Chidi's nerdtastic Neoplatonic joke, the Good Place folks having no idea about anything, I was having so much fun!
And then Eleanor decided that what heaven really needed was no-strings euthanasia, and I... didn't feel so great about that.
Like, I'm not saying that infinite existence definitely would be rewarding for humans. I don't imagine it's something we have a lot of data about. If infinity's long enough to learn every language, read every book, and meet every person, then maybe it's too long. How would I know, really?
But from a human psychology/utopia design perspective, I feel like Team Cockroach ignored a lot of low-hanging fruit while they made their beeline for Actual Permadeath. Patty said that what saved Chidi was his friends: so do the other humans in the Good Place have their friends and family with them, or were they separated by the binary morality of the afterlife? Would it help to be reunited? The Good Place architects are canonically pretty clueless about how humans work: did anyone ever consider just not letting them fry their brains with orgasms that last centuries? Like, would capping that at around half an hour or so lead to any gains in overall contentment? And not to lean too hard on the worldbuilding of an admittedly very charming sitcom, but television and burritos seem to have been keeping Judge Gen pretty content for all these eons: is there no possible solution for the crushing ennui of leisure time hidden away in her immortal noggin somewhere?
I feel like these are questions worth asking when the best proposal anyone's floated yet is the promise of sweet annihilation.
Content note for discussion of suicidality ahead. Click here to skip.
I am a person who spent a good chunk of my life thinking about suicide on a not infrequent basis. It's pretty jarring for me to see it presented as a positive thing to just... casually walk out of existence someday.
Maybe that's kind of weird: I don't personally believe in any afterlife, and I'm not unduly disturbed by that fact! But maybe the way the show (perhaps necessarily) portrays the afterlife as basically just more life makes it hard for me to really believe in a distinction between the two -- that there's some fundamental difference between committing suicide in a world where you get one life and that's it, or walking through Michael's door in a world where the afterlife is basically just another party.
Again: I'm not saying I would definitely love to exist for infinity time. There are some real logistical issues there, I'm sure! But... the television series The Good Place exists on the planet Earth, where I am living. There's a context here outside the world of the show. And the thing about ceasing to exist is that you can't undo it: by definition, there's no you left to do the undoing.
(How does the old phrase go about a permanent solution to a temporary problem?)
So when I see a character joking about killing herself if her boyfriend doesn't stop hogging the covers, I feel... not great, for one. And I also feel like the show maybe doesn't realize that people like me are watching. Because -- absolutely, some of us who've marinated in the pit of depression, we joke about it. I would probably laugh at that joke in the right context, if it made sense to me as coming from someone who'd walked along the edge of that precipice, who knew what it meant.
And maybe the person who wrote that line does know. There are a lot of us, and maybe more in comedy than some other places. But the feeling of a joke coming from someone who understands was not the feeling I got from this rosy-tinted episode.
If I try to look past my disquiet and guess what the show was aiming for here, I would hazard that it's trying to distill down the promise of paradise -- or of embracing what time we, the viewers, have right here and now, on Earth -- to nothing more or less than time with the ones we love, and I can see why they might want to do that. But also... for the first time in the show's run to date, I'm feeling a little skeeved out by its insistence on the supreme importance of human connection.
Because I love my family and friends, but they aren't every single thing in my life. I also like books. I like cool science facts. I like chocolate with more chocolate. I like cats, and dogs, and I hear some really good thing about octopodes, too. So if the show is trying to say that human companionship is the only pleasure that will never pall... then I guess I disagree?
Other people are incredibly important. If I had to guess, I'd say that for most of us, they're essential. But they aren't literally everything. They're just a really big piece.
And of course, there's a comfort to be had in accepting and even celebrating our mortality, since it seems to be an inherent condition of our fragile little lives. Probably that's what this episode was aiming for, too, rather than the romanticization of suicide.
But at least as I write this right now, I can't say that it worked for me.
Context/content note: What happens in the episode is that Eleanor and the gang decide that the reason people can't enjoy the Good Place is that it's forever, so they install a door people can walk through if they want to stop existing at any point. General rejoicing follows.
So that was... a take.
I loved maybe the first ten or fifteen minutes of this episode. Shenanigans, clever little signs to read, Chidi's nerdtastic Neoplatonic joke, the Good Place folks having no idea about anything, I was having so much fun!
And then Eleanor decided that what heaven really needed was no-strings euthanasia, and I... didn't feel so great about that.
Like, I'm not saying that infinite existence definitely would be rewarding for humans. I don't imagine it's something we have a lot of data about. If infinity's long enough to learn every language, read every book, and meet every person, then maybe it's too long. How would I know, really?
But from a human psychology/utopia design perspective, I feel like Team Cockroach ignored a lot of low-hanging fruit while they made their beeline for Actual Permadeath. Patty said that what saved Chidi was his friends: so do the other humans in the Good Place have their friends and family with them, or were they separated by the binary morality of the afterlife? Would it help to be reunited? The Good Place architects are canonically pretty clueless about how humans work: did anyone ever consider just not letting them fry their brains with orgasms that last centuries? Like, would capping that at around half an hour or so lead to any gains in overall contentment? And not to lean too hard on the worldbuilding of an admittedly very charming sitcom, but television and burritos seem to have been keeping Judge Gen pretty content for all these eons: is there no possible solution for the crushing ennui of leisure time hidden away in her immortal noggin somewhere?
I feel like these are questions worth asking when the best proposal anyone's floated yet is the promise of sweet annihilation.
Content note for discussion of suicidality ahead. Click here to skip.
I am a person who spent a good chunk of my life thinking about suicide on a not infrequent basis. It's pretty jarring for me to see it presented as a positive thing to just... casually walk out of existence someday.
Maybe that's kind of weird: I don't personally believe in any afterlife, and I'm not unduly disturbed by that fact! But maybe the way the show (perhaps necessarily) portrays the afterlife as basically just more life makes it hard for me to really believe in a distinction between the two -- that there's some fundamental difference between committing suicide in a world where you get one life and that's it, or walking through Michael's door in a world where the afterlife is basically just another party.
Again: I'm not saying I would definitely love to exist for infinity time. There are some real logistical issues there, I'm sure! But... the television series The Good Place exists on the planet Earth, where I am living. There's a context here outside the world of the show. And the thing about ceasing to exist is that you can't undo it: by definition, there's no you left to do the undoing.
(How does the old phrase go about a permanent solution to a temporary problem?)
So when I see a character joking about killing herself if her boyfriend doesn't stop hogging the covers, I feel... not great, for one. And I also feel like the show maybe doesn't realize that people like me are watching. Because -- absolutely, some of us who've marinated in the pit of depression, we joke about it. I would probably laugh at that joke in the right context, if it made sense to me as coming from someone who'd walked along the edge of that precipice, who knew what it meant.
And maybe the person who wrote that line does know. There are a lot of us, and maybe more in comedy than some other places. But the feeling of a joke coming from someone who understands was not the feeling I got from this rosy-tinted episode.
If I try to look past my disquiet and guess what the show was aiming for here, I would hazard that it's trying to distill down the promise of paradise -- or of embracing what time we, the viewers, have right here and now, on Earth -- to nothing more or less than time with the ones we love, and I can see why they might want to do that. But also... for the first time in the show's run to date, I'm feeling a little skeeved out by its insistence on the supreme importance of human connection.
Because I love my family and friends, but they aren't every single thing in my life. I also like books. I like cool science facts. I like chocolate with more chocolate. I like cats, and dogs, and I hear some really good thing about octopodes, too. So if the show is trying to say that human companionship is the only pleasure that will never pall... then I guess I disagree?
Other people are incredibly important. If I had to guess, I'd say that for most of us, they're essential. But they aren't literally everything. They're just a really big piece.
And of course, there's a comfort to be had in accepting and even celebrating our mortality, since it seems to be an inherent condition of our fragile little lives. Probably that's what this episode was aiming for, too, rather than the romanticization of suicide.
But at least as I write this right now, I can't say that it worked for me.
Context/content note: What happens in the episode is that Eleanor and the gang decide that the reason people can't enjoy the Good Place is that it's forever, so they install a door people can walk through if they want to stop existing at any point. General rejoicing follows.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 05:45 am (UTC)The episode also landed really badly for me, though I haven't had the same thoughts about suicide that you have. But it just seems really stark to just suddenly present the idea that the best ending (to a universe with an eternal afterlife!) is a void. And everyone cheers?
I agree that actual eternity isn't something the human mind can really comprehend. But we're not talking about reality! And maybe it would get boring, but it would take a lot longer than a few thousand years. Let's talk after 100,000. But there is an easy fix to this too. Just have time pass differently, or the concept of time not exist once you're dead. Rather, what bothered me was not that the show was saying that it was too long for human consciousness to exist, but that things that make you happy will eventually make you a zombie. Wha? Where did that come from? Plus:
television and burritos seem to have been keeping Judge Gen pretty content for all these eons
And as long as Earth exists, there is always going to be MORE. There will never be enough time to read all the books or watch all the shows, even if you have eternity, because things keep increasing exponentially. I'm not saying that a lot of people wouldn't get bored with reading or watching TV, but you literally have a room where you can go do or see anything that's ever happened, and you're telling me that that's going to GET OLD?!? Are you kidding me? Plus, what are we now doing with all of those people who aren't good enough to get into the Good Place? What is the POINT of re-rehabilitating them with multiple reboots so they can get to the grand prize of eventual nothingness?
I also ranted about this on my journal, though with much less eloquence. It really was a rant, lol.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 07:06 am (UTC)And omg yes, 4,000 years is not remotely the same as infinity, how are people so jaded already? Okay, so it's about 400 times as long as any human has managed so far, maybe this is a failure of my imagination... but it's still another detail that seemed to get glossed over in their rush to insist that heaven is a fate worse than death. Why!! And this is the show of Jeremy Bearimy, for crying out loud: it's not like the nature of time itself is sacred here.
(Maybe Jeremy Bearimy is actually supposed to explain it, like, it's subjectively been five million years for everyone in the Good Place?? But if so, that should have been mentioned! Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!)
Yes, that's the other thing I don't get! And why did Patty ever give up mathematics for milkshakes? There are so many new ideas she could have been keeping up with, or building on! Is Janet supposed to have killed their intellectual curiosity by already having all the answers? But again, like you emphasize, they could do literally anything! Janet, what's a puzzle I'm capable of solving but would really have to work at? Magic door, I want to explore an alien society and have to figure out the language from scratch! On Earth, when we run out of work, we play. I don't understand where that concept went in this universe.
So yeah, thank you for your comment, seriously. It's good not to be alone in my baffled dismay!
no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 07:56 pm (UTC)Ditto. I scrolled through Tumblr and even Reddit, and I couldn't find anyone that didn't love it. I am also baffled. Stuff like "I'm know I'm going to cry all next episode and I can't wait" and "makes sense, life without conflict would be terrible". I don't get it.
I'm actually struggling to think of the last time I felt so betrayed by a TV show. Sure, I've seen shows slip from greatness to mediocrity to plots that don't make sense to retcons and terrible finales. But as for one that suddenly did a 180 and made me go from loving it to be depressed over it? I can't think of anything.
But again, like you emphasize, they could do literally anything! Janet, what's a puzzle I'm capable of solving but would really have to work at? Magic door, I want to explore an alien society and have to figure out the language from scratch!
Basically, we have the Holodeck from Star Trek, which everyone seems to agree is amazing, except people on this show are BORED with it???? I could live a lifetime in Victorian London, and then one in feudal Japan, and then one in an Aztec city, and then one in ancient Persia, and I want to find out if Atlantis is real and then go there, too. The afterlife is infinite, and you have infinite time to explore infinite things. I almost feel like no one on the writers staff has an imagination (which is bizarre, given all the other stuff they came up with on the show). Because how can you be presented with the chance to do everything and decide it's not really that hot?
And like you say, maybe the answer is having neighborhoods be, er, travel-able? Let friends and family reunite. Surely that would give people joy?
But can you imagine in this new system? Having a loved one choose the door while you're not ready or never want to? It would be like them dying on Earth all over again, only worse, because you know you will literally never see them again and also they don't exist and that seems like a level of sadness that shouldn't exist in the Good Place.
Can we just go back to Mindy's?
no subject
Date: 2020-01-25 03:00 am (UTC)And yes, it's so sudden! It's not that I've liked every single thing The Good Place has ever done, but... in a way, I trusted it. And now I feel like it's made a really good try at ruining everything I thought it stood for.
I could almost understand the green door/holodeck thing if someone had ever paused to say, "But you know, you aren't really dealing with actual people in there, it's just a simulation starring a bunch of Janet sock puppets, so any interactions you have are ultimately empty." But obviously no one ever did say that. And even if you couldn't make friends in there, it could still be amazing to be a fly on the wall in a million fascinating unfamiliar settings. Or maybe people could take turns introducing everyone else to the culture they grew up in -- I think that would be fascinating from both sides!
Right??? I would say they ran out of time to do their own plot justice, except as far as I know, Michael Schur's the one who decided The Good Place should only have four seasons. I don't understand!
I keep thinking about that!!! And I guess, thanks to the show's insistence that unending life is miserable, we also get to imagine the reverse: someone gritting their teeth and dragging themselves through their days so they don't hurt their loved ones, even though they want nothing more than to just end it all. In heaven. I know finding antidepressants that work can be pretty hit or miss for some people here on Earth, but if the Good Place has both marijuana and immortality, I'd like to think it could manage effective brain meds too!
Mindy's was so much better than this, you're right.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-25 03:40 am (UTC)Yeah, that's great for them. I just find it depressing that a show with an afterlife turns out to be about the inevitability of death. There are plenty of shows already about that. And what was the point of not erasing Earth if the ultimate reward is still oblivion? I know there is slight difference between the situations, but Judge erasing everything is bad, Michael erasing all individual humans in the end (or giving them the option, which they all want) is good.
The Good Place has ever done, but... in a way, I trusted it. And now I feel like it's made a really good try at ruining everything I thought it stood for.
I definitely won't think about the show the same way again. It will be one of those "great except for the ending" shows to me.
And even if you couldn't make friends in there, it could still be amazing to be a fly on the wall in a million fascinating unfamiliar settings. Or maybe people could take turns introducing everyone else to the culture they grew up in -- I think that would be fascinating from both sides!
Yes! Come on a tour with me to ancient Greece, etc.. Like, even if you know that no one you're interacting with is real, it would still be a hell of a thing to see. And if you found similarly minded souls to go with, you would have a 'real' traveling buddy.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-26 04:19 am (UTC)I can get there being a difference between "everyone dies eventually but the world goes on" and "everyone dies right now and humanity stops existing", but I still share your feeling of this being a really depressing twist. And I'm not sure how good a job I'll be able to do of keeping my love for the earlier seasons alive, unfortunately... I want to, but sometimes my feelings have a tendency of applying retroactively. :/
Right? If you and I ever ended up in the Good Place together, we'd have some amazing times!
no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 06:41 am (UTC)I haven't see season 4 yet, but I'll definitely come back to your post then.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 04:38 pm (UTC)I would contend that books and pretty much all media are a form of social connection to other humans, albeit indirect, so there's an argument to be made that they fall under that umbrella, ultimately. Food is also generally made by other humans and a lot of pleasure in it is from the social aspects (and even when not directly the case, the social milieu primes and influences our experience of, well, everything, food included), although there is certainly plenty of physical pleasure also in the textures and flavours. But it doesn't sound like they are making the argument that most of our pleasures that are unlikely to ever pall circle back to being some form of social connection (human or otherwise) -- it sounds like they're not making much of an argument at all, really; just throwing this (really problematic, yes) idea out there with no critical examination of it.
Which seems pretty damned odd for a show that's been touted so much for its presentation of philosophy, I have to say. And not a pleasant viewing experience on any level.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-24 08:30 pm (UTC)I always trusted the show's heart more than its intellect, so I guess I'm less disappointed in its logic (which it has fudged before) than in the betrayal of the hope I'd thought was at its core. The revelation that the Good Place needed work was something I was completely happy with -- an eternity of constant improvement and experimentation without ever reaching static perfection sounds pretty inspiring to me! But the message that happiness is literally a fate worse than death... that hurt.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-25 12:38 am (UTC)And, oof. Yeah, it's tough when a show's heart swerves against what brought you to it, much more so even than when its logic fails. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2020-01-25 03:04 am (UTC)here from the comm
Date: 2020-01-25 05:27 am (UTC)Re: here from the comm
Date: 2020-01-26 04:12 am (UTC)