Season 4 Episode 04: Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy

[enemyofperfect]

Slightly less belated than last time, have a reaction post for all your episode reaction needs!

I hope to catch up in the next day or two myself, but what an episode title.

ETA: Please feel free to spoiler away to your hearts' content in the comments!

Comments

[author_by_night]

I'm honestly afraid to comment because I don't want to spoil you! Do you read notifications before you've seen the episode?

(I see no one else has commented either, so you maaay want to let us know because I'm wondering if others have similar concerns.)

[jadelennox]

I was so shocked by the discovery of the reveal, and immediately rewound to watch the entire scene again.

...

spoiler space

...

Because I couldn't imagine Jason figuring anything out! But when you watch the episode, it all makes sense, and he's completely in character. And it explains so much of the season arc, too! Janet dumping Jason made sense for Janet, but Janet being so irritable all the time, for a lot of what were problems of her own making, were so surprising. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching her being annoyed at being taken for granted. But so much of it seemed to be her own doing, as the Janet babies shouldn't have been causing chaos she couldn't manage. So now it makes sense.

Also the original punching shirtless demon fakeout had clearly been a trap, so this is nice.

[enemyofperfect]

I'm so proud of Jason! If there's anything in this world he actually pays attention to, it's definitely his not-a-robot not-a-girlfriend. He even corrected Michael later! That's so touching!

Plus it was kind of fun how obviously into his sudden moment of intensity Eleanor was. You keep taking pleasure in the little things, Shellstrop!

(And thank you so much for including spoiler space! In the future, I'll make it clear that I'm setting aside all my notification emails until I've watched the episode myself, but it warms my heart that we have such thoughtful commenters here!)

[enemyofperfect]

Oh no, you're so considerate and I completely did not see this, because I wasn't reading my comment notifications! I'm very sorry for the confusion -- I'll be sure to make a note in future posts that you can 100% spoiler away without fear!

[yourlibrarian]

I love how this show has yet to disappoint me. It's another reason for why, though I'm sad that this is the final one, that I'm glad it's going to go out strong if the ones so far are any indication.

[erinptah]

...so this episode was a bit of a letdown for me, because all the narrative tension was around "is this the real Michael?", and I was thinking "obviously it's the real Michael, figure it out already." Even the good bits were overshadowed by that impatience.

Good bits:

-- The hideous mutant pony drawing
-- Glenn defecting to Team Cockroach
-- Michael's description of his fire-squid self
-- Derek having weird magnet-based sex toys
-- "Take it sleazy"
-- Jason figured something out!
-- Everything about D'arcy Carden's performance
-- Regenerated baby Glenn in a fish tank

I'm still interested in the moral progress of the new test humans, and we barely got any of them this episode. Next episode isn't looking promising either, since it'll have a subplot that cuts away from the test neighborhood completely :/

That said, the only in-the-know ally left with Eleanor is Tahani, and it's been too long since they've gotten good substantial scenes together, so that should be fun.

And I am VERY interested in Glenn. We've been focusing so much on whether these four humans are flukes, or whether all of their species can change, that we haven't explored whether Michael is a fluke. Apparently he isn't! What implications does that have for this cosmic system?

[enemyofperfect]

I was genuinely upset by that awful horse! It did not seem okay!

But yes, Eleanor and Tahani should be so so great together. Fingers crossed!

I'm really interested that you think Glenn is sincere, meanwhile. I'd been assuming that he was sent to cast doubt on Michael and distract from the impostor Janet, but I guess he could have genuinely misunderstood? I definitely like the idea of another demon coming around!

[erinptah]

I wavered on Glenn during the episode, but as of the end, yeah, I think he was sincere. Team Cockroach hadn't even begun to suspect the imposter Janet -- it would've make more sense to just let her keep causing havoc in peace, and hold off on deploying Glenn until it looked like she needed support.

Also! If Glenn knew this was Bad Janet, and they were working together, she wouldn't have had to create a "demon lie detector" that blew him up. She could've just made one that marked his Michael-related lies as "true."

On a Doylist level, it's much more narratively interesting to write "the demon bloc is getting more divided and complicated" than to do yet another round of sabotage. And of the demons we've gotten to know, I'd say Glenn had the best setup to genuinely doubt the system.

[enemyofperfect]

See, I just figured she destroyed him to keep everyone second-guessing -- in a way, "confirming" that Michael was really Vicky would almost have been less disruptive than letting them wonder.

But absolutely, having more demons reconsider their allegiance is vastly more interesting. I'm into this!

[enemyofperfect]

I loved this episode so much. Michael is real Michael and also a giant fire squid! Janet is Bad Janet, as I should have realized when she refused to cut Brent off when even Jason thought they should! And Jason may not learn quickly, but he does learn! Eleanor and Chidi's late night nachos were so endearing in their melancholy way? I love that Simone actually managed to recognize her horse in that nightmare drawing! There were so many feelings!

Honestly the only thing I didn't like was Derek, but I guess Derek's gonna Derek, isn't he.

[cosmolinguist]

Eleanor and Chidi's late night nachos were so endearing in their melancholy way?

I thought that too.

[beer_good_foamy]

I've never loved Jason more. Such a good character moment. Of course he figures it out. He's simply not smart enough to fall for a clever ruse.

And I love that D'Arcy made a point of mentioning in the official podcast for 4.02 that they can't really change much about the Janet design (hair, makeup, clothes) week-to-week, and how that came back with her dying her hair in last week's episode and then the reveal here.

[enemyofperfect]

Of course he figures it out. He's simply not smart enough to fall for a clever ruse.

I love that way of looking at it. And after all, how many times has Jason had completely unhelpful "revelations" that were played as pure comic relief? But this time! This time, Jason got his chance to shine!

[yourlibrarian]

Agreed. It hasn't been his only moment but this season has really been a breakthrough for him, which makes me think that their continued growth having to run the test is also going to count for something.

[thatwasjustadream]

Great comments, here, especially the bullet list of little gems from this episode. The pony alone, c'mon....

I'm finding the way they went with this season kind of frustrating, so the nuggets of wonderfulness help.

I can't make myself care yet about the new people or their redemption, as much as the fate of our core characters depends on it. I think it's partly because it's difficult to give us a healthy dose of our faves while making the test subjects more multidimensional. For instance, I can't even remember Entitled Dude's name. Plus, they keep splitting the team to get around all the plot developments and there's a lot of exposition.

Enough negative, though - there is still so much to love.

I liked Glenn defecting- at least in part because it apparently strikes him as unfair, Sean cheating so much.

And even though the extended 'are you the real Michael' scenes were kind of unnecessary ('C'mon, they've had lots of experiences together that Vicky and Shawn were not privy to, they could have figured it out almost immediately' I absolutely did not yell at the screen) I was glad they went with Michael's flaming squid revelation. They wanted the viewer to be sure- to hear his words and the genuine "Michaelness" of them, and to know for ourselves that it's him.

Poor Janet. :{ I love Jason and Michael going to her rescue - against all odds, on a pump trolley, with Glenn in a metal barrel. Very 'The Good Place' :}

[yourlibrarian]

Very 'The Good Place' :}

Haha, indeed.