Season 4 Episode 06: A Chip Driver Mystery

[enemyofperfect]

Another week, another episode! If you've got thoughts, feelings, questions, and/or Derek, let us know in the comments -- episode spoilers enthusiastically welcome!

Comments

[author_by_night]

Wow, they really Went There this episode, even more than usual. I let out an audible gasp when they mentioned anti-vax moms! (Seriously though folks, vaccinate your kids.)

I'm glad that they had Simone object to being silenced. So often women, especially women of color, are told to just "let it go." Or "be tactful about it." And sure, I think that sometimes people are a bit like pre-death Eleanor - that is, go into everything ready for a fight, and that's not going to benefit everybody. But while Simone's response wasn't the best for the experiment, it was best for her.

I would like to see Brent improve, though. Maybe he should spend more time with Tahani? I think they're actually two sides of the same coin in certain ways - both come from very privileged backgrounds, yet they approached their privilege in different if still hypocritical ways. Tahani tried to help people, but to fulfill her need for attention more than true piety;* Brent believes he's just better than everyone.

*And frankly, I think this is a huge problem across the board. I've had so many conversations with people who claimed to be LOVE FOR THE WORLD, only to be cussed out and called a bitch when I pointed out the flaws in their methods. They didn't care about helping other people, they wanted to feel good and look good.

[yourlibrarian]

As someone who just got two vaccines this morning, hear hear.

That's an interesting point about Tahani and Brett, though I wonder if that very similarity makes it more difficult for her to be effective. Although I imagine after being depicted in his book she probably doesn't feel at all connected to his experience.

[erinptah]

I kinda wanted Eleanor's explanation to Simone to be "you're having a certain kind of fun drinking with a friend and mutually tearing this book apart, right? You couldn't have that in the Good Place without someone like him to provide it."

Although with Simone, any hint of "Brent didn't actually earn his way into the Good Place" and it wouldn't be long before she started wondering "who else among us didn't earn it, and is this really the Good Place at all?"

I think Tahani's approach is different enough that it wouldn't help Brent. She had this underlying inferiority complex from being pitted against her sister, so when she was confronted with a personal failing, she reacted by thinking "that must be justified, I didn't work hard enough, I shall do twice as much next time." (Thus season-1 Michael torturing her with "you're the lowest on the point-totals list, so your whole life fell short, in a no-longer-fixable way.")

Whereas when Brent is confronted with a personal failing, he reacts by thinking "that doesn't make sense, I'm great in every way, some external cause must be rigged against me." And then he lashes out at the nearest convenient target.

...also, Brent being Brent, he would dismiss any insights from Tahani as "you just don't understand the white male perspective." Michael is the one with the best chance of getting through to him (in spite of being secretly a six-thousand-foot fire squid). I liked that this episode explored that a bit.

[enemyofperfect]

I completely agree, I'm so glad Simone got to speak out and be vindicated! Whether or not coddling Brent's ego is actually the best way to help him improve, it was wildly unfair of Eleanor to ask Simone to be part of that process. Even when Simone literally thought no one she interacted with was real, she wasn't as hurtful as Brent routinely is. And unlike the original four, she never signed up to reform bigoted ashholes in the afterlife!