Season 4 Episode 12: Patty

[enemyofperfect]

We're so close to the end of the series, and I'm not ready, but I'm also really looking forward to tonight's episode! Whenever you get a chance to watch it, please share all your episode reactions with us in the comments right here. Spoilers and speculation welcome!

Comments

[taiga13]

My feelings were similar. I quite liked the idea that humans aren't meant to live for eternity, that eventually we'd want it to end. But it puzzled me that no one considered the idea of giving people in the Good Place WORK to do. Chidi's idea of paradise was to keep working on his book about moral philosophy. Isn't that what Patty would want to do too? Keep learning and teaching? Did the Good Place architects actively discourage them from working? No need to cook because all your food you most desire is available on demand, etc. Given that the argument was that humans couldn't continue to learn and grow after they're dead, maybe work isn't an option for them either. They didn't think Patty COULD learn more mathematics or philosophy after she was dead, so they told her she couldn't.
The question about reunification with loved ones is a good one too. Does being an orgasm machine mean you don't connect to your fellow humans, that some degree of suffering is required to do that? But how could you be happy if your loved one wasn't in the Good Place?
The more I think about the Good Place the more it feels like an opium dealer.

[yourlibrarian]

That seems like a real possibility, yes. Because you're right about Chidi and surely there were many others with similar ideas of how to spend their afterlives. And I got the impression with the guy who kept asking his Janet for things, that this sort of helplessness became ingrained.

Yes, I imagine a lot of people in the GP were separated from the people they'd care about in their lifetimes. So they couldn't have been happy unless they forgot about them.

The team running GP also, as we saw, took forever to decide on anything and that anything was generally useless as well. So maybe that ethos spread.

[enemyofperfect]

Given that the argument was that humans couldn't continue to learn and grow after they're dead, maybe work isn't an option for them either. They didn't think Patty COULD learn more mathematics or philosophy after she was dead, so they told her she couldn't.

Oh, that's such an interesting thought! It would be so disheartening to have your passions taken away, as well as your loved ones and your entire previous life...

I really have to agree with your opium comparison, too.