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

[yourlibrarian]

Given that our time in the actual Good Place was going to be short since the season had a lot that needed to be wrapped up, it clearly wasn't going to end in simply everyone-being-happy-in-it-the-end. I figured they were going to run into some surprises.

My first pleased reaction was to realize that they filmed this at the Getty Museums in L.A. Although about half of it would have been on a soundstage, this would have involved several days there of shooting -- I wonder how they managed that without closing down the whole place?

I found myself unsurprised that they noticed issues pretty quickly (even without Patty spelling things out). I felt that the real crux of the problem was spelled out when Michael reviewed the solutions the designers were mulling over on their whiteboard (wait until Beyonce arrives was amusing). But things like "more hoverboards" and "fewer hoverboards" kind of spelled out the problem -- other than seesawing between more or less of something, when you have all eternity to deal with, how can anything be novel? Plus, of course, this was a group of people that had had no one new to interact with in a very long time.

My first thought was wondering why the people in the GP hadn't simply formed friendships and long-term ties like our heroes have, if that was considered the key to long-term happiness and fulfillment? We don't see any of them connected to anyone else. Surely part of the reason they were there was because they had done so much good for other so selflessly in their lives to begin with?

And then that's when I realized that such people would be particularly unfulfilled in GP, at least long-term, because they were never built to be the sort of people who could simply think of themselves non-stop. And while this still didn't explain why these doers couldn't have banded together to have reformed the GP on their own (which is why, I suppose, the whole brain deterioration thing was brought in), it did suggest why they never formed the same sort of deep connections with others. Because the reason our four plus eventually Michael and Janet formed such a tight team was because their initial meetings all involved having to overcome a major problem together. Even when they didn't, at first, realize they needed help, they always did better when they began working together.

So our team has spent hundreds of lifetimes trying to solve problems together and overcoming some really spectacular odds. No matter how delightful the GP seemed at first (and Michael's enjoyment was certainly short lived) they were going to start seeing the cracks quickly because it's part of what made them a team to begin with.

As to the solution, it seems like what it was -- a short-term fix. If the biggest problem is the never ending of a life without challenges, then the solution is to provide an ending. But it can't be the only solution and I suspect that Michael, whose personality has been established as someone who always wants to keep fiddling with and creating things, is not going to find that a solution for long either. By comparison with the challenges of his neighborhood, he's going to need a lot more to do.

So I'm waiting to see what more is yet to come.

[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.