Season 1 Rewatch: 1x02 "Flying"

[sorchasilver]

Welcome to week 2 of our rewatch project. I'm posting this a little early as I'm very busy this week - unfortunately I won't get a chance to rewatch today but I'll catch up over the weekend. Thanks to everyone who joined in last week. Please watch the episode at a time of your choosing, then join the discussion in the comments.

Let's go flying!

Writer(s): Michael Schur (created by), Alan Yang
Director: Michael McDonald
Originally aired: September 19th, 2016

Synopsis:
Eleanor tries to prove to Chidi that she's worthy of his help; Tahani and Jianyu try to help Michael cope with a mysterious flaw in his neighborhood.

Memorable Quote:
Janet: Conjure an image that brings you pure joy. Some people think of their wedding day, or favorite vacation spot.
Eleanor: [concentrating hard] People puking on roller coasters... people puking on roller coasters...

Useful Links:
Episode Transcript
IMDb entry

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

But deciding that nothing can possibly have an obvious moral answer is a short road to the Chidi Problem. And I feel like "should I set my friend's stuff on fire?" belongs in the narrow band of This One Is Actually Obvious.

Hmm... I think the thing for me is that I can agree that there exist moral questions that have a single right answer (provided you accept certain basic premises about the rights of other people), without thinking that it follows that no remotely decent person should ever have to think it through carefully or have that answer explained to them. Which is a distinction I never put into words before just now, so hey, thank you for prompting to more closely examine my own beliefs here!

That's my read on it too -- it's not active malice. But it's not all down to "he's not the brightest bulb in the box," either. There's a level of callousness involved.

Ohh, so we do agree on the non-actively-malicious part, that's cool!

I think I'm going to have to agree to disagree about the callousness part -- not that I don't get what you're saying or that I think his behavior, e.g. towards Janet, is always fine, but to me he just so strongly resembles, I don't know: an adorable kitten who perceives that you complain when sharp claws and teeth enthusiastically attack your hand, but is so baffled as to why this could possibly be that the information never sticks. There's absolutely no obligation to like a living being that acts that way, though, and clearly Jason is a character who elicits a range of responses.

[thatwasjustadream]

This might be my favorite thread in the whole community so far. :) I do feel like he has a greater capacity for empathy, at times, than any of the others - none of the rest are very patient or accepting of faults when you think about it. But yes - torching someone's boat? Not cool, dude.

So our simple Jason isn't so simple. Hope the show lives on long enough for him to have some actual growth - pushing it to happen in S2 probably wouldn't have made sense, he's going to be a tough ship to turn around.

[enemyofperfect]

Oh, I think you really have something about acceptance being something that sets Jason apart. It's not that nothing ever upsets him, but there's definitely something about the way he approaches the world -- not without hopes, but kind of without expectations, I want to say?

And yeah, this whole thread has made me so interested in seeing where the show takes him! He could continue existing just as a foil to the others, but if instead he's just on an arc that's starting out slower than theirs -- in some ways, his journey could end up the most interesting of any of them.