Season 1 Rewatch: 1x08 "Most Improved Player"

[sorchasilver]

Sorry for not getting last week's post up - work has been very busy and stressful for the last couple of weeks and I just completely forgot! Thanks to enemyofperfect for stepping up and posting.

Exam leave starts as of tomorrow and my life will get a lot calmer. Hopefully my evenings will have time for things like watching TV again! Here's your week 8 rewatch post. Have fun!


Writer(s): Michael Schur (creator), Daniel Schofield
Director: Tristram Shapeero
Originally aired: 27 October 2016

Synopsis:
Michael has a private meeting with Eleanor. Meanwhile, Chidi, who has been harboring a secret, contemplates what to do.

Memorable Quote:
Eleanor Shellstrop: I just want to say once more for the record, that this whole good/bad system is bullshirt. There should be a medium place for people like me who kind of sucked, but in, like, a fun, chill way.

Useful Links:
Episode Transcript
IMdB entry

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

It's good to have you back, sorchasilver!

This was such a great episode for Eleanor's relationships with Chidi and Tahani both. Sure she's closer to Chidi -- he's been in on her secret this whole time and they're together practically 24/7 -- but it's also clear that Tahani is upset at least in part because she genuinely cared about Eleanor and feels betrayed, and that Eleanor is sincerely touched that Tahani shows up to say goodbye. I just love all of them so much!

Meanwhile, is it just me, or was Jason taking his new cactus to meet one of the plants in the waiting room after Michael dismissed him?

I also thought Tahani's arguments for sending Eleanor to the Bad Place were really interesting. She starts out with an appeal to authority -- maybe she'd be merciful, but it just isn't up to her! -- and then tries saying that it takes away from what the neighborhood's other inhabitants earned if someone who doesn't deserve it as much gets to stay. That first argument swayed Chidi too, all the way up till the end of this very episode, but the second one strikes me as very Tahani: what's the point of making it to heaven if just anyone can get in?

Also I love that the truth cube went green when she said the thing about Anderson Cooper. Tahani might be vain and self-aggrandizing, but apparently she's truthful in her boasts!

[erinptah]

Ohh, Tahani's thing isn't lying, her thing is not even realizing she's "boasting" because her standards are so skewed. And she's clearly projecting her own issues onto Eleanor -- "why, you can't just expect to get something like the love and approval of your parents if you haven't earned it, that would be silly and unreasonable." Which doubles as good foreshadowing for the "btw, she's taking the spot from Real Eleanor" dilemma.

The truth-detector device is such a straightforward gag that you'd think the jokes would be predictable, but it worked so well. You'd almost forget it was there, and then, with perfect timing, [boop]!

The cactus routine was also wonderful. Again, you would expect something that goes on for that long to get old, and it just...didn't.

Speaking of going-on, though, I'm surprised Michael and the other demons didn't drag out this phase of the torture longer. And they took a pretty big gamble on Chidi taking a stand when he did. I wonder what the contingency plan was if nobody objected to Eleanor getting taken?

Maybe Michael would've just had that last-minute "change of heart" on his own. Or maybe they would've given up on being innovative with Eleanor, but continued to torture the other three by playing on their guilt.

[enemyofperfect]

You are so right about where Tahani gets her ideas about earning things. It's... a little upsetting, actually, to imagine what might have happened if they'd just told her in the first place that she was in the Bad Place. Like, she wants to think that she deserves better, but -- would she really be surprised by the idea that she hadn't made the cut? After the childhood she had?

I can't believe how much I still love the whole drawn out gag with Michael and the "file" that is, in fact, yet another cactus. How does that work so well while being so transparent? This show's touch is just ridiculously deft sometimes.

As for Michael and the demons, I'm going to speculate that at this point, they're all just scrambling wildly. Doesn't Michael comment later that he never in a million years expected Eleanor to confess when she did? And I feel like it's a little fishy that they produce "Real Eleanor" as if they'd always intended to trade... after already having started the train back to the Bad Place. Maybe it all came down to a showdown between Michael's desire for a chance to catch his breath sans Eleanor's unpredictable presence versus Vicky's determination to make her grand entrance?

[erinptah]

You know, if Tahani had known from the start that she was in the Bad Place, I think there's a good chance she would've gone "wait, all of that effort meant nothing? And the final reckoning has been and gone, so there's no point in trying any longer? Then...I'm free! Screw all y'all, I don't have to care about anything anymore!"

And then she indulges a lifetime of repressed bad impulses all at once, and all the demons end up terrified of her because she gives no fucks and laughs at torture and will happily walk up to a hellhound and punch it in the face.

...The timing with Real Eleanor was weird, yeah. I feel like they must've considered they would need someone to study up for that part, but Vicky thought she would have a few more decades to really get into her character.

It's not exactly suspicious behavior for demons to go "if they don't specifically ask for Real Eleanor back, we'll just keep her." But I would also believe that they didn't think it through that carefully -- Vicky just kept demanding ten more minutes with her script before joining the scene.

[enemyofperfect]

Okay, I love the idea of Tahani embracing her own damnation as a permanent reprieve from worrying about anyone else's opinion so much. That's awesome. :D