817 – Chillaxing Tinker Tailor | Good Place to Sleep S4 E3&4

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and friends beyond binary. It's time for the podcaster patrons, I'll be honest with you, because I can't do this regular teaser or pre-episode thing, but I'm supposed to be recording tomorrow the next round of Good Place episodes and the app that [inaudible 00:00:25] lets me use to see the episodes early is just not functioning, so I'll still get the episode done, but it's like, come on now. Hello. So much for my wanting to get it done early, so I can get it to you early and so I can do it well. Because that's truly what it's about is me doing the best job I can to put you to sleep, but in your case, you're helping me do that and I appreciate it. I appreciate you. So what do you say we get on with the show?

Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble with getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep? Well, welcome and this is Sleep With Me, the podcast to put you to sleep. We do it with a bedtime story. All's you need to do is get in bed and turn out the lights and press play. I'm going to do the rest. What I'm going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you can set aside whatever is keeping you awake, whether it's thoughts, a feeling, a physical sensations, changes in time or temperature, so things you're thinking about, past, present or future. Anything you're feeling physically or emotionally or experiencing or outside stuff. It could be the weather outside. 

Here's the thing, here's a good conundrum. Whether the weather outside is delightful or not delightful, but the other word, full. Neither way, it's easy to sleep, because can you remember when you were a kid? I don't know why some memories are so ingrained and actually also pretty fairly, not totally universal, nothing's universal, but maybe relatable and even, this is so detached from the present moment, but when you have to go to sleep when it's still sunny outside or it's still light outside when you're a kid and it's the summertime. Now, it is the summertime for all of our friends south of the Equator which is a lot of you, so what up? You guys are the top of the Earth for me. You're the summertime. It's summer there and I'm glad.

What was I saying? I'm supposed to be introducing the podcast, so maybe we'll come back to this, but whatever's keeping you awake, it could be someone not getting to the point. It could be travel, it could be work. Whatever it is, I'm here to take your mind off of that and keep you company and help you fall asleep ideally and the way I'm going to do it is I got a safe place set aside here, really nice. It's actually seasonably safe place, a safe place that's so seasoned. Is seasonable a word? I think it is, but why can't I say that? Also, I mean I guess I'm always choosing words that are multi-use words, but do you say, “Uh, this is seasonable.” 

What if you said that about butter, because there is salted butter and unsalted butter, right, and seasonable, sometimes salt is considered a season. I don't know. I think those two words are spelt the same too, but maybe we haven't written a butter based musical, but I don't know why. We haven't written any musicals, but we've imagined we did or do. Can you imagine a butter based musical? I mean, I definitely can. I mean, I read the screenplay which I think won the Nichols Fellowship one year and then it became a movie, Butter. I think that was the name of the screenplay. All that escapes me, but you chance check out the Nichols Fellowship to see more about that. I remember really enjoying reading that. 

That was about butter sculptures, but let me pause so I can give credit to the writer. The writer is Jason Micallef, I think. M-I-C-A-L-L-E-F. It won the Academy Nichols Fellowship in 2008. What does that have to do with anything? I don't know. I was trying to introduce the podcast and then I pictured those, what are those? It's not a pad of butter, but a stick of butter singing something about being seasonable and that would be unsalted butter, of course. Well, yeah, because unsalted butter is seasonable and salted butter, technically in this case, would be seasoned. And then you have a seasoned, I'm a seasoned bedtime storyteller. Sure doesn't seem like it probably if you're a new listener. But yeah, I have safe place set aside. That's what I was saying.

We're seasonably temperate, comfortable. That's what I mean. You see, would I prefer it cooler? Oh boy, do we have it cooler. I prefer it a bit warmer. Holy cow, we got a spot for you, do we have a place for you. Scoots, I don't care about the temperature. Okay, don't worry. Got that covered. You like it like that Bikram yoga stuff? Got that covered too. Get ready for your pores to open up. I have a safe place set aside.

The way I'm going to do it is set my voice across the deep, dark night. I'm going to use lulling, soothing, creepy doll tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents. Believe me. Holy cow. I mean, you just witnessed a few of them. Mispronounced words or something. I don't know what you'd exactly call that, word stumbles. That's right. That's what I call it usually. Other people use stuttering which is another way to describe it, but it actually is me stumbling over my words because there's a forward momentum when I'm speaking and then I'm propelled past the meaning and pronunciation of the words and so I stumble forward and then the word sells itself out of my mouth or my hands, my arms, my buckets. 

Okay, so I'm going to set my words off the deep, dark night, go off topic. Really, I'm here to take your mind off stuff and keep you company. So if you're new, a couple other things. One, if you're wondering what the heck is going on or why am I not, in any kind of skepticism or resistance, that totally makes sense because the podcast doesn't work for everybody. It's very different and I understand when you can't sleep, there's a lot of solutions out there. I'm more like a borfriend, your bor bud, your bor bestie, your bor bae. Those are titles I would have to earn from you, so just kind of see how it goes and see if the podcast works for you. 

Structurally, what to expect which is already the unexpected, I mean correct and ideally, and maybe I'll explain that too in another tangent but so structurally what to expect is the show starts off with a few minutes of business, because I want to keep the podcast free for everybody, so our sponsors and our patrons enable to do that without it having to be it's own paywalled app or something. 

And then there's an intro which the intro is your first deviation from the norm because it's 12 to 20 minutes of me trying to explain what the podcast is and it's deviating from the expected, because usually an intro is very concise, but this intro's long and rambly. One, because I want it to be friendly, but two, because I want you to have plenty of safe space to drift off and to get ready for bed, to ease into bedtime, to realize you don't have to pay attention to me, but you can. You shouldn't have to listen to this podcast, but you could and you could try to make sense of it, but it might, those kind of things that the podcast is here for you to kind of pay attention to it, like a lava lamp or something. You'd say, “Wow, look over there. It's pretty cool to look at, but now I'm going to look at something else. Oh, let me look at that thing. Interesting.” So I don't know if that makes any sense. So there's an intro. It's part of people's bedtime routine. You can skip it if you just go to 18 to 20 minutes, but just kind of seeing how it goes the first few times listening to the show. 

Then there's some business again that keeps the podcast free for everybody. Then there's stories and then there's [inaudible 00:09:17] at the end of the show. Tonight, the story portion will be me kind of recapping some episodes of The Good Place, but in a very inane and indirect way where I say, just recently someone was like, “Oh, I thought you were talking about season two and then I found out you were talking about season three,” and they said I guess it didn't even matter and that's perfection. That's great. Or some people say, “Well, is there spoilers,” and you say, “Well, kind of, but kind of barely. Not the kind of spoiler, vague spoilers where you may say, Huh, I do remember Michael wearing that. That was business casual. Holy, what in the? Was there a deeper meaning to that or not?” So that will be our coverage of The Good Place.

So that's the structure of the show. This is a podcast that kind of as I said, you don't need to listen to it but you can. Ideally, it's here to be here as you fall asleep, but there's no pressure to fall asleep. The reason the shows are over an hour is so you have plenty of time to drift off and yeah, I guess if you can't sleep, oh that's the other thing. There are listeners that listen just for the companionship, because I've been lonely in the deep, dark night and I'm here to keep you company to the very end. If you can't sleep, it doesn't mean you have to listen to me, either, right? If you're new, that's the idea of the show. I'm glad you're here. If you're a regular listener, of course I'm glad you're back. And I think that's it.

I mean, I was trying to figure out that seasonable. I mean, that's definitely a word, because I can hear a weather person or a meteorologist saying, “Today will be seasonably,” or they'll say unseasonably warm, unseasonably cool, seasonably. I don't like ranking things, so this would be not ranking in a specific way, but what are things that are very seasonable? I mean, for consumption, I'd say rice. Chicken's always one that gets, but even fish is seasonable, though sometimes really good fish does just fine on its own. But rice, I would say. Beans, you'd almost say, is it seasonable if it's kind of without seasoning, because I'd say rice and beans are good, but yeah, they're seasonable. They seem like they readily accept season. Maybe they can be the zen way, the seasonable way. 

What happened to Scooter? He had that sleep podcast, then he attempted to be a guru that didn't work out, then he made the podcast about whatever, scribbling, right? Then he tried another guru thing where he made a guide. Well no, where he was trying to write the romanphlets, the pamphlets, romantic pamphlets, then he had the seasonable way. He didn't know what zen was exactly, he just had a vague idea of zen-ness and he sat with that, that was a joke there. So yeah, he tried to perform something based on being a rice and beans and readily, but there was only one or two metaphors in there, so that didn't work out either because metaphors were be accepting and be open and let the outside things enrich you sometimes. Blandness has its benefits sometimes, but now, I can't remember. 

It did well with Scooter, because he said this actually helps me. Where it went wrong was he tried to get, what are those things called? Incantation where it's like, be like beans. That was the big pitch thing, you see. He had hundreds of thousands of people around the world when he was going to introduce this program and once he said, “Be like beans,” everybody just thought it was, he didn't realize sometimes he's really funny, he doesn't even realize it, and that became a big meme because be like beans is just, you don't even know why you're laughing at that necessarily, because you say, “Well does it have to do with the gas of the beans or just the ridiculousness of centering yourself and imagining you're a bean or is there some sort of a service thing because it's actually like being like a bean is a bit like being like a seed or does Scooter get his seeds and beans mixed up?” “You know what, I slept great last night, honey. I don't know what Scooter was talking about. Did you hear any of that?” “Oh, you know what dear? I thought he was talking about sweater vests on Chidi.” “Oh, maybe that was it. Maybe it must have been a dream then.” 

So that's the ideally the breakfast conversation of a regular couple of listeners and if you're new, give the podcast a few tries. See if it works for you. No pressure though for it to, I just hope it does, because I truly believe you deserve a good night's sleep. If it doesn't, check out Sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou and that's it. I'm glad you're here. I work very hard, I yearn and I strive, because I want to help you fall asleep. And here's a couple of ways you're able to really keep this podcast free for everybody. 

All right, everybody. It's time to talk about The Good Place. We're going to be talking about season four, episode three and then later, we'll probably be talking about episode four and that's just so you know that I can keep the episodes. Last year, we had The Good Place To Sleep come out every single week and it took the listener feedback that said, “Hey, I prefer it every third episode,” so I'm going to spread it out every third episode just because I got the feedback I got. It was like, “Hey, I don't watch The Good Place,” or some people pick and choose their episodes. Some people listen to every episode and it really is about the balance of making sure I can make the podcast work. It can't work for everybody, right, but I can tweak it in ways that work for most people and I've been doing it for awhile. 

Also, I know, you may be not listening to this if you're a TNG fan, but yeah, we're kind of flip flopping back and forth with TNG. I know, the TNG episodes just get, The Good Place episodes get actually a lot more listens than our normal episodes, so hey Good Place fans and then our TNG episodes get less listens than the majority for our episodes and that's not really the main reason why I'm spreading them out. It's just because I'm trying to keep with the seasonality of these shows, but if you are a TNG superfan, let me know, because I think I'm going to put the unreleased episodes out as all night episode for patrons at 10 dollars and up a month and I'll probably do that in October or early November. So if you're a TNG superfan, even if you, I'm not trying to get anything out of you, but you could actually just join for a month and then download that and then take off too. Or you could sort the podcast that puts you to sleep. I guess because I'm saying that, I will do that, so it will be all of the recent TNG episodes and then the unreleased ones that will come out probably over when Good Place is on break probably. 

Because I'm also looking at another new show that's going to be launched in November and I'm thinking about doing that as a it would be the something something Borean. So we'll see about that too. The man that's boring you. That will probably be the name of the episode, so anyway, let's get to The Good Place. 

So am I right or am I right? Because hopefully you're in bed and maybe you're relaxing, maybe you're chillaxing. That's the title of tonight's episode of The Good Place and I have to hit play onto here so I can follow along and mute it. And it opens with this happy couple picnicking which I want to watch again with you here. Okay, actually theres two shots. There's a wide, a really wide shot of the town square type area and it says Good Pause. We got Infinite Light, Your Anticipated Needs, and it goes see the Janet babies and I guess they are, this would be interesting to hear the production. As much as I'd love to listen to the official Good Place podcast in season, I just can't do it because I'm afraid it will throw me off and that's actually what happened with GOT is I did let myself listen to some of those GOT, not the official podcast, but a lot of GOT podcasts in season and it did impact my viewpoint of the show. 

So on the wide shot, there's a lot of Janet babies walking around. What I was wondering is if after they talk about the production or whatever, if these will be almost like their moving like sims or something, because certainly you're five seconds into the episode on pause, it looks like that. And then they go to a shorter shot of a man and a woman with a picnic basket. Let me see again. I rewound it. Let's see. They have what looks like a canvas picnic basket and a basket of flowers and they're engrossed in conversation. Then we see Michael and my mind just went blank. Holy moley. Eleanor. They're drinking from coffee cups. They're at a café table. There's a small flower centerpiece as their chatting. It's on mute. Michael has a sky blue pocket square with polka dots. I don't know, is that a cardigan Eleanor is wearing? Michael's laughing and now Eleanor's kind of laughing and thinking Michael has kind of got a gray suit on, a darker blue tie and a checkered shirt. I think that's a checked shirt? I don't know what you call it. I think the suit is also checked. 

Oh boy. So Chidi rolls up but Chidi must have a squad because as I'm watching Chidi roll up happy, I see in the background if you pause it, someone else that has a stack of what is called discs for Frisbee golf. Knish From A Rose is where Chidi's walking in front of. He's got a, what are those kinds of shirts called? I have this shirt, which I'll talk about when I go through my notes. What are they called? Weave shirts? They kind of wear in the summer. Tweed, something like that. I can't remember what they're called, but they're good. Oh, I almost remembered it now. I forgot it again. They're good because they can always be wrinkled and it looks good on Chidi. I bought the same shirt this summer to wear to something and then I said I'm not feeling it but now that Chidi's got it on, maybe I'll be feeling it again. 

Chidi has a picnic basket as well. Now he's walking off. Michael, panning scenes. Now they're in the office. So let's go to the notes. Okay, happy couple with picnic basket. Eleanor and Michael. Oh, Eleanor had her Stan Smiths on. They use terminology often running, Brent [the asshole 00:21:57]. Oh, and then Chidi talks or Eleanor talks about Chidi had an action figures of philosophers, [inaudible 00:22:05], Arthur Schopenhauer. Love him so much. Chidi can do it. This is kind of what Michael says is so great and kind of sad. What else? What the fork? That's when Chidi walks up super happy and I put, “I have the same shirt!” He also has a hat on. Not sure if that's what the hats that boy bands wear. What are those called again? Fedoras. What does the hat say? I don't know. But he's going to play Frisbee golf. 

Brent, he's in it for the long haul. He said, “You got a B minus in moral values at Princeton. Did I tell you I went to Princeton?” Oh, Chidi's Frisbee or disc is blue. Brent decided he should be the professor. And then I think Eleanor says, “Wouldn't God say you have a duty to help?” And Chidi says, “Not when the weather's like this. Who's up for Frisbee golf?” He makes this kind of wild, happy laugh. Also couldn't tell if he had no socks on or ankle socks. Either way, one of which doesn't seem on point for him. 

Then there's also a person with a basket of fruit in the background. Chidi also brags to his squad about his joke about whatever. I forgot, when the weather's this good, whatever. This is what I said to God or whatever. 

Then we're back at the office, so I'll go through my notes now. Never seen Chidi like this. He was chillaxing. I just invented that word. Chidi and relaxing combined. This is because he's not being stressed, like his stressed decision makings where he's we got to put sand in the old clam to make a pearl and Michael says, “Oyster, Eleanor.” And then he needs to be in a world of low grade dread. And I said, low grade dread? I'm in a world of not dread usually. I mean it's just kind of how my lower operating system works. And Eleanor says, “I can do that. We can put cat food in his guitar.”

Oh and then it opens. Chapter 42. So let's see if I missed anything here. Michael was talking to Eleanor and Eleanor was saying, she's hands on her desk. Michael's looking. Maybe we got to stress him out more. So this is just an office scene. Let's go.

So then Tahani's at a café. She's using Air Screen. On her table at the café is grapes, wine, beret. That kind of stuff you'd have at a café, like a French style one. Janet appears. She's dyed her hair with pink streaks, because she said, “That's some of the things people do when they break up. Also watched Mamma Mia Here We Go Again, which is kind of the same as the first.” And Tahani says, and then there's all these. Did I mention this on another episode, all these Make Some Art signs? I don't know if they're just hidden there for, but there's a big banner behind Tahani when it opens and those appear in some of the other scenes in different things. So Mamma Mia Here We Go Again is kind of the same as the first. Diving back into work. We got to help John. We'll do it with a spa day. They kind of come up with that plan. Cracked the code, 2014. Oh, she says, “John wrote 11 articles about Gigi Hadid's vacation and then he looked up something called a discount vacation package.” 

Oh whoa, I just didn't see this. You could pause it. John's website is GossipToilet.com. How did I miss that? He actually makes a joke about it later. Here's his thing. “Eat, pray, barf. Gigi's Shishi Retreat-treat. I've Hadided up to here. Oh no, she Hadidnt. Gigi burns Bali wedding by being there.” Ruins, maybe. “Ain't nothing but a G-String. Gigi bears it all on Balinese religious holiday and Bali Legal.” So that was lucky that I didn't freeze it in my other watch through. 

There's something called, I think we probably figured it out, Ponzu something. I can't remember what it is. That's another restaurant or something in the background. Let's see. Discount vacation package. She says, “What is this Ponzu?” I got question marks. She says, “So the rich and powerful are going to welcome him to exclusive world.” She says, onto something, celeb gossip. “Open his pores and then his heart. Exfoliate the dead skin cells of envy and detoxify soul.” This is kind of what they're talking back and forth which is good writing. That was Janet, the second two. Spa day. John's excited for spa day. He dances kind of. Says, “This is paradise, but I still need this.” And she goes, “Yeah, I got a recreation of Victoria Beckham's posh wash.” John calls it posh wash, I think.

Then we have Jason kind of staring at a fountain and Michael, oh wait. Let me see. A couple more things. Jason stared at a fountain. “We need your help,” they say to him. Eleanor and Michael. He says, “Okay, so hand me the jar.” He says back and forth about that. Metaphorical jar. Yeah. 

Then we're at the spa, back at the spa they're drinking fresh water from Oprah's Hawaiian something and mushrooms from her bog in a different place. I think her bog was in the Midwest, no, I think her bog was in Italy or something and waters from Hawaii. I can't we believe we missed out on this. So good. By deFOMO. And then John says, “The only thing that can make this better is some hot goss,” so hot gossip. So Tahani tells a story about Robbie Williams, Heidi Klum and the remaining members of Fifth Harmony at the Dolce and Gabanna Spring show and John says, “Hate him, loathe her, over them, cancel it.” And then I think they skip it and then they come back and he says, “Wait, Natalie Portman really does do Scarlett Johannson's stunts?” And then Tahani pitches in on you getting an inner glow through the study of ethics and he goes, “No. You stay crazy, girl,” which was funny. 

And then we go to Chidi's apartment which looks like it's above, because there was an exterior shot and then it looks like it was above Yogurt Yogurt Yogurt, so I don't know if his apartment is above there. His fedora's parked on a table. He talks about how at the picnic, there was helpful, cute ants. Eleanor and Michael are there and Eleanor says, “Just wait for the otter turn down service,” and they say, “Geez, we need Jianyu needs some help. Can you take him into your study group?” And I think Chidi says, “Fun.” And they say, “He's having a hard time adjusting and obviously you have to help no matter what.” And he says, “I swear I'll treat him as if he's my own brother,” and Eleanor says, “Geez, a promise from a strict conntient is iron clad. Goodbye.” 

So they introduce him and he goes, “Yo, my name is,” this is a flashback to season one. He goes, “Yo, my name is Jason Mendoza. You guys get me out of here, homie. I'm a little bit concerned.” Then there's an ad break. Then they're back, they go to Jason. Then it's flash forward to Jason has his butthole in Chidi's library. He says, “Dude,” and Chidi has his stomach ache. He goes, “Listen, man. No more meatball subs and any of this other stuff.” 

There's a knock knock at the door and he says, “Hey,” Eleanor and Michael and they say, “Hey, how's it going?” He goes, “Things going in there?” And he goes, “Yeah, of course. Going great. It's not like Mike would do anything like shotgun Cheez Whiz.” And he says, “Do you take him to the luau?” He says, “I can't make it.” And they go, “Really?” He goes, “They can.”

Also, Eleanor and Michael match in this scene. She has a golden sweater. He has a golden tie or a mustard gold. What does that say? Wave, no, luau. It looks like wave in my head. It's luau. There's some dancing and it's going good. Tahani said, “The progress with John is not going, we're not getting any progress and my hair might be too shiny and lustrous from all of these spa days.” She's telling this to Janet. Janet's thoughtful. She says, “Every time I bring up ethics, he shuts me down.” And Janet says, “He was hardly a shrinking violet. Why don't you be direct with him?” And she's like, Tahani says, “You're right. I shall go on the offense just like the six of the eight Game of Thrones characters based on me,” and I think Janet says, “Yeah.”

Then Eleanor and Jason are talking about it and Jason says, “All I got to do is be myself, man.” And she causes Chidi some S-T-R double E, stomach aches. They really have nice luau wear, too. I mean, between the prints and the flowers, really well done. And then even Jason says, “Maybe you need to ease off on him.” And Eleanor says, “Well, how many Tums has he had?” “20.” And she goes, “No, no. That's not enough. And we got to make him more miserable. He's Superman with a stomach ache.” 

Then Tahani goes to John and says, “Hey girl, how about that Little Mermaid spa treatment later?” And then she says, “Perhaps I'd like to bend your ear about some serious stuff.” And she says, “Geez, all the stuff you wrote about me was kind of mean,” and he goes, “What is this? A fake friendship?” And she goes, “You have a chance to be a better person here,” and John gives her a reality check. He goes, “Listen. I lived in the real world. I had to work 16 hours a day to build something,” and then he says, “A spa, you got it,” or something and then he makes a flush which I guess makes sense now that I know the name of his blog. You spa'd it, you got it, or something. 

Then Eleanor does a welcome for, what is that thing called? Luau. She goes, “We got an exciting activity magic lava stone, whatever your heart or your soul most desires. Welcome to thee,” and Matilda gets her child pet, Shellster Turtlestein, then Jason's ready to go. Chidi tries to hold him back. He goes, “Geez, I want my old motorcycle with Pamela Anderson airbrushed on the side.” Then he throws and Chidi's like, “A monk that likes motorcycles?” Then he goes, “But it wasn't her face.” And then Jason throws his stone and Chidi says, “Oh, you threw it for me,” but first, Michael goes, “A sexually explicit motorcycle,” and someone says, “Yay.” I think, oh, Chidi does, like a fake yay. He goes, “Oh, it's mine. I love motorcycles and Canadian TV actress, Pamela Anderson.” And he goes, “I'll just drive this off,” and then he has to slowly walk it off.

Then Eleanor and Michael are in the office. They call the magic ants drink champagne, Eleanor does. And Michael says, “I think we did enough.” Eleanor says, “We can't stop now.” Chidi comes in. He says, “Can we talk?” The ants are about to come in with the champagne. Michael goes, “Not now.” And then a commercial. 

And then Chidi says, “Geez, I spent my whole life on Earth not knowing what to do,” and he's very torn. Michael says, “Chidi, sometimes,” or maybe Eleanor says this, “adversity leads to growth and on the other side, you're better for it.” And he goes, “Yeah, I know morality and moral glum is not my jam, but this feels like I'm being punished somehow.” Really mature, I mean this writing's just so mature. I don't know what other word, deep, but deep in an, I don't know. You know what I mean if you're a fan of The Good Place. 

He goes, “I know it's silly, but I'm worried I did something wrong,” and then Eleanor tears up. Then Chidi goes, “I made God cry.” Then he says, “Stomach ache. Welcome back, old friend.” 

Then Tahani and Janet, Tahani's very mad about her conflict with John. “I mean, he's the only person who started a Twitter for you with Jacob Tremblay, somebody, and he thinks I have issues.” I mean, the only person I can think of is this, you know one of those cute child actors or somebody, it's got to be somebody super nice or something. Let's see. “Even more direct, I don't like the ways he's treating you.” That's what Janet says. “I don't appreciate it. He's jealous and miserable with no real friends.” And then I think the light bulb goes off for Tahani there. 

And then Eleanor's crying. She said, “It's all my fault. I promised I would take care of you.” They say, “Don't worry.” No, Michael says, “Just don't worry, Chidi. We'll just eliminate any problems. Just tell me what the problem is.” A real all or nothing situation. He goes, “Eleanor made the problem. You tell me what it is and you can go back to your perfect life.” He goes, “It's Jason,” and then he goes, “Oh, it's the motorcycle,” so Michael gets rid of the motorcycle which Jason was looking at. He says, “Not again,” and then Michael says, “Problem solved,” or Chidi does.

And then Tahani and John, Tahani goes up to John because she realizes, “Oh we were both miserable and alone.” And John goes, “Round two. Let's do this.” And then Tahani says, “In 2007, Blake Lively had a party for Leo DiCaprio on Paul Allen's mega-yacht. Only the 100 most famous oligarchs,” or something powerful, the best of the best, “could go.” Even on that ship that only 100 could go, there was a VIP deck that was more restrictive and then on the VIP deck was a VIP room where you needed a secret pin to get into, and she goes, “I put in the pin and I went there and I was the only person there.” And John, just like he's reviewing this podcast, said, “That's a riveting story. Could you make it longer and sadder?” 

And this was so tasty. She goes to the point in time, he goes, “The point is, if all you care about is the velvet rope, you will always be unhappy no matter what side you're on.” And she goes, “We're kind of proof that both of us,” and then she says, “I can start over. Can we start over?” And then John says, “I want to say something,” and he gives a heartfelt apology, says, “Geez, I'm really sorry. What I wrote, what I tweeted, the Playbill at Wicked that I sent to you anonymously,” and she goes, “Well, my bangs did make my ears look chunky.” And then she goes, “Do you want to go for a walk?” So they go off, kind of sweet. 

Then we see Jason playing Rock Band guitar and Chidi says, “New plan. We're going to study ethics.” And then he said, “Good, man. You rule. You're the Pamela Anderson of motorcycle philosophy.” And he goes, “Well, she's sorry about your motorcycle going bye bye.” And Jason says, “That's just what motorcycles do.” 

Then we're back at the office. And his whole squad minus Chidi's here. So, Chidi said, “How are you doing, Eleanor?” Or first, it's just Eleanor and Michael. She says, “It's still terrible. I kind of lied to Chidi because I was mad at him for forgetting me, sacrificing our relationship to save humanity.” And Michael said, “Okay, it kind of makes sense but I just don't totally have a grip on human emotional spectrum. You're happy when you should be sad. You're angry when you should be happy. You're tweeting when you should be driving or texting.” And he goes, “Listen, Eleanor. Let yourself off the hook. You were mad. Get your shirt together.”

Then Tahani and Jason come in. Tahani says, “I win. Massive progress with John.” Let's see. They say, “Okay, well glad you were able to connect.” They talk about, they say, “Bravo, Jason.” He goes, “It felt good to be brainy and have use-ness,” or something. I said it's a great use of the word use-ness. And Eleanor says, “Geez, all four of these mofos are on the right path. What's next?”

And then we cut to a train track and there's a mystery guest coming in a cloak on a self propelled train car just in time for the next episode which we'll talk about right in just a second.

All right everybody, Scoots here. We're talking about season four, episode five, episode four. You're right, Brandon. Correct. In Tinker, Tailor, Zemon, Zevon, Spy, or I could say something else. And the episode opens, it says, I think Eleanor says, “30 seconds left.” They're playing a game like Pictionary or Drawful, I think is what it's called when you play it on Jackbox. I'm probably wrong about that.

Tahani is drawing, Jason's guessing, no. John's guessing. They're the yellow team and they have retro t-shirts. It's a team t-shirts that have v-neck collars with orange stripes and they're yellow and it says, “John, Tahani and Jianyu.” That's their team. It's a butterfly that she's drawing. It's Mariah Carey's back butterfly tattoo, John figures out. Then it lands on Jason who's very amused. I just happened to pause it when he was looking at the butterfly. Tahani's in a robe which I said, “Well, that looks comfy,” especially because they're out, it's the evening. They're playing outside. Totally sensible. Of course, she rocks it. She's rocking it in a chillaxing kind of way, but I found very, I don't know I noticed it if you know what I'm saying. I don't know how else to say it. So anyway. Sorry, Scoots. I'm not following. Are you saying that you found that, and I say, “Yeah, that's what I'm saying.” Yeah, just in a subtle way, I said, “Hmm.” I don't know. It just kind of seemed very human to me and more and they said, “Well, regular Tahani, oh it's just a character on a show. Okay. Thanks. Anyway.”

So back to the story. They call it John did his college thesis on that back tattoo and then Eleanor says, “Every picture has something to do with your life on Earth. It's kind of like an ice breaker so everybody knows who … to get to know one another.” 

Chidi's up next. They're on the Brent team. Chidi, Brent and Simone. Brent calls him Chippy. What does that say? “Chippy, you're up,” maybe that says. I don't know. And then we see, if you really watch, there's chips, there's wine, there's popcorn. Then Chidi says something like, “How to start.” Brent really goes off the rails and Simone says, “Oh god, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” 30 seconds, Chidi is, Simone says, “Is that a submarine,” in parentheses, “Is it broccoli with teeth?” And then they start to get it, “It's a horse with a bow on its neck,” and Simone says, “It's my childhood pony, Daisy.” Then Daisy comes to life just like the butterfly did, but Chidi's drawn it in a very childlike way, better than I would have, I'll tell you that. They say, “Oh no, Daisy.” Chidi says, “What have I done?” Brent says, “You made a friggin Frankenstein, my man.” Magic Pictionary over. 

Jason actually gets touched by the horse tongue and I think Eleanor says, “All right, everybody go home and just sleep.” So I think that it's playing in the background, but I think that covers it. 

Chapter 43. “Then we're at Mindy's. Fork me. We should have cut Brent off.” Janet says, “Nobody gets cut off.” And then they kind of talk about since last episode, they've been ice cold, but the past three weeks or something, they're getting better. Brent stop saying, “Daddy likes. Daddy like.” Not, “Oh, when you push that kid on the swing, that is very daddy-like. More like, Daddy no likey.” Like he said at golf. 

Eleanor says, “Something feels off.” They say, “All right, let's brainstorm. Let's stay up all night. We'll work on this.” Michael says, “No, no, no. We need a break. Let's have a slumber party.” And then the magic computer screen comes up and says, “Unknown train arriving.” So they go to the station. 

Oh, also I just noticed. Sorry. There's a lot of good throw blankets on the sofa. It's the kind of thing you'd expect in The Good Place, a sofa with plenty of throw blankets or whatever they're called. There's pizza boxes too during Pictionary. 

Okay, slumber party. Unknown train arriving. They go to the station. There's someone in a cloak. They say, “Show yourself.” It's Glen. “You kind of look like a Java from Star Wars or Jawa.” Yeah, I guess they're Jawas, not Javas. They say, “What do you want, creep?” And he says, “I'd like to speak to Eleanor alone.” Eleanor says, “No way, dude. Tell us all.” He says, “I don't think you should.” They say, “Yeah, just tell us.” He says, “That's not Michael. It's Vicky in a Michael suit.” 

They go back to Mindy's. Glen wants a hot glass of something that's not tea, but it rhymes with tea. Michael and Eleanor, oh, Michael has a pink pocket square. Michael says, “Believe me, he's lying.” And Eleanor says, “Calm down. I trust you, but we got to make him think that I don't trust you.” Michael says, “I like the way you think, Shellstrop.” And he plays it up a little bit. And Glen says, “Why don't you just call the judge?” So this is a complicated situation to resolve because there's no clear solution, because they can't start the judge because everybody would get rebooted and they'd start over. Jason makes a great joke. Eleanor throws him a caramel at that point. And then they say, “Why would you help us?” He says, “I don't know.” He goes, “I don't know if I believe that there's no such thing as redemption and Sean is really mean,” which Jason can kind of relate to. So then they say, “What's the Bad Place plan then?” And he says, “So chaos. That's what the suit is for.” He says, “I helped make the suit.”

And then they show a scene in the Bad Place of Vicky testing the suit out and she zips up. They explain that whatever way that the suit is made, they have to wear it over their demon innocence or whatever. Vicky as Michael dances, says, “This is pretty well made. I can feel the musty and the dangly.” Sean likes it. He says, “Oh, I even like the voice in a way I don't like it,” kind of like people who review this podcast sometimes. 

Glen has doubts. He says, “Call the real Michael.” Then they go back. Michael first says that he lies. They say, “We know you're lying,” and Glen says, “Why don't you just check the phone records?” So then Michael says, “Well actually, they did call me.” And they say, “Why'd you lie to us?” And they go back again and they say, “Just call the judge.” And Jason says, “Exactly what you want. Exactly.” And then Eleanor says, “Let's go to separate rooms. I'm serious about this.” Like even for Michael, he says, “Oh yeah, I'm playing along.” She goes, “No, no, no. I am going to separate you until I figure this out.” 

Then we cut to commercial. Then it says, “[inaudible 00:50:47] butt heads, what do we do?” This is Jason, Tahani and Janet. Jason says, “We got to trust Michael.” And they say, might be, and Tahani says, “This is a classic Mary-Kate Olsen situation.” Eleanor kind of sees both sides, no helpful solution. They're in the bedroom upstairs which is, Derek's there. Upstairs Derek when he plays upstairs, downstairs Derek. He's in a white tuxedo, white on white tux. And Jason says, “Hit the road, Joker.” He says, “I've been rebooted so many times, I've evolved past jealousy.” 

Then there's a bunch of good jokes and then they say, “Have fun with the dipe life,” which is just funny the way he says it. Michael says, “I am Michael. I did see the suit.” I think it was last season, he said, “We could use it to get to you guys just to not make it.” And then Eleanor says, “Were you lying when you said I was going to be a great leader?” He goes, “Yeah, but that was like an inspirational lie.” And then she goes, “Okay, so to recap, you've lied and then you lied again and then you lied when there was no reason to lie. Why should we believe you? Any reasons other than your lies,” something like that. Then she says, “Janet, can you make a lie detector?” Let's see what else happens. 

Under stress and Daisy, they get Glen drunk. “I'll try. I touched the dang diaper,” and Michael calls from the other room. I think we're in Mindy's office, which I'm going to pause it when we get there, which is a few minutes. So right now, we have Derek's just had Jason's back. Now as you can say, have fun with the dipe life. It actually has some wind chimes on it and you can see Mindy's bedroom, I think it's Mindy's bedroom. Which kind of like the rest of Mindy's house with probably some cool, secrets tucked in there somewhere. 

Michael's pocket square's red, like what is that? Gingham or whatever it's called? He said, “Come on.” This is where they're going through the lies and stuff. Some good acting because Tahani and Jason are just having a kind of look on and follow which is always good when it's on mute because you can kind of pay attention to that stuff. Eleanor's doing a lot of moving. Tahani's doing a lot of subtle nodding. Jason's pensively standing following along. And say, “Oh that's what that line was for.” 

Now, Eleanor's in disbelief if Michael stands and kind of faces her. She stares him down. She breathes through her nose and she says, “Okay, well. We'll figure all this out.” Even the parts that Scoots' handwriting can't read. I just saw some hand puppets. Derek's back in the room and Michael's mind is blown. Now this is where they're kind of trying to figure stuff out. 

Back with the soul squad which they'll get Glen drunk. Can we make a lie detector, but you know Janet's got a lot going on, under a lot of stress, as she says. Oh, and Daisy means Daisy the pony. I forgot about that part. So she actually had to deal with Daisy the pony, too. So we got that going. So she heads off to work on that.

Michael yells, “Now we're going to go to Mindy's office at 10:26 here.” And I'll pause it. She has a sofa in her office. Glen is sitting at her desk. On her desk is some flowers. A gray desk blotter. Pink dish with three eggs very fancily decorated, like I wouldn't say dyed eggs, but something fancy. Then a crystal ball but not like a crystal ball. It has facets to it, so some sort of glass ball and then some sort of piece of material that it seems like you'd hang a plant from. Then behind to the right is bookshelves, a globe, something made of marble, and then something that looks like you'd bake bread in it or something. A strange cabinet. And then on the left is a strange painting that you'd see in a tourist office. It looks like New York City or Times Square. It's a back lit, almost black back lit painting and Glen's talking, so I just wanted to catch that.

“Just like when you sent Linda,” Eleanor saying, “we busted him.” He goes, “No, no, no. That was our plan. His name's Chris and we used him to do a switcheroo.” Oh no wait, first he says, “Oh no, no. The person Sean was celebrated,” and then Jason says, “Is that what you want us to think?” Oh he says, “Is that what you used to do a switcheroo?” I don't know. We've seen everybody celebrate right now. Glen kind of doesn't get it. Then they say, “Let's just take the suit off.” They go, “Oh no, no. You can only voluntarily take your suit off.” Eleanor says, “So be it.” So she says, “Michael, can you take your suit off?” He goes, “I can't. I'm sorry.” And she goes, “This is really beautiful, actually.” 

I mean we'll see it in a larger scope of the story, but he said, “I don't want to show you what's really underneath.” This is just something we all deal with, so I just think somehow talking about it in an open way makes it more subtle. I don't know? And then he says, “A fire squid down deep.” Jason says, “Dope.” He says, “No, I'm 6,000 feet tall. You got tentacles, the long neck, juices. So much juice.” And Jason said, “I think I speak for everyone when I say I really have to see this.” But he goes, “But you won't want to be friends with me. You'll never look at me the same way again,” because they say, “That's convenient that you don't want to change.” I think he even says mortifying. “More than that or mortifying than that, you'll never look at me the same way again. I won't be Michael. I'll be some disgusting, massive tentacles. You wouldn't want to be friends with something like that.” Jason says, “Yes.” He goes, “Keep saying that.”

Then Janet pops in. She says that she has a lie detector ready. So they say, “Okay, Glen. Give us your real name.” He says Glen is his real name or as he starts to say, he goes, “The name on my certificate is Glen,” and as he starts, he changes into a blue goo which weird is Michael raises his hands at that point and everybody's covered in blue goo. It goes to an ad.

Then we come back from the ad to see, “Don't worry. Glen will slowly reform and go through the stages of being a demon. Larva slug. Like a spooky tween then teen boy then a ball of tongues then a social media CEO.” And they say, “Jesus worked out perfectly. We're all good.” And then Eleanor goes, “No, we're not all good. I'm going for a walk to figure this out.” 

So she goes for a walk. She comes across Chidi who's on the sofa where they played Pictionary drawing. She says, “Are you okay?” And Chidi goes, “Yeah, yeah. I'm just practicing drawing viable horses that aren't whatever, the face of,” it's just funny. And she goes, “I know this mood of yours,” and there's a brief beat there where she says, “Because I studied you,” or whatever. And she goes, “This is time for you to take a break and get some food.” 

Then we cut back and Janet is putting the Glen goo into an aquarium. She goes, “Well, I'm done. This steaming pile of Glen.” Jason stands and he's holding a word search and he goes, “You want some help putting things back together?” He goes, “I just finished this.” There's just a good word search joke, but he basically says, “Geez, look I'm here for you to talk.” And she goes, “Thanks, Jason.” And then they have a big hug. But I guess I'd have to rewatch it again to see. I think, well, anyway. 

Then we go back to Chidi and Eleanor. There's a giant plate of nachos. Eleanor says, “Nachos are the number one human food, and he goes, “Really,” and she goes, “Yeah, they're easy, salty, crunchy, cheesy. They have a little kick. The best human things.” Chidi says, “What about the Sistine Chapel?” And she goes, “No.” Then she goes, “Listen, man. Don't stay up all night drawing horses.” And he goes, “I want to make the world a better, I want to make things better.” And she goes, “Making yourself miserable to ease the suffering of others is about the most Chidi thing you can do.” And then she says, “See you later.” There's a little weird echo coming up that I couldn't quite, it threw me off, because she says, “The most Chidi thing you can do.” Then he says, “Do you want to take the rest of these nachos?” She says, “Yeah.”

Then she walks into Mindy's. The plate of nachos is now empty and she goes, “All right, here's where I'm at. Michael, I don't know if I can trust you. I'm going to call the judge. We won't have Chidi, but he will be back on our side again.” And then they're like, “Starting over just sounds exhausting.” And she goes, “Well, I have to start over, because there's no way to figure out if Michael's real or not and if he's messing things up or not.” Michael says, “Well, I have a better idea. I'll just goo myself. That's the only way. And then I'll see you all in a few months. Just get me in a container,” and then he goes, “Take it sleazy,” and he gets ready to do it and then Jason says, “Michael, wait.” And then he puts furry handcuffs on Janet which is actually the place I worked when I sold fuzzy dice also sold those, so that's interesting. 

Then as soon as he puts the furry cuffs on Janet, she turns into bad Janet. She says, “Crud nuts.” And then there's an ad. 

We come back. She says, “How did you know?” He goes, “Michael said there's nothing he could say to make things right,” and they say, “What?” And he goes, “Well, here's the thing. I called Janet, girl, and she didn't say, not a girl,” and they go, “Oh, wow.” And then they ask bad Janet, “How'd you pull it off?” She says, “Well, we had two bad Janets,” so she goes, “I distracted Janet and another bad Janet.” Oh, no wait. When Janet was putting Chris down, she goes, “I marbleized Janet and then the other bad Janet pretended she was Janet, or she pretended she was Janet.” Whatever. The other bad Janet helped. “And had you fart knockers fooled until Glen, the traitor, and Glen baubles.” And they say, “Well, geez, bad Janets can't impersonate good Janets.” And she goes, “Well, Sean rebooted me 40 million times.” And he says, “Oh dip. Janet didn't dump me,” Jason says. And they say, “It all makes sense.” And she goes, “Yeah, I was going to make Tahani give herself an asymmetrical haircut next.” 

And then Michael says, “You still don't know it's me,” and Eleanor says, “Your offer to sacrifice yourself is about the most Michael thing you can do.” And then they say, “Well, where's the real Janet?” And they say, “In the Bad Place.” And then Jason says, “Well, I can't deal with that.” They say, “What should we do?” Jason says, “Well, Sean's a bully. I'm going to go down there. I'm going to get Janet back.” I think he says, dope. And then they say, “What's the plan?” No, he says, “What's the plan?” And then Michael pats his back, he says, “Great plan.” And he goes, “What's the plan?” 

Then we're at the train station and this is an interesting scene. They have a can of Glen, have Glen in a water cooler can. Jason is suave AF. He's in a suit, his hair's combed. And they say, “Geez, we'll just try to go down there,” and Michael's in, what is that? A trenchcoat. He goes, “We'll just have to go down there and do our best. We'll just try our best.” And then this was so cute. I mean, I don't know how else to phrase it except for cute writing. I mean, I don't mean it in the negative way. I mean it in the positive way. Michael says, “Let's go get our girl,” and then Jason says, “Not a girl.” I mean, that says they're truly in love to me. And that was the end of the episode, so I hope you enjoyed those. Here's some thank yous and what should I do with the covers on your feet? Okay. I get it. I'll take care of it like that. Okay. Got it.