Chapter 15: Everything Is Great! (Part 2) is the 2nd episode of Season 2 of NBC’s The Good Place. It originally aired along with Part 1 as a double-length episode.
Plot
IT'S DEJA VU IN THE GOOD PLACE IN THE SEASON TWO PREMIERE — Having had their memories erased by ambitious master architect Michael (Ted Danson), Eleanor (Kristen Bell), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jason (Manny Jacinto) again settle into the Good Place, unaware of what has previously transpired...except that Eleanor discovers the one clue she had left for herself and attempts to piece things together.
Summary:
(This episode often goes over the same scenes multiple times, from different points of view, and has lots of time jumps forward and backward.)
Jason Mendoza wakes up in Michael's waiting room, and Michael invites "Jianyu" into his office. Michael gives the same speech as in season 1, allowing "Jianyu" to remain silent. Michael takes him out to meet his soul mate, whole will be "Jianyu"'s "best buddy", another Buddhist monk, Luang, and Michael says they share souls, and "Jianyu" will never be alone, because he'll be with Luang, for eternity. (We see Jason wince at that.) We see Jason sitting in Luang's hut, trying to imitate him in eating, arranging stones (well, Luang has laid out a pretty pattern, and Jason has laid out "BOOBS"), bicycling to town.
In town, after they park their bikes, Jason prompts Luang into going to a store to buy a kite, and while he's gone, Jason removes a sprocket from Luang's bike. Just as he stands up with it, Eleanor runs into him, and he hands her the sprocket: that was the thing she took for a bracelet. Eleanor goes away with Michael, but now Jason can bike away, and Luang can't follow: his bicycle's broken. Jason eagerly bikes back to the hut... and Luang's already there, we don't know how. So Jason's stuck with him.
At the party, Michael welcomes Jason and Luang, and tells them about Janet: she can get anything they want (Jason smiles), but of course they are perfectly content and won't want anything (Jason's smile fades). Janet gets them both glasses of yak's milk, which of course they are supposed to enjoy. Jason sees Eleanor pouring four shots nearby, but then has to not throw up from his yak's milk.
Michael again calls for Eleanor's speech, again we see Tahani interrupt it, ending in her falling over the table. Michael asks if she's all right, and Tahani insists she is, and shows him a shrimp that fell into one of her cargo pants pockets. Michael mutters: "What the fork is happening?"
We see a replay of a few of Michael's events in the episode: calling Shawn, asking Eleanor to speak at the party, showing Tahani her cottage, offering Jason and Luang some yak's milk. Then we're at the party, and several of Michael's minions smile at him when none of the four humans can notice, things are going well. But Denise wants to talk to him, she's having trouble transitioning from being "Real Eleanor" to "Denise", she had a big role in the original version, and now she's just a pizza store lady, Michael needs to give her something to do. Michael promises a great arc for Denise in 80 years or so, but she need something faster, she asks for something, like a limp, to make her stand out. Michael allows it.
Back in the party, a limping Denise runs into Chidi, and he notice she's limping. Elsewhere, Michael meets with other minions, and they're noticing Eleanor's not drinking. He calls for her speech, hoping she'll talk for an hour and surely insult someone. But then Tahani interrupts the speech, falls over the table, and again Michael goes to her.
While Michael is distracted by Tahani, Chidi drags Eleanor out of the room, to say he knows the book she used to write that note she has, the "Find Chidi" note, it's the start of a book, What We Owe to Each Other, he used to teach it, but somehow, he thinks they know each other.
Michael is having a meeting with his minions, and everyone is of course out of character, the first one to speak is Luang, who says it didn't go all that bad. But Michael is still bothered, they needed a drunken speech from Eleanor, not Tahani, and they can't build a chaos sequence from what Tahani said. He asks where Eleanor's gone, it seems she left with Chidi, or maybe with Jason (of course they know his name). Michael's upset that Luang lost Jason, but hey, there was a fire, and Luang's job was always burning people, he likes fire. Then Chris comes in, and it turns out, every time Eleanor was about to confess she didn't belong here, he thought he was supposed to beg out and go to the gym; Michael is upset at him, but Chris says, hey, he liked his job twisting people till they broke, but this job is weird. Many of the minions seem of like mind. Michael yells at them all to go and find the humans.
Eleanor and Chidi are in her house, and she's shared that she's not supposed to be here, but somehow they met before now, and Chidi doesn't know what to do, but Eleanor says they need to figure something out.
It's night after the party is over, and Jason is walking in the empty streets of the town. He summons Janet, who addresses him as "Jianyu", and he tells her, he's not Jianyu, he's Jason, and he's not a silent monk, and he doesn't know what's going on here. He doesn't want to go back to Luang's hut, and asks if he can go home with her. She says she has no house, but she offers him someplace he'll like with friends.
Chidi is sure he and Eleanor had earlier studied serious moral philosophy, to be using the book she made her note from. Michael walks in (and they hide the note), saying he's just going door-to-door to make everyone feel comfortable. Then Tahani walks in, just to give Eleanor back her sash, but while she's there, she complains to Michael, ever since she got there something's been wrong. Tahani is followed by Tomas, then Pevita, each looking for their human.
Then Janet brings in Jason to speak with Eleanor. Luang arrives also, and Michael says for Luang to get Jason back home, and Jason speaks: "No! I'm not spending another second with this loser." He's speaking like a Floridian, not a monk, and complains Luang was no best friend, his best friend from Jacksonville was Pillboi and they had lots of fun together, and Luang is nothing.
Now everyone is in the same room, and Eleanor takes over: she sure that this is not the Good Place, (Michael nods), Michael is playing with us, and she has the note, so it's something that's happened to us before, she must have written the note and put it in Janet's mouth. Michael praises her quick thinking, and actually he's relieved, this explains how everything fell apart the first day, but he'll do better next time. The humans are surprised by "Next time", and Eleanor eats the note herself, which Michael says won't work. He snaps his fingers.
Michael is again having a neighborhood meeting, of just his minions, saying "third time's the charm." He assures them that this time it will go right, there's no note. Someone asks if Michael told Shawn, and Michael says yes, he did, and Shawn is very supportive, and eager for them to get going again.
Finally, Michael is in his office, when Shawn calls, asking for the morning update. Michael lies that the chaos sequence went so well after Eleanor got drunk last night, but everything is going well on attempt two. Shawn reminds him, there will be no attempt three. Michael then goes to the waiting room, and invites Eleanor in.
Starring
- Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop
- William Jackson Harper as Chidi Anagonye
- Jameela Jamil as Tahani Al-Jamil
- D'Arcy Carden as Janet
- Manny Jacinto as Jason Mendoza
- Ted Danson as Michael
Guest Starring
- Marc Evan Jackson as Shawn
- Tiya Sircar as Vicky/Denise
- Luke Guldan as Chris Baker
- Steve Berg as Chuck/Gunnar
- Paulina Bugembe as Angelique
- Susan Park as Pevita
- Marques Ray as Tomas
- Amy Okuda as Gayle
- John Hartmann as Ed/Bart
- Monnae Michaell as Nina
- Hayden Szeto as Luang
Co-Starring
- Banbadjan Bamba as Bambadjan
- Joaquin Ticonderoga as Pedro
- Josh Siegal as Glenn
Trivia
- 5.28 Million viewers