Fall TV rundown (mostly Arrow)
I’m really only watching three shows right now, and basically only doing reviews for one of them (and I missed one of those). I do have some thoughts on where Crazy Ex-Girlfriend might go before the end, but nothing formed enough to do any reactions to. I’m just enjoying The Good Place, and only felt the need to comment on a couple things so far. Arrow, I tend to need to work through my thought on still it seems. As you can seem I’m not sure how I’m feeling about this season, it shows promise, but I’m not loving it either; it is a show that I often don’t know how I feel until I have a sizable portion of the season picture to judge.
But, here’s what I have so far.
Arrow 7x01
Okay, so when people pointed out that Roy would probably be the new Green Arrow, I had to admit it made sense, he was the fairly logical choice for the job. But I could never square it with him and Thea being off on a quest and I couldn’t see him coming back without her in this situation; she is just as logical to take up the mantle in Oliver’s absence and them together would have worked except the WH clearly wasn’t going to come back for that kind of commitment. I couldn’t think of anyone else it would be since William is too young to take it up and there are no other real archers to step up; but I didn’t account for time travel. Now while I assume we’ll see more of scruffy older Roy in the future (who was hanging out on Lian Yu for some reason we may eventually understand), it’s probably time travelling William who has taken up the family penchant for list based vengeance since he’s the one we seem to be following in these new flashes.
(During a good chunk of the episode it put me in an especially interesting place with how much Dinah and Rene trying to figure out who the vigilante was and no one mentions Roy and Thea. With me thinking that Roy at least needs to be in consideration even if it’s not going to be him. And it ties back into how much I wanted last season to include the new team meeting the old, and I never got it.)
I am curious if this is connected to the timeline Legends visited a couple seasons ago (or possibly Zari’s timeline which may or may not be the same one), but the times don’t quite match up and I doubt we’d get more than slight implication if it is.
As for the bulk of the episode, I found going back and forth between the two present plots somewhat jarring (and then the flash-back/forward really jarring); both plots were okay but I think would have stood better apart from each other than trying to put them together. The plot of how to live life without Oliver kind of wants his absence from it mostly; while really getting into Oliver’s head while he’s away from the world would benefit from us also not being connected to the outside world. But at the same time, they would have had to pad out either plot to make it a full episode, and a premier wants to check in with at least most everyone so I don’t know what the solution is.
Also remember how for five years Felicity thought her boyfriend died in jail? Yeah, this can’t be great for her to see Oliver like this.
Plus...how long is Oliver sentenced for? Because he should be in there for multiple counts of homicide in addition to a variety of other crimes and not some kind of vague ‘vigilantism’ offence. If he somehow got away with a conviction of only a few years he might be thanking his lucky stars and from there deciding not to rock the boat lest they remember the real full extent of his crimes. On the other hand I was kind of expecting all episode for the guards to turn out to be Green Arrow supporters to at least some degree so I’m a little all over the map.
It is a bit funky that I started wondering what Ollie’s new sidekick was in prison for just before he started explaining his backstory. Now, I will not be surprised at all if it turns out to be a load of bullcrap down the line and he’s a plant who either turns out to be the season big bad once Diaz is dealt with or possibly reporting back to Anatoli (remember how I love Anatoli?), but it was something that needed *an* answer up front how this guy ended up in super max.
Hmm, I wonder if me not reviewing anything else is making this review a bit long or if it’s that this is a premier so I have pent up babble.
Arrow 7x02
This episode was weird and I don’t think I liked it, I definitely had a hard time getting into it/staying focused on it. There were definitely moments I liked, but the whole just left me pretty cold.
One problem is either I’ve forgotten more of last season than I expected (quite possible as I had no impulse to rewatch over the summer) or they’re acting like a lot of things were set up that weren’t. Like the Longbow Hunters, I cannot remember them being mentioned before certainly not a big deal made out of their connection to Diaz. Also, yeah, Oliver asked Digg to take over as the Arrow, he then took it back and proceeded to go on his ‘I have to do it alone’ phase; and I highly doubt he put that on John before he went to jail (Oliver has long been aware of the kind of risk that would be for the Diggle family and that would have been a terrible time to try and take up the hood). Plus, I kind of think if those things had been set up, they would have been in the previously on; so is it continuity problem or very subtle foreshadowing that time’s being messed with? I’m not going to start assuming the latter until there’s more evidence as that would give them more credit than I’m inclined to.
I’m sort of of two minds about Felicity’s behavior in this episode. It actually makes a lot of sense to me that she’s been nursing a lot of anger and resentment towards basically everyone involved in what happened, and that she was sort of able to keep it bottled up while they were in witness protection and she had to be a responsible parent and look out for William and everything; then everything changed when Diaz attacked, it uncorked everything she hadn’t been dealing with and now she’s sort of lashing out at everyone. Now that she’s out in the world again she’s reckless and a little cruel to her friends, and as I said, it makes sense to me that she might be acting that way, but it isn’t exactly pleasant to watch. But if the writers know what they’re doing that’s got the makings of a decent character arc as she had to learn and grow from those feelings; but I’m far from convinced the writers really know what they’re doing. Also, I definitely got the feeling from Felicity’s last speech to Digg that we were headed for her teaming up with Siren to take down Diaz (wasn’t expecting it to happen until next ep though), which I wasn’t entirely against, though I couldn’t figure out how it would work; but going this way brings them a step closer to being able to justify Oliver being let out when all this is over, so probably the better choice on her part.
I’m also sort of of two minds about Siren in this one. I think it may have been her best episode, but they still can’t quite convince me that she needs to be on the show. This is sort of an interesting track to take with her, since this show is all about how people can change and become better people, and letting her go on that journey is fair and could offer some interesting stories...but if this show dedicated as much time and focus as it would take to make that story work, I won’t be watching it because I’m not all that interested in watching the Black Siren show...although maybe a Birds of Prey style thing if they could get Huntress back (although I’m not sure who would be Oracle since Felicity would be staying on Arrow and not all that interested in working with her husband’s ex and someone who looks like another of his exes)...and really, Siren and Huntress suddenly seem like they would be a great duo, make it happen.
I thought there were quite a few good bits in Oliver’s plot; I’m not sure it was fully satisfying, but it had good elements. I do feel like we’re building to something here, but I have no idea where, there’s a lot of things in play that I don’t see much of where they’re headed yet, but I do feel a sense of several somethings in motion mostly under the surface. All I’m going to really comment on just now is how I liked the way they worked in Oliver referencing Felicity; that Green Arrow would turn this problem over to Overwatch and they’d figure it out together (I just really like him acknowledging how much being the Green Arrow was about his team around him, and he can only start being it again now with a new friend starting a team), and then being like ‘my wife taught me some things about managing prison systems, which totally doesn’t sound suspicious right?’ I just thought that was a cute moment.
Also, Digg referenced Anatoli, I’ll take any reference to Anatoli that doesn’t involve me having to spell it with a y apparently (conservation of y’s though, as if I ever do go back to watching Flash it will remain Caitlyn because I prefer it).
It’s interesting that we didn’t see any of the New Arrow this week. It was so built up in the premier as if this was either our new hero or our new mystery to be solved, but I’m not entirely surprised that it got moved to the back burner. I kind of talked around it last episode, but I think taking down Diaz is going to be the main arc of the first section of the season (probably at the winter finale), with the plot of who the New Arrow is and what they want being the plot of the back half of the season. And I’m in favor of waxing and waning plot arcs that don’t all have to hit their high points in the season climaxes together, so I hope I’m right.
That said, this episode did little to dissuade me from thinking the new Arrow is future William. Arrow is a show with flashbacks, the universe also has time travel meaning flash-backs can look like flash-forwards. I just don’t see this show telling an entirely separate story taking place in the future that isn’t meant to meet up with the present story; not inform it in ways that only the audience would see like them meeting the new Arrow several years in the future being how we find out who it is but the present character couldn’t see that. This episode did have some good stuff between William and Roy that I’ll be interested to get answers on, but mostly it just gave me time to settle my time travel reading of what’s happening.
Now let’s see how long I actually stay away from legends now that it’s back. I know it will probably just piss me off if I try and watch it, but I am often weak for this show.
The Good Place 3x07
I’m not sure this is the first episode of the show that ever made me cry, but I don’t remember any others and this one got me hard. Both stories were really powerful to me (I think Tahini’s maybe even more than Eleanor’s although we had to go through some cringey stuff first). I do sort of take issue with Michael telling Eleanor about her and Chidi at the end; as much as I do ship them I’m not sure that was the right thing to say. Also they fell in love more than once.
Arrow 7x04
So, after the fact I sort of remembered that we have gone a bit down the dark-Felicity route before in s5; but during the episode my thought was that people shouldn’t be so surprised, she’s been hanging around Oliver a long time by this point. This woman fell in love with and married a rarely repentant murderer who I can’t recall her ever actually telling not to torture people; she may not be as against the ideas in principle as people act like she ought to be. Despite Dinah’s feelings about NGA partly coming from not trusting a non-Oliver Arrow...Oliver was never really a super good guy. The whole point of the Oliver plot of the week is the effect he has on people around him pulling them towards the darkness and Felicity has stood closer to him than anyone.
I’m actually really liking this Arrow-without-Oliver plot. I don’t know that it’s sustainable, but they’re able to show things from a more diverse viewpoint when the vigilante isn’t the show’s hero. What happens in this city when its heroes are taken away and have to move on? That’s certainly not something I’ve seen explored, at least for very long, on other shows. This episode specifically might have been a bit more effective if we hadn’t known for sure that the NGA wasn’t involved in the fires and it’s a layered plan of getting on people on his side. We’d have been pretty sure that wasn’t true, but it could have been interesting.
I am much less interested in the Oliver-without-the-Arrow plot. I’m pretty sure the doctor guy is going to turn out to be the bad guy Oliver is looking for; nor am I completely convinced Oliver was broken at the end and not just playing along. Plus, I’m still got enough of my head in AoS that as soon as they said to bring out the machine I leapt to the idea of it being basically the memory machine from SHIELD. But I also want to say that I am glad that someone finally called out Robert Queen’s actions at the end (although I think Slade has too) as something that’s been a burden on Oliver he shouldn’t have had to carry; that said, being the Arrow (in all forms) has allowed him to save a lot of lives too (including ones that Robert’s actions would have hurt), so I’m not sure how I feel about this entirely...
(This did almost prompt me to go on a rant about why this is why Arrow is the superior Arrow-verse show though. It took the writers a bit to figure it out back in the first couple seasons, but eventually they figured out and embraced that Oliver is deeply flawed and often wrong, and the story rarely any more feels the need to pretend that that isn’t true.)
I’m really not sure how I felt about this episode in general. I think I liked it, but it wasn’t super great. I’m also not sure where the future plot is going, and I think it seems a little weird that Felicity had started Smoak Tech without ever seeing William again apparently, but we’ll see.
Arrow 7x05
You know, it had crossed my mind in previous weeks that prior to this ‘the Demon’ had always referred to Ra’s in this universe, but I think I can be a little forgiven for not leaping to realize it meant Talia. If anything I had wondered if they Malcolm tucked away somewhere. This had previously seemed like a men’s prison, no a co-ed one; and even if I had thought Talia was alive (I really haven’t thought about her at all) I wouldn’t have assumed she be in jail here. Also I had forgotten she supposedly takes issue with Oliver killing Ra’s but I have to take issue with him feeling all that much need to apologize for not thinking what it would do to Ra’s’ family; you mean two people, one I don’t think he knew was even related to Ra’s and the other was perfectly okay with it at the time? I’m not saying empathy is a bad thing but the guy was trying to kill hundreds of thousands of people
My main takeaway from the B-plot was how much I wish we’d ever really established Felicity and Dinah’s relationship before this. Because they don’t any chemistry that suggests they became close in all the time they worked together; and there is a logic to that, but then it might need to be acknowledged. Also, have they ever actually established why Siren doesn’t go back to Earth 2, I can believe there’s probably a warrant or several out for her over there, and she’s decided to honor Quentin by pretending to be Laurel (in case you wondered why I keep calling her Siren, Laurel is Laurel and I already have two Dinah’s but I rarely have to talk about Ma Dinah), but I’m not sure how much water that holds.
Also, while I am anxious for me buddy Anatoli, I’m not convinced they would kill him off so off-handedly, so I’m not super worried yet. But I’m going to be sad if this is the end of him.
The Good Place 3x09
Over the years Michael has occasionally made statements about how the afterlife system is flawed and every time he does I react like Eleanor being told there’s a Medium Place; THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING FROM THE BEGINNING. To be fair on that, the first half or so of the first season it was easy enough to take everything at face value, or at least assume that that the one afterlife neighborhood we saw was only one facet of the afterlife system as Michael told us that different neighborhoods were set up differently (i.e. maybe not everyone who was good was this unreasonably good, not everyone was single/childless or in their 30s when they died, etc.). But as we started getting more info on how the system at large worked, the more it seemed pretty flawed to me. Finding out that they had been in the Bad Place all along, not to mention what we get from meeting Mindy was sign to me that the overall plot of the show should be about reforming or tearing down the whole system.
There were several points last season when it seemed to be hinting that way, especially towards the end, but they weren’t doing anything with that...vibe I was getting. This season has certainly continued to build on that. I’ve very much come to the conclusion that this season being the Earth season, next season we’re likely going to go to the actual Good Place hopefully with either the next level revelation that this whole thing is a multi-level quest or the intent of fixing what’s wrong with the system.
We actually probably aren’t that far away from the finale at this point are we?
But, here’s what I have so far.
Arrow 7x01
Okay, so when people pointed out that Roy would probably be the new Green Arrow, I had to admit it made sense, he was the fairly logical choice for the job. But I could never square it with him and Thea being off on a quest and I couldn’t see him coming back without her in this situation; she is just as logical to take up the mantle in Oliver’s absence and them together would have worked except the WH clearly wasn’t going to come back for that kind of commitment. I couldn’t think of anyone else it would be since William is too young to take it up and there are no other real archers to step up; but I didn’t account for time travel. Now while I assume we’ll see more of scruffy older Roy in the future (who was hanging out on Lian Yu for some reason we may eventually understand), it’s probably time travelling William who has taken up the family penchant for list based vengeance since he’s the one we seem to be following in these new flashes.
(During a good chunk of the episode it put me in an especially interesting place with how much Dinah and Rene trying to figure out who the vigilante was and no one mentions Roy and Thea. With me thinking that Roy at least needs to be in consideration even if it’s not going to be him. And it ties back into how much I wanted last season to include the new team meeting the old, and I never got it.)
I am curious if this is connected to the timeline Legends visited a couple seasons ago (or possibly Zari’s timeline which may or may not be the same one), but the times don’t quite match up and I doubt we’d get more than slight implication if it is.
As for the bulk of the episode, I found going back and forth between the two present plots somewhat jarring (and then the flash-back/forward really jarring); both plots were okay but I think would have stood better apart from each other than trying to put them together. The plot of how to live life without Oliver kind of wants his absence from it mostly; while really getting into Oliver’s head while he’s away from the world would benefit from us also not being connected to the outside world. But at the same time, they would have had to pad out either plot to make it a full episode, and a premier wants to check in with at least most everyone so I don’t know what the solution is.
Also remember how for five years Felicity thought her boyfriend died in jail? Yeah, this can’t be great for her to see Oliver like this.
Plus...how long is Oliver sentenced for? Because he should be in there for multiple counts of homicide in addition to a variety of other crimes and not some kind of vague ‘vigilantism’ offence. If he somehow got away with a conviction of only a few years he might be thanking his lucky stars and from there deciding not to rock the boat lest they remember the real full extent of his crimes. On the other hand I was kind of expecting all episode for the guards to turn out to be Green Arrow supporters to at least some degree so I’m a little all over the map.
It is a bit funky that I started wondering what Ollie’s new sidekick was in prison for just before he started explaining his backstory. Now, I will not be surprised at all if it turns out to be a load of bullcrap down the line and he’s a plant who either turns out to be the season big bad once Diaz is dealt with or possibly reporting back to Anatoli (remember how I love Anatoli?), but it was something that needed *an* answer up front how this guy ended up in super max.
Hmm, I wonder if me not reviewing anything else is making this review a bit long or if it’s that this is a premier so I have pent up babble.
Arrow 7x02
This episode was weird and I don’t think I liked it, I definitely had a hard time getting into it/staying focused on it. There were definitely moments I liked, but the whole just left me pretty cold.
One problem is either I’ve forgotten more of last season than I expected (quite possible as I had no impulse to rewatch over the summer) or they’re acting like a lot of things were set up that weren’t. Like the Longbow Hunters, I cannot remember them being mentioned before certainly not a big deal made out of their connection to Diaz. Also, yeah, Oliver asked Digg to take over as the Arrow, he then took it back and proceeded to go on his ‘I have to do it alone’ phase; and I highly doubt he put that on John before he went to jail (Oliver has long been aware of the kind of risk that would be for the Diggle family and that would have been a terrible time to try and take up the hood). Plus, I kind of think if those things had been set up, they would have been in the previously on; so is it continuity problem or very subtle foreshadowing that time’s being messed with? I’m not going to start assuming the latter until there’s more evidence as that would give them more credit than I’m inclined to.
I’m sort of of two minds about Felicity’s behavior in this episode. It actually makes a lot of sense to me that she’s been nursing a lot of anger and resentment towards basically everyone involved in what happened, and that she was sort of able to keep it bottled up while they were in witness protection and she had to be a responsible parent and look out for William and everything; then everything changed when Diaz attacked, it uncorked everything she hadn’t been dealing with and now she’s sort of lashing out at everyone. Now that she’s out in the world again she’s reckless and a little cruel to her friends, and as I said, it makes sense to me that she might be acting that way, but it isn’t exactly pleasant to watch. But if the writers know what they’re doing that’s got the makings of a decent character arc as she had to learn and grow from those feelings; but I’m far from convinced the writers really know what they’re doing. Also, I definitely got the feeling from Felicity’s last speech to Digg that we were headed for her teaming up with Siren to take down Diaz (wasn’t expecting it to happen until next ep though), which I wasn’t entirely against, though I couldn’t figure out how it would work; but going this way brings them a step closer to being able to justify Oliver being let out when all this is over, so probably the better choice on her part.
I’m also sort of of two minds about Siren in this one. I think it may have been her best episode, but they still can’t quite convince me that she needs to be on the show. This is sort of an interesting track to take with her, since this show is all about how people can change and become better people, and letting her go on that journey is fair and could offer some interesting stories...but if this show dedicated as much time and focus as it would take to make that story work, I won’t be watching it because I’m not all that interested in watching the Black Siren show...although maybe a Birds of Prey style thing if they could get Huntress back (although I’m not sure who would be Oracle since Felicity would be staying on Arrow and not all that interested in working with her husband’s ex and someone who looks like another of his exes)...and really, Siren and Huntress suddenly seem like they would be a great duo, make it happen.
I thought there were quite a few good bits in Oliver’s plot; I’m not sure it was fully satisfying, but it had good elements. I do feel like we’re building to something here, but I have no idea where, there’s a lot of things in play that I don’t see much of where they’re headed yet, but I do feel a sense of several somethings in motion mostly under the surface. All I’m going to really comment on just now is how I liked the way they worked in Oliver referencing Felicity; that Green Arrow would turn this problem over to Overwatch and they’d figure it out together (I just really like him acknowledging how much being the Green Arrow was about his team around him, and he can only start being it again now with a new friend starting a team), and then being like ‘my wife taught me some things about managing prison systems, which totally doesn’t sound suspicious right?’ I just thought that was a cute moment.
Also, Digg referenced Anatoli, I’ll take any reference to Anatoli that doesn’t involve me having to spell it with a y apparently (conservation of y’s though, as if I ever do go back to watching Flash it will remain Caitlyn because I prefer it).
It’s interesting that we didn’t see any of the New Arrow this week. It was so built up in the premier as if this was either our new hero or our new mystery to be solved, but I’m not entirely surprised that it got moved to the back burner. I kind of talked around it last episode, but I think taking down Diaz is going to be the main arc of the first section of the season (probably at the winter finale), with the plot of who the New Arrow is and what they want being the plot of the back half of the season. And I’m in favor of waxing and waning plot arcs that don’t all have to hit their high points in the season climaxes together, so I hope I’m right.
That said, this episode did little to dissuade me from thinking the new Arrow is future William. Arrow is a show with flashbacks, the universe also has time travel meaning flash-backs can look like flash-forwards. I just don’t see this show telling an entirely separate story taking place in the future that isn’t meant to meet up with the present story; not inform it in ways that only the audience would see like them meeting the new Arrow several years in the future being how we find out who it is but the present character couldn’t see that. This episode did have some good stuff between William and Roy that I’ll be interested to get answers on, but mostly it just gave me time to settle my time travel reading of what’s happening.
Now let’s see how long I actually stay away from legends now that it’s back. I know it will probably just piss me off if I try and watch it, but I am often weak for this show.
The Good Place 3x07
I’m not sure this is the first episode of the show that ever made me cry, but I don’t remember any others and this one got me hard. Both stories were really powerful to me (I think Tahini’s maybe even more than Eleanor’s although we had to go through some cringey stuff first). I do sort of take issue with Michael telling Eleanor about her and Chidi at the end; as much as I do ship them I’m not sure that was the right thing to say. Also they fell in love more than once.
Arrow 7x04
So, after the fact I sort of remembered that we have gone a bit down the dark-Felicity route before in s5; but during the episode my thought was that people shouldn’t be so surprised, she’s been hanging around Oliver a long time by this point. This woman fell in love with and married a rarely repentant murderer who I can’t recall her ever actually telling not to torture people; she may not be as against the ideas in principle as people act like she ought to be. Despite Dinah’s feelings about NGA partly coming from not trusting a non-Oliver Arrow...Oliver was never really a super good guy. The whole point of the Oliver plot of the week is the effect he has on people around him pulling them towards the darkness and Felicity has stood closer to him than anyone.
I’m actually really liking this Arrow-without-Oliver plot. I don’t know that it’s sustainable, but they’re able to show things from a more diverse viewpoint when the vigilante isn’t the show’s hero. What happens in this city when its heroes are taken away and have to move on? That’s certainly not something I’ve seen explored, at least for very long, on other shows. This episode specifically might have been a bit more effective if we hadn’t known for sure that the NGA wasn’t involved in the fires and it’s a layered plan of getting on people on his side. We’d have been pretty sure that wasn’t true, but it could have been interesting.
I am much less interested in the Oliver-without-the-Arrow plot. I’m pretty sure the doctor guy is going to turn out to be the bad guy Oliver is looking for; nor am I completely convinced Oliver was broken at the end and not just playing along. Plus, I’m still got enough of my head in AoS that as soon as they said to bring out the machine I leapt to the idea of it being basically the memory machine from SHIELD. But I also want to say that I am glad that someone finally called out Robert Queen’s actions at the end (although I think Slade has too) as something that’s been a burden on Oliver he shouldn’t have had to carry; that said, being the Arrow (in all forms) has allowed him to save a lot of lives too (including ones that Robert’s actions would have hurt), so I’m not sure how I feel about this entirely...
(This did almost prompt me to go on a rant about why this is why Arrow is the superior Arrow-verse show though. It took the writers a bit to figure it out back in the first couple seasons, but eventually they figured out and embraced that Oliver is deeply flawed and often wrong, and the story rarely any more feels the need to pretend that that isn’t true.)
I’m really not sure how I felt about this episode in general. I think I liked it, but it wasn’t super great. I’m also not sure where the future plot is going, and I think it seems a little weird that Felicity had started Smoak Tech without ever seeing William again apparently, but we’ll see.
Arrow 7x05
You know, it had crossed my mind in previous weeks that prior to this ‘the Demon’ had always referred to Ra’s in this universe, but I think I can be a little forgiven for not leaping to realize it meant Talia. If anything I had wondered if they Malcolm tucked away somewhere. This had previously seemed like a men’s prison, no a co-ed one; and even if I had thought Talia was alive (I really haven’t thought about her at all) I wouldn’t have assumed she be in jail here. Also I had forgotten she supposedly takes issue with Oliver killing Ra’s but I have to take issue with him feeling all that much need to apologize for not thinking what it would do to Ra’s’ family; you mean two people, one I don’t think he knew was even related to Ra’s and the other was perfectly okay with it at the time? I’m not saying empathy is a bad thing but the guy was trying to kill hundreds of thousands of people
My main takeaway from the B-plot was how much I wish we’d ever really established Felicity and Dinah’s relationship before this. Because they don’t any chemistry that suggests they became close in all the time they worked together; and there is a logic to that, but then it might need to be acknowledged. Also, have they ever actually established why Siren doesn’t go back to Earth 2, I can believe there’s probably a warrant or several out for her over there, and she’s decided to honor Quentin by pretending to be Laurel (in case you wondered why I keep calling her Siren, Laurel is Laurel and I already have two Dinah’s but I rarely have to talk about Ma Dinah), but I’m not sure how much water that holds.
Also, while I am anxious for me buddy Anatoli, I’m not convinced they would kill him off so off-handedly, so I’m not super worried yet. But I’m going to be sad if this is the end of him.
The Good Place 3x09
Over the years Michael has occasionally made statements about how the afterlife system is flawed and every time he does I react like Eleanor being told there’s a Medium Place; THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING FROM THE BEGINNING. To be fair on that, the first half or so of the first season it was easy enough to take everything at face value, or at least assume that that the one afterlife neighborhood we saw was only one facet of the afterlife system as Michael told us that different neighborhoods were set up differently (i.e. maybe not everyone who was good was this unreasonably good, not everyone was single/childless or in their 30s when they died, etc.). But as we started getting more info on how the system at large worked, the more it seemed pretty flawed to me. Finding out that they had been in the Bad Place all along, not to mention what we get from meeting Mindy was sign to me that the overall plot of the show should be about reforming or tearing down the whole system.
There were several points last season when it seemed to be hinting that way, especially towards the end, but they weren’t doing anything with that...vibe I was getting. This season has certainly continued to build on that. I’ve very much come to the conclusion that this season being the Earth season, next season we’re likely going to go to the actual Good Place hopefully with either the next level revelation that this whole thing is a multi-level quest or the intent of fixing what’s wrong with the system.
We actually probably aren’t that far away from the finale at this point are we?