The Good Place – Chillaxing

By starrymag | October 17, 2019

By: Ariba Bhuvad

 

 

Eleanor (Kristen Bell) is sure Chidi (William Jackson Harper) can turn Brent (Ben Koldyke) into a good person. In fact, she tells Michael (Ted Danson) that Chidi used to collect action figures of philosophers, which reminds her that he’s such a dork and she loves him so much. 

 

A cheery Chidi walks over dressed up in his casual outfit and says he is going on a picnic. Michael tells him that he and Eleanor were going to go check up on Brent, but according to Chidi it seems Brent is not in it for the long haul. All he does is brag about himself and that he went to Princeton for school. Eleanor reminds him that the philosopher Kant would have said to help your fellow human beings. Given how nice of a day it is, Chidi says Kant would just ask who wants to play frisbee. 

 

Michael is surprised to see how calm Chidi and says he was just chillaxing (Chidi + relaxing). Given that everything was erased from Chidi’s mind, Eleanor points out that it helps him stay so calm. It occurs to both of them that Chidi isn’t being tortured at all. For all he knows, he did everything right on Earth so now he can enjoy himself. Basically, Chidi has to be forced into a stressful decision making him live with low-level dread. Fortunately, Eleanor has experience doing just that with her exes. 

 

After breaking up with Jason (Manny Jacinto) it seems that Janet (D’Arcy Carden) did research on how humans cope with breakups and saw that number eight on the list was to do something dumb with your hair – and that’s why she decides to dye it. Despite whatever she’s going through Tahani (Jameela Jamil) needs her to concentrate so she can help her out with John (Brandon Scott Jones). Tahani plans a spa day based on a 2014 article John wrote mocking Gigi Hadid’s vacation in Bali at an exclusive resort. It turns out John researched cheap flights for himself and looked at cheap discount packages. Tahani believes he was so petty because he was excluded from that world, so she plans to bring him into a world of pampering. How does she plan to do this? Based on Janet’s suggestion – tell him how eight different “Game of Thrones” characters are based on her. Tahani has Janet make an exact replica of Victoria Beckham’s exclusive spa, which one can only get into based on weight and net worth. John is ecstatic. 

 

Michael and Eleanor ask for Jason’s help, but he’s out of it and thinks he’ll probably mess it up. According to Eleanor, the best way for Jason to get over the heartbreak is to help them with Chidi. Thankfully, he finally agrees. 

 

Back at the spa Janet serves fresh water from Oprah’s estate in Maui while John is eager to discuss celebrity gossip. After their spa day John feels amazing so Tahani takes the opportunity to pitch Chidi’s ethics class, saying that ethics is like a colonic but for your soul. When she asks him if he wants to audit Chidi’s class he flat out says no. 

 

Eleanor and Jason pay Chidi a visit who is just returning  from a great time at the picnic. To fool Chidi, Eleanor introduces Jason as Jianyu the monk and says that he wants to be in Chidi’s group because he’s having a hard time adjusting to The Good Place. As soon as Eleanor leaves Jason starts talking to Chidi and tells him he’s not supposed to be there in the hopes that this will stress Chidi out. And a week later Chidi is beyond stressed, as expected.

 

Chidi doesn’t want to lie for Jason anymore and has been suffering from a stomach ache all week. Like clockwork, Michael and Eleanor show up asking if Chidi can take Jianyu to the luau. At first he says he can’t make it and then backtracks and says he can. Whatever Jason is doing seems to be working because Chidi is freaking out completely. 

 

After everything they’ve done Janet and Tahani aren’t sure why John isn’t changing. Every time Tahani brings up self-improvement, he shuts down. Janet suggests talking to him directly to see how that works. 

 

Eleanor is eager to continue torturing Chidi, even though Jason feels like they should stop. But when Eleanor asks how many Tums Chidi has taken and she finds out twenty, she says they aren’t close yet because he should be taking the whole bottle. She needs him to be freaking out if he is to save humanity.

 

Tahani confronts John to tell him that his writing was hurtful. In fact, when she gained five pounds he called her “Ta-Hammy-All-The-Meals.” All she wants is for him to recognize he hurt people, but while she was out with her fancy friends he needed to work to make money and pay his bills. John thinks Tahani is the one with issues and not the other way around. 

 

At the luau Eleanor reveals their activity for the night – throwing in a magic lava stone into the bonfire, which will give you whatever your soul desires. In Jason’s case it was a motorcycle with Pamela Anderson airbrushed on the side of it. Too afraid to let Jason take the blame, Chidi says it was his lava stone instead. Clearly Chidi is a mess if he’s flat-out lying, which worries Michael but not Eleanor so much. Instead, she wants to ramp up the pressure until he’s hyperventilating. She doesn’t have to wait too long to see that happen after which she realizes how overboard she had gone. Seeing how miserable Chidi is now because of her actions, Eleanor feels horrible as does he for “making God cry.” 

 

While talking to Janet it seems Tahani realizes that she and John are more alike than she thinks. In fact, she’s been doing this all wrong this entire time. When she goes to meet him again she shares the story of a yacht party she went to and how she spent the entire night alone in a super exclusive room where no one else was. She was obsessed with status to a point that she was willing to sit by herself. Tahani points out to John that if the only thing he cares about in this world is the velvet rope then you’ll always be unhappy no matter what side you’re on. They both apologize to one another and are ready to start over as friends again. 

 

Instead of keeping secrets, Chidi decides he and Jason are going to study ethics instead. Meanwhile, Eleanor realizes that she took it too far and is a bit disturbed that she liked it. It’s all a vicious cycle of guilt, anger and frustration, but Michael tells her she needs to “get her shirt together.” He also says it’s okay to be angry a little bit and that she should let herself off the hook. 

 

Tahani has made great progress with John and is excited to share with everyone that he and her will be watching Britney Spears’ Crossroads together! Even Jason is happy that he got to be brainy and have a “useness” while helping Eleanor and Michael. But how long will this streak of success last? You know, since Death (or some creature) is making its way toward The Good Place and all.