The Good Place – The Book of Dougs

By: Ariba Bhuvad

The gang has finally arrived in the real Good Place, but it’s not as easy as just being there. When the episode begins, Micheal (Ted Danson), Janet (D’Arcy Carden), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Tahani (Jameela Jamil), Eleanor (Kristen Bell), and Jason (Manny Jacinto) are in the mailroom located in the Good Place. Do you know how they know? When you breathe in the air, you smell whatever scent makes you feel the happiest. As Tahani states, her favorite happy smell is when the curtains close between the economy section and first-class section.

Michael is a bit on edge because if anyone catches them walking about, they’ll be sent to the Bad Place and the whole plan will go out the window. To give them a back story and disguise, Michael told the woman in charge of the mailroom, Gwendoline (Nicole Byer) that the four humans had won a contest to tour The Good Place. She’s probably the nicest and most trusting person in the world and believes everything Michael has to say.

The group is taken to the door that leads out to The Good Place, but there’s just one slight problem–humans cannot open it. And as Gwendoline so bluntly puts it, the entrance for the humans is “500 trillion miles north-south-north of here.” At this point, Eleanor is so over the constant defeat and starts kicking the door in hopes of it just opening up for her. Chidi steps in to talk her down (how cute!) and tells her they are in together, and that they should take advantage of that. In this romantic spirit, Chidi and Eleanor have their first date with some champagne and light conversation about growing up.

Since Gwendoline is so welcoming and trusting, Michael is able to get away with getting to the bottom of this mess. He makes a call The Good Place committee so they can set up a meeting to talk about the messed up system. It’s been 500 years since anyone has been let into The Good Place and he wants to know why it’s such a strict system. When Michael meets with the committee, they actually listen to what he has to say. In fact, they are going to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.

It’ll just be a quick 400 years to gather a team and tack on another thousand to create a new committee. Of course, Michael is puzzled by how this is “swift action,” but the committee says this is the best they can offer.

Remember how Jason saw Janet’s homage to him? Well, he’s been having a hard time not thinking about it and Tahani steps in to try and help him out. Jason is confused, but Tahani insists that he try and talk to Janet, which doesn’t go as well as planned. Janet starts to fumble over her words and starts saying random things because she is so overwhelmed with the feelings she shouldn’t be having. Tahani takes it a step further by creating a certificate that basically declares that she and Jason are not married since they are both dead.

Chidi and Eleanor’s cute date loses its traction after Chidi tries to fulfill her dreams of sleeping with a mailman. Instead of being aroused and excited, Eleanor starts crying because she’s so in love with Chidi and doesn’t want anything to separate or affect their love. While the old Chidi would have freaked out with her or long before her, this Chidi is comforting and reassuring. This is enough to get Eleanor in the mood and the two run off to share a passionate moment or two.

After his meeting with the committee, Michael is disheartened because the people who are currently good will never get into The Good Place. And considering it is going to take a thousand plus years for anything to be decided, it’s just a crappy situation for the good people out there. While talking to Tahani, Michael has some sort of epiphany and looks through The Book of Dougs. There is an interesting trend of how points are accumulated and it appears there are consequences to each action. And these consequences go unnoticed to the person but also negatively impact their “score.”

While he figures this all out, Gwendoline realizes that the group has been lying to her and says she is going to tell the Judge. However, Michael has already arranged for all that and will be going to the Interdimensional Hole of Pancakes aka IHOP to meet the Judge. Let’s hope Michael can make things right once and for all!