I’m kinda sad that nothing about this seems remotely salvagable, because I really like to Betty Gilpin.

Therefore my clarification as to “more screentime” vs “so much more screentime”. See also “I don’t think screen time has to be distributed exactly equally”. 

And that’s what the criticism is aimed at, among other things. “Heckler’s first mistake is telling the story from Burden’s perspective rather than Reverend Kennedy’s.”

For what it’s worth, I don’t think choosing this perspective dooms the effort necessarily (although I would have found the other one more…

As I read it, the complaint was not so much that the bigots got those humanizing scenes to make them more relatable in general, but the fact that they got those, while Reverend Kennedy’s family was reduced to their struggle. Of course they’re the good guys in the story, so you might argue they don’t need any…

I don’t have much recollection of the plot, but I remember really loving that book as a kid. Just really well written, I guess. The one thing that still sticks to my mind is the beginning - the prospective knight holding vigil in the chapel as his final trial before being knighted, the culmination of everything he’s…

“Kevin can wait” was just one of the worst offenders, that trope has been a staple for a while.

Then they should look for a game called “tough love” rather than “kind words”. Of course a lot wouldn’t (but don’t think no one would; there are people out there selling tough love and finding enough willing buyers). People might  misjudge what they need, but they have to discover that for themselves, you can’t just…

That might be a possible motive for choosing this approach, and I get your frustration. It is, in that sense, awfully convenient. But I see some merits to the choice too, regardless of what motivated it, because I really think focussing on the complicity of the support system is a lot more interesting/potentially…

Yeah, this all went to neatly. They certainly need to introduce new stakes, since nobody seems to consider eternal torture for team cockroach at this point. And they are already dead and Gen now seems to have abandoned the idea of resetting humanity. I mean, maybe that option will be back on the table, if the demons…

They do need another twist/reveal to fill those next episodes.

That’s one possible reading I guess, but the show doesn’t make it clear at all. When they showed the point totals last episode, Simone improved a bit in the afterlife, Brent didn’t - he actually got worse, and his final apology only almost brought him back to the level he was on when he died. Of course the whole point…

Well, she isn’t super empathic or very selfless, sure, but that doesn’t make her dishonest. Of course she says what she actually believes - that’s a condition for honesty, to say what you don’t believe wouldn’t be honest. When no one is interested in her honest opinion, she stops expressing it. That’s not dishonesty,…

Again: Simone doesn’t have to accept that the Good Place is real to respect Chidi’s point, because Chidi’s point wasn’t actually “The Good Place is certainly real” - it was “Whether the good place is real or not, there’s no point in you acting like a dick”. Simone sees that he’s right in this regard, and even though…

It’s true that Simone remains agnostic on the question whether other people in her current environment are real but that’s still progress considering that she’s started out with the certainty that they weren’t. Clearly Simone _can_ be shaken in her certainties, she is able to listen to other points of view and…

I feel it’s also relevant to point out, that if we count Brent’s first glimpse of contrition as a sign of improvement (which, I’m not entirely sure we can - it certainly wouldn’t have counted in the old scoring system, since it’s tainted by the knowledge and regret about his punishment), the thing that enabled it was…

I don’t agree that we’ve never seen Simone acknowledge the error of her ways and change her behavior as the result of conversation with another person - Chidi gets her to stop her “nothing is real-nothing-matters”-rampage after all. And it’s true that she still doesn’t actually end up buying into the good-place…

And Michael might end up becoming an actual good-place (or at least purgatory) architect in the new reformed afterlife. Fake it till you make it. You become what you pretend to be. Only Janet is evolving into something new entirely. But basically all of this looks more and more like an assessment center for good place…

Maybe he needs another big paycheck for an even more ambitious vanity project?

Chidi didn’t try to protect Brent, because nobody told him that there would be bad consequences, if Brent fails to become better. Brent only wants to learn ethics to go to the even better place. He’s not aware that he’s in danger of eternal damnation if he doesn’t learn his lesson, and neither is Chidi.

With Jason,…

Not phrased as an advice but I took it as such. After a lesson, the teacher took me aside and said “See Adele, what I like about you is that you only raise your hand when no one else knows the answer.”

And that made me realize, that actually, no, I didn’t do that at all. I was your stereotypical overachiever, always…