The Good Place: The Snowplow (3x04)

Oh no! The group might be splitting up!

Cons:

I have something that I want to complain about that I also acknowledge is probably a good thing. This episode skips through months. We don't get to spend a lot of time with the characters getting to know each other again. The "Brainy Bunch" has jumped straight through the period of getting to know each other, and we're now hanging out with them as a group of fully-formed friends. This makes sense in a show like this, that jumps from one high-concept to another. They don't settle, they don't take their time, they shake things up continuously. And we've already seen these people get to know each other in other iterations, so it makes a certain kind of sense that we don't need to watch it happen again. That said, I feel like I'm missing the "comfort" factor. This show is always brilliant, but it's not gentle, if that makes any sense. I maybe need to spend a little more time watching Tahani and Chidi talk to one another, or Eleanor and Jason making jokes. I need to see them just existing in a space together for a while, so I can understand the appeal of the group dynamic as the characters understand it.

Pros:

But like I said, this choice to zip through a bunch of time very quickly makes perfect sense when you look at the narrative as a whole. We're not going to settle into one pattern, we're going to keep pushing, keep exploring, and that is the number one coolest thing about this show to begin with. I'm excited to see what happens if Michael and Janet really can stop with their interference and let the humans do their thing. Of course, now that they've accidentally seen some magical glowing energy stuff, maybe that plan is completely out of the window.

Janet is hilarious. I laughed out loud when she told the bartender that he had to run to his ex-wife and show her his poetry. She's utilizing her knowledge from before she came down to Earth, even though she doesn't have any of her powers anymore. Everything she does and says makes me laugh. Her secret love for Jason, her pragmatic plans, her loyalty to Michael and to their human friends... I just love her to pieces.

The non-famous Hemsworth brother thing is a gag that I had no idea would be coming back, but now that it has, I love it. I don't know if this is the ultimate right path for Tahani or not, but I do think she deserves genuine happiness, and maybe this dude can give that to her! Michael and Janet's interference in this episode was all aimed at keeping the group together and maintaining group dynamics conducive to making them all better people. But in trying to stop Tahani and Jason from sleeping together, they introduced a factor that ultimately led to the Brainy Bunch study group ending. They already did so much to interfere and force these humans into each other's lives. When all is said and done, might the Judge be able to argue that their human souls aren't actually good enough for the Good Place, because of all this interference? We shall have to see!

One thing that this show does really well, that's difficult to define simply, is build expectations. There are all of these things that we want to see happen. We want the four humans to succeed. We want Chidi and Eleanor to fall in love (or some of us do, anyway). We want Shawn and Trevor and the rest to get their comeuppance. We want Michael to succeed. And for me, there's one other thing that I am really looking forward to, and that's the gang being together. The whole gang. I want Chidi, Tahani, Eleanor, and Jason to know Michael and Janet. Even if they can't know the whole truth, I want them to know that these two people are on their side. I want them to be friends. I want... I want more and more of these characters and these insane scenarios. All in all, I think that shows how good of a show this really is.

I'll stop there for now. I legitimately have no idea what turns this season is going to take from here, and I'm excited to find out!

9.5/10