The Good Place: A Girl From Arizona" (Part 1) (4x01)

This show does not miss a beat!

Cons:

I guess the only issue I have with this episode is that it didn't do anything wildly unexpected? But even that isn't actually a complaint, because sometimes it's good to start off with a base-level. I don't know.

Oh, I thought of one thing I'm not in love with: I don't think that Jason and Janet's romance is all that compelling. It's not bad, but it's not great either. There! I did it!

Pros:

This show is kind of hard to talk about because there's so much humor, and so many clever ideas, crammed in to such a short amount of time. Whenever I watch an episode, it feels like it's over in ten minutes instead of twenty-two, because of how much I'm enjoying every second.

First of all, I love the concept of this thought experiment, and how the Bad Place is already trying to interfere by replacing one of the humans with a demon in disguise. The Judge steps in and says no, making memory-erased Chidi one of the four test subjects to replace their sleeper agent. So already things are slightly different than the plan, but it's still doable.

I love the different people who the Bad Place chose to drive everyone crazy. The gross sexist dude who brags about his college and calls Janet his "secretary" was hilarious, in the most aggravating way. I want to see him get taken to task, but I also want to see him improve, because that's the whole point. I've known people who have exhibited some of the qualities of this dude, and I want to believe in a world where they get educated and do better.

I love that Simone doesn't accept her death. As a scientist, she thinks everything that's happening to her is a hallucination of her dying brain. Honestly, I feel that. I want to pretend that I'm open minded, but I'd probably buy into hallucination before I accepted the afterlife being real. It also means that Simone, the one person they felt they might already know how to help, is proving to be the biggest wild card of all. If she thinks nobody is real, then what motivation does she have to try and get better?

Derek was a hilarious delight as always. There are too many moments to name. I loved his slow-motion death, the way he popped up on the screen the way Janet always does, but announces his death in garbled fashion. I love the way he replaces random nouns with "Derek." Just too funny. Janet was also great in this episode. She's this being of ultimate power, but that doesn't mean she never gets frustrated or overwhelmed. It doesn't help that Eleanor is inventing popcorn rivers or that the douche human Brent keeps summoning her to ask for things like BLTs.

This is only the start of this show's final season, so I won't complain about some of the stuff I missed. Tahani was underutilized, as was Michael. But we've got so much time to see all of these characters get their chance to shine, and I'm beyond excited to join them all as we approach the end of their journey!

9/10