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The Good Place, Season 2, Episode 5 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-04-10 20:56:41
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

The Trolley Problem

Comments

Ash W

Very possibly my favorite of the show or at least season. Any time I'm not feeling well this is my go to episode to go back and rewatch. Soooo excited to see this with you guys once off work today!

Roland Cooke

Michael solving the trolley problem. Perhaps my favourite joke of the whole show. 😀

Michelle Taylor

If those shows helped just one kid, then bring on the cringe!

Pam Nail

This is definitely one of the most memorable episodes of the show and maybe its best "spoonful of sugar" philosophy lesson. I feel like if there's one thing that everyone takes away from the show, philosophy-wise, it's the trolly problem. Perfectly illustrated and not overly complicated. And of course on rewatch it's so obvious that Michael is weaponizing Chidi's indecisiveness against him. Chidi's delivery of "peed m'pants" is genuinely one of my favorite tiny moments. And Ted Danson's performance in the last scene, delivering the exact same words first sarcastically and then genuinely, is an acting class all by itself. Sweet mercy, do I ever remember that Different Strokes episode. 80s sitcoms went HARD with the Very Special episodes. Another doozie was the Family Ties episode with Tom Hanks as the uncle who was a raging alcoholic.

Roland Cooke

"Those people aren't real. Only their pain is real". Brutal. :D

Jeff

This is one of my favorite episodes that had me laughing non-stop. Each character had perfect moments. Your intro discussion about Ted Danson reminded me of a series that I think you guys would like: "Damages" from 2007 starring Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, with Ted Danson in a supporting role. Amazing writing and acting by everyone involved, though it can get somewhat disturbing. It ran for five seasons, about 13 episodes each, but you might want to try just the first season to see what you think.

TouchTheGarlic

Yes, Ted Danson *is* in a season of Fargo - the second (and possibly best) season. That is one show that I always welcome new reactions to (especially since pretty much nobody has covered the amazing recent fifth season).

Sydney Frasure

The play is “No Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre. It’s super French and existentialist. It’s about three people who all know that they’re terrible and are about to go to hell to be tortured but a valet puts them in a sort of gaudy old fashioned room and they think they’re just waiting for someone to come get them. They end up telling each other why they’re there and it’s all terrible. Way worse than our friends in The Good Place. They are also fighting and trying seduce each other the whole time (as I said, it’s super French). They end up figuring out that they were put there to torture each other forever using the famous phrase “Hell is other people”. Honestly, it has always driven me crazy that Chidi never says that this is No Exit! He even refers to Sartre at some point relating to something else but he never talks about No Exit! As soon as Eleanor figures it out and explains it to them at the end of season one, Chidi would absolutely immediately bring it up. There is no way he wouldn’t bring it up at some point if not right away.

JVTrickypants

Yeah, Danson is on the Mount Rushmore of TV actors. He was also hilarious in the great show Bored to Death with Zack Galifanakis and Jason Schwartzman. Highly recoiled just for a scene where Ted and Zack are on a stakeout and they smoke pot while they’re waiting and then….oh just have to check it out lol

Amelie W
>>134864119

He (or the writers) might realize no one would care about Sartre trivia and he'd have to spend ten minutes explaining Sartre and his philosophies and No Exit before getting to that one line that's the extent of common knowledge about Saartre, and then another ten minutes exploring how "Hell is other people" may or may not be meant ironically.

Andrew Hansen

This is by far my favorite episode of the series. The nice thing is the clip on YouTube cuts off before the doctor part so it doesn't really give anything away. I use the on the trolley scene as a "why you should watch this," clip...in person only so I can keep them from reading comments. Honestly most of the time the reactions to this episode are better than the season 1 finale. You want to know the crazy part? I saw a lawyer I follow do a breakdown of this scenario and legally you'd want to do nothing and let the trolley run over the 5. You have no duty to intervene and have protections to do nothing, but switching tracks could constitute manslaughter or even murder (though there would be legal defenses against those charges) that turn it into justifiable homicide https://youtu.be/Jv8S7fmVXwM?si=Brq6lTUrjp21NIO6

Andrew Hansen

The least spoiler "spoiler comment" use https://rot13.com/ honestly it's so not a spoiler I considered not even encrypting it. Literally just a character name that won't mean anything to you Nalbar ryfr rkpvgrq gb frr gurve ernpgvba gb qrerx?

tom
>>134864119

There's also the potential immersion-breaking aspect of it. If you bring it up then it might make the audience more aware that they're watching a tv show, putting them in the shoes of the writers rather than the shoes of the characters

tom
>>134921850

Yes, I forget which ones but there are also moral theories/systems/principles that say you should not get involved. You let 5 people die and you've killed 0 people, you switch the tracks and you've actively killed 1 person

Rozenn Keribin
>>134864119

I feel a mention of the play might also undermine the plot a bit, at least at this stage of the story, because a huge part of the premise is that Michael just had this super-creative idea on how to torture people. If Chidi says "ah yes, like in No Exit by Sartre" you either have to explain how Michael knows about this and how it's different from No Exit by Sartre, or why the Bad Place knew about it but never chose to do it before, OR you have to have Michael and/or the humans react to finding out that his super-creative novel torture idea has already been done, and whichever way that goes it would be a distraction from the ideas the show actually wants to explore. Also, I haven't watched "No Exit" so I don't know what insights it brings up or what conclusions if any it comes to but it strikes me there's two kind of shows you could make with the same premise: one that starts from everything "No Exit" came up with and uses it as a jumping-off point/something to criticize, OR one that explores the same premise as "No Exit" in its own way. The characters knowing about and discussing "No Exit" would work well for the first kind of show but would kill the second, and "The Good Place" seems like the second so far.

Sydney Frasure
>>134864119

Lol you are all absolutely right but that doesn’t stop my nerd brain from yelling that periodically. I’m not upset from a show aspect, just nerdy character realism stuff. It’s definitely not that big of a deal. I do think, however, think if Chidi said something like “Oooh I feel like we’re in a Sartre play!” The people who know will get it and the ones who don’t will just think it’s another nerdy Chidi reference. He makes obscure philosophy jokes and references throughout the show. As far as it being too meta, I don’t think it would be taking us out of the story any more than when Jason says they’re on a prank show. I don’t think they should talk about it at length because the show isn’t that similar except for the initial premise. I would be perfectly happy with a little joke. Or nothing. It doesn’t affect the show for me without it. I will never stop being nerdy about it though. 😊

Youtalkingtome
>>134872040

He is in Saving Private Ryan! But barely. Bored to Death is hilarious, I watched that waaaaay back in the day

b

the child being like "my dad needs a heart transplant because a bad man ran him over with a trolley" was just chef's kiss

Rozenn Keribin
>>134864119

Don't get me wrong, I totally see why that would be a major suspension of disbelief issue for someone who is familiar with the works and philosophy involved! I don't know if a passing reference would make it better or worse though. Maybe the suspension of disbelief is easier if we can imagine the show happens in a world where No Exit never existed. (I honestly can't remember if it does get mentioned or referenced at any point in the show, which I guess is a spoiler for it not being a major plot point but even there, not being familiar with the play I could just have forgotten that this is what the major plot point was referencing :) ). I don't think it's like Jason talking about being on a prank show at all because there aren't obvious consequences of "prank shows exist" that the characters would seem stupid for not exploring but whose exploration would get in the way of the plot. Maybe one thing you could do is make it literally true that No Exit didn't exist in the world of the show and have an exchange like: Eleanor: Didn't Sartre write a play about this? Chidi: What are you talking about? Eleanor: You know, people torturing each other, "To be or not to be", everyone knows it Chidi: Shakespeare. You're thinking of Shakespeare. Eleanor: Oh right I thought you were just saying his name funny Chidi: Sartre was a French philosopher and he never wrote any plays, but maybe he should have since that's what people remember apparently

Weird Magic
>>134858194

I live in Fargo, seen the movie and the first two seasons (none of which are based in Fargo lol). It would be a recommendation from me as well.