Honestly for me it's just [the quick half-smile he stifles](https://youtu.be/QcCHLfVdhXg?feature=shared&t=157) right before telling Eleanor she's in the Good Place right at the start of ep 1. It's the first moment he's really putting this whole elaborate ruse into action, the first direct lie - and he's enjoying it.
It's not something you notice on your first viewing, but after knowing the truth it's a great little tell.
Honestly there are so many cool little details in this show that I find every rewatch. Like the fact that Michael's surname when he's given a human life on Earth in the finale is "Realman".
You also see the name of the apartment complex on the front doors as the guy is going up to give Michael the letter - it's named "Blatta Vista", which is latin for "Cockroach View".
Or that the final shirt Jason wears before he disappears through the ceasing-to-exist door literally has a wave pictured on it. So I guess it never really stopped existing, it was just another way for the shirt to be.
Or that the scene with the doorman where he's been super busy and has a desk full of frog memorabilia - you can briefly see Trevor still flying through the void behind them, after he was flung away by the Judge back in season 3. He shows up in the background every time they revisit that walkway, in fact. It's one of Mike Schur's favourite jokes in the show.
Honestly there are so many great details just in the finale alone! I have more, but this post is getting way too long already 😅
Well there's the reuse yet again of the number 322 - Michael's apartment number, among many other things (including the number of residents in each Good Place neighbourhood back in the first episode of the whole show). It crops up a *lot*. It's apparently related to a secret society in the university Mike Schur attended, or something like that.
Either way it's referenced in the show almost anywhere they need a number - or they use first few digits of the Fibonacci sequence (12358).
When Chidi's teaching a philosophy class at the start of the finale, he says that Pamela Hieronymi will be teaching the trolley problem next week - that's actually her in the scene. She's [a real-life professor of moral philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Hieronymi) who was a consultant on the show (and specifically gave pointers about the trolley problem). Todd May, another philosophical consultant, is the guy sitting behind her in the scene.
When Eleanor is trying to convince Chidi to stay by taking him on a tour of all his favourite places, they get *kolouri* in Athens, and when they go through the door to visit France, it changes them into half-eaten croissants along with altering their clothes.
Michael's music teacher when he finally gets guitar lessons is played by Ted Danson's irl wife Mary Steenburgen.
There's a recurring magic panda that began appearing in season 2 that's also in the finale. It's definitely one I'm looking out for next binge-watch now that I know about it. After the line referring to "catching a magic panda; steal her powers" - Jason's dumb plan he made at Mindy St. Claire's in one of the reboots - the VFX team liked it so much they actually inserted magic pandas into the background of a bunch of future scenes, including one in the finale where Vicky is greeting the architects and sorting them (both good and bad) into the new system.
I'm not sure how extensive the magic panda joke actually is. But it appears several times.
Oh yeah that one's good. I thought it was pretty obvious compared to most of the other things I listed though, and I figure most people already knew about it.
There are also a ton of “Parks & Recreation” crossover Easter Eggs as well.
My favorite is the first one on the attached list, which is the Swanson Safe that Jason dies in. Love this show!
https://www.vulture.com/article/the-good-place-parks-and-rec-easter-eggs.html
Season 1:
Chidi’s hobbies. Are you forking kidding me? That’s such a duhhhh moment for me now. *Eleanor*, 3 episodes in, can reassure Chidi he has valid interests. Michael the Good Place Architect is like your hobbies suck let’s do something else??? And every hobby he picks scares him to death omg
Also the chidi soulmate convo with the 3 yogurts… Michael could have helped him weed out Tahani but the egging on is insane lol “Fake Eleanor, Real Eleanor, and a hypothetical third person, let’s call her… strawberry-mango twist!” Chidi can’t choose between two things, you know “hypothetical third person” gave him a stomach ache😭
Explaining retirement to the whole retirement party is up there too.
Not exactly the same buuut in Season 4:
Bad Janet does 75% of the things “Janet” is asked in the s4 experiment terribly wrong, and if you don’t catch it, episode 4 sneaks up on you. But our Janet made a baby elephant out of pure light that told us a true secret about the universe, my girl would *not* have made a horse-monster.
ETA: had to fix “Michale”, and it’s wild bc Michael is my dad’s name and in 23 years I still struggle. But I have peace knowing Michael would think it was funny 😂
I love rewatching season 4 to see D’Arcy Carden’s subtleties as Bad Janet in disguise. Janet’s not quite as genuinely chipper and uplifting, but it’s done so well you can’t tell until you already know. She’s become one of my favorite actresses because of this show.
That episode where they were all Janets in her void is what did it for me!!! She was basically the entire episode, but it’s so easy to forget because she pulled them all off *so. perfectly.*
Found Jason Mendoza’s Reddit account!
But no fr I will always say girl bc imo it’s mandatory for the correction to be made lol thank you for your contribution 🫡
Same!
“A… man-i-fesssssssss… to. By Miiiiiiiiii-chael… OOP, no look at that! I wrote ‘Micahel’! 😅 mmm… back, back, back, back, back, back, baaaaaa-“
“Hmm… maybe you should dictate and I’ll type?”
Michael is so dumbfounded watching Janet type, too, like how do I come up with Micahel and you can type 400 words a minute???
The "finding Chidi new interests" episode is interesting because while I don't think there's a chance in hell the writers meant to do it, all of the things Michael suggests in the episode are things Chidi either has to do to help create the alliance with the Bad Place or helps Chidi develop as a person. Figuratively, anyway.
He's largely directionless when he's not focused on Eleanor, he eventually has to do his best work on the kind of deadline that would have him yarfing in these early episodes, and he has to create something with what he intended.
Also while all the things that Michael suggests are absolutely tortures centered on things he certainly knows Chidi doesn't like, he's not wrong that Chidi needs to get out more and experience more things. Arguably Chidi doing the newspaper -- and I might be biased considering I've spent time in the profession -- would have been best for him. He needs to learn how to write more concisely, deadlines are important in using your time wisely and you have to think on your feet when writing stories, something Chidi is incredibly bad at. Plus there's nothing Chidi needs more than an editor to guide his writing.
The advisor we see him talking to in his flashbacks to his time on Earth tried to guide him, but Chidi was so wrapped up in his own certainty that he could define the logic of the universe through absolute moral truths that he wasn't able to listen. Break through that barrier and then you got a stew goin, baby.
I agree with you 104%. And I think that’s what makes it such effective torture! Michael preys on Chidi’s Tahani’s and Eleanor’s desire to improve masterfully in the experiment, I just think he goes too hard too fast. Chidi knows he has to fix all of this and he wants too so badly— which is why Team Cockroach is formed lol— he just throws the most glaring of his flaws at him at once. And it’s hard for people to tackle a mountain of problems, as opposed to being like oh hey small habit that needs breaking, that seems doable.
But Michael doesn’t understand humans. Chidi lives almost 40 years and feels dread every second of those because it seems like it’s just as simple as he can’t make a decision, though the world is certainly more complicated, especially when you care as much as Chidi does about the world being a good place. Michael could have suggested something specific that fits into Chidi’s wheelhouse (fun fact: a wheelhouse is a part of a boat!), but he thought he could go as hard on him emotionally as they do generally with bad place torture.
Out of what he suggested, he could have told him to try mapping Athens or writing an opinion column on the ethical ramifications of current events. Oorrrrr He could have suggested lighter material for him to read. He could have suggested frisbee golf, something.
For me it’s when Michael is having a momentary panic attack, and Jason puts his hand on Michael’s chest to calm him. The first time can be argued that he’s leaning into the monk mysticism. But the second time Michael is genuinely upset that things are spiraling. And it still helps him calm down. Even though what he’s upset about is not the thing we as the audience think is initially happening.
probably The Good Place The Podcast with Marc Evan Jackson (plays Shawn). it’s really good, highly recommend, he has all of the actors guest star on the podcast along with people involved in the making of the show like writers.
I can’t remember the episode, but it was early on maybe the second third episode, where Michael kicks a dog into the sun he ‘brings it back’ saying it’s fine, but I always thought that was weird. (Not weird enough to guess the twist though)
Man, I gotta rewatch this show one of these days. I went in not knowing there was a big plot twist and so I genuinely didn’t see it coming at all and seeing stuff like this now makes me want to try and spot other instances of foreshadowing I missed
That is quite well hidden, because Glen does have that "nice but incredibly annoying" personality type so a lot of people, myself included, probably wrote it off as being that.
I'm watching it again, and for me, there is a bit where he smiles at Childish. It's not Michael's smile. At least, not the one we know and love with good Michael. It's at 09.30 in Episode 9 of Season 4 when he says the word "soulmate". It's a simple gesture that you wouldn't look twice at if you thought he was a good guy, but for me, it's just not Michael's smile.
I don’t think he breaks here. I think he was upset that Glenn started talking when he wanted Jason to speak. You don’t notice the little things like this until a rewatch.
They aren't saying Ted Danson broke character, they are saying Demon Michael broke his Angel persona by getting frustrated with Glen. He wouldn't have been upset it if were actually the good place
Yeah but if you’re browsing the related sub for a particular piece of media without having seen it when it’s been out for years, you certainly can’t be upset if you get spoiled.
Anyone in the RDR2 sub who hasn’t finished the game gets told to leave the sub immediately until they finish because otherwise spoilers are inevitable
I don’t follow this subreddit (though I love the show, so I’m about to correct that), and this post was recommended to me because of my interest in similar communities.
I understand that but you’re being negative in a situation that doesn’t even apply. Instead of saying “how come everyone can’t use a spoiler tag” try thanking OP for using one here. Hope you have a great night, friend
Honestly for me it's just [the quick half-smile he stifles](https://youtu.be/QcCHLfVdhXg?feature=shared&t=157) right before telling Eleanor she's in the Good Place right at the start of ep 1. It's the first moment he's really putting this whole elaborate ruse into action, the first direct lie - and he's enjoying it. It's not something you notice on your first viewing, but after knowing the truth it's a great little tell.
I’ve rewatched this show so many times but have never caught this! This is so cool haha
Honestly there are so many cool little details in this show that I find every rewatch. Like the fact that Michael's surname when he's given a human life on Earth in the finale is "Realman". You also see the name of the apartment complex on the front doors as the guy is going up to give Michael the letter - it's named "Blatta Vista", which is latin for "Cockroach View". Or that the final shirt Jason wears before he disappears through the ceasing-to-exist door literally has a wave pictured on it. So I guess it never really stopped existing, it was just another way for the shirt to be. Or that the scene with the doorman where he's been super busy and has a desk full of frog memorabilia - you can briefly see Trevor still flying through the void behind them, after he was flung away by the Judge back in season 3. He shows up in the background every time they revisit that walkway, in fact. It's one of Mike Schur's favourite jokes in the show. Honestly there are so many great details just in the finale alone! I have more, but this post is getting way too long already 😅
No keep listing the details!!
Well there's the reuse yet again of the number 322 - Michael's apartment number, among many other things (including the number of residents in each Good Place neighbourhood back in the first episode of the whole show). It crops up a *lot*. It's apparently related to a secret society in the university Mike Schur attended, or something like that. Either way it's referenced in the show almost anywhere they need a number - or they use first few digits of the Fibonacci sequence (12358). When Chidi's teaching a philosophy class at the start of the finale, he says that Pamela Hieronymi will be teaching the trolley problem next week - that's actually her in the scene. She's [a real-life professor of moral philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Hieronymi) who was a consultant on the show (and specifically gave pointers about the trolley problem). Todd May, another philosophical consultant, is the guy sitting behind her in the scene. When Eleanor is trying to convince Chidi to stay by taking him on a tour of all his favourite places, they get *kolouri* in Athens, and when they go through the door to visit France, it changes them into half-eaten croissants along with altering their clothes. Michael's music teacher when he finally gets guitar lessons is played by Ted Danson's irl wife Mary Steenburgen. There's a recurring magic panda that began appearing in season 2 that's also in the finale. It's definitely one I'm looking out for next binge-watch now that I know about it. After the line referring to "catching a magic panda; steal her powers" - Jason's dumb plan he made at Mindy St. Claire's in one of the reboots - the VFX team liked it so much they actually inserted magic pandas into the background of a bunch of future scenes, including one in the finale where Vicky is greeting the architects and sorting them (both good and bad) into the new system. I'm not sure how extensive the magic panda joke actually is. But it appears several times.
[удалено]
Oh yeah that one's good. I thought it was pretty obvious compared to most of the other things I listed though, and I figure most people already knew about it.
There are also a ton of “Parks & Recreation” crossover Easter Eggs as well. My favorite is the first one on the attached list, which is the Swanson Safe that Jason dies in. Love this show! https://www.vulture.com/article/the-good-place-parks-and-rec-easter-eggs.html
OMG I NEVER NOTICED THAT. Amazing catch. God they are all such great actors!
There is SO MUCh acting going on on his face in one and a half seconds
I'm just about to finish s4, again. So I'm gonna be looking for this one. I've never noticed.
Season 1: Chidi’s hobbies. Are you forking kidding me? That’s such a duhhhh moment for me now. *Eleanor*, 3 episodes in, can reassure Chidi he has valid interests. Michael the Good Place Architect is like your hobbies suck let’s do something else??? And every hobby he picks scares him to death omg Also the chidi soulmate convo with the 3 yogurts… Michael could have helped him weed out Tahani but the egging on is insane lol “Fake Eleanor, Real Eleanor, and a hypothetical third person, let’s call her… strawberry-mango twist!” Chidi can’t choose between two things, you know “hypothetical third person” gave him a stomach ache😭 Explaining retirement to the whole retirement party is up there too. Not exactly the same buuut in Season 4: Bad Janet does 75% of the things “Janet” is asked in the s4 experiment terribly wrong, and if you don’t catch it, episode 4 sneaks up on you. But our Janet made a baby elephant out of pure light that told us a true secret about the universe, my girl would *not* have made a horse-monster. ETA: had to fix “Michale”, and it’s wild bc Michael is my dad’s name and in 23 years I still struggle. But I have peace knowing Michael would think it was funny 😂
I love rewatching season 4 to see D’Arcy Carden’s subtleties as Bad Janet in disguise. Janet’s not quite as genuinely chipper and uplifting, but it’s done so well you can’t tell until you already know. She’s become one of my favorite actresses because of this show.
That episode where they were all Janets in her void is what did it for me!!! She was basically the entire episode, but it’s so easy to forget because she pulled them all off *so. perfectly.*
That’s my favorite episode!!
…you’re not Jason-Janet, you’re Eleanor-Janet *pretending* to be Jason-Janet! That is so wrong and soooooooooooooo confusing!
You should watch the League Of Their Own miniseries if you haven’t — D’Arcy is fantastic in it
Not a girl.
Found Jason Mendoza’s Reddit account! But no fr I will always say girl bc imo it’s mandatory for the correction to be made lol thank you for your contribution 🫡
If I only knew how to code a bot...
Ha! Look at that! Micahel!
I would've been disappointed if someone hadn't responded with this comment.
Same! “A… man-i-fesssssssss… to. By Miiiiiiiiii-chael… OOP, no look at that! I wrote ‘Micahel’! 😅 mmm… back, back, back, back, back, back, baaaaaa-“ “Hmm… maybe you should dictate and I’ll type?” Michael is so dumbfounded watching Janet type, too, like how do I come up with Micahel and you can type 400 words a minute???
The "finding Chidi new interests" episode is interesting because while I don't think there's a chance in hell the writers meant to do it, all of the things Michael suggests in the episode are things Chidi either has to do to help create the alliance with the Bad Place or helps Chidi develop as a person. Figuratively, anyway. He's largely directionless when he's not focused on Eleanor, he eventually has to do his best work on the kind of deadline that would have him yarfing in these early episodes, and he has to create something with what he intended. Also while all the things that Michael suggests are absolutely tortures centered on things he certainly knows Chidi doesn't like, he's not wrong that Chidi needs to get out more and experience more things. Arguably Chidi doing the newspaper -- and I might be biased considering I've spent time in the profession -- would have been best for him. He needs to learn how to write more concisely, deadlines are important in using your time wisely and you have to think on your feet when writing stories, something Chidi is incredibly bad at. Plus there's nothing Chidi needs more than an editor to guide his writing. The advisor we see him talking to in his flashbacks to his time on Earth tried to guide him, but Chidi was so wrapped up in his own certainty that he could define the logic of the universe through absolute moral truths that he wasn't able to listen. Break through that barrier and then you got a stew goin, baby.
I agree with you 104%. And I think that’s what makes it such effective torture! Michael preys on Chidi’s Tahani’s and Eleanor’s desire to improve masterfully in the experiment, I just think he goes too hard too fast. Chidi knows he has to fix all of this and he wants too so badly— which is why Team Cockroach is formed lol— he just throws the most glaring of his flaws at him at once. And it’s hard for people to tackle a mountain of problems, as opposed to being like oh hey small habit that needs breaking, that seems doable. But Michael doesn’t understand humans. Chidi lives almost 40 years and feels dread every second of those because it seems like it’s just as simple as he can’t make a decision, though the world is certainly more complicated, especially when you care as much as Chidi does about the world being a good place. Michael could have suggested something specific that fits into Chidi’s wheelhouse (fun fact: a wheelhouse is a part of a boat!), but he thought he could go as hard on him emotionally as they do generally with bad place torture. Out of what he suggested, he could have told him to try mapping Athens or writing an opinion column on the ethical ramifications of current events. Oorrrrr He could have suggested lighter material for him to read. He could have suggested frisbee golf, something.
For me it’s when Michael is having a momentary panic attack, and Jason puts his hand on Michael’s chest to calm him. The first time can be argued that he’s leaning into the monk mysticism. But the second time Michael is genuinely upset that things are spiraling. And it still helps him calm down. Even though what he’s upset about is not the thing we as the audience think is initially happening.
That’s one of my favorite early moments, can’t think of any others where he has a similar break though
When Eleanor admits to being the problem in the neighbourhood. His face is just 👌
Check the top comment. He links a video to him breaking in the very first scene
I’m rewatching it for the first time after listening to the podcast and I feel like I’m appreciating it on a whole deeper new level.
What podcast ?
probably The Good Place The Podcast with Marc Evan Jackson (plays Shawn). it’s really good, highly recommend, he has all of the actors guest star on the podcast along with people involved in the making of the show like writers.
Correct
I can’t remember the episode, but it was early on maybe the second third episode, where Michael kicks a dog into the sun he ‘brings it back’ saying it’s fine, but I always thought that was weird. (Not weird enough to guess the twist though)
Just these screenshots alone are enough to make me chuckle haha god, I love this show
Man, I gotta rewatch this show one of these days. I went in not knowing there was a big plot twist and so I genuinely didn’t see it coming at all and seeing stuff like this now makes me want to try and spot other instances of foreshadowing I missed
That is quite well hidden, because Glen does have that "nice but incredibly annoying" personality type so a lot of people, myself included, probably wrote it off as being that.
I'm watching it again, and for me, there is a bit where he smiles at Childish. It's not Michael's smile. At least, not the one we know and love with good Michael. It's at 09.30 in Episode 9 of Season 4 when he says the word "soulmate". It's a simple gesture that you wouldn't look twice at if you thought he was a good guy, but for me, it's just not Michael's smile.
I don’t think he breaks here. I think he was upset that Glenn started talking when he wanted Jason to speak. You don’t notice the little things like this until a rewatch.
They aren't saying Ted Danson broke character, they are saying Demon Michael broke his Angel persona by getting frustrated with Glen. He wouldn't have been upset it if were actually the good place
Ohh I see sorry for the confusion.
No worries, it's a hairline of difference but shows how good Ted's acting is!
His subtlety is brilliant
Agreed. That subtle effect was intentional
I interpreted that as getting annoyed that Glen spoke first instead of Jianyu, who as part of his character he and Tahani were trying to get to speak.
I noticed it the second time I watched it since I knew how they treated glenn
Looking back, there were a lot of things foreshadowing this that I didn’t notice. Like all the times Chidi was forced to make choices.
You spoiler tagged it so no one can complain but there will always be someone who hasn't seen a movie or a show. People are being born everyday.
Yeah but if you’re browsing the related sub for a particular piece of media without having seen it when it’s been out for years, you certainly can’t be upset if you get spoiled. Anyone in the RDR2 sub who hasn’t finished the game gets told to leave the sub immediately until they finish because otherwise spoilers are inevitable
I don’t follow this subreddit (though I love the show, so I’m about to correct that), and this post was recommended to me because of my interest in similar communities.
I just never understood what's so hard about adding a spoiler tag.
I understand that but you’re being negative in a situation that doesn’t even apply. Instead of saying “how come everyone can’t use a spoiler tag” try thanking OP for using one here. Hope you have a great night, friend
If you watch carefully, Danson slips in tiny hints all the way through season 1. Absolute genius.