Are you watching The Good Place on Netflix… it’s awesome.
The latest season 3, episode 9 “Janet(s)” was very cool. Someone needs to get D’Arcy Carden (who plays Janet) an Emmy or two.
As always, can’t say too much out in the open, if you haven’t seen all the episodes leading up to this one you’re missing out. To understand the majesty of D’Arcy Carden’s acting, you need to understand the other characters in the show.
In this episode our crew of 6 travel to the Accountants office via Janet’s void. On entering the void the four humans (Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason) died and reformed inside Janet’s void. However, Janet wasn’t able to reform their appearances correctly so they all appeared as Janets.
Michael is convinced something is wrong and that the Bad Place has been manipulating stats for years and has been taking people who should be in the Good Place. The head accountant takes them on a tour to show them that it’s impossible. And even when confronted with the proof that no one has made it to the Good Place for over 500 years, the accountant is non-plussed and is sure no one has done anything wrong.
D’Arcy Carden’s portrayal of 6 different Janets in one episode is very cool. She plays Janet herself plus:
- Eleanor-Janet,
- Chidi-Janet,
- Tahani-Janet,
- Jason-Janet, and
- Neutral Janet in the office of the accountants.
D’Arcy has played many other Janet-types before. She plays Bad Janet and alternate versions of herself when things go wrong. She’s very good at it.
The way D’Arcy carried off the affectations of the other main characters was perfect. It wasn’t hard at all to tell which Janet was which, even when they all looked the same.
Janet then transforms their clothing so it’s a little easier to tell them apart, I’d suggest more so for the viewer to make the storytelling easier.
Chidi goes on to explain “Self” as a way of continuing to deny his feelings for Eleanor. He posits that because he has no memory of what Chidi did over the 300 years in the Bad Place, then he isn’t the same Chidi and can’t attest to the same feelings.
Eleanor starts to spiral, causing Janet’s void to start splitting, breaking, and risking the destruction of them all. In an effort to calm her down, Chidi admits his feelings for her and kisses her… her sense of self is so well affirmed that both she, he, and the others are transformed back into themselves.
Once themselves again Janet could no longer contain them in her void and she spits them forth in the Accountants office where alarms immediately sound. As a distraction Michael, who has since decided HE alone has to solve the problem, flips the head accountant’s cake, a corner piece, to the ground and the crew run off to the mailing location.
Here they use the mail-tubes to transport themselves to the Good Place where no one has been sent for over 500 years!