New weekend theatre: An Elephant in the Gardenby Randi / April 2, 2021This past Easter Sunday, the National Theatre and Sky Arts teamed up to present a truly relevant theatrical film for the holiday: Romeo & Juliet. Not super relevant you say? Tell me to my face that Juliet and Jesus didn’t have the same journey. Seemed like they died for a few days but then they woke up??? CHECK. Too much faith in other people to not be stupid? FORKING CHECK.
The event was a made-for-TV film version of the Shakespeare play, so really covering all bases of entertainment. There was also a scene that was very reminiscent of the nightclubs in East London, my absolutely nightmare but, you know, something for everyone. This take felt new and energetic and modern, at once both a movie and a stage show. Some changes worked well, although no clever decisions in any version have yet to justify the absolute inanity of how f-ing stupid the whole plan was. Goddammit Friar, you’re as simple as these overly dramatic teenagers. (I wasn’t going to mention how Juliet is 13 as written but I simply must. What a gross play.) Can’t believe we’ve had 400 years of this moronic plan. People like to shit on Shakespeare in Love but that’s honestly the only thing that redeems this play even a little. (I’m talking classic representations here, not stuff like West Side Story which is undeniably a genius improvement. (And the musical & Juliet doesn’t count because it rightly says a big ‘hell no’ to the play after like 3 pages.))
As the two ill-fated idiots, Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley put their screen experience (him The Crown, her movies and stuff) to good use, though I was surprised that his Romeo was far stronger than her Juliet, since I usually really like her while I have never watched The Crown out of support for Meghan and Harry (just kidding it seems boring). R&J puts you in such a predicament, because you don’t want to cast very young people because THAT’S GROSS, but the plot only really makes sense if they are very young/stupid people. I mean, they meet at a party and get married like within 24 hours? Who do they think they are, Dharma and Greg? And then instead of telling anyone so she doesn’t have to marry Paris (didn’t husbands immediately have ownership over their wives back then? like what could her parents have done at this point?), instead she and the Friar concoct the ferkakte plan of faking her death and having Romeo rescue her from a mausoleum in secret. WOOF.
So yes while the actual play always makes me throw up my hands and shout incomprehensibles, this version made some welcome creative decisions that I appreciated. I liked that it was clearly a stage-version despite being a film, although I thought the rehearsal-room footage was too inconsistent and took me outside the story. I wanted a whole lot more of Fisayo Akinade’s Mercutio, who is equally captivating onscreen as he is onstage (we stan a short king!). I loved that they made his relationship with Benvolio a romantic one, but his screentime was definitely a victim of the hatchet job of cutting this play down to 1 1/2 hours. Ben Affleck would have been PISSED.
The pacing was interesting, as it moved so fast, which I mostly liked, but with that you miss out on the ability to foster depth, character development, and emotional connection. It could have benefited from another 20 minutes or so to make any of the characters, connections, or actions more truly felt. (This may be the first time I’ve said something could have been longer and not shorter.) I saw SO MANY REVIEWERS saying how ‘pacey’ this show was. Ugh. You mean like Joshua Jackson? You mean fast-paced. There’s a word for that and it’s fast-paced, or quick. When Romeo & Juliet clocks in at like 90 minutes, you can just say that. Petition to ban “pacey” and “stagey” please. (While we’re at it: add noms to the list if it’s about anything other than nominations. And if everyone could move on from the adverb du month of ‘deeply’, we will all be for the better.))
No matter the various weaknesses, which did exist despite…everyone else’s commentary, this version stood out for one strong reason: Tamsin Grieg. (Okay, two strong reasons: Tamsin plus her early scenes architectural sweater, doing more character work than NYC in “Sex and the City”.) My favorite move of this production was switching Lord and Lady Capulet’s roles, so that Lady was the one with all the juicy parts and Lord was the one who showed up for like a second and grunted and left. Tamsin’s Lady Capulet with all the power of the og Lord was FIRE. My god. There is a reason she is such a celebrated actress and it is all on display here. Whereas Lord Capulet is sometimes argued to be a good father, doing what he needs to for his family in this era, Tamsin’s version is harsher. She is a cruel old broad in an amazing sweater and I am HERE FOR IT. Nothing in this production was more convincing than her authoritative take on what she needed to do for her daughter and her family and even though she was mean I almost wanted everyone to listen to her. I can’t wait to see her Lear.
Romeo & Juliet aired on Sunday on Sky Arts. It will re-air Thursday, April 8 at 10pm, and then Friday, April 23 at 9pm on PBS (that’s for you AMERICANOS).
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London’s “42nd Street”: Come and Meet Those Dancing Feet and the Appalling Sexists Attached to Said Feet…And Peggy
Hey remember how my last few reviews have covered really stellar shows and I mentioned that it’s much more fun to write about not-so-stellar shows? Wheee!
A few days ago, I saw the revival of “42nd Street” on the West End. P.S., I still don’t know if it’s ‘on’ the West End or ‘in’ the West End, and this is an example of the type of thing I was distractedly thinking about during this positively ludicrous musical. At several moments during the show, I was struck by the thought that Jane the Virgin’s season 2 feminist killjoy of a thesis advisor would have stopped the show and JUMPED onto the stage to stop the atrocities of sexism from continuing. Every few minutes I could see Professor Donaldson shaking her head, then dropping her jaw, and then refusing to be a party to it any longer and marching onstage to shout “NO NO NO!!” And sure I have an overactive confrontation-imagination but I was as livid as the professor was. Enraged by both the rampant sexism in the show and the fellow audience members on their phones, confused by the lack of plot and the fellow audience members who wouldn’t stop talking, I tried to calm myself down by thinking over and over “this show is from almost 100 years ago, it’s okay, it was a product of its time, everyone knows that this sexist crap wouldn’t fly today, at least the dancing is great.” But it didn’t work because I think the majority of people (helloooo Trump voters) don’t actually know that misogyny belongs in the bygone era, and what was being presented onstage was very problematic to be tapping our feet along to.
Okay, so the musical is only from 1980, but it’s based on a 1933 movie about the time right after the Depression, so I was effectively right and there is cause for concern as to why the production team in 1980 thought this story was okay as is. The story from the movie is pretty much the same as the show, as is the music: the film score by the composing team of Dubin and Warren was used in the musical, along with a few of their songs from other works. I’m sure it’s pretty clear that I didn’t know much about this show going in, other than that it was a classic, super old (not that old but still) musical with tap dancing about a theatre company putting on a musical. Despite not knowing too much about the story, I knew a few famous songs going in that I was excited to hear – “I Only Have Eyes for You”, “We’re in the Money”, and especially “Lullaby of Broadway” – and one famous song that isn’t actually in the show but I could have sworn was – “Too Darn Hot”. It’s really from “Kiss Me Kate” which I KNEW but Christine Ebersole sang it in concert once and I really thought she intro’ed it by saying this was from the show she won a Tony for and it sure as hell wasn’t in “Grey Gardens” so I kept thinking it would be in the show but then it was curtain call and I was like ohhhh riiiight.
Another thing I didn’t know? That Sheena Easton was the star! I usually know if there’s anyone famous in the show I’m about to see but for this I literally sat down in my seat, opened the programme that I just bought that wouldn’t fit in my purse because it’s one of those unnecessarily giant ones, and then said ‘Oh…what.” Sheena Easton is a pretty famous recording artist from the ‘80s and ‘90s who won some Grammy awards and sang one of the Bond themes, “For Your Eyes Only”, which I can’t remember but I can tell you is better than the Bond theme that won an Oscar last year because everything is. I knew her because of her song with Kenny Rogers “We’ve Got Tonight” (who needs tomorrowwww) (you should watch a 1983 concert performance of that song pretty much JUST FOR HER INSANE OUTFIT WHAT IS SHE WEARING) and because I have a foggy memory of Danny Tanner mentioning her on “Full House”.
I know I said ‘lack of plot’ before but the show is of course roughly ‘about’ something. It starts absolutely stunningly, which is almost worse because my high hopes for finally seeing this show performed were lifted even higher and I was like whoaaa ahhhhhhhhh and then it all came crashing down. But not yet! The heavy red velvet curtain slowly rose to reveal 50 pairs of feet tap-a-tap-a-tapping like their lives depended on it, and as it continued going up we see oh yes their lives do indeed depend on it – it’s an audition. The dozens and dozens of gorgeous dancers flail about in perfect unison as a musical director shouts stuff and demos stuff and they just keep going and it was glorious!! I really love watching incredible dancing, and this show had tons of it. This classic opening is one of the good bits. So the music and dance directors pick their chorus girls and boys and the audition is over but then eeeeee! in storms a little spitfire of a dancer named Peggy Sawyer (Clare Halse) who is late and dressed like a lavender sailor but still wants to try out. She tells everyone she just got off the train from Allentown, Pennsylvania, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t that far, dear, you were one state away. The musical director, having just seen 50 great dancers, has no need for her, but the young male star of the show, Billy Lawlor (Stuart Neal), is like ‘Oh hey you are a non-ugly non-old female person I am going to touch you inappropriately and not let go of your arm as I flirt obnoxiously with you and tell you how we are going to end up just swell lovers so I will help you get their attention and audition even though there’s no reason to allow this to happen.’ So Billy and Peggy sing a song in front of everyone about how they are young and healthy so they might as well hook up I’m not joking, but like I said the show was cast and the dance director tells Peggy to ‘amscray, toots!’ which is clearly another of the good bits, and she runs off and barrels right into Julian Marsh, the hot-shot big-time director (Tom Lister), who is like whoooo is this football player tackling me but hey I kind of liked it. He really says that, it is gross. Peggy is mortified as she should be and runs out, forgetting her purse. What a lucky coincidence because of course she has to come back for her purse later! What mature story-telling devices! So Peggy comes back another day, but she is wearing the same lavender sailor suit and by now I just feel bad for the girl. She wears it most of the show, btw. But it has to be another day because everyone is there for a legit rehearsal, and rehearsals never start immediately after auditions that would be crazy. But so is this outfit. Anyway, songwriter Maggie Jones (Jasna Ivir) and a few of the more prominent chorus girls invite Peggy to eat lunch with them, where they don’t actually eat but have a DANCE OFF. This is another very sophisticated way to let the story tell us that Peggy is the best dancer of the lot, it is not forced at all no sir. So this scene is ridonkulous as a book scene, but it is amazing as a dance scene because Clare Halse really is the best tap dancer like ever. It might have a lot to do with the very difficult things they were making her do but her dance-off tapping ranks up there with “Shuffle Along” in terms of how worried I was that dancers’ legs were going to fall off.
In YET ANOTHER oh so clever and not at all eye-rolly twist, the show is suddenly short a girl so the curbside dance-off in the middle of Times Square pays off because Julian the director sees Peggy and is like ‘you’ll do!’ It’s not clear, though, whether they really are short a girl or whether Julian is just a gross old man who likes what he sees. Well no, the latter is very clear, it’s just a question of whether the former is true also. It doesn’t matter thought because all of a sudden Sailor Moon is in a new musical’s cast because she was late, assaulted the director, absentmindedly left behind her belongings, and then danced like nobody was watching when the director was watching. Well I’m inspired. By the way Julian refers to her sometimes as ‘Allentown’ which is cute once and then very annoying the rest of the time.
The show that Peggy is now in is a big new risky expensive musical called “Pretty Lady”, starring the legendary Dorothy Brock (Easton), who is a difficult and stubborn diva who refuses to do things like sing for the creatives when she doesn’t feel like it. Although she is talented, Brock is not a dancer, so they have the ensemble just dance around her while she sings. The team needed to hire her because she brings the financial backing – her old rich southern sugar daddy is putting up the money to produce the show. Why a woman of such renown and seemingly money of her own would spend time with a man purely for his money is unclear, but it is presented as ordinary in the show because women are terrible and do dumb things. Brock has a boyfriend, Pat Denning (Norman Bowman), who sneaks around to see her, but Julian Marsh, the director, doesn’t want him distracting his leading lady or complicating things with old moneybags so he hires ‘goons’ to beat him up. Totally normal. Oh it’s important to note here that I started to get the sense we were supposed to see Julian Marsh as a romantic leading man. I mean. No. But then every interaction with Peggy confirmed this, because he flirted with her a lot yet was cruel and a textbook abuser. It was very strange. We will return to this later.
The show leaves for its out-of-town pre-Broadway tryout, which is moved from Atlantic City to Philadelphia for reasons I don’t remember because I was too busy shouting ‘woooooo Phillayyyyy!’ At a party one night, Peggy overhears Julian ordering the goons to come again to teach a lesson to Pat Denning, who won’t leave the woman he loves alone. Peggy rushes to warn Pat that his life is in danger, but she is interrupted by that intolerable Billy Lawlor, who is not her boyfriend or even her friend, but still feels that he is entitled to control Peggy because he is a man. He asked her hey pretty lady where you off to, and she is frantically like ‘I have to warn a friend his life is in danger!’ or something and Billy chooses the wrong thing to focus on and says, ‘what…a male friend?’ and walks away dejected and it took all my might not to yell down to the stage ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT. This little prick has seriously had one previous conversation with Peggy and he’s mad at her for trying to save someone’s life? Fragile white masculinity is THE WORST. This is the type of man who punches a woman on the dance floor after she politely turns down his invitation to dance. (This happens often by the way. Men are A MESS and I blame ‘30s-era musical comedy for a lot of it no I’m just joking obviously but all this kind of crap presented as normal makes it normal!)
Luckily, Peggy reaches Pat and Dorothy in time, but the inane misogyny is far from over. When Peggy rushes into their private room to warn Pat, Dorothy immediately assumes that they are having an affair. I MEAN. I know things were different in the ‘30s but were men and women just not allowed to speak to each other unless they were a couple? My goodness. Then Dorothy goes down the party all upset and decides this is the perfect moment to tell her southern sugar daddy that it’s over and that she doesn’t love him at all, and he of course threatens to pull his money from the show. The creatives are terrified, so to distract him from ruining their show, they throw chorus girls at him. One prominent girl, Annie, had to flaunt her boobs like 10 different times in the show, and four times in this party scene alone to distract and calm down various old men. It was very bad. But it worked because he left his money in the show. And then he got together with the songwriter Jones, which was expected because she was overweight and these types of ‘comedies’ always throw the few non-perfect non-young bodies together.
Okay so this is all act one, and I know it seems like a lot of plot even though I said there was no plot. It is not a lot of plot though. I am devoting many, many more words to all the action I just described than the actual show’s book does. All of what I just described takes maybe five minutes to work out onstage. The show is mostly big dance numbers from the show within the show and I don’t get how this is a show or how I could say show more times in one sentence. It is 99% the ensemble practicing the musical numbers in “Pretty Lady”. Seriously. It’s dance scene after dance scene, all taken from this new musical “Pretty Lady” that also has no plot and even less of a story, so it seems from what we see, and the drama going on with the cast happens very briefly around these big dance numbers. I’ve never seen a show with more big dance numbers. Every one of them pretended to be the showstopper, but then another one was right behind it. And they were all wonderful. Even though I am harping on the story here and will continue to do so because it is abominable and gets worse, the dancing and the performances were all incredible. But, there’s a reason no other show has as many showstopping dance-heavy musical numbers – when they have nothing to do with the plot, it gets boring. It’s like being at an advanced tap recital and yes they are all insanely amazing but the dances have nothing to do with anything and nothing to do with the other dances we’re seeing. It’s just a mess of great dancing but just like too much of anything it starts to get intolerable. I had a bad headache.
In one of the early big dance numbers, Billy sings a song called “Dames”. It’s about how as long as there are beautiful dames around, nothing else matters. This is a very meta song, telling the audience just to enjoy the beautiful girls dancing all around the whole time and not to worry about the very thin book and very offensive dialogue. I felt like Billy was singing to me being like ‘stop complaining said the farmer who told you a calf to be just enjoy yourself!’ You might think I’m overreacting but look at these lyrics:
Who writes the words and music
For all the girly shows?
No one cares and no one knows.
Who is the handsome hero
Some villain always frames?
But who cares if there’s a plot or not
When they’ve got a lot of dames!
What do you go for
Go see a show for?
Tell the truth
You go to see those beautiful dames!
My god. I mean they are flat out telling us that this whole show is really just an excuse to stare at pretty women. They have no remorse.
Just when you thought that was enough, “Dames” ends and the cast has to rehearse the next song in “Pretty Lady” called “Keep Young and Beautiful”. YOU HEARD RIGHT. It’s an ensemble number with all the girls dressed in skin colored, very bare, lingerie-like costumes and they are told to KEEP YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL. Lyrics from this winner:
Keep young and beautiful
It’s your duty to be beautiful
Keep young and beautiful
If you want to be loved.
If you’re wise, exercise all the fat off
Take it off, off of here, off of there…
Take care of all those charms
And you’ll always be in someone’s arms.
Keep young and beautiful
If you want to be loved.
F-ING CHRIST ON A CRACKER. I thought I was being pranked and not the good too much tuna kind of pranking. This is a new level of sexist nonsense in theatre to me, on par with if not surpassing “Funny Girl”.
Throughout these musical numbers, Peggy trips and falls and bumps into people at every turn. I don’t understand. She is supposed to be the best dancer they’ve ever seen, and according to folklore the audience is supposed to be rooting for her success the entire show. Um. She kept falling, though? Why would I want someone to become a big Broadway star if she fell into everyone every time she danced? That kind of nonsense is not covered by insurance. It’s very confusing, because Peggy is an amazing dancer – amazing. I was really stunned at how talented Clare Halse was. But how can you reconcile Peggy being the best dancer ever with her falling all over the place when she dances?! Is it just to continue the trend of women in this show being flighty and/or incompetent? All it does is show her to be unqualified to perform live, and I would have fired her after she bumped into her fellow performers the first time. Then, at the big first preview finale in Philly (the song “42nd Street” and our real Act I finale), Peggy knocks Dorothy Brock over and breaks her ankle. True, someone else knocked into Peggy, but she still was flying all over all the time. Peggy FINALLY gets fired, and we’re supposed to be upset for her because we’re supposed to be rooting for her, but why would we be rooting for someone who can’t dance without bumping into people? Ahhh!
Then in Act II, when they think they have to close the show because they don’t have a star (why Brock can’t still sing while doing the same stand-and-deliver planted method she was doing before, I don’t understand), the chorus girls convince Julian that Peggy could be the star. Peggy who he just fired. Julian, who is a very unkind, frightening man, IMMEDIATELY believes them that the mess of a dancer he just fired could certainly be his star, so he runs to the train station to stop her from going back to Allentown. They say Allentown SO many times. To continue the trend of nonsensical things happening, Peggy doesn’t WANT to go back to the show and doesn’t WANT to be the star. It is yet again hard to root for someone to become a big star when she doesn’t jump for joy at this invitation. So Julian, freshly convinced that she’s the best there is even though he has never heard her sing or act, has to persuade Peggy to come back. And he does this by singing one of the most beloved songs from early musicals, “Lullaby of Broadway”. The fact that this delightful song that is forever linked to the great Jerry Orbach is used in this show at this absurd scene makes me very upset. Why would this prominent director need to use everything’s he got to convince a chorus girl who ostensibly wanted to be a star to in fact be a star, I do not understand. Also, in this context and given how creepy Julian is, a lot of the lyrics became creepy. He calls her baby a lot and clearly thinks exactly like Billy Lawlor about her except worse because he is in a position of power over her. At least Tom Lister has a very strong voice and sounded great.
The rest of Act II features more big dance numbers that have nothing to do with anything, and Peggy trying to learn the entire show in 48 hours, because Julian, professional abusive man, decides to open cold in two days and cancel out-of-town tryouts AND previews FOR NO GOOD REASON. Ugh this man is the devil. We get a big dance scene from “Pretty Lady”, and then a glimpse of Julian forcing Peggy to insanity in nonstop rehearsal. Then we get another big dance from “Pretty Lady”, and then we see Julian hurting Peggy’s arms and not letting her rest or eat or sleep or stop dancing until the curtain rises on opening night. See that’s not the best way to get a great performance out of someone. She breaks down from exhaustion and stress, and Julian gives her an energy boost by KISSING HER. I really almost screamed ‘this is harassment at the very leeeeassssstttt he should be in jaaaaaiiiiillll.’ But because this was written by dirty old men, Peggy gets a new wave of energy and is just an adorable ball of joy again because she liked it, of course she did, he’s a powerful man and why wouldn’t she! UGHASDJF;ALKWEJ FAW.
One of the random dances we see from “Pretty Lady” is the song “We’re in the Money”. I bet you can’t guess how it is staged. So four orphan children (four dancers dressed up in sooty faces and clothing from ‘Annie’) are playing under a bridge and they find a dime in a grate! And then they sing ‘We’re in the Money’. I can’t make this shit up it was INSANE. After the orphans sing a verse, the rest of the enormous ensemble comes out dressed in shiny gold costumes dancing with GIANT DIMES and the set changes to a gilded one and the dancers hoist their giant dimes into the light and then they put them down and dance atop them and if you listen closely you will hear the sound of a girl who thinks she is going crazy whispering ‘just like what is happeninggggg’.
Then there is more abuse of Peggy from Julian but as long as he kisses her she is revived! It’s not abuse if he really likes you!
Then. Oh then. We finally see the full version of their big “Pretty Lady” finale, the song “42nd Street”, that was cut short before when Dorothy was injured. The song is atrociously rhymed and I was audibly groaning every time the chorus sang “Naughty, bawdy, gawdy, sporty, forty-second streeeet.” SPORTY!!!! WHAT! Thank god this is in England so the words kind of rhyme but what on earth did they do in New York with this song? Holy cow. Peggy and Billy dance in the grungy, dark, twisted Times Square, in a much more adult and serious style than all the other dancing. Various players fill the stage, including a man who looks like a mime, wearing red gloves. But oh no, it’s not a mime, it’s a mugger! Well maybe he is a mime and a mugger but anyway he steals a lady’s purse and two cops shoot him dead. While Peggy and Billy are dancing. As your jaw drops open and you wonder um HOW did “Pretty Lady” go from repeated drivel about how great attractive young girls are to a gritty scene in Times Square where SOMEONE GETS SHOT, the cops drag the mugger’s body offstage and Peggy and Billy begin to dance again. WHAT THE HELL IS PRETTY LADY ABOUT?!!??!!!
Well, we have to just guess, because that’s pretty much how “Pretty Lady” ends, and “42nd Street” ends shortly thereafter, when opening night ends and Peggy is a huge star who has a huge crush on her abusive director. I just. I’m very tired. Julian is a textbook abuser and it is revolting that he is considered a romantic part and that the whole Marsh/Peggy dynamic is a classic one in the musical theatre canon. Blechhh. I wish it ended with her punching him and being like now that I’m a star I’m going to make sure you never work in this town again. I need to do a revival that is really a rewrite but the estates would never sign off on it. Maybe it would be excused as fair use because it would really be a social commentary on the original. Hmm.
Anyway, you might be wondering why Sheena Easton is considered the star but all I really talked about was Peggy. Well, aside from singing a few songs (and Sheena did a fantastic job), Dorothy isn’t in it that much. She only has one short scene in ALL of Act II! But Dorothy Brock is considered the leading role and Peggy the featured, and Christine Ebersole won the Tony for Leading Actress for playing Brock. BUT THIS MAKES NO SENSE. The show is all about Peggy, and she is in it 10 times as much as Brock is! and 20 times as much as Julian is! Yet Dorothy and Julian get the final bow at curtain call! Whyyyyy oh this makes me so angry!
So I obviously have a few strong feelings about this drivel and you probably think that this was the most I’ve ever hated a show. But while I hate the story and the character interactions and everything it says about women, it was still a very enjoyable production because the performances and the dancing are so wonderful. If you plug your ears while characters talk and during a few garbage songs, and you just watch the dancing and listen to the singing, it’s a decent time at the theatre. It’s the pesky story and characters and yeah everything it says about women that foul it all up. So don’t think of it as a show. Try to convince yourself that it’s a cabaret performance, all unconnected dances and songs just for their own sake, and not telling any larger story, and then it is enjoyable. I mean it’s not telling any story anyway, really. Ugh what a shitshow.
HI HOW PROUD ARE YOU OF ME FOR NOT SAYING ‘AND PEGGY’ THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING
Goodbye to The Good Place (Really Bestbye to the Best Place)
Hello, my little chili babies. It’s been almost a week since the 104% perfect finale of The Good Place, and I’m still crying so let’s talk it out. Although everything to say about it has already been said, it doesn’t feel right to not have something about it on my website for posterity. I mean I have a whole thing on the finale of How I Met Your Mother, which was super disappointing, so having that and not anything on the best TV show finale of all time would be point-losing nonsense. If you want to read my writing about my favorite show where I try to sound smart, click here to read my recent article for Tenderly Mag on Medium. If you’re cool with nonsense dribbled out in mostly recap form while I cried for the 1000th time in 5 days, then go ahead – whenever you’re ready. (Hot tip: You are only ready if you have watched every episode of the show.)
If you know me, or you watch television, or you have taste, you know that The Good Place is the best show ever. There isn’t one line that isn’t great, in four seasons. I mean I love lots of TV and have lots of favorites but man alive, even Friends has entire episodes I would cut. TGP was as tight as a drum, with every line, action, even every costume flawlessly committed to telling a coherent full story. I love everyone involved with this show for making it, from each writer (especially Megan Amram and her puns) to Marc Evan Jackson for the podcast (it’s so good and where I got a lot of the inside treats to come) to David Niednagel for the ridiculous special effects to Kirston Mann for the costumes (I agree about the stripes messaging, Marc) to Gay Perello for the amazing props (will never get over Jason’s first philosophy assignment, where he handwrote it and said “By Jason Mendoza, Age 27. Perfection). The cast is uniformly excellent, some of the best acting ever ever ever ever done. (“Acting is reacting. And reacting is pre-acting. And pre-acting, well that’s just being.”) And of course, creator Mike Schur, who might have a lot of annoying ideas about veganism, but he is a gd genius.
Since the pilot, anyone who tried to predict what would happen on this show has looked like a fool LIKE A FOOL. This most unpredictable show, lauded for how it solved in one episode or less what most programs would focus on for an entire season, always kept us on our toes. It felt appropriate that the finale would still be exciting and overwhelmingly emotional and brilliant but not entirely surprising, wrapping up everyone’s story, remarkably, in a way that was, only in hindsight, clear from the beginning. (“Is there a question?” “Don’t you think that’s remarkable?”) Even though the show was constantly surprising, they told us from the start what the end would hold for our heroes, if you paid attention. They each had to conquer their biggest flaws, and once they really and fully did, they would be ready to end this part of their existence. And often, doing so made them come full circle to the versions of themselves they pretended to be, whether on earth or in neighborhood 12358W.
I want to talk about each of my friends one by one.
Let’s start with Jason, since the episode does. After 2,242 Bearimys since we last saw him, Jason decides that his time in The Good Place has come to an end. At first I paraphrased Michael in the season 2 reboot montage and exclaimed, “Jason finds peace first? Jason?! Oh, this one hurts.” It’s no secret that Jason Mendoza (“that’s my boy right there!”) is my favorite character (well everyone is my favorite but I love that goofball so much). He is so dumb and sweet and surprisingly wise and so pure. The kids describe too many things nowadays as being ‘pure’ and it’s getting overused but really it is best used for Jason. I love that my boy is so pure so his is the shortest journey to finding inner peace. It makes sense that he would be the first of Team Cockroach to have that realization of tranquility in your soul that you are ready to be at one with the universe, or whatever you think happens when you walk through the door.
When Janet realizes what Jason needs to talk about, after he makes dinner for her the first time, that seems like the proper starting point for crying during this episode, but that assumes you haven’t been crying since the moment it began, or really since you started gearing up for it the week before. The moment that marked my transition from teary-eyed to heaving bawling was when they showed him playing Madden with Donkey Doug. Donkey Doug was the first new person we saw who had made it through the new system, and that, that broke me. Oh dip Donkey Doug! (“Oh dip…you’re Donkey Doug!” (that’s a deep cut of my favorite blooper ever from the blooper reel of season 3.)) The best thing about this show was on full display – its perfect blend of heavy moments and deep thoughts with ridiculous comedy. Like Jason’s comment that his goodbye party would play EDM all night and Eleanor saying “well now I’m bummed about two things.” My favorite Eleanor moment during Jason’s section was obviously the jalapeno poppers bit (“what is a jalapeno? Also what is a popper? Also what is jalapeno poppers?” will inexplicably forever be my most quoted line from this show): Jason explains that he knows this is his time, because he realized the air inside his lungs was the same as the air outside his body – the same sort of peaceful feeling as when you bite into a jalapeno popper you think will be too hot but then it’s actually the perfect temperature. Eleanor immediately confirms she knows that feeling, as she would, because she is fellow trash. I always loved their connection as two former trashbags with similar experiences, and I’m glad they had another such moment in the finale.
Through seemingly throwaway lines, the writers pack in so much information. When we see Doug Forcett overdoing it on fried chicken (Doug Forcett got in!!), Chidi says “good thing you chose your young body!” So we know that everyone we see from here on didn’t necessarily die at whatever age we see them; you get to pick what age you’ll spend eternity as. Noice. Smort. And when Pillboi (I cried so hard when we saw that Pillboi made it; I love him so much) in his toast that includes the phrase “Caspers the Ghost”, the best pluralization ever, says that Jason is his hero, it makes me believe that everyone who makes it to the Good Place learns about the people responsible for this new system. Thinking about how Doug and Pillboi know that Jason is responsible for saving every soul in the universe, and how Uzo knows that about Chidi, and how Donna knows that about Eleanor, and how Tahani’s parents know, it wrecks me.
But nothing wrecks me more than (well every minute of this finale) when Janet and Michael talk about being sad that Jason’s leaving, because FRIENDSHIP! THE REASON IS FRIENDSHIP! Ever since “Janet and Michael” in season 2, their relationship has been my favorite (they are all my favorite relationships but come on). It’s so special to watch the only two non-humans on Team Cockroach help each other grow during all these crazy experiences.
The most important part of Jason’s section (well, his first) is Janet explaining that she doesn’t experience time like humans do, and that she is living all times at once. We need to hear this so we’re not depressed at the thought of everyone eventually leaving Janet, thinking about how one day all her friends will be gone. For her, they aren’t. WE NEED THIS.
I was a little bummed that we said goodbye to Jason so quickly, but oh dip! We didn’t! The second half surprise that, since he lost the necklace he made for Janet, he looked for it (it was in the other pocket, obviously) and then waited until she came back to the forest – for thousands of years – was the best surprise. He passed all that time pretty chill, just letting his mind wander and thinking about the universe. LIKE A MONK. Jason, having started the show pretending to be Jianyu the monk, ending up monking it up harder than any monk ever has. That’s the kind of full circle Amy Sherman Palladino wishes she could write. So beautiful. Pretending to be Jianyu was torture for Jason, since he had to control his impulsivity, so his time in the forest proved that he had conquered all his worst traits and then some. He was complete, and he was ready.
But not before the greatest line ever on this show full of the best lines ever: Jason says goodbye again to Janet, and runs through the door shouting, “Chidi, wait up!” after Chidi had gone through (more on that soon). It’s so adorably dumb and perfectly Jason – he still sort of has no clue what’s going on, but it also shows how sweet and innocent he is and how much he cares about his friends: no matter what happened to his friend, or what form his essence is in, he’s coming to hang.
Fun facts:
- The passing yards Jason achieved in his perfect game of Madden totaled 12358.
- The actor playing Doug Forcett isn’t really an actor, he’s a comedy writer. So he didn’t know not to really eat all the food he was stuffing in his face take after take. He threw up after filming his scene.
- The subtitles have no idea what Pillboi says at the end of his toast: He calls Jason his ‘Gardner Minshew’, the footballer who replaced Nick Foles after he broke his clavicle (‘FOOOOOOOOOLES!’). This show taught me so much about literally every subject.
“It is I, Tahani.”
Next, 323.6 Bearimys later, Tahani has become an expert woodworker (and is wearing overalls, incredible), along with completing nearly 10,000 other afterlife goals she set. We need to look at her list:
- Land a triple axel (made me realize I would TOTES take up figure skating in the Good Place. You can’t break your head!)
- Solve the Poincare conjecture (lol NERD)
- Perform Il Dolce Suono from Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala (is Tahani’s list my list?)
- Burp the alphabet (I CAN ALREADY DO THIS!)
- Become a master woodworker (okay it’s officially not my list)
- Learn how to repave a driveway (see above)
- Break Graham Gooch’s record of 456 runs in a single test (what are these words)
- Master conducting – orchestra (alright)
- Master conducting – train (lolol best joke for Z)
- Beat NBA Jam on all-star (??)
- Free Solo the Colossus of Rhodes (even when already dead I’d be too scared for this)
- Fix the Jesus fresco that lady messed up (this is the FUNNIEST FORKING THING EVER)
- Tahani al-Jamil’s ‘Borges’s “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’”” (WTF DOES THIS MEAN)
- Make a vegan dessert that nobody suspects if vegan (ughhh Mikey my boy you still have a long way to go with your unfunny vegan jokes. This isn’t a hard thing to accomplish – if a food is bad, it’s not because it’s vegan, it’s because it’s bad. We’ve all had bad desserts and they weren’t bad due to the presence or lack of milk or eggs. They were bad because the person making it didn’t know what they were doing. Ughhh)
- Invent new musical instrument (I’d rather learn all the existing ones)
- Really nail the Lisa Left Eye Lopes rap from ‘Waterfalls’ (DONE)
- Finish Infinite Jest (NEVER)
- Spend one meaningful day with my parents [and she ending up having thousands! Ughh the best!]
- Defuse a bomb (YES)
- Fly a helicopter (NO)
- Perfect the backhand slice (DONE, BABIES)
When Janet tells Tahani, “the thing you wanted me to tell you when it happened? It happened”, I thought OMG IS IT KAMILLAH OR HER PARENTS, KAMILLAH OR HER PARENTS? The cut to her already being BFF with her sister and them living together (soulmates!) wrecked me so hard. Kamillah already made it and they have the relationship they always wanted. It was too much, and then you realize that that means the parents are coming. When her mother opened by shouting “My darlings!” oh my god if you didn’t gasp cry then you are dead inside. It was perfect, it was too much, it was beautiful. I keep thinking of that moment. It’s some of the best TV ever. How they built up that journey for this family, seeing how much they tortured Tahani, and then how she was responsible for them not being tortured forever but being redeemed so they could all enjoy what they missed out on, it might be the most emotionally meaningful argument for what they’re trying to say.
At Tahani’s goodbye party, she namedrops Frank Gehry (how many godparents does this b have!!) and we get a treat of seeing that John has made it as well, and as always he swans in and out faster than you can track and is at the ready with the funniest g-d line (“Alexander the Fine”) and gone before you catch your breath. He was such a great addition this season. Tahani realizes that she isn’t ready to leave through the door, but she wants to leave the Good Place – and train to be an afterlife architect, like Michael. This is my favorite. I love that not all the humans went through, and I love that Tahani is REALLY committing to helping people, and not just talking about it like she did on earth. On the podcast earlier this season, Jameela talked about how much she loved Tahani’s special growth and journey and we didn’t know what she was talking about until this great decision. Whereas Jason came full circle to how he started as Jianyu, Tahani finally became what she pretended to be on earth: someone who really and truly helps people, as well as an incredibly accomplished woman. She can literally do everything now, and she helped save humanity. (And she “snogged Ryan Gosling. Couple of times, actually.”)
I also loved that she trained all the animals, including the server panda. BUT QUESTION: Is this a magic panda that she trained to wait on her? Or did she train a regular panda to speak, serve, &c, and so she trained him to be magic? IF IT’S THE LATTER, and we know that Jeremy Bearimy works in mysterious ways, THEN MY BIG QUESTION IS GOING TO REMAIN IN ALL CAPS: IS THIS REGULAR PANDA THAT SHE TRAINED TO DO MAGICAL THINGS THE SAME MAGIC PANDA THAT JASON REFERENCES IN SEASON 2 THAT THEY SHOULD CAPTURE AND USE TO HELP THEM????!!!!!!!!! Did Tahani train the magic panda that then somehow was the panda that showed up two seasons ago??!! that’s some ‘Interstellar’ time shit right there.
Tahani and Michael go to the architects offices, and there we get a whole bunch of amazingness in a short time: Brett is on a TV screen in the hallway, being debriefed after another failed test. I like to think that his line of questioning shows he is really trying to think through his actions, and just still has a lot of work to do, but he will make it eventually. Then we see Glenn, my fave, who is super excited to have Tahani on his team! It’s so sweet! And craziest of all, Shawn is there, and although his face and tone still say evil, he’s…he’s pretty much not. It’s so forking good, as is his never-ending ‘ever, ever, ever’ delivery.
Fun facts:
- Nick Offerman (not Ron Swanson) makes it to the Good Place, which is fun (hope he learned in his tests to stop making stupid vegan jokes), but not as fun as knowing that the chair he’s praising, that Tahani has crafted, he actually despised in real life. They couldn’t get the $50,000 chair Nick suggested they get for this scene (wonder why) and he said that the chair they chose was so poorly made that his woodworking friends were going to make fun of him for praising it on TV.
- The al Jamils watch ‘Home Alone’ together on movie night, the movie Tahani was afraid of when Jason first showed her, but now she’s not afraid of her family abandoning her. (“you hear that? I’m not afraid anymore!”)
- Kamillah was painting waves.
- When Michael and Tahani go into the hub where the Doorman sits (now so much livelier and busier due to all the happenings in the universe, I love it), you can see (mostly hear) Trevor screaming as he flies across the space. In season 3, the judge pinged him off the bridge, and he has been pinging around every since. I CANNOT WITH THIS SHOW.
- Michael’s gift to Tahani on her first day as an intern is the peacock bowtie he wore in the pilot.
Chidi Annakendrick time.
When the screen showed that another 661.7 Bearimys had past, I started hyperventilating knowing that this was going to be the Eleanor and Chidi section. We start with the two nerd lovers reading, Eleanor finally finishing Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other (the book she ripped to write the ‘Eleanor – Find Chidi’ note), and Chidi reading The Da Vinci Code, calling it a garbage book. Our favorite pair still seems as happy together as ever, despite thousands and thousands of Bearimys spent together, but Chidi you can tell is weary. They have another fun dinner with their friends – Simone, who I sobbed seeing, along with Eleanor’s old roommates (the dress bitch made it in!), which also made me sob, and UZO, my favorite! I’m vexed, Uzo, truly vexed! Having this group of people together is the best part; this is what the Good Place should be all about. I love that Eleanor’s old friends haven’t had their personalities changed – they are still trash who want a karaoke bar that’s also a tanning salon, so the harder you go at the song the tanner you get (incred) – but they are better people now. It shows that the system really works. You don’t have to be boring or flat to get in; you can be yourself as long as you’re a decent person.
Anyway this group made me so happy and so cry. But when Eleanor says how fun it was, Chidi says yeah, it’s always fun, all the hundreds or thousands of times they’ve gone out with this group. We also learn that Donna and Chidi’s parents have made it in and have met many times. Chidi recounts these facts in a tired manner – everything he ever wanted, he got long ago. Chidi is ready to go, you know right away, and so does Eleanor. Oh my god, the sobbing. How does one leave the other?
I’m so glad I forgot that people saw the show filming in Europe last year, so I got to enjoy the surprise Athens and Paris emergency getaways as intended. This was an incredible section, not just for the views of the acrompolympse (this is how I pronounce it so I may as well be honest in my writing it) but for focusing solely on Eleanor and Chidi’s story. They deserved it after all they’ve been through. They got to go up the acrompolympse before it opened to the public one morning, and the local Greek crew was so emotional that it makes me emotional to think about. I went once and it was packed to the gills with sweaty tourists, so this is nice.
People always point to “Janets” as evidence of how good D’Arcy Carden is (rightly so), but her best performance for me might be the subtle faces she makes during this section. You can see on her face that she is going to help Eleanor, but she knows it’s wrong. If Chidi is ready, then you need to let him go. She does say this eventually, but her face said it first, and continues to show her disagreement with Eleanor while continuing to help.
After Athens, Janet zipped them to Paris, where the weather was indeed perfect for Paris: overcast and chilly. The cut right to Sacre Coeur made me cry too even though my only really strong memory from all my visits is hilarious (my cousin and I tried to buy Invicta backpacks off of Italian tourists on these steps, eventually successfully, and we met a man who kept saying “yes yes I write many books!”). We knew Chidi had lived in Paris, and when he walked to his old apartment, you could feel him saying goodbye to everything he did in his life. Eleanor finally admits to him that she knew he wanted to leave and didn’t want him to because she was always abandoned and alone on earth, and it is heartbreaking. She’s overcome so many of her terrible traits but she’s still scared of being alone forever. But the biggest problem she overcame is her selfishness, and so she quickly realizes that the last selfless act she has to do is let him go. She says she owes it to him to let him go, calling back to Scanlon (and the whole message of the show, really). THIS SHOW IS PERFECT.
If you weren’t crying the entire time already, this really started the unending cry wave. Chidi’s goodbye party was done silently, with just that music that was too much playing, so it was a punch in the gut. It was so well done, so perfect, and so sad. And then it got worse (/better), when Chidi talked about the wave returning to the ocean and hot goddamn, this is the most beautiful idea ever. I’m not going to copy it here because it will cheapen it, but it shares an incredible idea, and the perfect Eleanor and Chidi ending, along with his beefcake calendar. Ugh my heart. With Chidi’s final exit, his journey was perfectly completed, since unlike everyone else, he didn’t need to sit on the bench till he was ready. He was ready, and he strode right through – the biggest decision in the entire universe, he made easily. He was complete.
Fun facts:
- It took Eleanor 2000 Bearimys to finish Scanlon’s book, a joke Schur included because he still hasn’t finished it.
- We learn that Tommy Quine Quine made it in, along with the show’s real philosophy advisors, Professors Todd May and Pamela Hieronymi (seen in Chidi’s class).
- A few episodes ago in the judge’s chambers, Chidi asked for some warm pretzels, because if he was going out, he was going out with a belly full of warm pretzels. In Athens, Eleanor and Chidi walk down the street eating koulouri, a typical snack that is sooort of like a soft pretzel! He’s going out with a belly full of sort-of soft pretzels.
- Eleanor and Chidi are the first people to be together for thousands and thousands of years and still use the terms girlfriend and boyfriend.
- The music played over Chidi’s party is the incredible Spiegel im Spiegl by Avro Part. It broke me.
- Someone translated the calendar that Chidi gave Eleanor, and two of the big chunks of text are lyrics to “The Power of Love”. There’s also a day called Monday2.
Eleanor and Michael
My favorite trashbag and the best demon in the world had the most unbelievable journeys. Michael went from an evil demon wanting to torture humans in a new fun way to helping save all of humanity and truly loving humans more than anything. Eleanor went from a mean loner who was Arizona shrimp horny to saving humanity with her best friends. Her ethical journey, shown from the layman’s perspective, helped simplify the immense concepts of the show, making all the lofty goals palatable and natural. When you think about how much she sucked on earth, it really shows how strong and how smart this new system is, how much it could help nearly everybody and how even people who suck may be worthy of redemption. Eleanor was not a good person before, and now she is our hero.
However, she’s not ready to move on, despite years now without Chidi, even though she wants to be ready. Letting him go was one of her most selfless acts, showing how much she’s grown. But she needs to keep helping the people close to her who remain, so she can be sure she did everything she could to make them happy. First, that means a return to my favorite person in the entire world, Mindy St. Clair. Mindy stayed in the Medium Place this entire forking time, rebooting Derek so many times that now he is, I don’t even know what he is, an all-powerful being that is at once a singular point in space but also contains space itself, whose moment of creation is now the same as the inevitable heat death of the universe. So yeah, he sounds super annoying. Niednagel outdid himself on this new Derek form, with the swirling martini glasses that also have Dereks in them, and those Dereks also have martini glasses. It’s INCREDIBLE.
Mindy is still crabby and blasé about her existence. It makes a kind of poignant, lovely sense that she is the worst case version of Eleanor, if Eleanor continued to always be alone, and that’s why Eleanor needs to help her. It makes me cry all over again thinking about how all their stories connect. Mindy doesn’t want just anyone in charge of her if she decides to go through the system so she can go to the Good Place – but now Tahani is an architect (with the best line, “Mindy St. Clair as I neither live nor breathe”) who could handle her case. It’s beautiful, as is Mindy’s thank you to Eleanor about how she never gave a crap about herself, so it’s nice that Eleanor gave a crap about her. Of course her capper is the hysterical line “I’m really glad I filmed you having sex”. Typical Mindy.
But ensuring Mindy’s eventual salvation isn’t enough. The most important player in this whole epic is still left: Michael. The reveal of what Eleanor realizes she needs to do for Michael is magically done, starting with Maya Rudolph smacking her desk and shouting “COCKAMAMIE” as no one else could. I was in the middle of thinking ‘that was one of the best moments ever’ but then it cut to the one that rips your heart out: Eleanor saying, “Michael, come on in.” That mirroring of his famous first line, plus the mirroring of Eleanor’s 1.13 speech (“it took me a while to figure it out” &c.) absolutely slayed me. That is incredible writing. Michael becoming a real boy, Pinocchio, is of course where his story has been heading the entire time; I just never guessed. Eleanor and Janet warn him that life will be hard (“you have blood now!”) and that they don’t know if the system will still be the same when he dies, and he says “that’s what makes it special. I won’t exactly know what will happen after I die. Nothing more human than that.” That’s it man, that’s the whole thing. Oh man Ted Danson is THE BEST.
The waterworks continue courtesy of the Doorman finally getting a real frog and from another big Janet Moment. She was never sad about the others, because she knew they were ready to be at peace with the universe (and she lives all times at once so won’t be lonely (I’m really holding fast to that)). But with Michael going to earth, she’s really sad, because she will be worried about him the entire time and unable to help him. I love them.
The shots of Michael’s life on earth are hilarious – he does everything he wanted to do as a human, including take guitar lessons. He has a big oafy dog named Jason, with a Jaguars bowtie (of course he named the dog Jason, Jason is a puppy). And you may have noticed he lived in apartment 322 (the number of residents in his neighborhood) at 12358 Blatta Vista (the number of his neighborhood, and Blatta means cockroach. Team Cockroach for life). I don’t think I ever cried as hard as I did during the last five minutes, when Eleanor and Janet say goodbye, when Eleanor walks through the door, and when we finally see what happens. It’s just vague enough that everyone can decide for themselves what they want to believe. All the existing little firefly lights, the essences of people who have walked through the door, are joined by Eleanor’s lights, and they float to earth and inspire humans to be just a little better. I honestly still can’t believe what one of her little lights brought about on earth, to Michael Realman, the stupidest best name. This ending is so gorgeous and so perfect. I’m blown away by what they accomplished. Our humans worked so hard to become better people and they forever inspire others to do the same, regardless of their own form of existence. Some people don’t understand the point of the door, saying that if they had eternity in the Good Place they’d enjoy it forever. Well, bully for you. I get it though. As Chidi says in his philosophy class, “mortality offers meaning to our lives” (“and morality helps navigate that meaning”, the point of the show). All good things need to come to an end eventually, otherwise they wouldn’t be good. I feel that, my little chili babies. Hot diggity dog this was the best forking show ever.
Okay that’s enough crying. Take it sleazy.
