What fresh hells does Michael have cooked up for Eleanor and company in Season 2 of The Good Place? Well, his evil plan (version 2.0) starts out with pairing each of them up with about the worst person possible.
Wednesday’s one-hour premiere kicks off with Michael trying to convince his boss Shawn that Take 2 on his “faux Good Place” idea will work out better than last season, with an all-new set of subtle tortures: “For example: All the coffee is from those little pods? Diabolical.” But Shawn still thinks the idea is dumb, and the other residents (all demons, too) aren’t sure about it, either. (The woman we knew as “Real Eleanor” is now named Denise, and isn’t sold on her new character.) But Michael presses on, ordering the residents to get Eleanor drunk at the welcome party so she’ll spill details they can use against her.
A memory-wiped Eleanor’s new soulmate is a chiseled, empty-headed hunk who’s running off to the gym every second… but she does have that “Find Chidi” note she left herself in Janet’s mouth. She doesn’t know who or what a Chidi is, though. (Is it a soup, she wonders?) She tries to ask other residents, but they’re no help — except for Jason, who silently gives her a Buddhist token of some kind. Michael decides to turn up the heat on her by enlisting her to give a brief (one-hour) speech at the welcome party, giving her a tiara and “Best Person” sash to wear. At the party, Eleanor is freaking out and about to suck back a row of tequila shots to steady her nerves when she hears the name “Chidi.” She runs over to him, exclaiming, “I knew you weren’t a soup!”
Her three pals aren’t faring much better in Michael’s cheery new hellscape: The eternally indecisive Chidi is forced to choose his new soulmate, and just when he finds a like-minded soul in dorky philosophy nut Angelique, Michael cruelly swoops in to pair him up with a cold fish named Pavita instead. Tahani’s new soulmate is a humble, height-challenged doctor named Tomás, who encourages her to dress down in baggy cargo pants for the welcome party. (She whines that she’s “not used to dressing like a plumberess!”) And Jason’s soulmate is a male Buddhist monk named Luang, who’s like an identical clone of him, silently arranging stones and riding bikes right beside him at all times. (“You’ll always be right next to each other, for eternity!” Michael crows.)
So no one’s particularly in a mood to celebrate at the welcome party, which we see a few times, from each character’s perspective. Chidi pulls Angelique aside and confesses his feelings, but she pushes him away; she does say “Chidi” out loud, though, which is what Eleanor hears. She shows him the “Find Chidi” note and tells him she knows something’s off around here, but he thinks she’s nuts — which, fair enough — and blows her off. Tahani ends up downing Eleanor’s row of tequila shots and interrupting her speech, drunkenly complimenting everyone else’s “regular-sized pockets and regular-sized soulmates” before tumbling into a tower of shrimp and setting the curtains on fire. The chaos that ensues allows Jason to finally escape Luang.
