Ty Watches "The Good Place" Mid Season Finale

Last night was the mid season finale of “The Good Place”, and it was a tremendous episode. The entire 22 minutes were centered around Chidi, who is excellently played by William Jackson Harper. The whole episode was about the people waking him up from his slumber, and it flashed back to all of his crucial memories over his life on and off Earth. It was great.

For those that may not know, Chidi is infamous for being the most indecisive human being ever. He cannot make even the easiest of choices. It was so bad, his lack of urgency caused him to lose his life. I know this sounds dire, but in the context of “The Good Place”, it is put across hilariously. Anyway, when Michael(Ted Danson) goes to snap his fingers, we get to see all these moments. It started for him as a baby, when his parents asked if he liked the name Chidi, and he immediately cried. We then see him struggle to pick a chair in elementary school, breaking up with a girlfriend because he thinks philosophy can keep them together, to his dean at college telling him his thesis is too much, to his friends questioning him, to him being in the good place and struggling there, we see it all. And Harper is so good at portraying this indecisive genius. His quirks and quips she questions are never ending, so much so that it is exhausting.

Near the end of his memories you can see a different Chidi. After finding Eleanor(Kristen Bell), he seems more sure of himself, more confident. Right before he gets his mind wiped, the season 3 finale, he writes a note and gives it to Janet(Darcey Carden), and asks her to hold onto it until they meet again, if ever. When Michael finally finishes the snap, Chidi wakes up and is asked how he feel. He looks relaxed, and he says, “I feel great”, and I totally believed him. He looks, for the first time in his afterlife, like he is calm and confident. He has a look of assurance we’ve never seen from him. He asks all of his friends if he’s been annoying for the last 300 years, and they kind of blow it off to tell him that he needs to save all of humanity and Earth. Just when I thought he would revert to his norm, he says okay, and that he will try. He then asks Janet for the letter, and inside it reads, “there’s no “answer”, but Eleanor is the answer”. It was so sweet and touching and perfect.

“The Good Place” just continues to get better and better, and surprises me with something new almost every episode. This mid season finale sets up the actual finale perfectly, and I’m so stoked to see how they finish it up. In a show with a great cast, great writers and great direction, this episode was an absolute home run. My hat is off to all of the people that work on it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ty Watches "Big Mouth"

Last week I finally got around to watching "Big Mouth" on Netflix. I was waiting until I caught up on other shows to watch, and when I finally sat down and binged the show, and I was very happy with what I saw. I was pretty sure I was going to like it when I saw Nick Kroll was the co creator. I'm a big Nick Kroll fan. Then I saw some of the other people involved, and I was on board. Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Jessi Klein, Jason Mantzoukas, Seth Morris, Kristen Bell, Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Richard Kind, I could go on and on with the people I am a fan of on this show.

At its core, "Big Mouth" is about teenagers going through puberty. "Big Mouth" hits all the important moments, both male and female, that make puberty such a drag. We get zits, wet dreams, periods, awkwardness with the opposite sex, weird feelings that go through your body, getting hair where there was no hair before, hormones, virtually everything that makes this such a tough time in young people's lives. After watching the first episode I told my wife that this was, by far, the best representation of going through puberty, at least from a male perspective. Puberty stinks. It is the worst. It is so awkward and challenging and there is so much change and new things that do not make sense. And "Big Mouth" captures that perfectly.

Andrew, voiced by John Mulaney, is one of the main characters, and we see a lot of the bad sides of going through puberty through his eyes. He even has a hormone monster that is always at his side telling him the wrong thing to do because, as we all know, our hormones are way out of whack when we are teenagers. We see the wet dreams, the constant urges, the will to fight when told something he didn't like, the yelling at parents, the horribly awkward encounter of asking a girl to be your girlfriend at 13. It is all there, and Mulaney, and the writers, completely nail it. Nick Kroll is his buddy that is a bit behind, as far as growing up goes, but he is just as good. You see the jealousy, the fighting, the wanting to be involved, trying to get girls himself, even drinking at his sister's high school party. Kroll's character also wants the hormone monster to get him, but he is not ready. In fact, that is a very good through line for the first season. Jessi Klein represents the female lead, and as far as I can tell, she is great at showing how rough this time of life can be for girls. She has a bad experience with white shorts, her mom and dad are always fighting and she has crushes on 3 of her different friends that happen to be boys. Klein is great. Jason Mantzoukas is cast perfectly as the crazed 13 year old that cannot control his urges. He also has a crazy home life, and he loves magic. The relationship between him and his pillow, voiced by Kristen Bell, is gold. Nick Kroll and Maya Rudolph play the voices of the male and female hormone monsters, and they are my favorite parts of the show. The hormone monsters tell these kids to give into their urges, and they also have a very odd relationship with each other. But, their lines always made me laugh, and also reflect on how true that situation was at age 13. Richard Kind is great as Andrew's dad, who has a big problem with scallops, and also constantly complains. Rudolph and Fred Armisen play Nick Kroll's folks, and they are almost too loving and caring. They are always eager to give advice that their kids may not want to hear. There is a great few scenes in an episode where Nick doesn't want to be babied anymore, so his mom starts to take care of Jay(Jason Mantzoukas), who is hard pressed for the love of a mom.

I have nothing but good things to say about "Big Mouth". It is perfect in every way. It gets across its message so well, and I am so pumped to see what they do with season 2. The only warning I will give, the show is animated, but it is not a kid's show. My son walked in one day while I was watching it, and I had to turn it off immediately. It is filled with curse words. Anyway, I highly recommend "Big Mouth" for anyone and everyone that went through puberty. There is no show that better represents that time in your life.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He still waiting for the hormone monster to get him. Being a bald prepubescent boy is one of strangest things ever. Something only Charlie Brown knows about.

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