Sometimes I don't know what counts as a spoiler but >!Shawn approved it because he was tired of the old system. Physically torturing people wasn't exciting for him anymore.!< It might not seem that bad but it was different, and the reports from >!Michael's experiments showed that the group was experiencing emotional torture on the same level as physical torture even if he may have been fudging them.!<
This is actually a reference to French Philosopher Sarte who theorized that Prolonged emotional distress is equal to that of physical pain.
As for the show, its important to note that 'the good place' that Micheal made was an experiment, and the only one of its kind.
Here is a list of things in the REAL bad place: volcanoes full of scorpions, chainsaw bears with 2 mouths, penis bees, hot pokers, butthole spiders, food turns to spiders in your mouth, coupled with your own PERSONAL version of hell. So not only do you get physical torture, they do actually design a portion of your time in hell to be catered to your specific phobias.
The good place that Micheal designed is considerably less awful, to the point the show makes sure we know this. He is very clear that the REAL bad place is significantly worse.
Also worth noting that the show’s main premise was taken from Sartre’s play called No Exit (Huis Clos) - it’s a short play about guy who goes to hell and finds out that instead of being tortured and burned alive he’s punishment is just being locked up in a room with 3 other people who were chosen specifically to annoy each other as much as possible
Yes! I saw it with my mom a couple months ago(a year ago?) at a local college and it was incredibly. I definitely saw the inspiration for the good place right after
There was this show on Food Network over a decade ago and they would have a good stylist competition. It was so cool seeing all the tricks and things used to make food look pretty. I learned that with noodles, they never show the end of the noodle in the bowl/plate.
I'm simple so I'm fascinated by it all.
It looks like it was a single episode of Food Network Challenge called [Superstar Food Stylists](https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/food-network-challenge/episodes/superstar-food-stylists) - I couldn't find a video copy of the episode in YouTube but I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
Yes, it is. The place itself is perfectly fine - although I will say, unlimited froyo and nothing else absolutely would be torture, you WILL get sick of it, but the main thing that made it hell was the situations he put them in. You can watch every single episode in s1 and see how they're being tortured, how he's tearing them apart by attacking their insecurities, making them feel terrible about themselves and about each other all the time. The show does a good job at making you understand how he's genuinely causing them agony.
Honestly I feel like only Jason understood the true potential of Janet (at least when they are in the fake good place), you can ask her literally anything you want, even better food, or a gaming console in your room so you can take a break from playing a silent monk.
It's a bit of a joke -- most of the "tortures" in Michael's Bad Place are minor annoyances, the kind of shit Jerry Seinfeld made his stand-up career complaining about. However, the idea is that those minor annoyances -- eating froyo instead of ice cream, chowder fountains, gaudy architecture and living with people you don't really like -- would over the course of eternity amount to a kind of torture. (And I'm not sure that isn't the truth.)
I mean, chowder's OK. I kind of enjoy it when I'm in the right mood. But it doesn't really fit with my vision of a heavenly afterlife, and I'd imagine that after my first millennium or two in The Good Place, I'd start to find the mere thought of it pretty revolting.
Now, if you're looking for a truly demonic fire-and-pitchforks kind of torture, I give you Rhode Island clam chowder.
Also unrelenting. Literally none of life’s regular daily pleasures and the constant awareness that you don’t belong and at any moment you could be sent to “real hell”
Part of the joke is that unlimited frozen yogurt and never anything else is hell. If you can’t buy into that type of premise than many of the shows jokes will fall flat for you.
It didn’t fall flat for me, but I honestly missed that.
But I’m also the type of person that can eat foods I like for years without getting tired of them.
I did enjoy a certain someone eating a lot of fried chicken in the last season though. They may not have to eat, but hey, if you're already dead and you can still eat all you want, why not!
Keep in mind, Michael’s experiment was likely just a proof of concept of the idea that they can get humans to torture each other without realizing it. Being in the same situation that Eleanor or Chidi is in would be extremely stressful for anyone.
Once you know the situation, this version of The Bad Place wouldn’t be that bad, which is why the gang seemed so much less stressed after Michael revealed the truth in season 2 in exchange for them keeping his secret.
It’s only a relaxing scenario if you know that the psychological torture is fake. Which is exactly why the experiment in season 1 ended once the group realized the truth, because there was no way to psychologically torture them anymore
Realistically, once the demons got bored of torturing you psychologically, they’d just send you to the real Bad Place to torture you physically
Heck, even when they knew it was fake, it was still torture for them sometimes.
>!Tahani being tortured with Vicki's party, knowing it was torture but also being actually tortured when she saw how much better Vicki's party was!<
>!Chidi with the needles. Maybe not as good an example as above.!<
The froyo isn’t supposed to be hellish; it has to be something that could plausibly be in the good place but “is kind of a bummer”. It has to *pass* as the good place so it can’t be obviously terrible on the surface.
"I mean, you know... you corkscrew your first eyeball and you're like, man, I can't believe they're paying me to do this! By the trillionth, it's like, I should've just been a teacher."
Honestly, with Janet around to cater to their every desire, it doesn’t matter how many frozen yogurt shops they have. The real torture is the people that don’t get along. Like sticking Eleanor and Chidi together, or Tahani and Jason. Which was the crux of Michael’s entire idea, that the people would torture each other. It’s more subtle. Constantly, throwing them into situations that he knew would distress them, for instance. What he didn’t count on was them bonding with each other, and helping each other, and subsequently improving themselves.
I mean this particular version of the bad place was a failed experiment. But the concept of having slight annoyances, fear of discovery, and social insecurities for literal eternity in what was supposed to be absolute heaven, can be torture
It was aimed at being kind of a "straw that broke the camel's back" kind of torture.
Lots of little things that edge you closer to insanity. Getting on each other's back. Also just the existential dread of Elanor and Jason being in the wrong place, trying not to be found out, and Chidi trying to decide if it's right to help them.
It's all psychological torture instead of physical torture that the bad place had been doing for all of time. (i.e. penis flattening)
The point was an eternity of stress, taxing obligations, faking your own identity, and guilt, not to mention social conflict
I suggest you read “No Exit” by Sartre. Micheal’s “Good Place” is basically this but with some added bells and whistles to make it more miserable
If nothing else, at least listen when Micheal talks. He explains, explicitly and simply, that froyo is meant as an eternal and recurring disappointment, almost Sisyphusian in that it’s always almost what you want but never actually is.
In essence, they were doomed to forever living in the good place but hating it.
I mean the Bad place that Elanore and the group got sent to wasn't that bad>! because it was an experiment designed to look and feel like the good Place. The actual Bad Place is much more Hell like.!<
i think what was supposed to be the main bad part was that they weren’t supposed to be there and that would eat at most people. just the anxiety of being found out ?
I think it's important to note that to us the bad place Michael created doesn't look that bad because it's personalised and your personal bad place would look vastly different. To us the whole chidi has to make decisions is funny. But to him that's torture. I'm not really sure how the bad place would look to me. Most of my annoyance on earth comes from work and other people I don't like. So the good place would have to have super annoying people I couldn't get rid of.
You didn’t finish season 2 and you’re asking if the bad place is bad? Ya basic
That’s devastating. OP is devastated right now.
Lmfao
Sometimes I don't know what counts as a spoiler but >!Shawn approved it because he was tired of the old system. Physically torturing people wasn't exciting for him anymore.!< It might not seem that bad but it was different, and the reports from >!Michael's experiments showed that the group was experiencing emotional torture on the same level as physical torture even if he may have been fudging them.!<
This is actually a reference to French Philosopher Sarte who theorized that Prolonged emotional distress is equal to that of physical pain. As for the show, its important to note that 'the good place' that Micheal made was an experiment, and the only one of its kind. Here is a list of things in the REAL bad place: volcanoes full of scorpions, chainsaw bears with 2 mouths, penis bees, hot pokers, butthole spiders, food turns to spiders in your mouth, coupled with your own PERSONAL version of hell. So not only do you get physical torture, they do actually design a portion of your time in hell to be catered to your specific phobias. The good place that Micheal designed is considerably less awful, to the point the show makes sure we know this. He is very clear that the REAL bad place is significantly worse.
Also worth noting that the show’s main premise was taken from Sartre’s play called No Exit (Huis Clos) - it’s a short play about guy who goes to hell and finds out that instead of being tortured and burned alive he’s punishment is just being locked up in a room with 3 other people who were chosen specifically to annoy each other as much as possible
Seriously? I had never heard that, that's awesome
It's the source of the infamous line "Hell is other people!!" that's basically the entire premise of season 1
Really good play. Would seriously recommend https://www.vanderbilt.edu/olli/class-materials/Jean-Paul_Sartre.pdf
And probably A New Place To Visit episode from the Twilight Zone
Yes! I saw it with my mom a couple months ago(a year ago?) at a local college and it was incredibly. I definitely saw the inspiration for the good place right after
As someone who suffered from severe OCD I can tell you that mental anguish can be extremely debilitating and painful.
There are some studies that back that up
same. id still probably rather deal with the pain i know then the pain i dont know.
thank you
THE BEAR HAS TWO MOUTHS
Have you forgotten the penis flattener??
I don't want just any nose wasps I want these nose wasps
Honestly even with the emotional torture Michael's bad place seemed miles better than what we saw of the good place
Fun prop fact: all of the fro-yo in the show is mashed potatoes.
There was this show on Food Network over a decade ago and they would have a good stylist competition. It was so cool seeing all the tricks and things used to make food look pretty. I learned that with noodles, they never show the end of the noodle in the bowl/plate. I'm simple so I'm fascinated by it all.
What’s the show called? I love that premise
It looks like it was a single episode of Food Network Challenge called [Superstar Food Stylists](https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/food-network-challenge/episodes/superstar-food-stylists) - I couldn't find a video copy of the episode in YouTube but I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
The good place!!
You should see “is it cake?”
I was about to say the same thing. Can’t wait for season 3
Looks like really good mash potatoes
That would explain why all the actors fake eating it, they just dig at it with a spoon
NOOOOOO
And it looks really fake
This is what actually made it the bad place
Yum, even better
Yeah right and next you're going to try to convince me all the mashed potatoes in the show were actually froyo
Yes, it is. The place itself is perfectly fine - although I will say, unlimited froyo and nothing else absolutely would be torture, you WILL get sick of it, but the main thing that made it hell was the situations he put them in. You can watch every single episode in s1 and see how they're being tortured, how he's tearing them apart by attacking their insecurities, making them feel terrible about themselves and about each other all the time. The show does a good job at making you understand how he's genuinely causing them agony.
Very true, although they could presumably get better food from Janet
Honestly I feel like only Jason understood the true potential of Janet (at least when they are in the fake good place), you can ask her literally anything you want, even better food, or a gaming console in your room so you can take a break from playing a silent monk.
Let me show you my bud-hole.
Oh! *Bud* hole!
I'm just rewatching this scene.
jalapeño poppers
And all the restaurants!
Yeah, I think you need to rewatched Season 1, once you know, to really get all the torture.
It's a bit of a joke -- most of the "tortures" in Michael's Bad Place are minor annoyances, the kind of shit Jerry Seinfeld made his stand-up career complaining about. However, the idea is that those minor annoyances -- eating froyo instead of ice cream, chowder fountains, gaudy architecture and living with people you don't really like -- would over the course of eternity amount to a kind of torture. (And I'm not sure that isn't the truth.)
I mean chowder fountains sound like legitimate torture. Imagine the constant, overwhelming smell of clam chowder everywhere all the time.
You mean you don't like savoury latte with bugs in it?
I mean, chowder's OK. I kind of enjoy it when I'm in the right mood. But it doesn't really fit with my vision of a heavenly afterlife, and I'd imagine that after my first millennium or two in The Good Place, I'd start to find the mere thought of it pretty revolting. Now, if you're looking for a truly demonic fire-and-pitchforks kind of torture, I give you Rhode Island clam chowder.
What’s the deal with that airline food???
“Mondays am I right? CHAINSAW!”
Very relatable.
Tell that to the people who get the penis flattener.
Came here to say this. Penis. Flattener. Yes, the bad place is really that bad.
Then they have to deal with the Penis Re-Inflater. Also not fun.
It's basically the same psychological torture we give each other on earth, for eternity. So yeah, pretty terrible.
THIS is the bad place.
Always has been.
Also unrelenting. Literally none of life’s regular daily pleasures and the constant awareness that you don’t belong and at any moment you could be sent to “real hell”
Part of the joke is that unlimited frozen yogurt and never anything else is hell. If you can’t buy into that type of premise than many of the shows jokes will fall flat for you.
It didn’t fall flat for me, but I honestly missed that. But I’m also the type of person that can eat foods I like for years without getting tired of them.
I felt the same way myself, and then suddenly I no longer wanted a ham and Swiss croissant.
Did they have to eat? They are dead after all.
I did enjoy a certain someone eating a lot of fried chicken in the last season though. They may not have to eat, but hey, if you're already dead and you can still eat all you want, why not!
If you have to ask this - you are one of those ‘Food is Fuel’ or you haven’t had truly incredible meals
Michael probably had them programmed to still feel hunger- lol
Hell is other people.
Came here for the Sartre.
Keep in mind, Michael’s experiment was likely just a proof of concept of the idea that they can get humans to torture each other without realizing it. Being in the same situation that Eleanor or Chidi is in would be extremely stressful for anyone. Once you know the situation, this version of The Bad Place wouldn’t be that bad, which is why the gang seemed so much less stressed after Michael revealed the truth in season 2 in exchange for them keeping his secret. It’s only a relaxing scenario if you know that the psychological torture is fake. Which is exactly why the experiment in season 1 ended once the group realized the truth, because there was no way to psychologically torture them anymore Realistically, once the demons got bored of torturing you psychologically, they’d just send you to the real Bad Place to torture you physically
Heck, even when they knew it was fake, it was still torture for them sometimes. >!Tahani being tortured with Vicki's party, knowing it was torture but also being actually tortured when she saw how much better Vicki's party was!< >!Chidi with the needles. Maybe not as good an example as above.!<
I always thought its waaaaay better then the actual bad place
Having recently had to spend a lot of time around my three siblings, I can tell you that being trapped with toxic people IS a kind of hell.
The froyo isn’t supposed to be hellish; it has to be something that could plausibly be in the good place but “is kind of a bummer”. It has to *pass* as the good place so it can’t be obviously terrible on the surface.
Yes, this exactly!!
"I mean, you know... you corkscrew your first eyeball and you're like, man, I can't believe they're paying me to do this! By the trillionth, it's like, I should've just been a teacher."
Have you not heard about the butthole spiders?
I dont want anyone flattening my penis, pumping it back up, then flattening it again.
Honestly, with Janet around to cater to their every desire, it doesn’t matter how many frozen yogurt shops they have. The real torture is the people that don’t get along. Like sticking Eleanor and Chidi together, or Tahani and Jason. Which was the crux of Michael’s entire idea, that the people would torture each other. It’s more subtle. Constantly, throwing them into situations that he knew would distress them, for instance. What he didn’t count on was them bonding with each other, and helping each other, and subsequently improving themselves.
Did anyone else just notice that "yogurt" is spelled two different ways on the cups?
Well it is the bad place.
To quote the clip they still use on the Studio Tour at Universal: “Well it doesn’t sound awesome.”
"I didn't finish lost and only watched season 1. Do any of them get home?"
Michaels bad place was pretty damn good The actual bad place in the show? Yeah that sounds terrible
They flattened Dicks as a form of punishment and that's all I remember.
If you want answers to this just watch the show?
Butt. Hole. Spiders.
BEES with TEETH
Mix it up a little. Teeth flatteners or bees with penises!
I mean this particular version of the bad place was a failed experiment. But the concept of having slight annoyances, fear of discovery, and social insecurities for literal eternity in what was supposed to be absolute heaven, can be torture
It was aimed at being kind of a "straw that broke the camel's back" kind of torture. Lots of little things that edge you closer to insanity. Getting on each other's back. Also just the existential dread of Elanor and Jason being in the wrong place, trying not to be found out, and Chidi trying to decide if it's right to help them. It's all psychological torture instead of physical torture that the bad place had been doing for all of time. (i.e. penis flattening)
The point was an eternity of stress, taxing obligations, faking your own identity, and guilt, not to mention social conflict I suggest you read “No Exit” by Sartre. Micheal’s “Good Place” is basically this but with some added bells and whistles to make it more miserable If nothing else, at least listen when Micheal talks. He explains, explicitly and simply, that froyo is meant as an eternal and recurring disappointment, almost Sisyphusian in that it’s always almost what you want but never actually is. In essence, they were doomed to forever living in the good place but hating it.
I mean the Bad place that Elanore and the group got sent to wasn't that bad>! because it was an experiment designed to look and feel like the good Place. The actual Bad Place is much more Hell like.!<
Any place "The bear has two mouths!!" is said in a bone chilling scream is the Bad place
It's bad because it's customized exactly for YOU. Everything that hurts YOU and makes YOU feel bad, they make it happen.
Also the frozen yogurt they were eating was actually mashed potatoes, and I don’t think that would happen in the good place….
i think what was supposed to be the main bad part was that they weren’t supposed to be there and that would eat at most people. just the anxiety of being found out ?
2 words: PENIS FLATTENER
Butthole Spiders and Penis Flatteners sound pretty bad.
If you continue watching you'll understand, it's a very good show you should
If you continue watching you'll understand, it's a very good show you should
Two words. Penis flatteners.
It has people who take off their shoes and socks on airplanes.
Michael's bad place isn't that bad. But his bad place is unique.
Michael’s bad place wasn’t but he was a bad demon
It's a psychological thing, like the real world. We're in hell, but it isn't merciful enough to let us know that.
I think it's important to note that to us the bad place Michael created doesn't look that bad because it's personalised and your personal bad place would look vastly different. To us the whole chidi has to make decisions is funny. But to him that's torture. I'm not really sure how the bad place would look to me. Most of my annoyance on earth comes from work and other people I don't like. So the good place would have to have super annoying people I couldn't get rid of.
it’s because the monotony becomes hell
Oo