In turn Michael brings in the 4 humans, each who died based on their major flaw, the deaths can be assumed to be due the fact that their counterparts / soul mates haven't been with them in life: Eleanor died because she didn't have a moral compass, which she desperately needs to guide her as she knows deep down she wants to do the right thing and be a good person. By Diana Diamond | 9 comments | 1,255 views, Home Doug Forcett Is Worshipped . ", "When I was younger, I used to fly alone, and the stewardesses were like goddess creatures to me, they helped me," Mann said on "The Good Place: The Podcast." A few philosophical thesis other than determinism come up during their debate. Everything is great! So not only might Doug notknowabout the system, he may actually have reason todoubtthat the system is the way he thinks it is. Mondays @4:30, Strange Lounge Main Hall, everyone is welcome! "If I remember correctly, [Good Place writer-producer] Joe Mande just texted me and said, 'We need to take a picture of someone who looks like a '70s stoner. Eleanor, at least, seems to be assuming incompatibilism. In this episode, Michael and Janet visit Doug Forcett, played by Michael McKean. A new ube-focused cafe lands in Mountain View, with a Daly City location on the way All six of the portraits seem to be mimicking the photo of Doug Forcett that hangs in Michael's office. It won't. Their intent and mindset where not taken in to consideration. In the beginning, before frozen yogurt shops permeated The Good Place and . All of his actions are explicitly motivated by a desire to get into the Good Place. 10. r/TheGoodPlace. The number 322 refers to Skull and Bones (also known as Order 322), a Yale secret society. It only takes a minute to sign up. Doug may or may not be an ultimate being who was just hanging out and happened to get high, or if he wanted to set things in motion. Good riddance; heres hoping theres a purple space bubble waiting when he arrives. In the inscription, it appears all six characters . Fandom Muthead Futhead Fanatical What is Fandom? Asked what made Garfinkel the perfect Doug, Schur issues twofold reasoning. Pam Grier reflects on her most iconic roles, from, Ted Danson goes deep on the series finale and that final line. I thought it would be worth discussing why a happiness pump posesa problem for utilitarianism, and whether it is an effective criticism of the view. The Good Place: Welcome, Everything is Fine, Press J to jump to the feed. "The Good Place" is a creative and detailed comedy series beloved by fans. NBC ON SOCIAL:NBC YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nbcLike NBC: http://Facebook.com/NBCFollow NBC: http://Twitter.com/NBCNBC Pinterest: http://Pinterest.com/NBCtv/NBC Instagram: http://instagram.com/nbcABOUT THE GOOD PLACEFrom creator Michael Schur (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks and Recreation and Master of None) comes a unique comedy about what makes a good person. When Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason go back to Earth and are told about the afterlife by Michael, any good actions they do are immediately invalid because their motivation is now corrupt. While living so selflessly sounds good in theory, Doug illustrates how such a severe commitment to utilitarianism is actually a terrible idea. Divine Foreknowledge: An important component of Michaels argument that Eleanor has free will rests on the idea that she surprised him, a divine being, who (I think we are to presume) has special foreknowledge. When Team Cockroach arrives at the Good Place, a party is designed to perfectly suit their desires. Noah Garfinkle is best friends with one of "The Good Place" writers, Joe Mande, which is how he wound up as the face of Doug Forcett. But are determinism and free will really incompatible? "It was just a little, little Easter egg. You can read more about Netflixs sustainability programs here. It's explained in the very first episode of The Good Place that Forcett is a renowned afterlife celebrity for actually figuring out, during a magic mushroom trip, how the mechanics of post-death life actually work. "In this show, I ended up not changing them. Planned Maintenance scheduled March 2nd, 2023 at 01:00 AM UTC (March 1st, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. "So in the finale, when Noah was actually there, it felt like 'Oh, this is the natural end. Privacy Policy. As Michael explained to the Brainy Bunch in Jeremy Bearimy, As soon as you learned about the afterlife, your motivation to be good was corrupted. portrait, which you can see below. But some philosophers, such as David Hume, are soft-determinists who hold the compatibilist position that determinism is true and yet we are free. Of course Id also like to discuss story-internal questions like, Is Dougs way of life enough to get him into the Good Place, especially given that his motivations might be corrupted due to his potential knowledge of the system for getting in?. For more information, please see our @PrincessAda Nice. We know Eleanor is reading the Libra entry because she mocks the tip given in that paragraph: "Live every day like it's your last" (an ironic piece of writing given that she's about to enter the afterlife). Tahani and Kamilah bond over their shared psychological trauma, wrought by their parents. Lol), I think the bottom line is that Doug didn't get extra dimensional/supernatural/divine confirmation the way main characters did. Why must a product of symmetric random variables be symmetric? My hope is that readers of this blog will develop a better understanding of how our climate is evolving a About this blog: Climate change, despite its outsized impact on the planet, is still an abstract concept to many of us. I could see season 3 they come to see this understanding more and maybe in season 4 they go to the good place or maybe the group starts getting some of Janet's powers and start running the place where the Demons and Angels seem to interact with each other. Gordon Indigo4. Good question. They are visiting him to determine how our main protagonists should act in order to get into the Good Place. How did StorageTek STC 4305 use backing HDDs? "I have this Forrest Gump-ian way of touching something and it becomes a hit!" Circulation & Delivery, About Us It appears again in season three, episode seven ("The Worst Possible Use of Free Will"), at the six-minute, 38-second mark. Doug Forcett, a character in Netflix's The Good Place Doug Forcett, played by Michael McKean, is, to put it bluntly, a bit of a mess. But without such corroboration, it is not clear to me where his motivation comes from to abide by the system as exactly as he does. The Soul Squad has made it to Calgary, Canada. Not having shame or fear seems pretty sociopathic for me, and sociopaths don't get into The Good Place. "The description was 'a stoner in Canada in the '70s,' and Noah [Garfinkle]'s hair is absurd and floppy, and he looks like a Canadian stoner so I was like 'Yeah there you go,'" the show's creator Michael Schur said on "The Good Place: The Podcast.". About Careers Press Contact Terms of Use (birth year 1950 or 1949), under the old system Doug would not have been able to accumulate enough points in his lifetime and would have therefore been doomed to spend eternity in The Bad Place. ", In Eleanor's death-day flashback, the magazine she grabs shows an ad for Glyde a perfume brand featured on "Parks and Recreation.". Bartender2. Most Helpful Link in Case You Were Wondering Whether the Demon Who Always Takes His Shirt Off Is on Instagram: He is, and by incredible coincidence, he often takes his shirt off there, too. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Inspired by Eleanors suggestion of taking the Soul Squad to the next level, Michael skips straight to the highest level imaginable: meeting afterlife icon Doug Forcett, whose portrait once adorned Michaels office wall in the Bad Place. On "The Good Place: The Podcast," the writing team said this was a rather last-minute addition to the Bad Janet void. In this episode, Michael and Janet visit Doug Forcett, played byMichael McKean. Michaels hope is that Forcett can be a blueprint for humanity, a model for maximum point-earning that less enlightened people could replicatepresumably without having to eat mushrooms and risk Forcetts friends Randys bad trip, in which everything was made of ears. Forcett is following a course intended to help him rack up points faster than Special Jacksonville-Style Pool players, but its an ascetic existence in which his own earthly pleasures are afterthoughts (if he thinks of them at all). As a result, he is a celebrity throughout the universe (or at least in the neighborhood setting of the show), and a portrait of him hangs in Michael's office. Unfortunately for Forcett, he knows only 92 percent of the way the afterlife works. Which begat the idea of Doug, the stoner who guessed it 92 percent correctly. Having real-life spouses make cameo appearances is a long-running Mike Schur tradition. "A lot of it is his hair, right? The idea of a happiness pump has been raised as a criticism of utilitarianism, the view that what is right is what maximizes overall happiness. No one from the Bad Place is shown wearing green, either. Doug is described in the series as the first and only human being to discover the point system for getting into the Good Place. The emotional reunion shakes Eleanor. "That was probably in our heads when were trying to figure out who it should be. These projects span 23 different states/regions and 16 different countries. Chidi fulfills that balance. NBCs The Good Place could be the most compelling comedy on network television based purely on its clever non-curse words and Ted Dansons extensive bowtie collection. That was the rule set in place by the Judge and Shawn*. Doug explains that he cannot take the risk. Michael suggests to Doug that he relax because he certainly has enough points to make it into The Good Place. Other incompatibilistscalled libertarianshold that determinism is false; we have free will. Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. The peasant got positive points because he did a good thing by making his mom happy. Ultimately, the 6 together as a unit are each others soul mates or it may be even include Trevor or a few others going forward. This got long on another post so I thought I'd put it here: Essentially, Doug Forcett wasn't 92% correct, instead he was 100% correct it wasn't what the angels and demons wanted to hear so they couldn't understand it or outright rejected it. (Of course this is the opposite outcome of Doug. Advertising Info so while doug got the entire structure of the cosmos right and how humans work as well. Manage all your favorite fandoms in one place! This is the closure for this thing has been happening for four years. It's not, you know, 'Nobel Prize Winner.' *If I remember right, it was Shawn who brought this up. (Motto: Mollusks People Streams.) FMCS president Heidi Dunn says via email that the best way to donate to mollusks is to learn about how to protect them. He literally admits that his sole motivation to do good things is to get into the good place. Doug Forcett shouldn't have any points at all because he's only motivated by his own reward, right? However, Michael later visits Doug Forcett, who discovered how the point system works in 1972 and has been trying to live an extremely good life in the interim. Forcett has turned himself into an ultra-utilitarian happiness pump, functioning solely to serveand avoid impedingthe desires of others. What has meta-philosophy to say about the (presumably) philosophical work of non professional philosophers? Id like to explore a couple of general directions of inquiry, though I would be interested to hear about anyother issues that stuck out to you as well. Michael uses Doug Forcett as proof that something must be very wrong since Doug should obviously have more than enough points to get into the good place. Do we? On the other hand, trudging through life with only the afterlife in mind is an unpleasant process. In the beginning, before frozen yogurt shops permeated The Good Place and butthole spiders haunted the Bad Place, there was Doug Forcett. "Noah asked if he could stop by [the set], and when he walked into the room, it was like a rock star had entered," Schur recalls. Terms of Use The MCUs tiniest heroes are kicking off its biggest phase yet, setting up the next several years of storytelling. Easiest way to remove 3/16" drive rivets from a lower screen door hinge? In a scene where Eleanor, Jason, and Tahani hand in philosophy essays to Chidi, their papers have actually been written out. [chuckle] Line Most Likely to Make Michael Scott Say, Thats What She Said: I think I can take you into my void.. By The Peninsula Foodist | 1 comment | 4,659 views, Farm Bill, Food Stamps and SNAP (part 3) Does divine foreknowledge entail determinism or are the two independent? Categories Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. Zach Pizazz3. On one hand, Eleanor doesnt belong in The Good Place, and helping her might be considered a violation of the categorical imperative if its considered a form of cheating. It is important that we develop a shared understanding of the basic science and impacts of climate change, to make sense of our actions and policy options going forward. Lets swing into Thursday nights episode, Dont Let the Good Life Pass You By.. The explanation in the first episode was that Doug got high one day and told his friend what he thought the afterlife would be like, getting it 92% correct, much higher than anyone else in history. As a number of you theorized last week, we indeed went to Canada to meet Doug Forcett, the lionized Canadian who got closest to figuring out how the afterlife works: And so, who did they get to play Doug Forcett? She ends Episode Six blaming her mom for the fact that she was never really able to experience human love. This season, as we follow the show that is so devoted to understanding what it means to be good and bad, we will be applying the NBC comedys own standards and practices in determining the Worst Person of the Week. That episode isn't the only time Chidi leans on the Lockean line of thoughthe also uses it to rationalize why his previous romantic love for Eleanor doesnt count anymore, since it happened in an earlier reboot that he no longer remembers. But, Ill say a word about E5-6 after that, as they imply interesting issue about humanitys natural goodness.Episode Seven spins off of Episode Six, in which Eleanor reconnects with her mother. "It's a shout-out to Damon Lindelof, who'd help me in the early days of the pilot. Join us Wednesday, February 9 at 4:30 p.m. in the Strange Lounge of Main Hall for the return of the Strange Thing. Doug should be the same case. And Schur needed a model. Finally, yeah, I offset all of our household emissions, including streaming, but also things like our portion of health care and the military, etc. Sponsored content When Janet and Michael meet Doug Forcett in episode eight of season 3, theyre horrified. Phil was one of the Bad Place demons who chose not to work with Michael in the newly established system of torture for humans. Why was he able to continue to earn points after 1972? Under normal circumstances, motivation doesn't seem to actually be a determining factor for how one accumulates points in The Good Place. "Dance Dance Resolution" was also the title of the season two episode in which Michael realized he should team up with the humans only after Jason told him the storied history of his dance crew in Jacksonville. As a companion, Doug isnt ideal, given that his whole lifestyle doubles as an implicit critique of the carbon footprints, unethical clothing, and gluttonous diets of anyone who opts not to live like him. While Jason and Tahani bask in a love-drunk paradise, Michael, Chidi, and Eleanor struggle to devise an ethical strategy to fix Janet and prevent Derek from blowing their cover to the very meddlesome demon Vicky. As the series went on, Doug Forcett became an important part of the fabric of The Good Place universe. Epistemology is an important dimension of plenty of ethical theory, so it's quite natural that the show created a situation that highlights the difference. For Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani, however, its not so straightforward. Doug's character is used as a really important catalyst. But Forcett doesnt even seem to be helping people because it brings him personal pleasure. "That night, I ate a tremendous amount of food in fast bursts," he reports. Proceed with caution.*. Our could God create us, know everything we are going to do in our entire life before creating us, and yet us still be free? What makes Doug so immediately significant is how actor Michael McKean embodies the anxiety that comes with knowing the path towards eternity and being unable to get it out of his head. I figure it's like actual Heaven and Hell in, say, Christianity. Source: Netflixs The Good Place, S3 E8, Points assigned for the purchase of one Gardeners Delight tomato in 2009. This was eventually made canon by the events of Chapter 35. Other Good Place residents report that he "parties hard". When put together, those numbers form the beginning of the same Good Place neighborhood code: 12358W. Statsky's character, Susan, is the one who calls the cops when Pillboi wheels the safe (containing the slowly dying Jason) into the restaurant in an attempt to rob it. Do we? They gave me a spit bucket, but it felt so unnatural to chew something and then spit it out. Doug goes to Heaven, but the rich man went to Hell [or purgatory?]. But it also happens to cover some impressive philosophical ground in a way that advances the plot and adds intrigue without weighing the story down or feeling like you're trapped in a classroom. It wasn't in portrait form this time, but Doug Forcett as his younger self, now in the Good Place and going all in on the buffet table at Jason's goodbye party. - Tom Apr 12, 2022 at 19:15 1 Doug is described in the series as the first and only human being to discover the point system for getting into the Good Place. This might even be directly stated in the show. Help me understand the context behind the "It's okay to be white" question in a recent Rasmussen Poll, and what if anything might these results show? By Laura Stec | 20 comments | 4,151 views, How is climate change affecting Lake Tahoe? ", Shepard plays a sleazy demon attending a party in the Bad Place, and tells Bell's character, Eleanor, "You got that good stank.". It also involves him doing whatever the local teen sociopath (or anyone) tells him to do. Home & Real Estate Schur also worked on "The Office" as a writer, producer, and actor. The former MVP has adapted and evolved to become an excellent conductor of Phillys offense. Also, instead of the mural outside of Michael's office reading, "Welcome! Chidi gets better when Eleanor can take in and translate his knowledge to make right decisions. he's saying that they purposely didn't count 7% of what doug said as right because the being's didn't understand that some people don't have all they need inside themselves and would need to be "completed" by another person much how he said the main characters complete each other. It should be noted that I absolutely love this show. My husband and I just finished watching the episodes of the show you referenced (perhaps it could be referred to as the "Forcett Saga"?). And Doug's "closest guess," as the plaque below the frame boasts, became an important plot point throughout the characters' adventures on "heaven" and earth. Princess Ada. All thoughts are welcome. and has much regret, but it's not like the rich man didn't already know about Heaven and Hell. For example, Eleanor surprised Michael by admitting she belonged in the bad place, back in Season 1. Can you come to the Universal lot and do that?'" Embarcadero Media While hiding in plain sight from Good Place Architect Michael (Ted Danson - Cheers, CSI - in an Emmy Award-nominated performance), shes determined to shed her old way of living and earn her spot.Michael and Janet Meet Doug Forcett - The Good Place (Episode Highlight)https://youtu.be/HPEwD7WpI9gThe Good Placehttps://www.youtube.com/NBCTheGoodPlace By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. But is divine foreknowledge incompatible with freedom of the will? And hes not even that adept at doing good: By removing himself from society, hes decreased his opportunities to lend a helping hand. When old, he only mentioned that he does not want to risk going to The Bad Place; Not wanting to go to The Bad Place being greedy to enter The Good Place; Being greedy to enter The Good Place always bad. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. The distinction is that Chidi, Elinor, Jason, and Tahani couldn't know about the afterlife because they were on trial to prove that they were genuinely good people who deserved to be in the Good Place. "The closet that she inherited when she arrived at the Good Place was supposedly the good Eleanor's, so she ends up wearing flannel shirts, clogs, and jeans that don't belong to her.". And Eleanor confronts Donna Shellstrop, the mother she believed dead, but who had simply faked her own death and started a new life in Nevada. (Part 1), Chapter 15: Everything Is Great! Tyson and Riley are joined by Reiman (Spencer) Bledsoe to compare first-timers and reoccurring competitors, as well as the different types of advantages this season, Plus, the guys later close the show with Americas favorite segment: Two Jargons, One Lie, Justin, Rob, and Wos talk the Lakers, the Pelicans, Nikola Jokic, and more, There is also discussion of Alabamas Brandon Miller and his connection to the case of a fatal shooting, Nora and Steven break down the most intriguing, silly, and enlightening comments coming out of Indianapolis, Plus, theres talk of the rise of Greef Karga, along with what could become of Bo-Katan and the Mandalorian people, By submitting your email, you agree to our, Turn Off the Happiness Pump: The Worst Person of the Week on The Good Place. "Ted Danson was like [gasps] 'It's Doug Forcett!,' ran over and gave someone his phone and was like, 'Can you take a picture?' @Resident: You can read more about the impact of watching Netflix here. According to the doctrine, you can act in a way that causes an immoral side effect, as long as your primary intention is morally sound. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. If his only motivation is his own reward, how is Michael confused when he learns that Doug Forcett isn't getting into the good place? While you don't see these details in the episode, Tahani's was titled, "What I learned about moral philosophy from Claire Danes' father-in-law," while Jason's was written in three kinds of ink and titled, "By Jason Mendoza, age 27.". Michael Scoop 5. Mountain View Voice About this blog: Climate change, despite its outsized impact on the planet, is still an abstract concept to many of us. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. In the Final Chapter, Doug appears in the Good Place at the age he was in his portrait, eating fried chicken. Wanting to avoid The Bad Place usually not bad. Doug Forcett's portrait on display in Michael's office on 'The Good Place', | Credit: Justin Lubin/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images, Noah Garfinkel and William Jackson Harper on 'The Good Place', Noah Garfinkel and his 'Good Place' portrait. The portrait of Doug Forcett (the man who guessed the system of the afterlife) is a picture of a real-life comedy writer named Noah Garfinkle.Noah Garfinkle is best friends with one of "The Good Place" writers, Joe Mande, which is how he wound up as the face of Doug Forcett. Here's my issue with this: Doug admits to Janet and Michael that the only reason he does what he does is to get points. How to increase the number of CPUs in my computer? Putting issues concerning Dougs epistemic position aside, Doug is described as ahappiness(orutility)pump, since, in an effort to maximize his chances of getting into the Good Place, he does everything he can to make others happy to accrue as many points as possible. ", Now that Doug had a name, he needed a photo. On the one hand, Forcetts greatest goal is avoiding eternal torturewhich, as he points out, is pretty rational if you know its a real possibility. It's a fitting and fittingly meta conclusion to the story of Doug. He eats only vegetables that he grows himself, including lentils because "they require very little water and have the smallest carbon footprint". We really want the feeling that the audience gets from watching these first few moments of the pilot to be moments of happiness and positivity, and nothing scary or mean or angry. Eleanor helpfully finds a philosophy book on the shelves and reads the definition of determinism, as "the theory that we have no . Before Doug appeared in person, there was some doubt as to whether he was real, or just a story Michael made up. The portrait's prime location in Michael's (Danson) office meant that was in full view during the architect's antics with Eleanor (Bell), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Jason (Manny Jacinto), Tahani (Jameela Jamil), and Janet (D'Arcy Carden). He found his Doug in writer and comedian Noah Garfinkel, who worked with Schur's wife, J.J. Philbin, onNew Girland was friendly with other members of theGood Placeteam. My thoughts last night, this could just be an insane rant. When Eleanor first steps into the afterlife, there is an office with a framed photo of Doug Forcett, a stoner who once guessed almost exactly what the after-life is composed of.
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