#**goodplace

AN ACTUAL IMAGE OF ME WATCHING 401:

edit: Okay, so this makes me think even more about a TGP theory I’ve had for a few months now. They announced ages ago that the next episode is called “Chidi Sees the Time-Knife,” and way back when they were all in Australia and Chidi was sleep-deprived, there was a line where he said to Eleanor (something like) “What’s going on? One second I was talking to Simone and the next I was here [at her hotel, convincing Eleanor not to leave] and holding… this [her hotel room doorknob]?”

And I was like, “What if the Chidi suddenly holding Eleanor’s doorknob, convincing her not to leave, is the Chidi who saw/interacted with/was affected by whatever this TIME KNIFE is?”

Because… Chidi has been different, in general, this season, and it’s only more noticeable this episode with his confidence and, in his confidence, the quiet urgency to stay where they are, together, and not try to move beyond the rest of the group’s progress. A lot of thinkpieces early in S3 questioned whether Simone was from The Actual Good Place, or was some other kind of Afterlife spy, but I’m wondering, actually, whether the Chidi who appeared at Eleanor’s hotel room to convince her to stay with the group is the Afterlife spy.

Chidi has made A LOT of decisions this season that would have paralyzed S1/S2 Chidi, and I don’t know that I believe just yet, given TGP’s penchant for end-of-season major twists, that it’s only down to his learning and progression and unlearning with the group.

He’s also the only member of Team Cockroach who hasn’t gotten to reconnect with his human life, which makes me wonder whether it’s because this Chidi isn’t the Chidi who ever had that human life – which was his moral argument to Eleanor about not getting together, and if this Chidi knows something Eleanor doesn’t about the fate of Her Chidi, that would add more bittersweetness to the Void episode.

His relative narrative absence while Jason, Tahani, and Eleanor confronted their families would also leave space for an episode or arc showing what Human/The Real Chidi was up to while the rest of Team Cockroach, including Time Knife Chidi, were globe-trotting and trying to do good.