"Pretty unique decorating style you have here, Jianyu. It's like, "12-year-old boy" meets "13-year-old boy.""
"When I say I'm meditating, I'm just trying to figure out what the fork is happening. I think we might be in an alien zoo or on a prank show."
— Jianyu/Jason
Jianyu tells Eleanor he is really Jason Mendoza, a Filipino-American drug dealer and amateur DJ from Jacksonville, Florida who has gone along with the fiction of being a monk because the supposed vow of silence enables him to avoid detection. Jason decides to express his true identity, while Eleanor and a stunned Chidi try to convince him to stay hidden, fearing Eleanor will also be exposed. Tahani helps plan the gala opening of Patricia's restaurant. When Jason plans to share the real details of his life at the event, Eleanor creates a distraction by destroying Patricia's masterpiece cake, causing a sinkhole to open. Jason agrees to join Chidi's ethics class, but is an even less apt student than Eleanor. Tahani discovers that the sinkhole is growing, not closing as Michael expected.
Flashbacks show that Jason was hired as a famous EDM DJ's stand-in and was rejected by the crowd when he played his own music. He tells a friend that he longs to be appreciated as his authentic self and then vandalizes the DJ's boat.
Tropes
- Angry Chef: Deconstructed. Chef Patricia conforms to this stereotype by seemingly being abrasive, irritable, and a complete perfectionist — yet when Michael asks her to change the seating chart for an additional guest, she agrees immediately, because this being The Good Place, everything is working perfectly. Patricia herself is actually accommodating and willing to adjust her plans even at the last minute, she just says everything with seething anger.
- Asian Airhead: The Filipino-American Jason (aka, Jianyu) is very immature and very stupid. His friend Pillboi is much the same.
- Bait-and-Switch: Jason mentions he doesn't want to just be a DJ in Jacksonville forever. This would make one think he wants to reach out, go to places all over the country and maybe even the world... except, instead, he just lists more cities in Florida.
- Be Yourself: Utterly subverted with Jason, who tried doing this in life, only to get pelted by AcidCat's audience, then sued for breach of contract. When he tries doing this again in the Good Place, Eleanor tells him not to do this, because he sucks.Eleanor: You need to be a better version of yourself.
- Book Dumb: Jason thinks Acid Cat is suing him for "bleach of contract".
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Acid Cat just got an offer to DJ Scot Disick's afterparty for the amateur porn awards in Reno. "That's your dream, man, that's my Tuesday."
- Casual Danger Dialog: Glenn has time to compliment the chef on the soup while dangling from a ledge in the sinkhole.
- Character Title: The second in a row.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- At the dinner, everyone gets their favourite meal on Earth, save Eleanor, who gets nothing, because according to the Good Place's files, her favorite "meal" was a hunger strike.
- Jason, when Eleanor's yelling at him, tries saying he didn't get into the Good Place to go to school. Eleanor points out he wouldn't have got in at all, save for mistake.
- Jason in general is tired of pretending to be Jianyu, but he fails to get the message that he has to keep up the facade lest he suffer the Bad Place.
- Everyone Has Standards: As has been established by this point in the show, Eleanor is kind of a jerkash, who had no problem going to a coffee shop owned by a blatant pervert, but Jason's stories about Jacksonville horrify her.
- Flashback Cut: Eleanor asks how Jason figured out she didn't belong in the Good Place. Jason claims he figured it out via deduction. We see Eleanor on the first night drunkenly confessing her secret to "Jianyu".Eleanor: Okay... I vaguely remember that.
- Foreshadowing:
- Jason thinks they're on some kind of alien prank show.
- He also wants to date Janet.
- Fun with Homophones: Jason's Bud-Hole, which both Eleanor and Chidi initially assume he's calling his Butt-Hole.
- History with Celebrity: Attendees at Tahani's best fund-raiser included Princess Stephanie, Posh, and Bex.
- Humble Goal: In a flashback, Jason's dream is to become a DJ in Daytona, Tallahassee, Tampa, even.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Immediately after saying he wants to show the world his beautiful soul, Jason throws a Molotov cocktail at AcidCat's speedboat.
- When Chidi asks if Eleanor has to call him a nerd so much, she replies "I called you a lot of other really nice things. Toughen up, nerd."
- Insult Backfire: How Eleanor convinces Jason to come to Chidi's classes.Eleanor: ... because you suck!
Jason: You suck!
Eleanor: I know! That's what I'm trying to tell you! - Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Jason explains that he's actually Filipino-American, not Taiwanese like the Buddhist monk he's been mistaken for. He even lampshades it."Heaven is so racist."
- I Think You Broke Him: Played with - when Chidi finds "Jianyu" playing EDM while wearing DJ clothes, he initially thinks Eleanor has caused it.Chidi: Eleanor? You broke Jianyu! [...] one hour ago, that man was a silent Buddhist monk!
- Jerkass: AcidCat regards his audience as idiots, and bluntly tells Jason he's terrible.
- Kick the Dog: In order to stop Jason revealing he's an idiot, Eleanor zeroes in on the cake Chef Patricia spent weeks working on. When Chidi points out destroying it would be a truly cruel act, Eleanor responds "no durh", and smashes it to pieces.
- Last-Second Word Swap: Eleanor when she is about to reveal Jianyu's true identity to Chidi:"Jianyu is actually ... (Tahini enters the room) ... a guy who is nice.
- Late to the Punchline: It is not until Michael is declaring the restaurant open that he realizes that "The Good Plates" is a pun on "The Good Place".
- Molotov Cocktail: In flashback, Jason uses one to torch DJ Acidcat's speedboat.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: DJ AcidCat, with his name and cat-like helmet-mask, is a pretty obvious send-up of deadmau5.
- Noodle Incident: Glenn's story about how his favourite kind of soup helped save hundreds of lives.
- No, You: When Eleanor tells Jason that he sucks, Jason just retorts "You suck!"
- Oh, Crap!:
- Chidi freaks out when he learns about Jason.
- Chidi and Eleanor both have a moment when they realize just how hard this is going to be.
Eleanor: Oh, no. For the first time ever, I'm the smartest kid in class. - Poster-Gallery Bedroom: A variant. Jason's "budhole" is filled with posters of things you'd expect a teenage boy to have, which immediately establishes that he's hardly the serene, wise Buddhist monk he was posing as.
- Produce Pelting: Happens to Jason when the crowd at the rave party gets angry over him not being the real deal.
- Punny Name: The restaurant is named "The Good Plates".
- "The Reason I Suck" Speech: Eleanor combines this with a searing "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Jason when pointing out how she's been trying to change and that Jason needs to as well if he wants to stay.Eleanor: Dude, Chidi is giving you a lifeline right now, and you need to take it, because you suck!
Jason: You suck!
Eleanor: I know! That's what I'm trying to tell you! - "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Eleanor gives one to Jason when he refuses to take ethics lessons from Chidi. He tries to turn it back on her by saying she sucks, but she simply uses that to make her point: She ''knows'' she sucks, but that's why she's trying to change.
- Running Gag: We learn that Michael has a fascination with human gadgets. Here, it's suspenders.
- Separated by a Common Language: The Good Place's automatic translation clearly doesn't distinguish between British and American English. When Michael tells Tahani he's going to wear suspenders, she has a brief moment of confusion over whether he's using the word in the American or British sense and has to ask for clarification. (UK "suspenders" are US "garter belts", US "suspenders" are UK "braces".)
- Skewed Priorities:
- When the sinkhole opens, Glenn falls in. Michael calls down to assure him they'll put his soup in the fridge so it doesn't go to waste, even though Michael acknowledges this probably isn't his biggest concern at that point.
Glenn: It was up there! It's really good soup.- After the party, Tahani laments the sinkhole, that "Jianyu" is so traumatized he may never speak and that her hair is barely cascading down her shoulders.
- Chidi tells Eleanor that she broke. The world. She turns to him with a grin. "Not a compliment."
- Sure, Let's Go with That: When Tahani hears Jason say "I'm cool", she pauses, and looks at Eleanor, Chidi and Jason, figuring out there's something going on with them... and comes to the conclusion they're trying to help Jianyu speak as a gift for her. Eleanor is more than happy to go along with that conclusion.
- Take That!:
- The episode also launches the Running Gag of Jacksonville being a swamphole full of terrible people.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Thanks to the sinkhole, no-one gets to eat their favourite meals.
- We Need a Distraction: Line said by Eleanor before destroying the cake in order to stop "Jianyu" from talking.
