‘The Good Place’ season 4 episode 5 recap: “Employee of the Bearimy”

We’re back on the usual A/B plot style for The Good Place this week, as Michael (Ted Danson) and Jason (Manny Jacinto) head to save Good Janet (D’Arcy Carden) while Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Eleanor (Kristen Bell) hold down the fort at home. 

No Janet? Derek’s in charge

With no Janet in charge of the neighborhood, someone’s gotta run the mainframe. So Derek (Jason Mantzoukas) steps up to the plate. However, as Derek said himself, he wasn’t made to do anything, let alone run a fake Good Place neighborhood. The Janet-Derek babies begin glitching out, causing Eleanor issues.

Thankfully, Eleanor is prepared for this: she’d sent the four humans and Tahani down to a lake house outside of town. In typical Chidi (William Jackson Harper) fashion, the deceased ethics prof decides to stay at home reading in his apartment. Eleanor and Tahani try to convince Chidi to stay in his apartment as the Janet babies malfunction outside.

Tahani realizes if Derek reboots himself he’ll become more advanced and be able to run the neighborhood. So if you ever wanted to see what it looks like when a Janet tries to reboot herself, Derek demonstrates it clearly – while also showing why Mantzoukas is easily the funniest on the show of late. 

While managing to make a mess of everything, Eleanor thinks quickly on her feet and has Chidi walk blindfolded through the center of town with Janet babies on the ground rolling around like video game NPCs everywhere.

Eleanor and Tahani lead Chidi to the lake house to help him get out of his shell, but Tahani still is disappointed she ruined everything and is only good at throwing parties. Eleanor reminds her she’s the only one capable of throwing a formal occasion in the first place. 

Meanwhile, in the Bad Place:

While the neighborhood falls apart, Jason and Michael are on a mission to get Good Janet back in their hands. To help Jason stay undercover, Michael finally restores Jason’s memories from the reboots in the Bad Place, to remind him to stop being so impulsive.

While sneaking their way around, Michael finds a photo of himself back when he was “Employee of the Bearimy” in the past. But Jason reminds him that’s not who he is now, like how Jason’s high school got crushed to shreds by the end. Thankfully, given the  existence of the Michael suit, Michael has the perfect disguise to go after Shawn (Marc Evan Jackson). 

Michael and Jason sneak into a Demon-Con presentation, trying to bait Shawn into talking about the Michael suit. Shawn takes the bait and even believes the lie about Glenn being in a Jason suit. 

When the demons bring out Janet, she immediately knows Jason is the real thing and that she’s going to be saved – but of course then Vicky (Tiya Sircar) comes in in the real Michael suit. (The camera work gives no indication anything is amiss in all this, with two Ted Dansons prancing about the stage.)

Thankfully, Jason has brought the demon lie detector that actually explodes demons. After blowing up Rufus & Vicky, Michael, Jason, and Janet make a run for it while all the other demons assume the whole shebang is part of Shawn’s Demon-Con presentation. They make it safely back onto the push cart back to the Medium Place to keep the experiment going. 

Now everything’s back to normal-ish, what’s next for the Soul Squad? The Bad Place may be neutralized for now, but what about the humans themselves? We’re waiting with anticipation to find out!