S3E7 "A Fractured Inheritance"
After the news that Eleanor's mother faked her death, Eleanor and Michael go to Nevada to visit her. They see that she seems to be living an honest, suburban life, but Eleanor refuses to believe it. The story has an obvious trajectory, Eleanor searches for proof that her mother is conning this family, she ends up admitting that she is refusing to believe it because she's upset that her mother had the capability to be a good mother, but never was to her, and then she talks to her mother. When Eleanor talks to her mother, she ends up discovering that she is hiding money, but this is just as a backup plan in case things go wrong, so Eleanor needs to make her realize that she needs to fully commit to this life.
While this story arc isn't very original, Kristen Bell plays Eleanor's emotional arc wonderfully. The emotion that she puts into her jealousy with her mother now really being a mother is really felt, and we can see how hard it is for her to do the right thing and tell her mother to commit to her life and that she likes it. Other highlights of this story is Michael finding his architect buddy, and Eleanor and her mother telling each other "ya basic." The episode ends with the show starting to fall into a pattern of Michael revealing something to Eleanor, this time how in one reboot she fell in love with Chidi.
The rest of the group travels to Hungary to visit Tahani's sister. Tahani attempts to reconcile with her sister, but her sister makes this challenging for her, by continuing to make the public dislike her, and by refusing to forgive her. Some reflecting causes Tahani to realize that her sister feels the same way that she does about their parents pitting them against each other. The moment of reconciliation between them is very sweet, because The Good Place has put a lot into illustrating Tahani's challenged family life. Also, this story has a really nice moment between Jason and Janet when she tells him how much all of the art is worth.
While this episode was a bit typical in some ways, strong performances really made it work. The two relationships from the main characters' lives that the show had illustrated the most was Eleanor's with her parents and Tahani's with her sister, so these were important stories to be told with The Good Place's current path of having the characters help people become good. This was a strong episode.
Score: 9/10
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