TV

Janet From ‘The Good Place’ Is Not A Robot, But She Is A Terrifying Martial-Arts Badass

The latest episode of 'The Good Place' has some of the best fight choreography on TV.

by Patrick Lenton  19 November 2018
The Good Place Season 3 Janet

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This season of The Good Place has been a lot of things: it’s been a bit of a slow start, it’s been an absolute shit-show of Australian accents, and it’s also had some great comedy moments. But I don’t think anybody expected it to turn into a surprisingly dramatic martial-arts action show.

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In the latest episode, things come to a head when the demons from The Bad Place, including a bunch of our old favourites from the first series, like big-boss Shaun, hot torso guy and various others, confront our heroes on Earth. Their mission: to forcibly drag Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason back to hell.

This is good for a couple of reasons — it feels like The Good Place Season 3 has been kinda meandering around on Earth, lacking the pressure and stakes that the first two seasons had. The threat of the demons has felt more frustrating than imminent, so it’s nice to actually reach a point of confrontation.

The other reason is that the confrontation turns into an actual old-fashioned bar brawl, in which we get to see Janet go absolutely kick-ass and beat some demons up. On Earth, Janet doesn’t have her powers — but she does still know everything, which apparently includes martial arts.

It’s such a good scene. It’s funny, action-packed and actually very enthralling for a comedy show! I really thought one of them might get dragged into a portal to hell. Watch it all again here, it’s just great.

It’s also just goddamn impressive — it’s spectacularly choreographed by the legendary stuntman and martial artist Jeff Imada, whose credits include pretty much every action film you’ve ever enjoyed, including Furious 7 and The Bourne Ultimatum (and Twilight too, just an interesting fact).

But also it’s pretty amazing that D’Arcy Carden, a regular actor, was able to do such an impressive and athletic martial arts choreography.

She was paired up with veteran stunt-fighters from movies like Logan, Captain America and Wonder Woman, all films with pretty astounding fight scenes.

But it wasn’t just D’Arcy Carden who kicked ass — the rest of the team at least had to be manhandled by some violent demons, so they also got in on the choreography. Jameela Jamil had a stunt double and a particularly cool scene with a pool cue. But she also managed to pick up a war injury.

Anyway, I think part of the joy of the scene was the fact that they committed so wholeheartedly to it — it wouldn’t have been as funny if they’d half-assed the brawl. Going full Crouching Tiger on it actually made it one of the best scenes in the series.

The episode ended with our heroes escaping into Janet’s void, providing a decent cliffhanger for a kind of weird mid-season break. We have another episode in December, and then we won’t have a new episode of The Good Place Season 3 until January 2019 :(.