THE GOOD PLACE’s D’Arcy Carden on the Writers’ ‘The Funerals to End All Funerals’ Pitch: ‘This is Our AVENGERS’

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Thursday, November 14 episode of THE GOOD PLACE, “The Funeral to End All Funerals.”]

With humanity on the line on THE GOOD PLACE, it was Janet(s) to the rescue!

The November 14 episode found the humans killing time—with personalized funerals—as the Judge (Maya Rudolph) decided whether The Good Place experiment was a success. The good news? She found they did prove that humanity could be fixed and the point system was flawed. The bad? Her solution was to wipe out humanity and start over.

But Bad Janet (D’Arcy Carden)—whom Michael (Ted Danson) had tried to sway earlier in the season—had a surprise of her own: she recruited all of the Janets to stop the plan.

The moment was a big one for Carden, who is no stranger to playing multiple Janets together. “Something happens with the writers, because every year we [would] come in before the season starts and then Mike [Schur] and the writers will take us through [everything],” she recalls. “You can kind of tell what the writers are really excited about, since they get very giddy to explain it to you. And they start like looking at each other like, ‘Here it comes!’ When they described the Janet Rebellion—which is basically the part where Good and Bad Janet come together—they were kind of like, ‘This is our AVENGERS!'”

“I got so excited,” she continues. “I knew it would be a very long, sort of tedious and boring day on set—[very] technical—but because the crew is so nice, I got a lot of apologies the day that we shot. And I was always like, ‘You guys, this is so worth it.’…I know how good our digital team is and how good it would look when it was all [finished].”

Even with the technical work—in an episode helmed by series star Kristen Bell, who was making her directorial debut—was a little bit easier this go-round, given that everyone knew the end was near.

“There is something about knowing it was last season,” Carden says. “Our show is never hard, anyway, even when it’s a different show. Like a ‘Janet(s)’ day might be a tedious day of work, but our crew and our cast is so wonderful and positive that it never felt like a hard day. Thinking back on four seasons, I did not have a bad day at work, ever. Which is insane.”

“A day like shooting the Janet Rebellion, where it’s just like truly just walk hit your mark, walk, hit your mark again, go change, walk…Even that was fun: they played music and people were all in a good mood and they got a pizza truck,” she continues. “Everyone’s just very happy to be there, because we all love the show. Asking an extra step from us was never a problem, because we always really believed in what we’re doing so much. We know what the end product could be and will be, so we’re down for whatever.”

And while Good Janet had found some version of humanity over the years, the fact that it was Bad Janet who stepped up was special for Carden. “I loved that,” she admits. “When they told me that, I was like, ‘Oh, this is so special.’ She wasn’t Evil Janet, she was Bad Janet. And it’s not like her heart melted: the facts were presented to her, and she was like, ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. All right.’ I liked it wasn’t like she’s changed into some Good Janet. She’s just like, ‘Don’t hug me too tight, but I’m going to do this thing that’s better.'”

Did you love the Janets working together?

THE GOOD PLACE, Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC

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• Watch THE GOOD PLACE Season 3 Blooper Reel!
• THE GOOD PLACE: D’Arcy Carden on Kicking Butt as Janet
• THE GOOD PLACE’s Michael Schur and D’Arcy Carden on the Ambitious Reveals in ‘Janet(s)’
• THE GOOD PLACE’s D’Arcy Carden: ‘Nothing Could Prepare Us’ For the Final Episodes of Season 3

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