The Good Place is three episodes into its first season and it has already established itself as a fun, smart, very high-concept comedy at a time when that’s not exactly the norm on broadcast television. That’s good! It is also not a huge surprise given its pedigree, as it comes from the mind of Parks and Recreation creator Mike Schur. Schur just did a big interview with Vulture about his process for creating the show, and it touches on everything from his motivations to working with Ted Danson to the limits of working at a broadcast network. It’s all very interesting.
The most interesting part, however, is a bit about a lunch he had with Damon Lindelof, during which he bounced the idea for the show off the Lost and Leftovers mastermind, who has more than a little experience with running mystical, afterlife-y shows.
I told him we were going to play a game called, “Is this anything?” And the way that you play that game is, I pitch you an idea for a TV show, and you tell me if it’s anything. I needed to have someone who knew what he was talking about tell me whether I was barking up the wrong tree. I pitched him the idea, and he was incredibly helpful. He said, “Yes, this is something, and here in my opinion are some potential pitfalls you’re going to hit, and here are some things you should think about.” He gave me this really nice, wind-in-sails boost.
And that’s cool. It’s also fun to think about someone who doesn’t know either of them sitting at the next table while two dudes have a very serious discussion about a version of the afterlife that is overseen by Ted Danson. But anyway, the cooler thing is this next part: “Well, there is a Leftovers Easter egg in tribute to Damon’s very kind help in the pilot. I won’t say what it is. But if you find it, kudos to you.”
A brief scan of reddit and Twitter comes up with nada, so it appears this Easter egg has slipped under the internet’s radar so far. But now that Schur has tipped us all off, it’s only a matter of time until some eagle-eyed viewer spots it. I just zipped through the pilot again and the best I found was this screencap of Chidi asking Eleanor if she had shrimp stuffed in her bra.
Get it?
Because she brought the shrimp home with her.
And ate them later.
So they were…
…
…
…
leftovers.
Like the show.
The Leftovers.
Did I get it, Mike Schur?
I feel like I got it.
(I did not get it.)
