'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show

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'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show
A closer look at Jason's notepad on "The Good Place" reveals a clever joke.NBC
  • The final season of NBC's "The Good Place" is halfway over, and stars D'Arcy Carden and Manny Jacinto say there's still plenty to look forward to.
  • In a new interview with Insider, they tease major upcoming guest stars and explain why "Kacey Musgraves" are the best two words to describe the final season.
  • Jacinto also told us about his favorite small joke on the show that one fan noticed: Jason's notepad reading "History of Phil + Sophie" instead of "History of Philosophy."
  • Keep reading to see our full interview with "The Good Place" stars.
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The fourth and final season of "The Good Place" is halfway over, but the show's stars D'Arcy Carden (who plays Janet) and Manny Jacinto (Jason) can't wait for fans to see the final episodes, and hope they catch all the small background jokes.

"Get your pause and rewind button ready," Carden said in an interview with Insider on Wednesday. "The writers on this show are freaking brilliant, and we are very lucky."

We spoke with the two actors about the props they were able to take home from set, upcoming guest stars, and their favorite little Easter eggs worked into the show's elaborate set designs.

'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show
Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden on the set of "The Good Place."Colleen Hayes/NBC

Kim Renfro: Congratulations on the final season of "The Good Place," though it seems bittersweet to be coming up on the end of the show. Did you get to keep any mementos from the set?

D'Arcy Carden: We got a few. Did you take something home, Manny?

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Manny Jacinto: Yeah, there are some things that have gone missing from the set of "The Good Place" [laughing]. I don't want to spoil anything, but we had a scene that is game-centric with shirts —

Carden: Oh did you get one of those? I didn't get one. I need one of those.

Jacinto: Yeah they're awesome.

'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show
This scene from season four, episode four, "Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy" may be the game-centric episode Manny Jacinto was referring to.Colleen Hayes/NBC

Carden: This is a big one, but I took the reboot button that they press every time Janet gets murdered. I have that big, huge button — it's like on a big pole in my house.

Jacinto: That's amazing.

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Carden: My husband and I are not exactly sure where to put it.

Jacinto: It's her doorbell.

'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show
Janet and the reboot button on season two of "The Good Place."NBC

Renfro: Without giving away any spoilers or anything, can you tease what the second half of this final season will be like with two words?

Carden: Two words? OK. Huh … right away I was like, "roller coaster." I don't know if that's right though.

Jacinto: I think for me, the two words would be "happy tears."

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Carden: Yes!

Jacinto: That juxtaposition of feeling one way, and then the other.

Carden: Yes. There's a great Kacey Musgraves song where she sings "happy and sad at the same time," which is how we felt for the whole season. We were so happy, but there was just this through-line of sadness knowing we were coming to an end.

Both for us as actors on set, but then also as characters in the season, and you'll see that especially in the second half of this season. So that was more than two words, but you know what, Kacey Musgraves — those are my two words.

Renfro: In the build-up to this season we heard there were going to be some powerhouse cameos — are there ones coming up you can tell us about?

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Jacinto: I don't know if cameos is the right word, because for a cameo you come in and do your thing for a little bit. But the people who come in [this season], they don't just come in and sprinkle a little something — they come in and they hit hard. And they make an impact.

Carden: They're major ... guest stars? What word is best?

Jacinto: Yeah, guest stars. I just want to reiterate the fact that they come in and they rock our world.

Carden: They hit hard. We're very excited.

'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show
D'Arcy Carden plays multiple versions of Janet on "The Good Place."Colleen Hayes/NBC

Renfro: This one is just for D'arcy, but which is the most challenging version of Janet to play?

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Carden: In a positive way, it might be Bad Janet. I love playing Bad Janet but she nasty, you know what I mean? We don't do a ton of improv on the show, but occasionally with Bad Janet the direction is just, "Be meaner, throw in some more mean. Just be mean." And it's often with Ted [Danson].

There was an episode a couple of weeks ago with a lot of Bad Janet and Michael, and I'm so mean to him for so long, and it was such a weird day on set. I had to be like, "Ted I love you, we are friends, I'm not really mad at you, we are acting," and he's like, "Thank you, yes, I need that." She's just … she nasty. Not nice.

'The Good Place' stars Manny Jacinto and D'Arcy Carden reveal their favorite jokes you probably missed in the background of the show
D'Arcy Carden and Ted Danson as Janet and Michael on "The Good Place."Colleen Hayes/NBC

Renfro: The show is packed with details and references to early episodes and little background jokes on the set — what is your favorite Easter egg or detail from the show?

Jacinto: The one that came to mind was on Twitter — it was a caption of us in the classroom with Chidi teaching the history of philosophy. And you have to zoom in and pause because you can only see it for a second, but if you look on my notepad it said "the history of phil + sophie" rather than the "history of philosophy." And that's all thanks to our set decorators and writers and whatnot. So it's just the dumbest little [Jason] moment.

Carden: And those types of things are sprinkled throughout [the whole show]. It's crazy that you can even remember one because there are so many.

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Jacinto: Yeah and then the fact that this fan caught it was so cool to me because it's not even something we were putting on blast. It was just a little, little Easter egg.

Carden: That's one of my favorite things about the show, truly, is how the set decorators and props [department] and writers and all these creative people make it so if there is anything written anywhere on this show, it is a joke of some sort.

Some of it you see because it's the front of yogurt store, and some of it is a piece of paper that is really only for Kristen [Bell] or whatever, and they still write a full paragraph on the off-chance that it'll help the actor or that the camera catches it.

I don't want to give anything away, but there's a restaurant coming up, and I'm just thinking about how the menus (that I don't think even make it onto camera) list every single item as a joke. Get your pause and rewind button ready, because if there is ever an opportunity, they used it. The writers on this show are freaking brilliant, and we are very lucky.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. New episodes of the final season of "The Good Place" will air on NBC on Thursdays.

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