The Good Place: 10 Things You Never Knew About Derek

As Michael Schur shows tend to do when it comes time for a series finale, The Good Place trotted out all of its favorite recurring characters from the course of its four-season arc to that point. Judge Gen (Maya Rudolph) popped back up. Vicky (Tiya Sircar) bemoaned the life of a thespian demon. But the best appearance was, of course, from Derek (Jason Mantzoukas) because Derek was always one of the series’ best recurring figures.

Derek, the not-a-robot created by Janet (D’Arcy Carden), endured many iterations over the years. With wind chimes in tow, he operated as a sex robot for Mindy St. Claire (Maribeth Monroe) at one point and held the entire neighborhood together at another. Derek was called on to do so much during his tenure and yet, there are still plenty of mysterious elements about him fans don’t know or recall.

10 The Impossibility Of A Parallel A.I.

Technically, Derek is not an artificial intelligence. He’s a being that is impossible to describe, but for the sake of this piece, he will be described as an artificial intelligence, considering that is the closest one-to-one comparison to be made.

Yet, it seems like Derek at least is able to do all the same things any of the Janets can do, albeit at a lower level of effectiveness. But when Janet is first brought onto the show, such a notion is said to be impossible. Something crucial about Derek that many have missed is that he should not exist in the first place.

9 Google Translate

If anyone knows Derek’s dialogue, they know that broken English is his bag. But the ways in which Derek’s speech was created was not by randomly smashing hands against a keyboard.

Instead, Derek’s lines were initially written as though they’d be for any other character. Then, those lines would be fed through Google Translate multiple times to eventually determine the scattered thoughts he espoused so brilliantly on screen.

8 Hints Of Pimento?

In addition to his status as a sex robot and a neighborhood glue guy, Derek was also a private investigator for a brief period of time. This cleverly alludes to another iconic Mantzoukas recurring role: Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Adrian Pimento.

Mantzoukas is well-regarded in the Schur universe (he also appeared on Parks and Recreation), so it should be no surprise that the P.I. moniker is a fun tie between the two series. With the rules of Jeremy Bearimy, who knows if Pimento and Derek have even more in common?

7 A Genderless Boyfriend

In addition to his multiple ethereal “occupations,” Derek also has a fair bit of descriptors that have defined his “being-hood.” After all, “person-hood” wouldn’t quite be accurate.

As an actual being, Derek is known to be genderless; he just happened to assume a human-esque form, as Janets do. (It’s more palatable for the humans.) Yet, Derek is still frequently referred to as a boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) of others. It’s something to note and consider.

6 Hofstetler

A lot happens in the denouement of The Good Place. It can be easy to forget some of the subtler details of Derek’s characters that were peppered throughout the series.

For example, many fans never even picked up on the fact that Derek has a surname – and it’s Hofstetler. It’s a nonsense name, to be sure, but Schur has always loved those. There’s no motivation behind being named Derek Hofstetler (Janet doesn’t even have a last name); it just is. That’s the beauty of the unknown within Derek.

5 Death To Derek?

Derek and Jesse Pinkman, of Breaking Bad fame, have two crucial things in common. One, they both love magnets (Derek drinks anything). Two, they were nearly killed off in the early stages of their arcs.

It’s well-known that Aaron Paul was supposed to exit the first season of Breaking Bad, but it is less-known that Mantzoukas was not supposed to appear as Derek beyond “Derek.” Instead, Schur and his writing staff pivoted at the last moment to have Derek go into Janet’s void, instead of truly die.

4 He Will Never Die

Once Derek was saved from the chopping block once, he was safe for the duration of the series. Yes, Derek continued to evolve all the way to the finale, but what mattered most is that the series always gave space for Mantzoukas to play.

After all, Schur has said a few times on The Poscast that Mantzoukas is the funniest actor he’s ever worked with. He’d obviously want to keep the door open for his return as Derek whenever possible. He was the one character considered to be truly untouchable.

3 Meaningless Soliloquy

The Poscast is not the only podcast well-associated with Schur. The creator also made frequent appearances on The Good Place: The Podcast. When discussing the series finale, he also mentioned Derek’s final monologue.

As a floating head that was rebooted over 150 million times, Derek describes himself as a “nexus…without dimension” that exists as a “singular point in space,” while also containing “space itself.” If fans are curious what this means, then they’d be intrigued to learn that it means nothing. Schur discussed the monologue as containing mostly meaningless buzzwords. Classic Derek, really.

2 Not Just Scrabble Tiles

When one pictures Derek’s turn on The Good Place, they likely picture him holding a martini glass filled with Scrabble tiles. However, fans might not have realized that his glass often held other materials, considering the tiles were often taken for granted.

Derek drinks olives, cherries, pickles, onions, lemons – even bubbles! But of course, it wouldn’t be suave Derek without the moment when he drank an actual martini. Many fans never knew he actually dabbled with real alcohol.

1 That’s When You Break

Returning to intel from The Good Place: The Podcast, host Marc Evan Jackson (who also played Shawn on the series) relayed many stories from his time on set with Mantzoukas.

Apparently, Mantzoukas was keen to make Jackson break character with laughter in every scene they shared together. (Other actors served to be collateral damage in this.) The best time Mantzoukas got him? The glass of Scrabble tiles, of course. Now that is maximum Derek (if he found a triple word score).

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