JASON MENDOZA

The Good Place’s idiot DJ, who’s mistaken for a Zen monk

UK Broadcast Netflix, Fridays US Broadcast NBC, Thursdays

“I’m too young to die! And too old to eat off the kids’ menu!” whinges Jason Mendoza. The problem being, he is dead, so he’s kinda stuck in that limbo. Except he’s not in limbo, he’s in Heaven. Or maybe Hell. In the twisty-turny afterlife of The Good Place you’re never quite sure.

At the start of the series, everyone thinks Jason is a Zen monk called Jianyu Li. But “Heaven” made an administrative cock-up and gave Jianyu’s place to Jason Mendoza – an amateur DJ, amateur hip-hop back-up dancer, amateur body spray inventor, Vine prankster and fake drug dealer (in his own words he was “presuccessful”). They shared the same IQ, you see – that of an eight-year-old. Jianyu had an excuse: he became a monk aged eight. Jason… well, he’s just thick. He died suffocating (and allegedly masturbating) in a safe during a botched robbery.

But Jason is adorably thick, thanks to a charmingly childlike performance from Manny Jacinto – a child with ADD, admittedly. Often the “token idiot” in sitcoms can be irritating as hell, but Jacinto’s Jason is like a little boy who you should tell off for being naughty, but are sniggering at because he’s the only one at Christmas dinner brave enough to say, “Grandma just farted!”

When he’s not delivering delightfully dumb lines, it’s worth watching Jacinto’s face as the others info-dump. You can see him straining to keep up, before a dust mote or something distracts him and he’s gone…

Having said all that, when he fell in love in Heaven’s AI helper-bot Janet and married her it somehow felt like the show’s most heartfelt relationship. Even if it was temporary and his wedding vows contained the line, “Send nude pics of your heart to me”... Dave Golder