[flashback:]
Chidi: Jason, I think I need your help. Can I ask you something?
Jason: Cool. No one's ever asked me for advice before, and you're a high school principal.
Chidi: College professor. Who... who told you how to do this? Like, how can you just make a decision this big?
Jason: Chidi, here's the thing with stuff. You can look at a problem from every angle and drive yourself crazy, but sometimes, you just gotta huck a Molotov cocktail at a drone and see what happens.
Chidi: Is what happens that the drone blows up?
Jason: Usually. I mean, where I'm from, most things blow up eventually, so I learned that when something dope comes along, you gotta lock it down. If you're always frozen in fear and taking too long to think about what to do, you'll miss your opportunity and maybe get sucked into the propeller of a swamp boat.

[flashback:]
Chidi: Tahani. Thank you so much. That ended up being one of the best nights I've had since we got here.
Tahani: You and Eleanor made a good pair. She really tore through that round of charades.
Chidi: Well, I'm pretty sure she was reading the cards off the reflection in my glasses, but yeah, that was amazing. Um... Can I ask you something?
Tahani: Mm-hmm.
Chidi: Tonight could have been a real disaster. How do you have the confidence to just swoop in and so elegantly take charge of a whole group of strangers?
Tahani: Honestly, the confidence comes from failure. I've thrown my fair share of disastrous gatherings. Remind me to tell you someday about Timothée Chalamet's bar mitzvah. But you live through the failure and you learn from it.

[flashback:]
Michael: But mostly you wanted answers. The soul mate one, in particular. So, I used it to torture you, which, again, sorry. If soul mates do exist, they're not found. They're made. People meet, they get a good feeling, and then they get to work building a relationship, like your parents. They didn't magically stay together because you proved they should.
Chidi: It wasn't my logic or my representation. It was the feeling they got watching me, this scared little kid telling them that he needed them.
Michael: It was also what you made them remember. You know, they loved each other. Sometimes people forget. You reminded them of what they already had. It convinced them to go to counseling.
Chidi: I never knew they went to counseling.
Michael: Yeah, kids are idiots. If they knew half the stuff their folks were up to, they'd lose their minds.
Chidi: Turns out life isn't a puzzle that can just be solved one time and... and it's done. You wake up every day and you solve it again.
Michael: Terribly inefficient.
Chidi: Wow, what a time to learn. Can you give me a second?

[flashback:]
Chidi: [to Jason] I just... I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who just acts. I mean, I can't just open a door and walk through without knowing what's on the other side. Even with eternity to try, I just don't think that can happen.
Janet: [appears] Well, I never thought I'd ever be able to get married. I thought I was too old. I'm infinity. But strange things happen in the afterlife.

[flashback:]
Eleanor: Oh, sorry you got an actual human being instead of your true soul mate, a library cart full of damp saltines.
Chidi: You are unbelievable! I don't know what I did to...
[flashback:]
Chidi: ...deserve you.
Eleanor: Believe it, baby. I'm all yours. At least until something better comes along. For me. You've pretty much topped out.
[flashback:]
Eleanor: You okay?
Chidi: No. I have to give Michael a new draft of my thesis and I'm a mess. Will you help me?
Eleanor: Woof! You want my help with philosophy? You must be in rough shape. I mean, yes, of course. I'm here for you. What do you need?
[flashback:]
Eleanor: I need someone to help guide me, morally speaking, and I think I need it to be you.
[flashback:]
Eleanor: There's a real possibility that I'm in love with you again, here on this plane of existence, uh, today, now.
[flashback:]
Eleanor: We found each other before, hundreds of times. We can do it again.
[flashback:]
Eleanor: Bye, Chidi.

[flashback:]
Michael: You're sure you want to do this?
Chidi: I finally make up my mind about one damn thing, and you try to talk me out of it? I'm sure. Can I ask you a question? Soul mates aren't real, are they?
Michael: Chidi, in all honesty, I don't know, but I don't think so. I knew what you expected to find when you got here: answers. Also, if I recall from your file, a magic blackboard?
Chidi: One that anticipates your lesson flow. That's the dream.

[flashback:]
Chidi: So, what do you think?
Professor Radja: I think it's 3,600 pages. I have a job, Chidi. I have a family. Until I had to read this, I had a will to live. This work is an insane, tangled web of inscrutability.
Chidi: In the fun, "grad students will analyze this for centuries" way?
Professor Radja: No, in the Unabomber way.
Chidi: Okay, well, um, I'll write my way out of the maze. I'll re-outline the middle chapters, do more research...
Professor Radja: No, Chidi. You can't answer every question every philosopher has ever asked. So, what in these pages do you care about?
Chidi: All of it. Equally.
Professor Radja: Shut up.
Chidi: But...
Professor Radja: Shut up, shut up.
Chidi: Should I...
Professor Radja: Shut up, shut up. The greatest works of modern philosophy are emotional. They make an argument about how the world is and ought to be. There is a great mind at work in here, but where is the heart? Where are the guts?
Chidi: I understand. I do. So I'm going to go home and compose a short paper for you, arguing that I should continue working on this longer paper.
Professor Radja: Shut up!

[flashback:]
Uzo: Wow, tough week. Sorry, pal.
Chidi: I mean, honestly, I don't know what hurts more; my thesis meeting or Allesandra. She was brilliant, and funny. I thought that maybe she was the answer.
Uzo: Some things in life don't have an answer. Isn't that what Allesandra was saying? Isn't that what your advisor said, too? Isn't that what everyone who knows you has said to you at every waking moment of your life?
Chidi: Okay, I can figure this out. I just need to find the answer for how to impress Allesandra, a separate answer for how to impress my advisor, or ideally, one answer for how to impress them both. Oh, you know what this calls for.
Uzo: Don't say it.
Chidi: A Venn diagram.
Uzo: No Venn diagram. If you won't listen to other people, do you at least hear what you're saying? I swear, sometimes it is literally... [time jump] impossible to be your friend. You're incapable of making a single decision.
Chidi: Look, what's the harm in taking a few extra minutes to find the perfect... [a/c unit crashes]

[flashback:]
Jason: Oh, man. Remember this?
Chidi: Yeah, yeah. It was eight minutes ago.
Janet: Mm-hmm.
Chidi: So you just proposed to Janet, and you said yes. And now you're married.
Janet: Mm-hmm.
Chidi: You know, I thought saying that out loud would make it less insane, but it did not.
Jason: Thanks, homie.
Janet: If you'd like to get us a present, we're registered at me.

[flashback:]
Chidi: [to Tahani] Yeah, I just... I can't operate that way. I can't make a decision unless I'm sure I'm right.
Eleanor: Hey, Chidi, you're a philosophy professor, right? Any chance you'd wanna grab a drink and talk about ethics? It's a subject I've recently needed to learn about immediately.
Chidi: Sounds great. Uh, let me get my coat.
Eleanor: Awesome. By the way, I wasn't cheating before. Or eavesdropping just now.