Eleanor: I gotta say, it seems like I was really nailing that philosophy class. Can you believe my high school voted me "Most Likely to Die Young and Unaccomplished?"
Michael: You did die young and unaccomplished.
Eleanor: Fair enough.

[flashback:]
Michael: Ah! My favorite four residents. Don't tell the others. [laughs] Welcome to "Pick a Pet Day." We have hundreds of beautiful animals for you to choose from. And when you do make your choice, your pet will bond to your soul forever.
Tahani: Fabulous. I haven't had a pet since Barbra Streisand gave me one of her cloned Siamese cats, and it killed itself.
Michael: Ah.
Tahani: I'm going to look at the mythical pets, darling. Catch up when you're ready.

Eleanor: "Determinism is the theory that we have no control over our own actions. Everything we do happens because of some external force, which exists outside of our control." I didn't choose to fall in love with Chidi, because some all-knowing demon, you, brought us together and scripted our lives.
Michael: That's ridiculous. I didn't make you kiss Chidi by that lake.
Eleanor: You kind of did. You orchestrated the whole "pet day" thing, manipulated us into choosing specific animals, made my lizard run away, which led to Chidi coming to help me find it, which led to us kissing, which led to us falling in love. None of that was my choice. Everything in my life has been determined by my upbringing, my genetics, or... or my environment. And everything in my afterlife was determined by you. There is no such thing as free will.

Michael: I tried to script your whole afterlife. And I devised a 15 million-point plan to torture you. You made choices I never saw coming. I call that free will.
Eleanor: What if all your choices are predetermined?
Michael: Oh, you've got to be kidding me.
Eleanor: What? We don't know. Maybe there's a mega-demon who built a torture chamber for demons, and this whole thing is just him torturing you. And maybe all the mega-demons are just fulfilling a destiny laid out by a bunch of super intelligent tarantula-squids, who are torturing them, be... [Michael pours his iced tea on Eleanor's head] Why did you do that?
Michael: Because I have free will. And because you're being so annoying.
Eleanor: Thank you. I'm so sorry that he did that.
Waitress: Happens all the time. Usually it's the younger woman doing it to the older guy, though.

Michael: Okay, that short clip should have rewired your brain, like an inoculation. So now I can show you the highlights of reboot 119. I'm skipping all of the sleeping and chewing. You guys are always either sleeping or chewing something.

Michael: Ah, looking a little better. The banana must have helped.
Eleanor: Before we go any further, I have one very important question. Did I look hot bald? 'Cause I always kind of felt like I could pull it off.
Michael: I have no real ability to gauge physical attractiveness in humans. But no, you did not pull it off.

[flashback:]
Jason: Dude, we can get mythical animals? Maybe I'll get a penguin.
Eleanor: Penguins are real.
Jason: That's the spirit, Eleanor. They're real to me too.

Michael: Hang on, how did you draw that conclusion? You just watched yourself fall in love with Chidi.
Eleanor: No, I didn't, I watched a puppeteer pull a bunch of strings to make us think we were in love. You said it yourself, you made it all up.
Michael: Okay, yes. I put you and Chidi in close proximity, because I needed you to drive each other crazy. But I never intended for you to fall in love.
Eleanor: Once you made us bond, the romance was inevitable. It's a basic reality show playbook. Put a bunch of attractive young people in stressful situations, so they act like idiots and have sex with each other. This is all just... determinism.
Michael: What?

Eleanor: Dude! Not cool.
Michael: Disagree. I think it's the coolest thing I've ever done. Do you really not see what's happening here? Do you want me to spell it out for you? This is a defense mechanism, Eleanor. You saw yourself fall in love with Chidi, and it freaked you out to see yourself be so vulnerable. So, you're using determinism to convince yourself that those feelings were not real.
Eleanor: You know, you don't know me, man.
Michael: Yes, I do, I know everything about you, remember? Including that nothing scares you more than vulnerability.
Eleanor: [scoffs] Whatever. Who even cares?
Michael: I do. Because if everything is determined, and we have no free will, then all the stuff we're doing to put more good into the world is pointless. And I want to believe that it matters. So if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna use my free will right now to go pick up our friends at the airport. Worst possible use of free will, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because I care about them.
Waitress: You might wanna head out too. We're closing soon, and the second we do, they use this place to shoot porn.

Michael: This library's depressing. All they have in the poetry section is Jeff Foxworthy books.
Eleanor: Well, we needed someplace deserted, and there's no place more deserted than a public library in Arizona.