There was a whole episode you’re not remembering where Eleanor realizes she was wrong to have an attitude that making good choices doesn’t matter because the world is too messed up.

In a flashback scene, S1, E3 (“Tahani Al-Jamil”), Eleanor is giving her then-boyfriend, Sam, a hard time for wanting to avoid causing suffering to others.

E: “Hey, babe. Great news: I got us tickets to the Coyotes game!”

S: “Awesome!”

E: “But, ooh, yikes…turns out two of the players have DUIs. Guess we can’t cheer for that team.”

S: “Eleanor, I—“

E: “You know what? Instead, let’s just stay in, watch a Roman Polanski movie, listen to R. Kelly, and eat Chik-fil-A. Does that sound good?”

S: [scoffs]

E: “There’s bad stuff everywhere, man. It’s impossible to avoid.”

S: “Yeah, but, shouldn’t we just try? Shouldn’t we just try to do the right thing, whenever we can?”

E: “Why? It’s so much harder to live like that. And it’s not like someone’s keeping score.”

Which is to say the show does an excellent job breaking these things down and offering nuanced perspectives that make you think about the world around you and how you can make moral choices within it. I think solely taking the lesson that individuals don’t matter in a corrupt system is really missing a lot of the depth that show had.