The Good Place Series Finale Review

WARNING: This review contains multiple spoilers for the series finale of The Good Place. If you haven't watched it yet and intend to, do not continue any further.

NBC's The Good Place came into the world four years ago, seemingly as a show about a woman who ended up in heaven when she didn't belong there. After a season full of twists and turns, the show threw one hell of a twist at its viewers in the first season finale, and the show was never the same since. Though at the time I wasn't a fan of that twist, I now see it as one of the all-time great TV twists. One that most shows wouldn't have been able to pull off so well. If done unsuccessfully, the show could have been absolutely ruined. Instead, though, it made this show into so much more than it otherwise would've been.

It's hard to say goodbye, but let's get to discussing the finale now. The episode immediately preceding it saw the show's beloved quartet of "cockroaches" finally making it to The Good Place, along with everyone's favorite good demon/fire squid and Not a Girl. The finale takes place many Jeremy Bearimys later and sees Jason become the first member of the group to decide to walk through the door they had established in the prior episode, ending his existence. It's all extremely bittersweet, but in the end, it's for the best. Tahani is the next to decide to go through, though she ultimately decides against it and becomes an architect. After Eleanor ultimately decides it's for the best, Chidi decides to go through the door and becomes the first to go through, since Jason was waiting to see Janet one last time before going through. Eleanor then helps Mindy St. Claire get out of the Medium Place and decides to finally walk through the door herself. Before that happens, she has to help Michael, talking to the judge and getting her to agree to let him become a human. Thanks to their contributions to the universe, the judge allows this and Eleanor's final mission is complete. Michael heads to earth as a human and begins to get acquainted as Eleanor walks through the door and ends her existence.

Going into this finale, there were a few ways that I definitely did not want to see the show end. At the top of that list was having the characters all walk through the door and ceasing to exist. Even as the episode made it clear that that was indeed how the show would end, I was against it and ready to be very upset with the way the show ended. Instead, though, the show was able to use the small amount of time it had left to make me feel that that was the only way it could truly end. It's extremely unusual for me to truly love a show's series finale. It's even more unusual for a show to actually challenge my previous perception of how the show should end and make me accept and even be extremely glad that the show wasn't ending it that way. Though it's sad to see the characters go through the door, that's just life. That a show known for throwing twists at the viewers week after week would end in a way that most of its viewers could've seen coming a mile away is so, so fitting. While life itself throws curveballs at you all the time, we all know how it will end. The Good Place was, at its core, a show about life and the human condition. This ending helped it continue to be that.

The Good Place was never a show that was going to have a very long run. It set out to tell a very specific story and that story reached its natural end. It could have gone on a bit longer, but it would've just been delaying the inevitable and making everything less enjoyable than it should be (just as Eleanor had done in trying to convince Chidi not to walk through the door). This was the time to bow out, and I'm grateful that they took the high road. I'll dearly miss the show and especially its cast of zany and wonderful characters (and the actors that portray them). I tried my best not to, but I cried from the moment that Jason said his farewell to everyone until the moment the episode came to a close. Even writing this review I'm still occasionally welling up with tears at the thought of this great show being over. Ultimately though, that just shows what a deeply special show this has been. I'll miss it, but I'm glad it went out with a bang. This was the best episode of television I've seen in 2020, and the best series finale I've seen since Veep.

I could wax poetic about how fantastic this show is and how wonderful the finale was, but I'm going to wrap things up here. This finale was truly perfection, and everything a finale should be. It provided closure to every major character the show has had, and even some very minor ones. It was so apparently crafted with love and care. It remained true to what the show was always about and served as the perfect sendoff for one of the best comedies on broadcast television.

Thank you to the cast and crew of The Good Place for sharing this show with us for four seasons. There were bumps along the road, but in the end, it stuck the landing in a forking extraordinary way. In the words of the great poet Michael Realman, take it sleazy.

Score: 10/10
Grade: A+

What did you think of the finale of The Good Place? Let me know in the comments below!

The Good Place S3E10 Review

In a one-off December episode, The Good Place picks up where it left off after its big twist three weeks ago. This episode explores interesting new territory, and gives D'Arcy Carden a big platform to stand out. Plus, it's looking forward to the end of the season, as only three episodes remain in the season after this one.


S3E10 "Janet(s)"

The episode begins with the group's arrival in Janet's void, and it brings with it a wonderful twist, the humans all appear as Janet. D'Arcy Carden has always been a standout performer in this series, and this episode gives her a wonderful opportunity to show us even more of her talents, as she acts like all of Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason. Not only this, but she is also "neutral Janet" later in the episode.

Michael and Janet take a visit to the accounting office, where they discover how the system works. The episode makes good use of a running joke about how most new things that humans do are weird sex things. While they are there, they discover that no one has gotten into the good place in hundreds of years. This doesn't come as a very big surprise to us (I've seen many similar predictions across the Internet), but it does to Michael.

In the void, Eleanor confronts Chidi about their past relationship, and Chidi puts philosophy in the way of confronting his feelings. This shows a smart understanding of Chidi's character. D'Arcy Carden is enjoyable as the bickering Eleanor and Chidi, but her best impression here is Jason, who also discovers here that he and Janet were once married. That's a lot of developments packed into this episode.

As the episode ends, once again we head in a new direction. The humans are brought into the accounting office (where an alarm goes off, as, like Michael reminds them early in the episode, "Literally the entire universe is against you") and they run. There's a hilarious line where Jason volunteers to test an idea Michael has, which ends up taking the group to the good place. Eleanor's realization that this is, in fact, the good place is a wonderful way to end the episode, with the callback to her discovery in the season 1 finale.


This episode served as a brilliant bridge between the Earth-set part of the season and what comes next in these final 3 episodes of the season. It was also absolutely hilarious, with stellar performances by D'Arcy Carden and a wonderful visit to the accounting office. This episode entertained, and set the show in a clear direction going forward this season. Who knows what will happen when the show returns in January.

Score: 10/10

What did you think of "Janet(s)"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

The Good Place S3E9 Review

The Good Place is a show that has constantly been changing things up as it goes, especially in this third season. The season started out with Michael pushing the humans together so that they would become better, then it changed to the humans learning about what happened and deciding to help others get into the good place, and the end of last week's episode hinted at change coming. This week's episode sees the group try to come up with a good-person blueprint while a threat approaches.


S3E9 "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By"

The Good Place has been compared to Lost since early on, as it dumped strangers together in an unfamiliar territory, made game-changing twists, and early episodes had flashbacks to the characters' lives before. I've often talked about the show as Lost meets Parks and Recreation, for the reasons above and the comedy style. The episode begins in a way that most Lost viewers likely noted as inspired by the earlier series, with it showing us a character we don't know in a place we don't know living everyday life before we are shown the connection to the story we are following. In this case, Doug Forcett is going about his Canadian life until Michael and Janet knock on his door, pretending to be reporters.

Michael and Janet intend to observe how Doug lives his life, and there is some really good comedy here about Michael's excitement upon meeting Doug. However, the two discover how horribly Doug forces himself to live, as he does everything to help others and doesn't think about himself at all. Additional sadness hangs over all of this, as Doug has said that he is doing it all to end up in the good place, and we know that this motivation would actually cause him to get sent to the bad place.

While Michael and Janet are off visiting Doug, Eleanor contemplates whether or not she should tell Chidi about how they fell in love. Tahani gives some surprisingly good advice on the matter, prompting Eleanor to decide she should tell him. On a more comedic side, Chidi defeats Jason in a game of Jason's own making, because really all that needs to be done to defeat Jason in this game is to outsmart him. Before Eleanor is able to talk to Chidi, the demons arrive. Janet using her immense knowledge to fight off all of the demons is entertaining, but the brawl goes on much too long, leaving the ending to be rushed, as a bunch of information is dropped all at once. About 5 seconds before the episode ends, Janet deduces that the group needs to go to her void, and that means that they will die.


While this episode had its comedic moments, presented interesting philosophical problems, and moved the plot along, its pacing felt very off. Much of the episode was spent with Michael and Janet at Doug's, where they end up coming to a conclusion that was evident early on, and during this, the others literally wasted time. Then, a more time than necessary was spent on the fight, and very little was spent on what will matter going forward. I think that The Good Place is an excellent show, so even though this episode is quite weak by the show's standards, it is still a good episode.

Score: 7.5/10

What did you think of "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

The Good Place S3E8 Review

The Good Place departs from the structure of its last two episodes this week, with a flashback-centric episode, where Eleanor deals with a bombshell that Michael dropped on her at the end of last week's episode.


S3E8 "The Worst Possible Use of Free Will"

Now that Eleanor knows that she fell in love with Chidi, she understandably really wants to know how that happened. They go to an Arizona public library (making a few good Arizona jokes all throughout the episode), and Michael shows Eleanor some memories from the afterlife.

Eleanor views memories of the reboot where her and Chidi fell in love. Jameela Jamil is a great source of humor in the flashback scenes, as the residents of the good place get magical pets, and Tahani's choice is a horse with her head that is very judgmental. Eleanor and Chidi falling in love has some really sweet moments, especially the tragic moment where Eleanor insists that her and Chidi's love will endure.

After seeing these, Eleanor manages to convince herself that this couldn't be the result of her own choices. She takes a hard deterministic stance, leaving Michael in a position to force her to realize how she is making her own choices. He shows her more memories to show her how her choices couldn't be determined, she is unpredictable. Michael trying so hard to make her realize this shows how far he has really come from his initial demon days.

The episode's ending sets up the future of this series. Michael decides on a grander plan, planning to make someone into a model good person. This will apparently send the group to rural Canada. Then, the bigger twist comes when it is revealed that Sean's team has made another portal to Earth. This episode also has the return of Vicki, who the group uses to test the portal. Tiya Sircar is great in the few moments the episode gives her, and this sets up some real excitement for next week.


This was a wonderful episode. From the lighter comedic moments to the more meaningful one, the episode nailed it. It traveled between the tones with great ease, and had great performances from the always wonderful Kristen Bell and Ted Danson. It also provided great excitement for what's coming up on the show.

Score: 10/10

What did you think of "The Worst Possible Use of Free Will"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

The Good Place S3E7 Review

This week's Good Place takes the characters on two different familial adventures. The relationships this week are very strained, they are those between Eleanor and her mom, and between Tahani and her sister. Yet, the group has committed to help people get into the good place.


S3E7 "A Fractured Inheritance"

After the news that Eleanor's mother faked her death, Eleanor and Michael go to Nevada to visit her. They see that she seems to be living an honest, suburban life, but Eleanor refuses to believe it. The story has an obvious trajectory, Eleanor searches for proof that her mother is conning this family, she ends up admitting that she is refusing to believe it because she's upset that her mother had the capability to be a good mother, but never was to her, and then she talks to her mother. When Eleanor talks to her mother, she ends up discovering that she is hiding money, but this is just as a backup plan in case things go wrong, so Eleanor needs to make her realize that she needs to fully commit to this life.

While this story arc isn't very original, Kristen Bell plays Eleanor's emotional arc wonderfully. The emotion that she puts into her jealousy with her mother now really being a mother is really felt, and we can see how hard it is for her to do the right thing and tell her mother to commit to her life and that she likes it. Other highlights of this story is Michael finding his architect buddy, and Eleanor and her mother telling each other "ya basic." The episode ends with the show starting to fall into a pattern of Michael revealing something to Eleanor, this time how in one reboot she fell in love with Chidi.

The rest of the group travels to Hungary to visit Tahani's sister. Tahani attempts to reconcile with her sister, but her sister makes this challenging for her, by continuing to make the public dislike her, and by refusing to forgive her. Some reflecting causes Tahani to realize that her sister feels the same way that she does about their parents pitting them against each other. The moment of reconciliation between them is very sweet, because The Good Place has put a lot into illustrating Tahani's challenged family life. Also, this story has a really nice moment between Jason and Janet when she tells him how much all of the art is worth.


While this episode was a bit typical in some ways, strong performances really made it work. The two relationships from the main characters' lives that the show had illustrated the most was Eleanor's with her parents and Tahani's with her sister, so these were important stories to be told with The Good Place's current path of having the characters help people become good. This was a strong episode.

Score: 9/10

What did you think of "A Fractured Inheritance"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!