This is the
first of three posts looking at recent TV finales.
Today, we’re looking at the Season 3 Finale of The Good Place.
If you are a fan of The Good Place, you know this show is remarkably complex as it re-invents itself from season to season, sometimes episode to episode.
The Good Place could’ve mined its first season premise for a few years. Like Samantha Stevens hiding her witch powers on Bewitched for nearly a decade, the producers could’ve just given us the wacky antics of Eleanor Shelshtrop ducking and weaving to hide her true nature from her fellow neighbors in paradise.
But that concept was blown up by the mid-point of season 1
And then all the bits of that concept were swept into a rubbish bin by season’s end.
By the time we got to season 3, Eleanor and her 3 fellow souls targeted for torture are not even in the afterlife but have avoided their fatal fates in a rebooted timeline. The premise has become a group of 4 people examining their lives after brushes with death.
A premise that is up-ended about 4 episodes in when they discover the true nature of the afterlife and their doomed fates within it.
So now the premise becomes a group of 4 people, doomed to never make it to the real Good Place, on a mission to help others avoid their fate.
And about 4 more episodes, that premise is now out the window.
Michael has discovered that in over 500 years, no one has earned enough points to get into the Good Place. Michael immediately suspects the demons of the Bad Place have hacked the system until he has another realization: the system itself is not keeping up with the complexity of life. Even the most good hearted, well intentioned action can have so many bad connections, the points can total in a negative direction.
For example:
You buy a dozen roses for your mom. A kind gesture, you get points for it.
Except the roses were grown in an oppressive country where poor people scrounge for a meager existence.
The roses were grown using cancer causing pesticides.
The roses are trucked across the border by illegal immigrants.
The guy you bought the roses from stole them from the illegal immigrants.
The simple kind act of buying a dozen roses for your mom has earned enough negative points to put you on an expressway to the Bad Place.
Shawn, the boss demon from the Bad Place, thinks this is just stupid. People are bad. Period. End of sentence.
Judge Hydrogen agrees to an experiment. Let Michael create a new neighborhood to see if he can replicate the results of his first “Good Place”.
So we’re back it would seem to the premise of Season 1: not so good souls in a “Good Place”.
But not quite.
Under a lot of stress, Michael has a breakdown and is unable to greet the new human souls. Eleanor is forces to assume the role of “architect” for the new souls.
Shawn and his demons are screwing with the new experiment by selecting souls of people who know our original squad. Makes getting objective results rather difficult. It’s particularly problematic with Simone shows up. Simone and Chidi were colleagues at the university in Australian in the rebooted timeline and they had a relationship. In order to keep the experiment on track, Michael erases Simone’ memories of Chidi. Unfortunately, this also means Chidi has to have his memory altered as well, going back to just before the falling air conditioner killed him in the first timeline.
This is a very, very heart breaking turn as such a step erases Chidi’s relationship with Eleanor.
The season finale episode ends with a emotionally shattered Eleanor greeting Chidi not as her lover but as a person who thinks he is a brand new arrival to this strange afterlife, the Good Place.
Man, this show is evil.
So we’re at the end of a season with about 8 months or so to ponder what’s next. Wherever The Good Place goes next, it will be in a direction we would never anticipate.
_________________________________________
Coming up on future installments of And Lo, There Shall Come a Finale:
The season 4 finale of Outlander
The series finale of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Today, we’re looking at the Season 3 Finale of The Good Place.
If you are a fan of The Good Place, you know this show is remarkably complex as it re-invents itself from season to season, sometimes episode to episode.
The Good Place could’ve mined its first season premise for a few years. Like Samantha Stevens hiding her witch powers on Bewitched for nearly a decade, the producers could’ve just given us the wacky antics of Eleanor Shelshtrop ducking and weaving to hide her true nature from her fellow neighbors in paradise.
But that concept was blown up by the mid-point of season 1
And then all the bits of that concept were swept into a rubbish bin by season’s end.
By the time we got to season 3, Eleanor and her 3 fellow souls targeted for torture are not even in the afterlife but have avoided their fatal fates in a rebooted timeline. The premise has become a group of 4 people examining their lives after brushes with death.
A premise that is up-ended about 4 episodes in when they discover the true nature of the afterlife and their doomed fates within it.
So now the premise becomes a group of 4 people, doomed to never make it to the real Good Place, on a mission to help others avoid their fate.
And about 4 more episodes, that premise is now out the window.
Michael has discovered that in over 500 years, no one has earned enough points to get into the Good Place. Michael immediately suspects the demons of the Bad Place have hacked the system until he has another realization: the system itself is not keeping up with the complexity of life. Even the most good hearted, well intentioned action can have so many bad connections, the points can total in a negative direction.
For example:
You buy a dozen roses for your mom. A kind gesture, you get points for it.
Except the roses were grown in an oppressive country where poor people scrounge for a meager existence.
The roses were grown using cancer causing pesticides.
The roses are trucked across the border by illegal immigrants.
The guy you bought the roses from stole them from the illegal immigrants.
The simple kind act of buying a dozen roses for your mom has earned enough negative points to put you on an expressway to the Bad Place.
Shawn, the boss demon from the Bad Place, thinks this is just stupid. People are bad. Period. End of sentence.
Judge Hydrogen agrees to an experiment. Let Michael create a new neighborhood to see if he can replicate the results of his first “Good Place”.
So we’re back it would seem to the premise of Season 1: not so good souls in a “Good Place”.
But not quite.
Under a lot of stress, Michael has a breakdown and is unable to greet the new human souls. Eleanor is forces to assume the role of “architect” for the new souls.
Shawn and his demons are screwing with the new experiment by selecting souls of people who know our original squad. Makes getting objective results rather difficult. It’s particularly problematic with Simone shows up. Simone and Chidi were colleagues at the university in Australian in the rebooted timeline and they had a relationship. In order to keep the experiment on track, Michael erases Simone’ memories of Chidi. Unfortunately, this also means Chidi has to have his memory altered as well, going back to just before the falling air conditioner killed him in the first timeline.
This is a very, very heart breaking turn as such a step erases Chidi’s relationship with Eleanor.
The season finale episode ends with a emotionally shattered Eleanor greeting Chidi not as her lover but as a person who thinks he is a brand new arrival to this strange afterlife, the Good Place.
Man, this show is evil.
So we’re at the end of a season with about 8 months or so to ponder what’s next. Wherever The Good Place goes next, it will be in a direction we would never anticipate.
_________________________________________
Coming up on future installments of And Lo, There Shall Come a Finale:
The season 4 finale of Outlander
The series finale of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
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| The cast of The Good Place (l to r): William Jackson Harper, D'Arcy Carden, Ted Danson, Kristen Bell, Manny Jacinto, Jameela Jamil and Marc Evan Jackson |
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