Tear Jerker / The Good Place

General

• So much of Eleanor's life is this. Her parents were a pair of selfish jerks who hated each other and cared nothing for their daughter, driving her to emancipate herself from them when she was just fourteen. She also had very few friends, and the few friendships she did have either weren't really close or were utterly toxic, with the few decent ones (such as her ex-boyfriend Sam) having ended largely because she pushed them away to avoid being hurt. On top of that, she dies in a very meaningless and embarrassingly painful way and ends up in an afterlife where her fears of being looked down upon and hated for who she is are forced upon her as a constant reminder of her life on Earth.
• Chidi's life was also pretty sucky. Throughout his whole life, his paranoia and indecisiveness led to him losing so many friends, one of whom genuinely considered himself to be his closest friend from childhood. His fears led to his rather embarrassing death and now he's in a world where he's forced into an intolerable situation where he has to lie and is forced to make difficult choices that sometimes go against his ethics. His hell is literally a world of Paranoia Fuel.
• Tahani had to deal with always being in her sister's shadow to the point that her many genuinely impressive achievements were always ignored in favor of Kamilah's, and their parents didn't care about her to the point they misspelled Tahani's name in their will. Even in Tahani's test given by the Judge, where everyone is implicitly talking about her, she falters and goes into her parents' room, and still, all they have to talk about is Kamilah.
• As much of an idiot as he is, you do have to feel a little bad for Jason. He legitimately had dreams and goals and did want to do something with his life. His stupidity and impulsiveness were just what did him in, and he barely received any schooling or chances to better himself. Now, he's stuck in a place where he has no friends (even the others don't really like him that much) and is forced to pretend to be a silent monk to survive. Jason's heart is in the right place, but his situation is everything wrong with the afterlife, wrapped up into one guy: his brain is smooth as an egg, his mother died when he was very young and left him to raise himself alongside his immature teenage dad, in the hell that is Jacksonville, it's amazing he ended up such a sweetheart.

Season 1

• The pilot episode is quite lighthearted and everything about Eleanor Played for Laughs until she quietly asks Chidi this question after getting drunk:
  Eleanor: Do you think anyone cared that I died? Maybe someone did... I don't know.
• "Chidi's Choice": The flashback where Chidi's lifelong best friend Uzo tells him, "It is literally impossible to be your friend!" Made worse by the fact that this is the last thing he, or anyone, ever said to him. Chidi dies from an air conditioner falling on him not even thirty seconds later. It's capped off with Uzo looking in shock and saying Chidi's name in a shaking voice just barely above a whisper.
• "Mindy St. Claire":
  • The flashback to the day Eleanor emancipated herself from her parents when she was only 14. They don't even care that she's doing this, and the fact that Eleanor is so nonchalant about it drives in how awful they were. The ending scene to the flashback is her eating her birthday cake by herself.
  • At the end of episode, Eleanor explains to Jason that they can't abandon their friends and let them take the fall and admits that she'd been using her cruddy childhood as an excuse for her behavior and refusal to change when other people suffered worse and didn't turn out like she did, so it's time to own up, save their friends, and face the consequences.
• "Michael's Gambit":
  • The fact the four humans are actually in Hell and were actively tortured all this time can be very hard-hitting to see.
  • Michael's reaction after the ruse is exposed is this to the audience and the main characters, as Eleanor and Chidi ask Was It All a Lie? with Michael all but saying yes, yes it was.

Season 2

• "Dance Dance Resolution": The main characters have undergone over 800 different attempts by Michael trying to keep them from realizing they're actually in the Bad Place so they can continue to torture one another. Each time, their memories are erased, so the friendships and romances they forged are forgotten. It's especially hammered home when Eleanor sees the recording Mindy took of her and Chidi confessing their love for one another, but since this was in a previous reboot, she is utterly shocked at what she sees.
• "Team Cockroach" shows that Tahani died trying to pull down a statue of her sister. The worst is her last exchange with Kamilah, yelling about Kamilah always hogging the spotlight and Kamilah fires off that Tahani is just embarrassing herself, as she always does.
  Tahani: So is that what you think of me, that I'm an embarrassment?
  Kamilah: Honestly... I don't think of you at all.
  • Afterwards, Tahani looks at the golden statue of Kamilah and snaps. She starts kicking at it and yanking at it in a rage while the other party guests look on with dull interest. It finally comes down, and you can hear Tahani screaming as it crushes her.
• "Existential Crisis"
  • Eleanor's flashbacks highlight how messed up her life was.
    • The callous way Eleanor's mother Donna tells her how her pet dog died (which was Donna's fault, due to her leaving the poor animal locked up in the car on a hot day), and then telling Eleanor not to get sad over it because she didn't want to deal with it. Eleanor couldn't have been older than eight years old at that time.
    • Eleanor's father's funeral. She's conflicted over how to feel, as Doug was a terrible father and a lousy person in general, but the fact that he's dead isn't exactly something that brings her any happiness. And then Eleanor's mother drunkenly bursts in. More subtly tragic is the appearance of Eleanor's boyfriend Sam, who cares enough about her to support her at the funeral, and clearly sees how Eleanor became who she is. Unfortunately, despite getting past at least a few levels of her shell, she will have inevitably driven him away between the funeral and the start of the series.
    • Eleanor's breakdown in the flashback where she's shopping. While it is comical, it shows how much she has longed for a normal home and family. The fact that the scene takes place soon after her dad's death makes it worse.
    Eleanor: (increasingly tearful) So, the parent toothbrushes can be close to the kid toothbrushes, and watch over them, and they can talk about their toothbrush feelings? And hold their little toothbrush hands when they're sad, and make sure no harm ever comes to their little bristles?
  • The entire plotline with Tahani being tortured by having the party she throws get overshadowed by the one Vicky and Quinston are throwing is largely played for laughs... until the end when Tahani breaks down and cries because even though she knew the whole time it was a ruse designed to make her feel bad, it still worked, and she doesn't like what this implies about her as a person.
  Tahani: I really thought I could throw a better party than a magical, all-powerful being. And moreover, what does that say about me, about the life I lived? The way they're torturing me is through event planning mishaps... (voice breaks) ...and it works! Am I really that shallow?
• "The Trolley Problem": Michael is a jerk to Chidi throughout the episode making him go through various horrific scenarios. Chidi thinks he's just being evil, but Eleanor acutely pinpoints his behavior — he's lashing out because he's insecure over his inability to grasp the behavior of humans. He's a demon and as such he knows exactly what warrants eternal torment, and as an immortal demon, he's never had to think about this before.
• "Janet and Michael": Any time Janet is unhappy over Jason and Tahani's relationship. Seeing the perpetually upbeat and cheery Janet in tears is both unsettling and very sad.
  • In the previous episode, Michael learned about the trolley problem, and didn't fully understand it. In this one, he experiences it directly when he has to choose between killing Janet and putting the neighbourhood at risk.
• "Best Self" has the last shot of the heroes leaving on the train as the neighborhood dismantles itself into nothing, meaning everything we've seen from all previous episodes is now just gone.
  • During the goodbye party for the neighborhood, Chidi and Eleanor dance together, which is incredibly sweet... but Eleanor loves Chidi so much, but is convinced he doesn't love her back—and is trying to be okay with that.
• "Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent": Michael solving the Trolley Problem by sacrificing himself. "The actual solution... is to sacrifice yourself. Look after the others. They need you."
• "The Burrito"
  • Tahani's test in the episode is to walk through a hallway of doors labeled with various celebrities and others who are all talking of what they really think of her. She nearly makes it... but then goes through the door with her parents behind it. The talk has Tahani finally realizing that nothing she did was ever going to be good enough for her parents to love her as much as her sister. Worse, she failed the test as she had to let go of what held her back but instead embraced her inner anxieties.
    Tahani: I was never going to be enough for you. Never going to earn your respect. [...] I'm sorry we didn't have a better relationship, and I wish you both the best.
    • Tahani wrestles with herself to go in or not, knowing that it's a trap. She gives a little groan before going in and forfeiting her win.
    • Worse is that during the conversation with her parents, they tell her that Kamilah dedicated her last album to her — or rather, Kamilah dedicated her last album to her fans, and Tahani's one of those, right? When Tahani briefly thinks the album was for her, she just lights up, visibly wondering if maybe Kamilah really did care after all. As terrible as their relationship was, Kamilah was still her sister; such a gesture likely would've meant the world to Tahani.
  • After Chidi, Tahani, and Jason fail Gen's test, the group takes the time to confess held-back feelings and say last goodbyes. Janet talks about and sorts through her lingering feelings for Jason, which gives Chidi the courage to kiss Eleanor and affirm his feelings for her.
• "Somewhere Else": Eleanor's Time-Passes Montage is initially hopeful as she gets her act together. Her slow decline back into selfishness is heartbreaking, and the music, "Maybe" by The Submarines, doesn't help.
  One thing is sure - I'll always love you
  And if you should go I will pretend
  That I never needed you or anybody
  Never wanted to call us just friends
  So maybe, maybe, maybe we're strong
  But maybe, maybe, maybe we're wrong
  • It's also—or perhaps especially—heartbreaking. Eleanor did try to be better, she did, but with her roommate's Toxic Friend Influence, a lifetime of being miserable and hurting other people, and the fact that Being Good Sucks it's just too much.

Season 3

• "The Brainy Bunch": Trevor's attempts to drive the humans apart almost succeed in getting Chidi to second-guess about the group socializing and says he shouldn't be with them because it "interferes with the study". Eleanor is clearly hurt, and she says that not only did she prefer the one-on-ones with Chidi, but Chidi was the reason she flew from Arizona, not anyone else. Chidi is still not convinced, but the next day, she skips class and Chidi has to go to her hotel. Eleanor is ready to fly back to Arizona.
• "The Snowplow": After Eleanor embarrasses herself by going on an angry rant, she runs into Simone outside and asks why she's like this. Simone gives a flippant burn, but Eleanor reiterates, she really wants to know, what is wrong with her? It's clear that she's reached rock bottom.
• "The Ballad of Donkey Doug": There's something quietly tragic about how quick Jason gives up on saving his dad from the Bad Place. Even he can recognize that his dad can't be trusted and decides to focus his energy on saving his best friend instead.
  • Poor Larry Hemsworth. He already hates himself, and now his fiancée ran off and married a Jason.
• "A Fractured Inheritance":
  • As a counterpoint to Jason's dad being irredeemable, Eleanor's mother Donna has genuinely changed and become a better person, and is Happily Married and a good mom to her new stepdaughter. This makes Eleanor distraught and jealous because she wanted her mom to be better when she was a child, and even after they reconcile, Eleanor still can't fully forgive her parents for how they screwed up her life. Eleanor even spends much of the episode in denial that her mother had changed, since believing otherwise would mean accepting the fact that Donna was always capable of change, but never saw Eleanor as someone worth changing for.
    • Donna, for her part, has a guilty expression as Eleanor accuses her of scamming Dave and Patricia. Donna insists it's not a scam, but she knows that Eleanor has every good reason to be skeptical because of all the crap she pulled when raising Eleanor.
    • The moment when Eleanor splutters this out to an Innocently Insensitive Michael, who asks why she can't believe that Donna is now a good mom. Eleanor tearfully shouts, "Because I wanted that mom!" and talks about how Donna made her look for loose fries in fast food ball pits for afternoon snacks. Michael looks extremely guilty as he realizes how much this must hurt Eleanor, and he has nothing comforting to say.
    • The conversation Donna and Eleanor have at the end, where Eleanor finds out Donna has been secretly stashing away money to create an escape fund. Donna admits that sometimes she is tempted to go back to her old ways, and asks rhetorically if Eleanor is happy to find out her mother hasn't changed at all. Eleanor thinks about it and says that no, she isn't happy. She then gets Donna to admit that she's happy in her normal and mundane suburban life. Eleanor tells Donna to use the money to earn her second chance with Patricia instead of squandering it on Shellstrop garbage behavior, and it pains her to say it. She and Donna part civilly, with Donna saying that Eleanor didn't get her growth from Donna herself and Eleanor, for her part, gets closure but still isn't happy.
  • In the same episode, Tahani realizing that her sister's paintings are all about their parents pitting them against each other for their entire lives. Each painting has two large, unified objects in the middle... and two little objects sitting all alone in separate corners.
    Tahani: Kamilah's work has been mediocre for years. Mother and Father are probably rolling over in their cryogenic chambers.
    Chidi: Really? You don't think they would be proud of her for having a whole museum wing dedicated to her work?
    Tahani: My parents' standards were incredibly high, and they were impossible to please. Plus, they always pitted my sister and me against each other. The two of them were a unit, and Kamilah and I... (Tahani trails off as she stares at the paintings, suddenly understanding.)
  • Kamilah's face when Tahani wraps her arms around her and tells her she finally understands. In all these years, this might be the first time Kamilah ever truly saw her older sister.
• "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By" has Michael and Janet meet Doug Forcett in person, and it turns out his miraculously accurate vision of the afterlife during a drug trip has caused him to spend the rest of his life terrified of doing anything that could jeopardize his chances of getting into the Good Place. He's become a complete and total Extreme Doormat who'll do absolutely anything at his own expense to try to put more good into the world no matter how miserable it makes him, to the point that Janet describes him as a "happiness pump". Worse, by the current point system, he'll end up in the Bad Place anyway even though his points aren't invalidated as he doesn't unequivocally know that's how the system works.
  • To a lesser extent, the fact that the humans are dead again. Kamilah and Tahani buried the hatchet and then shortly after, Tahani dies again, due to circumstances Kamilah could never understand. Similarly, Pillboi and Donkey Doug no doubt had to feel hurt at Jason's passing, especially since the latter is Jason's father. And Eleanor and her mother finally reconciled, only for Eleanor to die right afterward.
• "Janet(s)"
  • The Reveal that no human has made it to the Good Place in over five centuries is both horrifying and tragic. Millions of otherwise decent people have been sentenced to eternal hellish torture all because of the points system being so flawed by taking into account of the unintended consequences of even the smallest seeming actions that most people wouldn't even consider, except that now they have to consider all of that because they can and therefore the system will punish them for it. Except, in reality, you can't, so the system is a grotesque mockery of fairness.
  • Think of the few unambiguously good people who didn't get into The Good Place because of the unfair points system; Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Amelia Earhart, Jonas Salk, the Golden Girls, Mister Rogers?!!
  • While it's mostly Played for Laughs, the whole situation with Matt the accountant is just awful. The poor guy has the job of having to review all of humanity's new weird sex acts and it's driven him to utter misery, to the point that he regularly asks his boss for permission to kill himself because he just can't take it anymore.
  • Eleanor's identity crisis over the multiple reboots she and Chidi went through and her pain over Chidi's initial rejection of her.
• "Chidi Sees the Time Knife": Shawn tries to throw Michael off his game by gloating about how he's sure to win and already has plans for how to torture the 4 humans that are the only things Michael cares about in the universe — by having Vicky disguised as Michael being the one torture them, knowing full well he can erase any memories of them being warned that's not really their friend. It works — Michael completely breaks down at the horror of it all and becomes totally unable to function.
• The majority of "Pandemonium" is achingly sad. The Bad Place picks Simone as one of the human test subjects for the new fake Good Place experiment. Chidi insists he won't be able to keep his cool around her, and the only solution is to wipe his memory back to right after the air conditioner fell on him, which would erase his relationship with Eleanor in the process. Michael gives them a sweet send-off with a clip show of their moments together, and both members of the pairing are crushed to the point of tears. Eleanor then suffers a Heroic BSoD and asks Janet what the answer is, and why life and love hurt so much. Only after Janet's support can she go welcome the mind-wiped Chidi.
  • Michael's breakdown as well. Eleanor has to take over as the architect after he becomes crippled by his anxieties caused by Shawn's threat in the last episode.

Season 4

• "A Girl From Arizona, Part 1": In the opening scene, you can almost hear Eleanor's heart breaking when Chidi says he forgot her name.
• "A Girl From Arizona, Part 2":
  • Eleanor has a breakdown with the high stakes of the experiment, crying about the general hopelessness of the situation and capping it off about how she's only a girl from Arizona, and Michael gives her a pep talk about how she beat him repeatedly and is the only one who can save humanity.
  • Janet tells Jason that she thinks it's best they "take a break" so she can concentrate on her new duties, which clearly affects him. She then has to break it to Jason that Blake Bortles was cut from the Jacksonville Jaguars. The combination of bad news makes it look like Jason has lost all hope in going on at all.
  • Eleanor making the tough call to tell Chidi that Simone is his soulmate to get her to stop acting like the afterlife isn't real.
  • Right before he was reset, Chidi had told Eleanor that every time he has a stomachache, it means he's thinking of her. Then Chidi tells Eleanor he has a stomachache about Simone. Ouch.
• "Chillaxing": Eleanor and Michael decide that Chidi isn't helping the other test subjects enough because he's too happy, so they come up with ways to trigger his anxieties by "revealing" Jason. Chidi eventually comes to Eleanor's office and confesses that he's unhappy in the Good Place because it feels like the universe is punishing him, which causes her to break down in tears from the guilt of torturing him and, as she previously admitted it in a Jerkass Realization moment, secretly enjoying getting to vent at least a little of the hurt, anger and betrayal she felt by Chidi choosing to have his memory wiped (which included the relationship he'd built with her).
• "Tinker, Tailor, Demon, Spy"
  • When Eleanor admits she can no longer be sure if Michael is really himself or Vicky in a Michael suit, he offers to blow himself up so the experiment doesn't have to be reset. It won't exactly kill him as demons can reform after a few months but it would have been pretty messy and meant Michael would be put out of commission for a long while.
    Michael: I wish I were saying this in a different context, but... take it sleazy.
  • Michael refuses to take off his skin suit because he considers his natural form so revolting that he thinks that if the humans were to see it they would be too disgusted to be friends with him anymore.
    Michael: You guys would never look at me the same way again. I won't just be Michael, I'll be...some disgusting...mass of burning tentacles. (somberly) Do you really want to be friends with something like that?
    • The way Michael puts an almost childlike emphasis on his name. Michael no longer wants people to view him as a demon, and his current personality is built upon distancing himself from it. Like, Michael isn't some evil monster who formed from the pits of hell. Michael didn't gleefully torture people for eons. And Michael certainly isn't this gargantuan, toothy, rancid, oozing mass of fiery tentacles. Michael's true form reminds him of who he used to be, and the last thing Michael wants to be is his former self.
  • Glen's here partly because Shawn's such a dick, but it's also because he thought he was doing the right thing, that the people in the Bad Place genuinely deserved to be there, but he no longer does. While it's wonderful that the Soul Squad were able to inspire him, he's in the same place as Michael; he's a demon who's lost everything he believed in.
• "Employee of the Bearimy"
  • Michael finally confirms that demons aren't fundamentally evil. On the contrary, Shawn reinforces they are providing balance in the universe and every demon who tortures is valuable. Now he knows Shawn is a Consummate Liar who just wanted to torture. Michael is regretful that he bought into such bull-shirt and enjoyed torturing people who didn't deserve it.
  • Janet's situation: she's trapped in the Bad Place and regularly taunted by Vicky in a Michael suit. While it's a No-Sell on Janet because she knows Michael, when the real Michael and Jason show up she's just irritated and hurt on seeing a new form of torture. The way her face lights up when Jason confirms that he's the real Jason shows how much the situation was emotionally draining.
  • The shame Michael feels about himself upon returning to the place where he gleefully tortured people for eons.
    Janet: That must have been hard for you. To go back there.
    Michael: It was. I don't like thinking about...who I used to be.
• "A Chip Driver Mystery"
  • Bad Janet's situation until Michael frees her: she's imprisoned in a special holding cell in our Janet's void where there's nothing to do but fart in the face of her visitors. While it's better than being locked in Mindy's house, Michael acknowledges that it's cruel and he doesn't want to keep her locked up forever.
  • Brent, due to his utter lack of humility and self-awareness, inadvertently putting the experiment in jeopardy.
• "Help Is Other People"
  • Chidi says he hopes that Eleanor didn't lie about Simone being his soulmate. Simone logically points out there's no rational reason for that to be true. You can see him looking crushed on the inside.
  • Simone breaking up with Chidi because they don't agree on saving Brent. Sure, Both Sides Have a Point, but neither of them deserved having broken hearts.
  • Chidi's situation at the end of the episode: his girlfriend broke up with him and bailed with his other friend, and he's stuck in what he thinks is the Bad Place with the one person he hates. Though it makes his Defiant to the End attitude towards Eleanor, Michael and Brent so awesome because he has grown so much.
  • Eleanor is so stressed about not knowing how the experiment went that when Janet brings margaritas, Eleanor forgoes the glass and chugs the entire pitcher.
  • As much of an asshole as he is, it's kinda hard not to feel sorta bad for Brent at the end of this episode after going through a Humiliation Conga, being made to believe he's actually in Hell, and finally realizing that he is indeed a terrible person and that's why no one likes him.
• "You've Changed Man"
  • When Shawn finally reveals the real reason he keeps fighting Michael, and the way he describes how much he used to love his job. You can almost imagine that he was once young and idealistic, and just like Michael and Glenn, believed in his work. Like so many well-meaning people, he was so broken as a result of dedicating himself to a broken system that he ended up becoming part of the problem.
• "Patty"
  • The heroes have made it to Good Place, for real this time... but it turns out even that's not all that it's cracked up to be. The human residents there have grown bored and miserable from eternal paradise and many of them have lost their minds, to the point that Eleanor describes them as "happiness zombies". The titular character herself, Hypatia, has lost her zest and can no longer wrap her mind around the things that she was passionate about in life until she meets Chidi, who offers her a new challenge.
  • The revelations in this episode definitely cast a new light on the Good Place Committee as well. After all, their whole purpose for existing is to make humans happy, but they can see that their methods of giving these people everything they could ever want and then some isn't working anymore. They're just as trapped by the system as Shawn (who admitted to growing bored with the repetition himself).
    • This would explain why they're such Extreme Doormats and give in to anyone's demands easily, and that can mean any type of change, potentially breaking them out of being trapped from locking people into stupor.
    • This could also explain why they didn't seem to notice or mind that no one new has entered the Good Place in over five centuries, as those new humans could be trapped in a stupor like everyone else before them.
• "Whenever You're Ready"
  • Chidi reveals that he'd been wanting to leave for quite a long while now but stayed for Eleanor's sake. Eleanor tearfully lets him go because she knows it would be selfish to force him to stay for her, asking him to leave before she wakes up the next morning. She then wakes up alone in bed, with one last parting gift from him.
  • While the scene is played mostly for laughs, it's rather sad to watch Michael try to pass through the Door. In the back of his head, he clearly knew that it was not going to work, and is obviously doing this more out of frustration than fulfillment. One by one, his friends have all basically left him, and he thinks he'll have nothing to do but sit around without them for the rest of eternity.
  • Michael and Janet's goodbye to each other. Michael's excited to start his new life on Earth, but Janet is worried and sad to see him go. She's letting her oldest and closest friend head into the unknown, and she knows it'll probably be several years before she sees him again.
  • The wave speech, which Jameela Jamil admitted in an interview is what broke her heart the most in the entire finale.
    Chidi: Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there, and you can see it, and you know what it is. It's a wave. And then it crashes on the shore... and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. That's one conception of death for a Buddhist. The wave returns to the ocean. Where it came from, and where it's supposed to be.
    Eleanor: (through a Tearful Smile) Not bad, Buddhists.
    Chidi: Not bad. None of this is bad.
    Eleanor: I need you to do me one last favor.
    Chidi: Mhm?
    Eleanor: Say goodbye to me now... and leave before I wake up.
  • Eleanor leaving the Good Place after having found her peace.
    • The way Janet asks if she can watch Eleanor leave, broken and on the verge of tears.
  • Janet is the only member of the Soul Squad who does not have an ultimate fate set up for her. In various ways, every other Soul Squad member leaves the Good Place, but they subsequently leave Janet behind. One of the most heartbreaking moments is when Eleanor goes, because now Janet is all alone. And, sure, Michael will eventually return. But one day he'll pass through the Door and leave her too...
  • Tahani, Janet, and Michael are now effectively on different planes of existence, for at least a couple years, and possibly even a couple Bearimies, and Jason, Chidi, and Eleanor have returned to the ocean. While Tahani and Janet can visit each other, and Michael will one day return to the Good Place, they'll still be split for quite some time.
  • The fact that this episode marks the Grand Finale of the show, with every conflict resolved. Even if you wanted to, this also marks how The Fellowship Has Ended, with half of the main cast Killed Off for Real while the other has gone their separate ways.

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