The Good Place

I have to question if Elanor would have wanted to go through the door if Chidi and everyone else hadn't done so first. Losing most things she cared about... It pushed her to want to be where they were.

This was a really good finale, 2020 is not going to be the year of crappy series finales like last year.

there was a lot going on and I'm surprised at the sheer amount of people they brought back for the finale, but I'm glad they didn't end with Michael's death and left it on an ambiguous note for what happens next.

I didn't quite agree with the resolution to the penultimate episode but these felt like great endpoints for their arcs.

also they got a Nick Offerman cameo which really made my day

Edited by Nouct on Jan 31st 2020 at 1:03:19 AM

I really, really want to go to The Good Place, it seems like a perfect afterlife. You spend millions of Bearimys with all the people you want, traveling anywhere you want, reading all the books and watching all the movies and eating all the food you want, and then when you're done, you can just walk out to a blissful eternity of oblivion.

Beautiful. Where do I sign up?

I haven't watched the episode yet, but Ron Swanson got into The Good Place?

Offerman's credited As Himself so it's in a vague maybe territory. They probably talked about it in the podcast.

also everyone seems to have gotten into the Good Place by the end since the new systems works without any hitches whatsoever

Except for Brent, of course. I'm surprised he's still learning basic human decency.

Not everyone. We see that Brent is still going through the system (after, like, 15,000 tries) and is still trying to comprehend why telling a woman to smile is bad.

In any case: damn this finale was great. Between this finale and Arrow's finale, this year is the "finale as epilogue." Because that's what this was: an epilogue to the entire show. They achieved what they set out to achieve and now...they get their reward. For however long they want.

It was Tahani's that killed me. Seeing her and her sister together was great and then them anxiously meeting their parents, who probably took the test more than a few times which...changed them into loving parents. And finally, after having the thing she wanted most in her life, Tahani is content...but still wants to give back. She wants to help others, so goes and gets to design Afterlife Tests.

I love that they brought back Mindy St Claire, too. After a looong time in the Medium Place, Eleanor finally convinces her to go through the Test and get into the Good Place. After all, she did help them out all those times.

So a thought: sociopaths exist. So there have to be people who go to through the Afterlife Test who never pass right? I guess there are people who are being eternally tortured in the Bad Place, but in a different way and they really deserve it.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 31st 2020 at 6:06:47 AM

My best guess is that after a certain number of tests, the Bad Place will be allowed to torture a person eternally if they really deserve it. Some people just never change, I guess.

I mean, I thought part of why the Bad Place agreed to this plan was because they had become truly bored to torture in much the same way the Good Place inhabitants had become bored of having the world at their fingertips. The tests themselves are a more mentally engaging form of torture for the demons, learning to manipulate and toy with billions of unique human emotions and putting them through that repetitive grinder serves their ends far better than endless physical torture (since it's pretty obvious they're just sadists, and that they don't care about enacting justice on bad people or anything). I mean, this way, they get to torture literally every human that exists from this point on, but this human has a guaranteed chance to get out eventually. It's a win win situation- everyone goes through the Bad Place (effectively), but everyone ends up in the Good Place (theoretically).

Someone translated Chidi's Jeremy Bearimy calendar and it's amazing.

Thsi was added to BrokenAesop.Live Action TV: "* The Good Place portrays Heaven Seeker Doug Forcett as a pathetic, broken man who has spent decades doing anything and everything to make other people happy, no matter how miserable it makes him. There's just one problem - Doug had a point. The show has already established that The Bad Place is a real thing, most people go there, and there is no limit to the horrific tortures that they inflict on people. What's a few decades of misery compared to an eternity of torture?"

Does it count?

EDIT: This too on the finale's YMMV page: "Esoteric Happy Ending: A happy ending in which half the main characters choose to end their existence is probably unique in mainstream comedy.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Jan 31st 2020 at 12:57:12 PM

That's not a Broken Aesop, because Doug Forcett wasn't going to get into the Good Place anyway, even with all the good things he was doing. Once they revamped the system, then he got in and he didn't need to torture himself to do it.

As for the other thing nope, not an Esoteric Happy Ending. I have a feeling that lots of people mistake Esoteric Happy Ending for Bittersweet Ending.

I'll put it on the cutlist then since it's the only thing there. Thanks!

Edited by lalalei2001 on Jan 31st 2020 at 1:13:04 AM

The DVD for the final season is up for pre-orders and comes out May 19! That's a lot earlier than I thought it'd be! :D

Show's over? Huh, I finished Season two last month, I think?

Welp, no hiatuses for me. I can shove it all down my gullet, no preparation needed.

Ho-o-oly shit, that ending. Finally finished the show.

My best friend hasn't seen season four yet. But she and I have talked about the afterlife a few times since we've known her. Something about her that's always stood out to me is that she believes in an afterlife, but doesn't personally want one. She lives with insomnia and night terrors, and she's talked about how her ideal end-of-life experience is that she just gets to go to sleep, to not have dreams, and to never wake up. She wants everyone else to get their fulfilling afterlives and whatnot, but she personally just wants to end when her time comes.

She's going to love this ending.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 9th 2020 at 10:39:31 AM

A bit late, but sociopaths do exist aka anti social people, and many are perfectly capable of becoming good people, they would just need custom made neighborhoods, like a lot of folks with cluster b personalities.

I hope you share your friend's reaction to the ending, Tobias.

All right, so the series ended. And judging from the reactions, it ended in the total opposite way of Game of Thrones!

Well, gotta set up a day to binge watch Season 4!

Well, everybody died.

I found a comic book miniseries that reminds me a lot of The Good Place going by descriptions and interviews. It's called Afterlift.

Oh, Afterlift is awesome. It's written by Chip Zdarsky, who is hilarious, but it's also a Comixology original, meaning you can only read it online here.

Edited by alliterator on Feb 18th 2020 at 7:15:58 AM

I mean, that happened before Episode 1.

My friend, the same one I mentioned before, has a problem with media constantly killing off her favorite characters. I was able to sell her on The Good Place by just giving her a run-down of the first-episode premise, since I knew she'd connect with Eleanor. Eleanor's exactly her type of character. Also, she's really into philosophy.

"A total dumpster fire of a human being ends up in Heaven by accident, and then has to con her way into pretending she belongs while studying ethical philosophy. She's trying to fake it 'til she makes it in Heaven."

That hooked her, and she loves the show to death.

However, as she rightly pointed out, they did technically still kill off her favorite character. Right in the premise of the show, no less.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 18th 2020 at 4:17:50 AM

And then, come the third season, they kill her off again!