A Short Farewell to The Good Place

I think I’m better at writing than I am at talking. So, I hoped that writing this would make what I think or how I feel easier to process. Instead it’s been difficult just to sit down and do it.

I’d love to write this like a normal episode recap. I have written plenty of those. I’d love to focus on the technical components and what the show does so well. But that also feels like an enormous disservice to what made me fall in love with the show anyway. D’Arcy Carden, Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Manny Jacinto, Jameela Jamil, and Ted Danson continued to be excellent through this episode. This finale might be one of the most satisfying to one of the most accessibly esoteric shows that has ever been made.

The satisfaction of never really knowing is a prominent theme throughout The Good Place. Underscored by not being able to say anything with certainty. As Michael puts it, there’s nothing more human than that.

So how do you craft an entire show around the ultimate mystery of human existence and certainly one you can’t answer? You start with your characters (like most any good show). They are the show’s heart. The moral and philosophical questions drive much of the development of the show, but if it weren’t for Eleanor, Michael, Chidi, Janet, Jason, and Tahani, the show would feel like actors talking at their audience for a half an hour each Thursday.

I continue to come back to the turning point of the show for me. It was the trolley problem. When Michael finds out his answer. The show always had its heartbeat by running threads through the connection of its main characters. However, it was in that moment that it all clicks. That is not to say the show didn’t stumble with its writing after that. Its ambitious attempts would sometimes fall short. But what it all built to? The end. I mean, the final end. Not The Good Place, not The Bad Place, just places. That was all worth it.

While much of this episode is a consideration on the acceptance of death, it is the acceptance of a life lived that drives home every satisfying, heart wrenching, beautiful moment from Jason’s exploration in the forest to Michael’s return to Earth. We are all waves returning to an ocean that we briefly unsettled.

It is not to despair or dread knowing that you will not be returning. It’s not even entirely an acceptance of nonexistence. No. Because when you have existed, you never truly experience nonexistence again. In a pragmatic sense, sure. But your fingerprints are on everything, for better or for worse. And that’s what matters. It is an acceptance of the responsibility of what it means to live. What it means to love. What it means to connect.

If this all sounds like esoteric generalities, that’s because it is, in part. Much of what I savored about weekly episodes of The Good Place with my best friend lay right in the center of those generalities. We were going to take a ride with characters we loved while they - and subsequently we - investigated the biggest questions humankind has ever asked themselves with little hope for clean answers. They never found the answers. We certainly did not. But we were made all the better for trying.

Mike Schur, Ted Danson, D’Arcy Carden, William Jackson Harper, Kristen Bell, Manny Jacinto, Jameela Jamil, and every other crew member that worked to make The Good Place the television show it was can rest just a bit easier at night knowing their attempt pushed us who watched just a little bit further. A little bit closer to one another.

It was a spectacular run, one of the best endings to a television show I have ever seen, and a beautifully measured and empathetic look at what it means to exist. The ocean is a vast and unknowing place, and we may only ever be ripples on its surface. But you are a part of it. If nothing else, you belonged. You always belonged.

So long, The Good Place. Hope we meet again.