THE GOOD PLACE Season 4: A Forking Perfect Closure

For four seasons, Michael Schur’s afterlife NBC comedy The Good Place has given us a delightful show full of colorful characters, bizarre moments, plenty of pop culture reference, and even some of the craziest twists we’ve ever seen on TV. But just like how The Office is about the power of friendship or how Parks and Recreation is about integrity as much as they are about workplace comedy, The Good Place offers something more insightful underneath its basic premise: an exploration of morality and ethics.

The show confronts us with our own decency and humanity by asking us whether is it possible to be better or not, given the way our complicated lives work. So, it’s not a coincidence that each episode, name of philosophers like Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, or Plato, as well as their theories, are sprinkled in the middle of a conversation that occurs between the characters. And it’s also definitely not a coincidence that the main characters (Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Michael, and Janet) are painted as a group of deeply flawed people attempting to better themselves regardless of how difficult their journeys might get. But where shows like Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, or even The Walking Dead tackle this concept of the dialectic of change in ways that are dark and violent, The Good Place manages to do the same thing with charms, laughter, and a little bit of shrimp c*cktail.

Don’t Worry About the Slow Start

Premiering on September 26, 2019, season four slowly picks up where the last season left off while keeping the jokes and insane twists that make each season interesting coming back. Eleanor, who at the end of season three must sacrifice her relationship with Chidi after finding out that there’s a fatal flaw in the point system meant to decide who goes to The Good Place and The Bad Place, along with Michael and the rest of her soul squad are trying to prove to Judge Gen (Maya Rudolph, delightfully stealing every scene) that humanity is still worth to be saved. They agree to bring four new test subjects to determine if humans can actually improve themselves or not. But the deal must come at a price: Shawn, the leader of The Bad Place committee, is the one who will choose the experiment subjects. So of course, in an attempt to doom their effort, Shawn chooses four people that are basically the worst nightmare for Eleanor and crew.

As much as it is challenging for them, their biggest challenge, however, is not the one that is created by Shawn. It is, in fact, related to how difficult it is to fit their new subjects into the programs that they’ve planned, and make them a better person in the end. This trial and error eventually brings us back to the format of season one and two where Michael cons Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason into believing that they are indeed in The Good Place even though it is not. And for a while, even with engaging performances from the ensemble and great dialogue, this formula feels a little too dull and repetitive. But after the show finally reshuffles the status quo and puts back the spotlight entirely to the main characters, it finally finds the groove that’s been missing for the first half of season four.

In fact, after the midseason finale, The Good Place is at its absolute best, digging even deeper into the philosophy that they’ve been exploring without once losing its comedic moment. But while the first three seasons and the first half of season four mostly dealt with what humans can do to be their higher self, the last few episodes delve even deeper into the complexity and difficulties of being humans who live in a complicated world as social tribal, while at the same time reminding us that there might never be an easy answer to the mystery of life or death. And all of these are done masterfully by Schur, his writers, and the cast — especially Kristen Bell and Ted Danson who both provide vulnerability underneath their characters’ goofiness — without even once feeling as if it wants to lecture us.

Everyone Gets Beautiful Codas

Like I said earlier, every character in The Good Place is portrayed as someone who is flawed and far from perfect, but also very humane. When we first met them, Eleanor was self-centered and oblivious; Chidi was indecisive and very uptight; Tahani was a glory-seeking, socially myopic snob; Jason was clueless; Janet was emotionless; and Michael was literally evil. But as the series progresses, these characters are confronted with their flaws and challenged to better themselves. So seeing them grow to be much better human beings until the very last episode is one of the most rewarding experiences of watching the show.

After realizing that the real good place has a major problem, Eleanor and crew decide to, once and for all, design a new system that will solve both the problems of humanity and the afterlife at the same time: each of the good place’s resident could spend as much Jeremy Bearimys in paradise as they want before deciding to go through the door that Janet has created to bring their journeys to an end. It’s through this that The Good Place successfully makes a case that what makes life precious is death. If there is no end and if we are immortal, then what we do in the world could be meaningless at some point. In the end, to be human means that we know we can’t last forever, that we know we have to make every living moment as meaningful as possible cause we’re mortal.

In the series finale “Whenever You’re Ready”, which serves both as an ending and an epilogue, the main characters are on their final journey before going through the door and rest forever. Jason is the first who decides to go through the door after achieving some sort of spiritual enlightenment. The stakes with Jason have always been much simpler: he’s just a chaotic person whose life goal is to have fun. So when in the end he feels like he has experienced all the fun he could ever think of, he knows that it’s time to go. Tahani, on the other hand, is more complex. She started off as someone whose primary goal is to get validation from other people, but in the end, she’s grown to be someone who is kinder and more generous. So instead of going through the door, she chooses to implement her generosity to help Shawn build a new afterlife system.

Chidi’s farewell is the most emotional because it also deals with Eleanor letting go of someone whom she thought would be her forever. At first, Chidi is willing to stay for Eleanor until she’s ready to go through the door too. But in one of the most emotional moments of the show, Eleanor finally realizes that her moral justification of making Chidi stay is nothing but an act of selfishness, an issue that she’s been struggling with since season one, and that she has to let him go. Here’s what’s interesting about Chidi and Eleanor’s arc: instead of rendering their final moment in a tragic romantic journey, the show uses it to once again highlight the show’s long philosophy concept of T.M. Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other where in the end, it allows Eleanor to realize that she owes Chidi the freedom of his own decision. And as satisfying as it is to see Chidi and Eleanor together, their farewell ends on a very beautiful note.

The Ultimate Legacy of The Good Place

It is Eleanor’s farewell, however, that eventually becomes the ultimate legacy of The Good Place. After she parts with Chidi, there are two final things she needs to do before she goes through the door. First is to convince Mindy, the only resident of The Medium Place, to take the test that would allow her to go into The Good Place. And the second is to help Michael in making his long dream of becoming a human come true. Of course, she succeeds in both. But the point that the show underscores here is not about whether she will marvel her missions or not, but rather about how even in her final time, Eleanor is still trying to help other people.

The Good Place has always been a beacon of selflessness. And to see Eleanor who began the show as someone who is far from it then finds a way to change and eventually end her journey by being the most selfless that she’s ever been is just so lifting. Selfishness is the deepest root of all the problems that happen in this world. People want other people to lose because they want to selfishly have a victory to their own; people refuse to open their eyes to what’s happening outside of their lives because they selfishly think that it’s not their problems. So in that regard, to see a show that keeps reminding us constantly what do we owe to each other and why do we need to help others is something that we should cherish for the rest of our lives.

Even in its final moment, The Good Place still manages to drill home this message. Eleanor finally goes through the door, and what’s left is just orbs of light floating above the sky. Then in the next scene, a nameless guy on earth throws a letter wrongly sent to him in the trash. But when Eleanor’s light floats around him, he decides to pick up that letter and hand-deliver it to its recipient, which is Michael. What the show wants us to remember through this scene is, how even after when we die, there are still parts of us — our kindness, ethics, or all the good things we’ve done when we’re alive — that are able to influence other people to do good too. It’s a very hopeful note; one which reminds us why is it important to always do good and better ourselves at every possible moment.

Being a decent human being is hard and frustrating. But if there’s one thing that The Good Place has taught us is that we shouldn’t give up on trying to be better.

What do you think of the ending? Let us know in the comments!

The Good Place season four is available to watch on NBC.