Loveday Writing

The pilot begins with a close up shot of Eleanor Shellstrop’s (Kristen Bell) face, waking up in an office and a wall with the words “Welcome! Everything is fine” on it in front of her.

Within the first two minutes of the pilot it’s established that Eleanor is dead, she is in the next phase of her existence in the universe and we find out she died in an embarrassing way by Good Place architect, Michael (Ted Danson). Within the third minute of the show, we are told that the religious heaven-or-hell idea that a large number of people would have been raised on is only five percent accurate.

We then cut to Michael giving Eleanor a tour of the Good Place neighbourhood she is living in, explaining to her that the Good Place consists of multiple, unique neighbourhoods that are designed and calibrated for its residents. She then goes to sit with other residents to watch an orientation video, which explains the points system which decides whether a person goes to the Good Place or the Bad Place. Michael also tells them in the video that soulmates are real and everyone has one in the Good Place.

After the orientation video, Michael takes Eleanor to her home, a Scandinavian style cottage, which is next door to a huge mansion. He also shows her videos of her memories, which includes a human rights mission in Ukraine, and expresses admiration of her work as a lawyer who got people off death row. Her soulmate, Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper) arrives and Michael introduces him to her.

Michael leaves, and Chidi and Eleanor starting talking to get to know each other. It’s moments into their conversation that Eleanor asks Chidi if he’ll stand by her no matter what and he promises to do so. It is then that Eleanor reveals that a mistake has been made and she’s not supposed to be here.

It is this revelation, 9.5 minutes into the pilot, which sets the entire series in motion.

Eleanor tells Chidi that while the Good Place got her name correct, the details of her life are wrong, and she reveals her true self to him and the viewers. She tells him that she worked in “sales”, which a flashback shows, meaning that she sold fake medicine to people, specifically the elderly.

Later when Eleanor and Chidi leave the house, Chidi suggests to Eleanor that her being in the Good Place by mistake is a test, but she doesn’t buy it. Chidi then asks Janet (D’Arcy Carden), the Good Place’s informational assistant, for information on the Bad Place. However she is not allowed to tell them anything about it, instead playing a horrifying audio clip of what is happening there right now. As they are walking around the Good Place, Michael introduces them to Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jianyu (Manny Jacinto), a wealthy British philanthropist and a Buddhist monk respectively, who are their next-door neighbours. Michael tells them that Tahani and Jianyu will be hosting a welcome party at their house later that evening.

When they attend the party, Eleanor immediately takes a disliking to Tahani, who comes across to her as snobby, arrogant and condescending. We then see another flashback of Eleanor’s life, which reveals how rude she was to a stranger, without a second thought.

After getting drunk at the party and going home, Eleanor apologises to Chidi, asks him if he thinks anyone cared if she died, and tells him he’s a nice person. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds the Good Place in chaos, with Ariana Grande music playing (she mispronounced Chidi’s last name as Ariana Grande), flying shrimp (referencing her stealing shrimp from Tahani and Jianyu’s party), giant giraffes (referencing calling Tahani a giraffe), giant bottles of the fake pills she use to sell, and everyone dressed in blue and yellow striped clothing (except her). Chidi tells her that her presence is causing these problems and that she doesn’t belong here, which clearly hurts her. She asks for his help as an ethics and moral philosophy professor to teach her how to be a good person so she can fit in, just as Michael knocks on their door to tell them about an emergency meeting.

While this is an overview of what happened in the episode, I’ll go into a bit of detail.

Firstly, the characterisation of Eleanor is fantastic in this episode. This is due to the episode partly being from her eyes, but also in the way she is presented to the viewers in the first five minutes of the episode. When she first meets Michael, he informs her that not only has just died but how. He informs her that she died after dropping a bottle of margarita mix in a grocery store parking lot—when she bent down to pick it up, a long column of shopping trolleys ploughed into her, sweeping her out into the street where she was hit by a mobile billboard truck advertising erectile dysfunction pills called “engorge-ulate”. To add insult to injury, one of the first EMTs on the scene was one of her ex-boyfriends.  The fact that Eleanor’s death was over-the-top and embarrassing is one of many comedic and quirky moments of the show. I also felt that her selfishness and vulnerability were balanced out perfectly, which is displayed when she acts selfish one minute but shows her vulnerability to Chidi the next, when she asks him if he thinks anyone cared if she died and when she is clearly hurt by his statement that she doesn’t belong in the Good Place.

Another quirky moment comes when Eleanor asks who, religiously speaking, was right about what the afterlife is like. When Michael reveals that all religions were only about five percent accurate in their guesses of what the afterlife is like, that a college student high on mushrooms was the only person in existence to accurately guess what it is like, and whether people end up in the Good Place or Bad Place is dependent on a points system based on how their actions affected the universe, demonstrates that the afterlife in the context of this show is morality and not religion based. This is also emphasised when Michael describes the neighbourhoods to Eleanor as being designed and calibrated based on its residents, as opposed to one general idea or design of Heaven that most people are accustomed to, such as angels playing harps on clouds and spending an eternity with Jesus or another Higher Power.

I feel that the pilot’s and therefore the show’s quirky elements will either be embraced by viewers or put them off completely. However one could argue that the many ideas of what an afterlife consists of, if it truly does exist, are quirky.

Overall I felt this pilot did its job perfectly in introducing the audience to the show’s premise and characters, and provided a great moment in the final seconds to be a springboard for the next episode and the rest of the season.

Stray Observations:

-According to Michael, in cases of traumatic or embarrassing deaths, the memories of it are erased to allow for a peaceful transition to the afterlife.

-There are 322 residents in each Good Place neighbourhood.

-According to Michael basically every artist ever (including but not limited to: Mozart, Picasso and Elvis), as well as every US President except for Lincoln are in the Bad Place. Florence Nightingale was close to getting into the Bad Place, but apparently didn’t make it.

-Chidi was born in Nigeria and raised in Senegal. He also speaks French but when he is speaking to Eleanor it is translated to English.

-Eleanor was born in Phoenix.

-Swearing isn’t possible in the Good Place.

-Michael has been an architect for over 200 years.

-Eleanor describes herself as a medium person and that she should go to a medium place. This comment pays off in a future episode.

-Some of the negative actions listed in the orientation video that can subtract from a person’s points total at the end of their life include but are not limited to:

• Stiff a waitress.
• Buy a trashy magazine.
• Use Facebook as a verb.
• Disturb coral reef with flipper.
• Poison a river.
• Use the term “bro code”.
• Be commissioner of professional football league (American).
• Rev a motorcycle.
• Blow nose by pressing nostril and exhaling.
• Ruin opera with boorish behaviour.
• Tell a woman to “smile”.
• Root for New York Yankees.
• Steal copper wiring from decommissioned military base.
• Harassment (sexual).
• Commit genocide.
• Overstate personal connection to tragedy that has nothing to do with you.
• Fail to disclose camel illness when selling a camel.

Hints of the Season 1 Finale twist:

• Saying “everything is fine” is a very mediocre description of the Good Place/Heaven/Paradise/Utopia.
• Eleanor Shellstrop has been mistaken for another Eleanor Shellstrop. Her name is correct, but the details Michael provided of her life are not.
• The Bad Place is one topic Janet is not allowed to tell the Good Place residents about.
• Chidi’s constant stomach ache.
• Eleanor tells Chidi the system is flawed. While this can be played off as Eleanor excusing her selfish nature in this episode, when the twist is revealed and as the series progresses, it turns out her quick description was accurate.