Loveday Writing

We are then brought back to where we were left off, with Shawn telling the group that they have 30 minutes to decide which two people will be going to the Bad Place. Eleanor speaks first saying that she and Jason are the mistakes and they dragged everyone into their mess, so they should go to the Bad Place. When both Tahani and Chidi rapidly agree with Eleanor, Eleanor admits that she thought that they would at least pretend to fight her on this, and Jason points out that Shawn said they have all done bad things since they have arrived.

After they argue for a little while, Eleanor drags Jason outside and tells him that while she doesn’t want to go to the Bad Place either, Tahani and Chidi are better people than they are. While they are talking, Tahani watches them and tells Chidi they are planning something against them, and she laments over not having a soulmate. Eleanor comes back in and tells them that she and Jason are going. Just as Eleanor and Jason are about tell Michael and Shawn they’re ready to leave, the Real Eleanor comes in and offers to go to the Bad Place as Chidi doesn’t love her. The Real Eleanor says that because she is willing to go, they only have to choose one more person.

While Michael and Shawn are waiting in Eleanor’s bedroom, Shawn tells Michael that the whole situation is a real mess and he wouldn’t be surprised if his boss forced him to retire over his mistake. This leads to another flashback with Michael working on the neighbourhood design, when another colleague of his, Val, asks him how he is going with the design. Michael asks Val if they could do things differently, but Val tells him not to rock the boat and do a good job.

Later, Eleanor decides to go the Bad Place with the Real Eleanor, only for Chidi to take her place due to the Real Eleanor going to the Bad Place because of him. Eleanor argues with him, only for Tahani offering to replace the Real Eleanor. Meanwhile, Jason is just happy he can stay with Janet. When Tahani insults Jason for loving Janet, this leads to an argument between Jason, Tahani, Chidi and Janet, with Eleanor trying to diffuse the situation.

Eleanor then has an epiphany and her reaction to it stops the argument. She then tells Michael and Shawn to come out of her bedroom. Eleanor tells them that she and Chidi are going to the Bad Place and asks them to call the train. Shawn doesn’t accept this offer, but Eleanor reminds him that he said any two of them could go. Bambadjan comes in with an obscure argument to offer to save them, but Eleanor dismisses him. Chidi asks Eleanor what’s going on, she tells them all that while they were arguing on which one of them should go to the Bad Place, she said to herself ‘man, this is torture,’ then it hit her, Michael and Shawn will never call a train to take them to the Bad Place, they can’t, they’re already here.

This is the Bad Place.

The group look at Michael for a response, he then starts laughing maniacally and says that he can’t believe that she figured it out.

When Chidi says this revelation doesn’t make sense as they’re in paradise. Eleanor tells him that it looks like paradise but in reality they are in “a filthy dumpster full of their worst anxieties”, pointing out that she is surrounded by people who are better than her, just her being there forced Chidi into an ethical ‘clusterfork’, Tahani tortured Jason by constantly trying to get him to talk, Jason tortured her because she was sure he was going to blow their cover, which tortured Chidi as he was responsible for her, which made Chidi seem like the perfect soulmate, which tortured Tahani because he doesn’t love her. She says they have been torturing each other from the moment they arrived, and everything that Michael has done has made at least one of them miserable. Jason also points out that he told her that he thought they were ‘on a prank show’.

Moments later, the Real Eleanor comes in begging Chidi not to go and declares her love for him, only for Michael to call her by her real name, Vicky, and inform her that they have figured out the truth. She drops her act and leaves. When Shawn asks Michael if he can recall what he told him when Michael said he could do this for 1,000 years, it leads to another flashback of Michael pitching his idea to Shawn and his other colleagues. During the pitch meeting it’s revealed that he stole a Good Place Janet to use for his proposed neighbourhood. Although Shawn was sceptical, he was intrigued enough to hear Michael out.

When Chidi asks him about everyone else in the neighbourhood, Michael tells him that everyone else in the neighbourhood is a demon and that they would create fun scenarios to torture them. This leads to a flashback of when everyone was quarantined during the sinkhole crisis, and it’s revealed that Michael sent Bart and Nina in to torture them. Michael then reveals that everything went off the rails when Eleanor confessed to being in the Good Place by mistake, and admits that everyone underestimated how good Chidi would be at teaching her ethics, and that no-one anticipated Janet falling in love with Jason.

Eleanor then asks Michael why Tahani and Chidi were sent to the Bad Place. When Jason incorrectly guesses how much money Tahani raised for charity on Earth and she pretentiously corrects him, she realises that her motivations for her good deeds were corrupt because she was doing the work to please her parents, stick it to her sister, and gain fame and attention. Whereas Michaels informs Chidi that he was sent to the Bad Place as he hurt everyone in his life with his rigidity and indecisiveness.

When Michael says it sucks that all of his hard work was for nothing, Eleanor disagrees with him telling him that this is wonderful as they all took care of and improved each other, and he succeeded in bringing them together. This makes Michael realise that his big mistake was bringing them all together, having them be soulmates, and that next time he’ll spread them out to make the torture more of a slow burn. When Chidi asks him what he means by next time, Michael informs them that he’ll erase their memories, make a few changes, and start his experiment over. He just needs to get Shawn to sign off on it.

Eleanor tells them that they need a plan, asking everyone for help to no avail. Meanwhile, Shawn questions why he’d do this work again just for four people, but Michael convinces him, with Shawn telling him that if he gets it wrong again, he’s done. Eleanor ends up writing herself a note in the ‘What We Owe to Each Other’ book, and gives the note to Janet, putting it in her mouth as she can’t eat anything.

When Michael says they are trying again, Eleanor tells him to do his worst and calls him ‘basic’ moments before he snaps his fingers. We are then given a callback to the pilot, with Eleanor once again waking up outside of Michael’s office, this time with the words ‘Welcome! Everything is great!” on the wall in front of her. Michael tells her to come into his office and tells her she’s dead.

We then see Eleanor go through her ‘Good Place’ orientation again, this time with a different soulmate, Chris. Eleanor asks Chris if he’ll stand by her no matter what, implying that she has once again realised straight away that she doesn’t belong in the Good Place. He cuts off her to tell her he’s going to the gym and leaves. Janet then appears and gives her the note, which reads ‘Eleanor – Find Chidi.’ Eleanor questions what a Chidi is and when she goes to ask Janet about it, she has disappeared.

Overall this was one of the best season finales I’ve ever seen.

While the first half mostly consisted of everyone arguing about who should go to the Bad Place, once the twist was revealed, the finale well and truly became exciting. While you would think that this twist undermines the character development that has taken place with the four protagonists, as we don’t know what to believe, in reality the character development has led to this moment. While Eleanor and Jason were clearly more astute to something not being quite right with the ‘Good Place’ due to their true natures and the fact that they realised they were brought there by mistake almost instantaneously, Chidi’s ethics lessons led to Eleanor becoming a better person, opening her eyes to the world around her even more, which led to Michael’s plans going awry.

I also felt that the writing was at its best in this episode as the twist and the variety of reasons why the four protagonists have ended up in the Bad Place make sense. The flashbacks of Michael designing the neighbourhood also work well, as the office and dialogue within the flashbacks were generic enough to have the viewers believe he was in the ‘Good Place’ or at least a neutral zone, yet once the twist is revealed, subtle Bad Place demons and elements were brought into the flashbacks to make the office and Bad Place setting more ‘realistic’, so to speak.

As I stated in my review of the pilot, I have been reviewing this season knowing what the twist was, so the twist in itself didn’t surprise me on this viewing. However as I was aware of the twist, I was deliberately looking for hints. What I think the hints were might not necessarily be hints at all, and there would definitely be others I missed (feel free to comment below to let me know), but it was fun looking for them. I’ve included the full list of the hints I found below.

So the ‘Eleanor-Jason brought to the Good Place by mistake’ story arc has concluded with the twist reveal, and a new story arc for the second season has been put into motion, with Michael erasing the protagonist’s memories and rebooting the neighbourhood. However Eleanor’s note will definitely throw a spanner into the works this time around.

I’m looking forward to reviewing Season 2 and seeing where the rebooted neighbourhood and protagonists will take us.

Stray Observations:

-Eleanor calls Tahani a “sexy skyscraper”.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “You saw us all on Earth – a selfish ass, an idiot DJ, a tortured academic, a hot rich fraud with legs for days…sidenote, I might legit be into Tahani.” (Eleanor to Michael)

All hints of the twist (including hints presented in this episode prior to the reveal):

• 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, when the twist is revealed and as the series progresses, it turns out her quick description was accurate.
• Michael isn’t human, which is obvious due to his role as an architect, however it is not explicitly stated what kind of being he is.
• The trash storm in Episode 2.
• The fact that Michael banned flying, flying should always be available in the afterlife, even if injuries occur. Injuries when flying, especially when residents are new at it would be a given and as the residents can’t die, why would injuries or the possibility of them even matter in the first place? Also how are injuries even possible in the afterlife?
• Jianyu reveals to Eleanor that he is not supposed to be in the Good Place either.
• Tahani’s misery over Jianyu’s refusal to break his vow of silence.
• Jianyu is revealed to be Jason Mendoza from Jacksonville, Florida, and is also in the Good Place by mistake.
• Jason tells Eleanor that Heaven is racist. While this could be played off as a joke, it could also be interpreted as a torture method.
• Jason says to Eleanor he thinks they are on a prank show, a guess that could be dismissed, however it turns out to be an accurate observation.
• Tahani feels sadness over Jianyu’s being excluded from the restaurant launch.
• Chidi wants to enjoy paradise instead of teaching Eleanor, but if he doesn’t teach Eleanor he’s shirking his ethical responsibility, which is making him miserable.
• The fact that the neighbourhood has a design flaw.
• Michael’s “retirement” being an extreme and physical form of punishment and torture.
• The fact that Janet has a “kill switch” in case she is not operating properly that she herself provides access to, yet if it’s used, an alarm declares that she has been murdered. Why is there such a “kill switch” in place if it can’t be used without this alarm going off?
• Michael says that the system has never made a mistake before, yet Eleanor being in the Good Place is a mistake.
• Both Michael and Trevor, or rather the Good Place and the Bad Place, are equally stumped about why Eleanor was mistakenly sent to the Good Place.
• “Real Eleanor” was also on the train, yet she wasn’t revealed or seen by anyone, Eleanor included.
• Tahani asks Jason how he got into the Good Place.
• Eleanor casually remarks that Chidi was being tortured by guilt for having to keep her secret.
• Michael tells both Eleanors, Chidi and Tahani that the Good Place has never had to prove that someone belongs there.
• All four of the protagonists have done bad things since they arrived at the Good Place.
• Tahani and Chidi are sent to the Bad Place in Eleanor’s and Jason’s stead.
• Jason points out that as he and Eleanor are bad people, Tahani and Chidi helping them out makes them bad by association.
• Jason points out that Chidi has done worse things than him such as murdering Janet.