Why you need to watch The Good Place right the fork now

Anika In't Hout
Nov 4 · 6 min read

The Good Place isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill sit-com. In fact, unlike popular TV sit-coms set in an office or a house, The Good Place isn’t even set on Earth. The Good Place starts with Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a girl from Arizona who wakes up in the afterlife, surprised that she’s even made it into the Good Place, a perfect paradise for only “the true cream of the crop,” also known as the most kind and selfless people in the world. However, it doesn’t take her long to realize that there’s been a big mistake as she was not as good of a person on Earth as the Good Place’s architect, Michael (Ted Danson), and his all-knowing assistant, Janet (D’Arcy Caden), believe her to be. With the help of her new friend and soul mate, Chidi (William Jackson Harper), as well as her supposedly perfect next-door neighbors, Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jason (Manny Jacinto), Eleanor becomes determined to change her old ways and become a better person. While The Good Place is currently airing their fourth and final season, every season of this show is different, exciting and most definitely worth watching. Without any spoilers, here are seven reasons why you should be watching The Good Place right the fork now.

@nbcthegoodplace via Instagram

1. The characters

Honestly, the characters are what make this show. The six main characters in The Good Place, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Michael, and Janet may have led different lives, each with different backgrounds and unique flaws, but they are also complex characters with many layers who experience so much character growth and development over the series. To sum it all up, Eleanor is a dirtbag from Arizona who is selfish woman who only cares about eating shrimp and looking out for herself; Chidi is a professor of ethics and moral philosophy with a dazzling smile and a love of turtleneck sweaters but who often suffers from stomach aches because of his rigid indecisiveness or just from being roped into Eleanor’s crazy shenanigans; Tahani is a bit of a narcissist who name drops her celebrity friends in almost every second sentence, but who was an amazing philanthropist but who comes from a cruel family; and Jason is a drug-dealing DJ from Florida who may be a bit of an idiot with a love of the Jacksonville Jaguars and jalapeño poppers, but who has big dreams and a big heart. At the end of the day, while they are all different, they all care about each other, help each other through hard times and become better people throughout the four seasons.

@nbcthegoodplace via Instagram

2. The humor

As the creator of The Good Place, Michael Schur, was a writer for other TV popular shows like Parks and Recreation, The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place was bound to be a barrel of laughs too. With a mind-bending plot and a narrative structure that does not reset at the end of each episode, The Good Place often blurs the line between comedy and drama. However, despite this, the show is still a hilarious thirty-minute sit-com full of little jokes and dry humor that often has audiences bursting with laughter.

3. The little details

The Good Place is not only is a hilarious show with great characters, but it also is awesome with little details. The show is so creative not only with costumes and set design, but also with clever details like a swear-word blocker in the Good Place where swear words come out as other words (i.e. the f-word comes out of characters’ mouths as “fork”) as well as having frozen yogurt flavors like fully charged cell phone battery and folded laundry. By adding all these little details to the show, it takes the show up a notch and shows that the creators know exactly what they are doing.

@nbcthegoodplace via Instagram

4. The twists and turns

Without spoiling anything, this show has a lot of twists and turns at every corner. Whether it is season one, two, three or four, many of the show’s episodes and even seasons end on cliffhangers, making the audience hang on the edge of their seats, curious about what will happen next. What twists and turns are there, you ask? Well, you just have to watch the show to find out. Let’s just put it this way: the twist at the end of season one will make you say, “Holy fork!”

5. The love and friendship

While every season of The Good Place is different, the show’s main characters always help each other out and become incredibly close, despite their differences. Not only are their great loves in this show between characters like Eleanor and Chidi as well as Jason and Janet, but there are also lovely friendships and strong bonds between characters like Tahani and Eleanor, Eleanor and Michael, and Michael and Janet that are all built on loyalty, respect and empathy.

@nbcthegoodplace via Instagram

6. The representation

Now while this show is not perfect, there is lots of great representation in the show as well. There are so many great characters in the show that come from marginalized communities but are portrayed in complex and non-stereotypical ways including Eleanor as bisexual, Tahani as an immigrant from Pakistan raised in London, Chidi as Senegalese, and Jason as a Filipino man from Florida. The Good Place does a great job of creating characters with different backgrounds and sexual orientations without making them a big deal and rather, just making their backgrounds only one part of their overall identity. While the show still follows the story of a white woman and has two other white lead main characters, it is amazing to see the other three main characters as diverse, normal, non-stereotypical characters with big hearts.

7. The overall message

Whether the audience believes in an afterlife does not matter when watching this show. Rather than fixating on organized religion, The Good Place takes on the approach of using ethics and moral philosophy to discuss ideas about the importance of being a good person. Through scenes of Chidi teaching Eleanor ethics and moral philosophy, the audience gets mini moral philosophy lessons about what it means to be a good person. At the end of the day, The Good Place is showing the audience the importance of things like love, friendship, and kindness. And in a world like today where there are so many atrocities everywhere, it is nice to sit down and be able to watch a light TV show that focuses on the importance of helping people and being a good person.

@nbcthegoodplace via Instagram

The bottom line

While there are many sit-coms out there today, The Good Place is a one-of-a-kind sit-com that combines comedy with drama, science-fiction, metaphysics, theology and so much more. While it is sad to see that the show only has four seasons, these seven reasons are why you should definitely watch the show right the fork now.

Anika In't Hout

Written by

Media studies & creative writing student at Western University | Writer, storyteller & serious movie/TV buff | Aspiring advertising copywriter

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