The Good Place
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Created by Michael Schur (famously known for shows like “Brooklyn nine nine” and “Parks & Recreation”) this sitcom series presents a new concept of afterlife with all its flavors and teaches you some really important lessons about life in an intriguing manner. Set in a fictional world of good and bad, the show also showcases the reality of the present world. The show begins with the establishment of “the good place” and the arrival of Eleanor Shellstrop into the afterlife. It showcases the perfect image of Heaven (as one would imagine), free from one’s fears with the ability to do whatever one wants.
As one may imagine, the good place seems to be for people with good deeds and habits, people who believe in others before self. The show introduces three beautiful characters with flawless personalities — Chidi Anagonye (an ethics professor), Jianyu (a Buddhist Monk) and Tahani Al Jamil (a philanthropist) who also enter the good place along with Eleanor. But the chaos begin when Eleanor starts to realize that she doesn’t fit in the good place! The first season of this fantasy series revolves around the idea of being good and doing good deeds to end up in the good place and Eleanor’s attempt to fit into the place with the help of her three friends. It teaches you various ways in which one can be good without having to work hard about it. Slowly into the series, the friends seem to bond with each other and learn ways to protect each other while also doing good deeds without their knowledge.
The story ranging across 4 seasons and 52 episodes showcases the different emotions of humanity and the struggle humans face to stay in the good books. The show experiences a turning point when Eleanor realizes that the good place is indeed the bad place and that they were all being tortured in hell. Michael (the angel architect of this simulated place) resets their memories a 1000 times before he realizes that Humans have the tendency to be good if shown the right path. The torturer turned friend along with Janet (not a girl or a robot), joins forces with the humans to figure out a perfect system to prove that humans deserve to be in the good place. The show teaches you the various ethical principles of human life in a mesmerizing way (PS: what better way to learn Ethics than from Professor Chidi Anagonye) that makes you wonder about your true existence and the value of living. It teaches you to value people around you and to learn a bit from everybody and everything.
The cast of the series showcase a variety of characters, from an indecisive professor of ethics, a Buddhist monk who’s actually a Floridian dingdong DJ, a philanthropist who craves for attention, a messed up human trying to figure out life (Alexa, play “this is my life”), Janet who is neither a girl nor a robot who learns the beauty of friendship and a devil who eventually becomes an angel when surrounded by the love and warmth that humans have to offer. It also changes ones perspective about the good and bad and teaches you that there’s more to life and the ways in which one can live life. The second and third season revolve around the search for ways to develop a system to ensure that humanity is justified and people are given a chance to be their better self. “The point is, people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don’t?” — Michael. Well said Michael, well said.
At the onset of the 4th season, when the humans along with Michael enter the Good place for real, they recognize that the idea of the good place isn’t ideal as they’d supposed. As they say, we wish to live a life because we know that we’re all mortals and have an end. Death seems to be a concept that one fears about, but when you think of it, it is this mortality that gives a meaning to your life, makes you want to live every bit of it, appreciate the happy moments and learn from the sad ones. It is this concept of an end that helps you be a human. When you think about the common notion of afterlife
especially heaven, we think about eternal long lasting happiness and peace, doing whatever you want forever. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned as humans, materialistic things will tend to give you happiness only if you know there’s an end to it. Imagine you have access to every flavor of ice-cream on Earth for the rest of your life. Sounds interesting right? Think about it a little harder and you’ll realize that this ice-cream will not give you happiness anymore after a certain point. Your desire for something tends to die once you acknowledge the fact that it’ll exist forever. That is what heaven is, a frictionless illusion that will last forever and will, at one point, kill the excited human inside you. Thus the cast develop a system where good people are allowed enjoy the taste of pure and absolute happiness till their heart contends as a reward for their good deeds on earth and then move on to a dimensionless space when they wish to. Heaven is thus not never leaving, it’s leaving at the right time, when the work is done. The humans live their lives in the good place for 1000s of Jeremy Bearimy and then walk through the redwoods to end their lives forever.
The story thus gracefully discusses all the harsh truths about human life and also the afterlife. It gives a new perspective to life and makes you want to wonder as to what one has been doing all this time. Don’t worry if you start contemplating your life and wonder if you’ll end up at the bad or the good place. (Ps: If you end up at the bad one, do say hi to Shawn and Bad Janet ;) ). All in all, the show is a great watch for people of all ages. People who’ll be taking up ethics course in 6th semester, do watch the show to get a better understanding of the trolley problem. (Season 2, Episode 6). Don’t scold me if you end up binge watching the show like I did. Also I’d love the discuss the various aspects of the show if anybody ever wants to :D.
To quote my favorite dialogue from the series, “Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through, and it’s there, and you can see it, you know what it is. It’s a wave. And then it crashes on the shore, and it’s gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be for a little while” — Chidi Anagonye, Ep:13, S4, The good place ❤ .
