Ramble: The Good Place S4
Don’t you love that time of year when all of your favorite shows are back for a new season? Of course you do. The final season of The Good Place is back for its fourth and final season and it is sure to deliver as much satisfaction as the first three installments did.
I wasn’t planning on writing about The Good Place this week. Actually, Ready Player One was my first option. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like spending 15 dollars to watch this film to jog my memory after seeing it for the first time early last week. I’m cheap and on a budget, ya feel me? Maybe I’ll circle back to that one in the near future but for now, let me babble on about how STOKED I am that The Good Place is back on my TV screen.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this gem, it stars Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Ted Danson (Cheers) and William Jackson Harper (Paterson). It centers around four people who die and wake up in the Good Place who actually belong in the Bad Place. These characters strive to learn what it means to be a good person through Chidi’s (Harper) teachings of moral philosophy in hopes that they can live out the afterlife in the Good Place. My first thought when I read the synopsis was that this could very easily be cheesy. But, with actors like Bell and Danson along with the writers who brought us The Office and Parks and Recreation, there was NO way this show could be a flop- and it most definitely is not.
Season three picks up after Chidi’s memory has been voluntarily erased due to Simone’s (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) arrival in the new neighborhood. Elanor (Bell), Jason (Manny Jacinto), Tahani (Jameela Jamil), Janet (D’Arcy Carden) and Michael (Danson) are in the midst of proving four new test subjects can learn to become better people in this new Good Place- just like Elanor, Jason, Tahani and Chidi had. If not, the four of them will spend all eternity in the Bad Place. We’re only two episodes deep on season four and I’m already laughing out loud like a goon. The writing is so sharp and quirky. And I’m amazed every episode when I remember that Jameela Jamil has never acted before this role.
So far, we’ve learned that Michael faked his meltdown to give Elanor the role of the architect, a demon was disguised as one of the subjects and things are not going splendidly. If you’ve never seen this show, this might not make sense to you. Go binge. Catch up. This show is gold, man. It just makes you happy. I’m thinking that Elanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason will succeed and make it into the Good Place because why wouldn’t the writers give us a happy ending? Then again, they have surprised us with wonky plot twists.
Like I said up above, this is the final season of The Good Place. What I find fascinating is this end is not due to cancelation, but it is by choice. I know we’ve all watched series that go on for far too long. The storylines become sloppy, actors drop out when contracts end and eventually the viewers lose interest: Lost, Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries. . . I get it. Milk your show for what it’s worth and keep making your hundreds of dollars. I think it’s admirable when a showrunner knows when their show has run its course. (Fun fact!: The creator, Michael Schur, plays Mose on The Office). The whole point of this show was for the four main characters to get into the Good Place and season four is their last attempt to make it there. That’s it. No hubba bubba after the goal is attained or not. This is where the story ends.
If you’ve never seen an episode before, it’s SUPER easy to hop on the bandwagon. Episodes are only 22ish minutes long and I binged the first three seasons in less than two weeks. It’s clean comedy and it’s smart comedy; you can watch it if you’re 13 or you can watch it if you’re 62. Another thing I admire about the writing is its ability to be relatable and stimulating but not inappropriate at the same time. It’s easy and maybe even automatic to add profanity and vulgarity to a script but without those elements, the show is able to capture a wider audience.
You can watch episodes of The Good Place on Hulu or Netflix.
