Image: (Left to right: Jason Menoza, Chidi Anagonye, Tahani Al-Jamil, Michael, Eleanor Shellstrop, Janet)
A few weeks ago, I decided to watch Michael Schur’s The Good Place after putting it off for months. I initially started the show back then, but due to other things in life, I wasn’t able to continue it. Now, because I’m so busy and life has been hitting me like a multitude of trucks for the past few week, I finally decided to binge-watch The Good Place for a much-needed laugh. What I got was a 4 season-long lecture on philosophy and ethics. And, man it was amazing! The Good Place was conceived by Michael Schur, the brain behind other comedy shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn 99 (all of which are great by the way). Schur was influenced by his interest in ethics and philosophy when creating The Good Place. The Good Place is a show about Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell) who is welcomed into this world’s version of heaven, The Good Place, after she dies. The Good Place is paradise for anyone who has earned enough points on Earth for their good deeds, actions, intentions, etc. People can get whatever their heart’s desire (including a lot of frozen yogurt), do whatever they please, go wherever they want, and be with their soulmate for the rest of eternity. So, what about Eleanor? Well, Eleanor isn’t supposed to be in The Good Place. She’s actually supposed to be in The Bad Place due to her being a legitimately horrible person back on Earth. She was brought to The Good Place by mistake. Now it’s up to her “soulmate” Chidi Anagonye (played wonderfully by William Jackson Harper) to teach her how to be a good person in order to earn a spot in The Good Place without anyone suspecting otherwise.
What I just told you is the plot for the first season. I thought that this was going to be the plotline for the whole show, but then it completely turned the tables on that plot and gave one of the best twists I’ve seen in a while. It’s so good that I honestly don’t want to spoil it for you guys, so I’ll do my best to restrain myself. What I’m here to talk about is how the show’s main characters become the best versions of themselves. This means that Elenore isn’t the only one who was a bad person on Earth (because of course she wasn't...). In fact, Chidi and their friends Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), and Jason Menoza (Manny Jacinto), The Good Place’s heavenly immortal Architect, Michael (my personal favorite performance by Ted Danson) and his humanoid AI assistant Janet (D’Arcy Carden) are all less than good people. It’s thanks to each other that they eventually learn how to become genuinely better people and ultimately earn a spot in The Good Place.
(Image: Eleanor Shellstrop and Michael)
I’ll start with Elenore. Eleanor was the worst person you could probably imagine back on Earth. She was arrogant, ignorant, rude, stole things, insulted people, used people, I could go on. The only real bad thing that Eleanor didn’t do was murder. So here you’re probably wondering, how can someone like her, someone who seems irredeemable, grow into a good person? Well, though ethics! The basics of how to be a good person. Chidi is, initially, the only one who knows about Eleanor’s situation and reluctantly agrees to help her by giving her lessons on ethics as he was an ethics professor back on Earth. He teaches her the basics first such as what actions to take such as saying hello, holding the door for someone, or letting someone go in front of them if they can’t choose something off the menu. Things like that. They’re simple, but they’re a start that can lead to something bigger. For Eleanor, these are big steps. When she does one good act like it’s second nature, she gets excited and runs to Chidi to tell him about her progress. As the series goes on, Eleanor slowly yet surely continues to do good deeds for the good of other people and the world in general. She learns to care for others, how her actions affect the world around her, and how she can become her best self. She essentially becomes the leader of the group and is determined to get all of them a spot in The Good Place.
The next is Chidi. Like I said, Chidi was a moral philosophy professor who specialized in ethics. Based on his good nature, his intelligence, and his will to be as good of a person as he can be, it’s clear as day as to why Chidi is in The Good Place. However, like all humans, there is a flaw in Chidi and it’s a big one. The poor guy can’t decide to save his life. Literally and figuratively. I’m not kidding; the main reason Chidi died was because he couldn’t decide in time. Anytime Chidi has had a choice to make, he contemplates it for an absurd amount of time figuring out the pros and cons of each decision. Because he’s so indecisive, Chidi makes everyone around him downright miserable. People actually suffer because Chidi can’t decide on something himself. They get annoyed with him and ultimately give up on him as he refuses to get help on the decision or no answer is given to him. So, even though Chidi is ultimately a good person, his inactions and the effect that has around him is what holds him back from being his best self.
(Image: Eleanor Shellstrop and a Shrimp Dispenser)
Tahani is next on the list. Tahani is this beautiful British girl who loves to celebrate and throw parties for everyone to enjoy. At first, it seems like she’s incredibly generous towards other people by creating parties and events for people to attend, meet up, and have an amazing time at. These are all good deeds that would land someone a spot in The Good Place. The problem with Tahani is that these grand events aren’t for everyone’s benefit, but for her instead. Tahani is a character who is full of selfish charisma. She makes everything grandiose in order to get praise from others. She wants to be loved and celebrated by others in a way that makes herself feel good. We learn early in the series that this selfishness stems from her parents making her and her sister compete against each other throughout their lives and her sister winning all the competitions. Tahani basically lived in her sister’s shadow her whole life and never got the love and attention she deserved. So, to make that up, she did everything she could in the Good Place to make sure who was loved by the people there. Again, a good deed that hid less than good intentions. Tahani’s selfishness and narcissism is what prevents her from being her best self.
Jason is next up and he is the dumbest out of all of them. Not to say that he’s bad; he’s got a good heart. But, Jason has 1 constant braincell working with the occasional 2-5 when he figures things out. Jason cares about others and wants to have a good time. The problem is, like Eleanor, Jason has done a lot of bad things on Earth. He wasn’t nearly as cynical of a person as Elenore (he’s actually extremely happy-go-lucky), but he probably committed more crimes than she did. This counts robbery, attempted robbery, blowing places up, throwing Molotov Cocktails in places he really shouldn’t have, etc. Jason wanted to live a good life, but he did it in all the wrong (and illegal) ways. I won’t say how he got into The Good Place because that’s a mini-twist, but if you’ve read this essay to this point, I have a feeling you figured it out. Regardless, again like Eleanor, Jason wants to learn and become his best self in order to secure a spot in The Good Place.
(Image: Michael and Janet)
Janet. Janet is an all-knowing being. Picture an AI in the image of a women who knows everything there is in the universe. Anything you ask of her she can get and any piece of information you may want to know about, she can provide. She helps her boss, Michael, run The Good Place. That’s Janet. So, how does she play into The Good Place. Well, at first, she’s basically The Good Place’s helper. She assists anyone and everyone to make sure they live in paradise. As time goes on, however, she starts to gain more of a conscious. She gains thoughts, emotions, feelings. She learns what love and friendship are and how strong they can be. She learns that humans can improve themselves if they put their heart into it. She acknowledges that she is more than just AI, but a person as well.
And finally, we have Michael. Michael is the Architect of The Good Place. This means that he is the one who mapped out, designed, and created The Good Place. He is in charge of leading the residents in it. It’s his job to make sure that The Good Place truly is paradise. The problem with Michael is that he is just starting his job. This is the first Good Place he’s ever built and run, so he’s making mistakes and doing damage control left and right. Not everything is perfect in The Good Place. Worst of all, Michael doesn’t understand humans very well. He has emotions and a will of his own, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to BE a human as he’s basically a god. He’s still figuring out why humans do, act, and love things the way they do. If he can’t do that, then he can’t successfully help Elenore and the others fulfill their role in The Good Place.
So, where does the ethics part start? Well, each person, as mentioned earlier, has to learn to accept their flaws and improve on them. Eleanor needs to learn how to be empathetic enough to legitimately care about and be willing to help others. Chidi’s is to be decisive about things to end both his suffering and the suffering of those around him. Tahani’s is to become legitimately selfless and generous for others instead of herself. Jason’s is to learn from his actions and start to improve on them. And both Janet and Michael learn about humans and humanity itself. All of this doesn’t come easily. It’s not night and day; black and white. Growth like this takes time. Growth means learning from your mistakes or learning from others. Growth means looking yourself in the face and wanting to become a better person than before. This is what everyone learns to become their best person.
The Good Place has a lot of good life lessons within it. It’s one of the smartest aspects of the writing Michael Schur and his team provide. Each one can teach us, the audience, to be better people. I forget who said it, but I remember hearing The Good Place being described as “The smartest dumbest show”. Honestly, that’s an apt description. The show has some humor that can be perceived as kind of stupid verbal/physical slapstick and it is (Jason himself is the biggest example). But, underneath all that dumb humor is something profound. They are philosophical lessons that we can all learn (which makes sense since the show was consulted by an actual professor of philosophy). Even if we are the most horrible person on the planet, that doesn’t mean we don’t have potential to become better. With some help and effort on their own part, a bad person can become good. It’s not impossible. But, like I said, it does take time. And a lot of trial and error. There are many lessons from this show that one can learn from such as “soulmates are not chosen; they’re made”, “life is a puzzle and you have to put it together one day at a time”, “what matters is that the someone is trying to be better than they were yesterday” etc. For me, personally, the one that hit me the hardest is Michael’s speech at the end of Season 4 Episode 2. It’s goes something along the lines of, “You guys (humans) try a new idea. Then you fail and you try again. And again, and again, and again. And you keep trying because the 1,001st idea might work.” Again, I can’t remember the full quote from memory, but I suggest watching the video here and skip straight to around the 2:45 mark to avoid spoilers. Honestly, Ted Danson delivers it so much better than I ever could. It also made me cry because, man, I really needed to hear that. Just another reason not to give up.
So, being a good person is hard. Unlike being living pieces of poo, being good requires effort. It requires empathy, sympathy, good ethics, a good moral compass and more. Doing good ultimately doesn’t hurt anyone. It makes the world a better place. Problem is that it’s hard to do that. We all want to be a little selfish like Eleanor; we want to shower ourselves with praise like Tahani; we all want to be a little rebellious like Jason. The only reason why I kept Chidi out of this list is because not everyone is as indecisive as he is. We all have this temptation to do something bad and that temptation fills us with these bad emotions and impulses that ultimately affect the people around us in the worst ways possible. Being good, however, is rewarding. It leads to good things in our lives and for other people. It lets us care for others and makes us want to support them. It helps us find friends, family, and love. It helps us have good faith and fortune. It’s just a wonderful feeling in general. But, it takes effort. Things like this doesn’t happen overnight. We, as people have to work towards that. Even if it does take a while, the least we can do is try. We try and make mistakes, and we try and makes mistakes again. It’s a cycle that feels eternal. One try, however; one try can make all the difference because it just might work.
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