*Warning: Spoilers ahead!*
If you haven’t heard about The Good Place yet, you aren’t alone. Currently, The Good Place is one of the most underrated comedy shows on television and deserves way more hype than it’s receiving.
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The breakdown premise of the show is that our main character, Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell), has died and wakes up in the afterlife in the office of Michael (played by Ted Danson) who tells her that she’s in the Good Place. We’re told that the Good Place is made up of different neighborhoods, each with their own architect/creator and the architect of the neighborhood Eleanor is being placed in is Michael. Michael explains to Eleanor that while on earth, every living person earns points based on the good acts that they do. Eleanor has managed to be the top earner of points in her neighborhood because of her devotion in life to helping others as a human rights lawyer. The problem is that Eleanor was never a human rights lawyer and, in general, was never exactly what we would call a good person. So, she doesn’t actually belong in the Good Place, but someone else with her same exact name does.
While in the Good Place everyone is given a partner that is supposed to be their one true soulmate: Eleanor’s soulmate is Chidi Anagonye (played by William Jackson Harper). Chidi is a Nigerian ethics professor from Senegal and, after discovering that Eleanor doesn’t actually belong in the Good Place, tries to help her by giving her ethics lessons in an effort to actually earn her spot before Michael finds out that she isn’t the right Eleanor.
Courtesy: NBC
Through different events make it seem like Eleanor may be causing the whole neighborhood to fall apart, her and Chidi end up forming a friendship with two other people in the neighborhood that stand out from the others: Tahani Al-Jamil (played by Jameela Jamil) and her soulmate Jianyu Li (played by Manny Jacinto). Tahani, while on earth, was a wealthy English philanthropist and we’re told that Jianyu was a Buddhist monk that is under a vow of silence. Through a series of hilarious events that make it appear that the entire world may be falling apart, it seems like it may be up to Eleanor to come clean and willingly go to the Bad Place to fix everything. We later find out that Eleanor may not be the only person in the neighborhood that doesn’t belong.
The show as a whole is a laugh out loud comedy on par with the likes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks and Recreation with great timing in the punch lines and overarching seasonal plot lines that keep a viewer invested for the long run. All of the characters, even though introduced to us as amazing and extraordinary human beings, are relatable to viewers watching with their emotional and moral dilemmas. Watching the characters reflect on their past and move forward in the afterlife allows in a way the watchers to go through similar reflections of themselves as humans and think about how their actions may affect others. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been watching this show a lot and Chidi’s ethics lessons have hit home with me, but it truly feels that every character has something to teach us about the way we live our lives.
The Good Place is currently on a hiatus for the holidays, but all seven episodes of the current season are available to stream on the NBC website and all 13 episodes of the first season are available on Netflix. The Good Place will be coming back on Jan. 4, 2018 and will be airing Thursday nights at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.