Let’s imagine, just for a moment, that heaven and hell exist. Let’s also say that Michael Schur captured that concept flawlessly in The Good Place. In this show’s version of the afterlife, people aren’t sent to “heaven” or “hell” but rather The Good Place or The Bad Place. Here, humans are judged based on a point system, and if they have above a certain number of points, they can go to The Good Place. And if they don’t, well, down under they go!
But (spoiler alert—don’t read any further if you’re planning to see the show) the premise of the show was that this point system was deeply flawed. In fact, not a single human had earned a spot in The Good Place for over 521 years. The system, designed to fairly judge a person’s morality, had become impossible to beat. The reason was simple: in a world built on capitalism, even the smallest choices have unintended consequences, making true ethical living unimaginable.
This is why the show is so interesting. Here, four very flawed humans—Eleanor Shellstrop, Chidi Anagonye, Tahani Al-Jamil, and Jason Mendoza—are placed in a torture experiment, where they believe they’re in The Good Place, but in reality, they’ve been handpicked by a demon named Michael to torture each other emotionally. However, the experiment kept failing, because not only did Eleanor keep figuring out that they were actually in The Bad Place in every simulation of the experiment, but also because the four humans kept getting better. Eleanor became less selfish, Tahani became more genuine, Chidi became more decisive, and Jason, somehow, became more thoughtful.
Logically, that shouldn’t have been possible. If they never improved on Earth, then why would they improve now? But think about what I said before: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. These four humans were placed in an environment without the external pressures of the real world. No blueberries tainted by child labour. No fast food chains with homophobic CEOs. No impossible moral dilemmas woven into their everyday life. This means that once these external pressures were gone, the flaws that defined the characters on Earth became less rigid.
This was the first and most important lesson The Good Place taught us-the surface-level takeaway. But beneath it, the show had so much more to say. Today, I’m going to try to dissect as many of those teachings as I can before my brain breaks!
P.S. Don’t worry, none of these require a degree in moral philosophy. That’s what makes this show so brilliant.
Lesson 1: No One Improves Alone
This lesson ties directly to the first, but instead of focusing on material circumstances, it’s about the role of emotional support. In the show, there’s an entire arc where our four characters, along with Michael, and the information assistant/robot in the Good Place, Janet, set out to help others improve and get into The Good Place. They target characters they’re close to, like Eleanor’s mom, and Tahani’s sister, and offer them love, support and forgiveness in hopes of making them better people. This was all part of another experiment to prove to the All-Knowing Judge that people can improve if they’re shown the support they need, so how can we hold it against them if they don’t receive it? Take Eleanor’s mom, Donna Shellstrop, for example. She is the best case for this because she was never placed in any torture simulation without any external pressures. All that changed was that she fell in love with a regular guy, and became happier, and that automatically made her a better person, even on Earth. Yes, she still wasn’t perfect, but as Michael once said,
“What matters isn’t if people are good or bad. What matters is if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday.”
Ted Danson as Michael, in The Good Place.
Lesson 2: Soulmates Aren’t Found, They’re Made
One of my personal favourite lessons that The Good Place taught me was that soulmates aren’t found, they’re made, and people have to work on their relationship and build it. Take our main characters as an example. I like to believe Tahani and Eleanor were platonic soulmates, but it definitely didn’t start out that way. Tahani saw Eleanor as beneath her, while Eleanor thought Tahani was snobby and disingenuous. But over time, they worked on their relationship. They made an effort to be there for each other, and to offer support, and in doing so, they grew closer. They were never assigned to be soulmates, yet despite that, I consider them the best example of platonic soulmates in the show.
Lesson 3: Connection Fuels Growth
Time and time again, The Good Place emphasises that it is our attachments to others that give us even the slightest chance of becoming better people. This idea was rooted in T.M. Scanlon’s book What We Owe to Each Other, a philosophical book referenced multiple times throughout the show. The show argues that since self-improvement is always possible, we owe it to each other to keep trying, no matter how long it takes.
Lesson 4: We Create Our Own ‘Good Place’
The “good place” isn’t about where you are, it’s about the people around you and how you choose to treat them. The perfect paradise would mean nothing if you were alone, but even the most ordinary places could feel like heaven with the right people. For instance when Eleanor and Chidi spend their final moments together before Chidi decides to leave The Good Place. Eleanor takes Chidi to all his favourite places, and tempts him with the thought of them being in literal heaven just to get him to stay, but as she realises at the end…
“That’s what the Good Place really is — it’s not even a place. It’s just having enough time with the people you love”
Ted Danson as Michael, in The Good Place.
Beyond these, the show teaches many other lessons, such as the concept of the moral desert and the meaning of life being tied to impermanence. But at its core, The Good Place isn’t just a show about ethics or the afterlife, it’s about what it means to be human. It reminds us that we’re all just trying our best and need each other to grow. Maybe all we need is a little goodness in the world, whether it’s being a little kinder, trying a little harder, or simply appreciating the time we have with the people we love. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s the real Good Place.
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