If you haven’t watched The Good Place, you really should be watching The Good Place. Also spoilers for The Good Place.
When The Good Place premiered last fall, it arrived in the form of a sort of spiritual My Fair Lady. Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) is dead and is greeted by the charismatic magnetism that is Ted Danson. It’s not too long before Eleanor realizes that her being there might have just been a clerical error. As her existence she lived back on Earth was hardly worthy of a paradisiacal afterlife. With the help of her assigned soulmate, former moral ethics professor Chidi (William Jackson Harper). Garbage human Eleanor begins learning how to be a better person.
https://youtu.be/RfBgT5djaQw
At least, that was the redemption-style show viewers thought they were watching. Following a killer twist in the finale, the show has dumped its “how to be good” angle and is leaning hard into a sociopathic pattern that’s familiar to many people who played The Sims.
Consider the show’s big twist, you’ve been warned for spoilers. In the season 1 finale, Eleanor realizes she and her friends are actually in The Bad Place. With Michael (Ted Danson), the architect actually concocting this world as a torture trial run. Their eternity will be free of the usual fire-and-brimstone torment. Instead, these four humans are punishing each other with their incessant flaws. Then their memories are wiped, and the scenario starts anew.
In season 2, all pretense is dropped. Michael and his gang of eager actors plot out different ways to enact pain and suffering. These shenanigans seem hilariously familiar? Probably because it’s akin to the despair and anguish we create in our world of The Sims. One of my favourite Reddit threads.
The Good Place’s is the fantastical nature of The Sims come to life, exploiting absurd plotlines. The show’s heroes will surely overcome their uniquely tailored hell, but for now, it’s delicious to watch them struggle. You know who you are, with your trapped underground art goblin, they have nowhere to go. So have a watch and thank me later!
