This week, NBC’s afterlife-based comedy The Good Place will begin its fourth and final season, and you better believe I will be watching every episode with my eyes glued to the screen. As I’ve mentioned on the podcast before, The Good Place (hereafter abbreviated as TGP) is probably #4 right now on my “Favorite TV Shows Of All Time” list, right after The Twilight Zone, 30 Rock and Parks & Rec. And, depending on how this fourth season goes, it might boost the show above Parks & Rec. But, we’ll see.
But, before we get into my list of Top 10 Episodes (so far), I want to do a quick overview of the show.
Season 1 was a good start, but at times felt a bit sitcom-y. Yes, the episodes always end on a great cliffhanger, which is one of the reasons I binge-watched the entire first season in a single day when I first discovered it on Netflix. But, there are a few instances where a given episode’s plot can feel a bit hackneyed. Episode 1.03 “Tahani Al-Jamil” is maybe the best example of this. The A-storyline focuses on Eleanor being fake-friends with Tahani and the B-storyline is about Michael and Janet trying to find Chidi a hobby while Janet’s settings keep changing. But, there are definite shining moments, which I’ll talk about more below.
Season 2 is where I feel the show really picked up. Without saying too much, because we’re technically not in spoiler territory yet, the audience and the characters are now fully aware of what this world is and how it works. I feel like this helps drive the character interactions and personal arcs in a new way, now that everyone is on the same page. And, of the three seasons we have so far, Season 2 is my favorite.
Season 3, I feel like, is the workhorse season. It seems that the writers had a lot of great ideas, and decided to do all of them in one season. This led to the characters going through three separate plot arcs within 13 episodes, which for a half-hour comedy seems a bit ridiculous. While I really like some of the decisions, there are a few directions the story took that I disliked. They were nothing too major, mind you, but there were things that I felt like hadn’t been built up properly that season. I think the problem is predicated on TGP’s premise as introduced in Season 2, which requires certain plot points and elements to keep repeating under different criteria. So, in this instance, I think the writers thought, “Well, you’ve already seen this plot x-number of times already, so we can take shortcuts now.” Yes, it makes sense within the context of the show, because we’ve already seen Plot A happen several times already, but it doesn’t feel organic within the context of the arc/season. Anyway, the point is, Season 3 is still good, but I don’t think it beats Season 2 in terms of overall quality.
While Season 1 has a lot of high points, it also has a lot of lower points. Seasons 2 and 3 are more consistent in their overall quality of episodes, but I think the structure of Season 2 allows it to breathe a lot more, whereas Season 3 gets a lot of things packed into it like a sardine can. To use another metaphor, Season 2 was a breezy 10k while Season 3 was an ultra-marathon. But, to be fair, I did binge-watch Seasons 1 and 2, but I watched Season 3 live while it was airing last year. So, that might have something to do with my feelings toward it.
So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, on to the main event.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR TGP SEASONS 1-3. DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE UNTIL YOU’VE CAUGHT UP ON THE SHOW!!!! SERIOUSLY.
Today, I’m going to be counting down my Top 10 episodes of The Good Place (S1-3). Once the series concludes in a few months and I’ve had a chance to digest the new season and look back over the series as a whole, I’ll revisit this list and compile an actual Top 10 Episodes of The Good Place.
But, just looking at Seasons 1-3, here are my Top 10 episodes thus far:
10. Episode 1.01 “Everything is Fine”
What better place to start this list than at the beginning?
As far as pilots go for recent NBC comedies, this is perhaps the strongest entry. Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, The Office, Superstore … all of their pilots are rough, to say the least. Sure, all the right ingredients are there, but maybe the recipe hasn’t been solidified yet. And, I mean, c’mon. It’s a pilot. I don’t expect it to be perfect.
Unless it’s the pilot for The Good Place.
This introduction to the show is so well-done, it’s unbelievable. All the jokes land. The plot points and character revelations are perfectly paced, and it’s succinct in introducing us to these characters, their world, and the main conflict of the show all in the span of 22 minutes. It’s zany, wild, and unpredictable. Who would’ve thought we’d get a network television show with giant ladybugs, stampeding giraffes and people running around in striped University of Michigan outfits?
Also, who better to greet you as you arrive in the afterlife than Ted forkin’ Danson!
9. Episode 1.06 “What We Owe to Each Other”
One of the things I personally like about the show is the Michael/Eleanor dynamic. It reminds me a lot of The Doctor’s (from Doctor Who) interactions with his companions — especially Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor and Jenna Coleman’s Clara.
Here, while the B-plot involving Chidi, Tahani and Jason/Jianyu is “meh,” the A-storyline with Eleanor becoming Michael’s assistant and helping him to relax and have fun is one of my favorites. One key point in Michael’s S2 arc is his love of humanity, specifically the humans in his Good Place experiment. He seems to have a very special attachment to Eleanor in particular, and the fact that Ted Danson and Kristin Bell are real-life best friends helps to sell their characters’ friendship, including in this episode. Given what we know about Michael from S2 and S3, I wonder how much of his time doing “human things” with Eleanor here was acting, or whether he was actually enjoying himself. I think Michael’s always wanted to feel part of a group, and the fact that he’s so fascinated with humans has singled him out as a demon. So, it’s no surprise that — as we’ll talk about in a minute — he’d rather jump ship and be more ‘human’ than ‘demon,’ so to speak.
8. Episode 2.10 “Rhonda, Diana, Jake & Trent”
I’ve always really enjoyed this episode for a whole host of reasons, but I think the biggest one is how it shows us the completion of Michael’s arc with that final scene where he sacrifices himself to get Eleanor through the portal. Sure, he’s proven himself before this point, but I think this is where we see his transformation arc culminate. A mere seven episodes before this in 2.03 “Team Cockroach,” he was frustrated at the idea of having to team up with the humans and really only did it out of self-preservation. But, here, we see that he’s grown to love and care for them to the point where he’s willing to risk getting caught and being ‘retired’ for eternity — something he was desperately avoiding earlier in the season — to ensure that they’d have a chance to plead their case to The Judge. I remember seeing gif sets of that last scene on social media before I ever saw the show, and while it definitely spoiled that plot point, it also intrigued me enough to where I had to finally sit down and see what all the hullabaloo was about.
But, it also has a lot of other great character-based and humorous moments, sometimes simultaneously, like when Eleanor admits to Chidi that she read ahead. We also get to see Chidi creatively not-lying to the demons about who he is, Good Janet desperately trying to pull off being a Bad Janet, Jason saving the day with his Molotov cocktail-making skills, and the four humans masquerading as demons. Such a great episode! And, there’s a great background jokes. One is the weird jazz cover of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” that keeps playing on loop in the background of the party. And the other is, when the train reaches the station in The Bad Place, there’s a fake poster for a future Pirates of the Caribbean movie. They’re such great little details that the show’s creative team threw in there, and I love them!
7. Episode 1.07 “The Eternal Shriek”
One aspect of the show that I absolutely love is how morality and ethics are fundamental to the show. The entire premise is Eleanor, and eventually the other main characters, learning to be better people. This involves them learning to be less selfish and competitive, and more honest and self-aware. Overall, they’re learning to how the answer the question posed in Episode 1.06: “What do we owe to each other?”
The idea of honesty and the dangers of lying are the cornerstone of this particular episode, as we see Eleanor’s deception only creates increasingly bad situations for her and her friends. She allows Michael to believe he’s the problem in the neighborhood, but when she finds out that ‘retirement’ basically means eternal torture, she attempts to save Michael and herself by ‘killing’ Janet … or actually dragging Chidi along and having him inadvertently ‘kill’ Janet for her. We see that while she has good intentions of saving Michael, she’s also acting selfishly by trying to get Chidi to play along with Janet’s ‘murder’ because she doesn’t want to be found out. It’s only at the end, when she confesses to Michael, that we see real growth in her character.
The episode also introduces one of my favorite gags where we see Janet ‘being murdered.’ I also love Michael’s speech about all the human things he never got to do and seeing him actually eat a Saltine only to disappointingly throw it away. I don’t know why but the way Ted Danson throws that Saltine to the side gets me every time. It also ends on one of the best episode cliffhangers. Based on the show’s pilot, you might assume that the season finale is going to be Michael finding out that Eleanor doesn’t belong in the neighborhood, or Eleanor deciding to reveal it herself. But, because TGP writers’ room likes to go breakneck speed through stuff — sometimes to the show’s detriment, I would argue — we get this revelation midway through Season 1, which I thought was a really great choice. Of course, it plays into the whole thing that’s revealed in the S1 finale; but still, it’s a great way to keep the audience engaged by not allowing the show’s plot to tread water for too long.
6. Episode 3.09 “Janet(s)”
Holy motherforking shirtballs is D’Arcy Carden a talented actress! I had to put this episode on the list, even though it includes the two S3 plot points that I had the biggest problems with. Those are: the show nonchalantly killing the four humans again, and Eleanor and Chidi’s awkwardly executed romance.
Let me address these points first, briefly, and then I’ll talk about why this was the strongest episode of S3, despite the flaws. The first point is the lesser of the two. In the previous episode, the Soul Squad felt cornered by demons in a Canadian bar, and so, rather than continue to fight their way out of it, Janet decided that the best option was to kill the humans (again) by zapping them into her void. In my opinion, this was the equivalent of killing a spider by using a bomb. The squad in general and Janet specifically had been doing a pretty good job of fighting off the first round of demons. So why Janet in-show or the TGP writers IRL felt this was necessary is a bit ridiculous. From a writing standpoint, sure, this was how the humans get back into the afterlife and eventually conduct the experiment to show that humans can improve. But, the writers at least could’ve made it seem like a much more desperate situation than it actually was. Maybe, rather than a second wave of demons coming in, there could’ve been some device or power that would’ve automatically sent the humans to the Bad Place if Janet hadn’t intervened. The point being is that this episode really just glosses over the fact that the four humans died, which you’d think they’d have some kind of emotional reaction to — sad, remorseful, bittersweet, etc. In the pilot, Eleanor asked Chidi “Do you think anyone cared that I died?” but there’s nothing like that here. I know these versions of the characters have already been through a lot, but it still seems like something that wasn’t handled very well, all things considered.
Anyway, now for the Eleanor/Chidi romance. While I like these two as a couple, this iteration of the characters getting together felt forced and abrupt. In some ways, I agree with Chidi: just because another version of Chidi and another version of Eleanor were together doesn’t mean that their current versions need to be together, too. Chidi had been in a happy, long-term relationship with Simone that only ended because he found out about the afterlife. Chidi cares about Eleanor, sure, but it never felt like he was romantically interested in her. Again, he was with Simone, and the two of them had broken up only a few weeks before this episode takes place. And, then, Eleanor has an identity crisis caused by Chidi not reciprocating her feelings — which I could rant about for several minutes but I’ll digress — and it’s solved when he kisses her. And THEN when she asks him whether he did it because that’s how he really feels or because the world was ending, HE NEVER ANSWERS THE QUESTION!!! As I said, I liked the dynamic between these two in Seasons 1 and 2 when it felt more organic; but here, you can tell the writers were like “You’ve already seen these two get together and fall in love.” So, they hand-waved all the important steps in their budding romance, and went straight from “Chidi’s in love with Simone” to “Chidi’s in love with Eleanor” in the span of four episodes.
Anyway, we’re here to talk about why this episode is awesome. A lot of it is Carden’s performances as SIX SEPARATE CHARACTERS!!! But, it’s also the jokes that are related to this exact situation and how they land. Eleanor-Janet pretending to be Jason-Janet to trick Chidi-Janet into talking to her is great; the joke about how they “should all say white people things”; and the Neutral Janet’s “end of conversation” after everything are all wonderful. And, of course, the end of the episode pivots the season from its second arc of “the Soul Squad” to the third arc of “re-evaluating the afterlife’s point system.” We find out that no one has gotten into the Good Place in more than 500 years, and Michael and the entire crew sneak their way into the actual Good Place. Of course, they never make it into the Good Place proper, but it was still such a great cliffhanger, because that’s what these characters have been working toward since S2, at least. This episode was critical for setting up not only the final third of S3 but also the entire premise for S4, as far as we know right now, so it certainly deserves a place on the list.
5. Episode 1.13 “Michael’s Gambit”
This was the episode that really changed the whole show. Throughout Season 1, most of the comedy came from the fact that things were happening that weren’t supposed to in this idyllic afterlife. Eleanor was sent to The Good Place by mistake, seemingly, and the chaotic situations snowballed from there. Of course, here is when we find out that that was all part of Michael’s plan — both Michael the Architect and Michael Schur, the show’s creator. Schur wrote and planned the entire first season with this twist in mind, and told Ted Danson and Kristin Bell when they signed on. The other actors were clued in shortly before the table read for this episode, I believe, even after they had already filmed other episodes of the show. In fact, there were times when most of the people on set, aside from Schur, the writers, Danson, Bell and a few other executives, knew the truth. Many of the directors didn’t know. Many of the crew members, like the wardrobe and set design folks, didn’t know either until after filming had started.
Granted, I never watched Season 1 as it was airing, and I’m so thankful that *that* twist wasn’t ruined for me before I binge-watched it last April. I wonder how many people who tuned in when it was airing on NBC guessed or at least thought about whether The Good Place was really all that good. It works so well, because it’s something you never really saw coming; but once you know it, things kinda fall into place. That’s why Michael allowed all this chaos to happen in the neighborhood; that’s why he kept putting all the humans in situations where they would constantly be tortured. Even something as innocuous as trying to get Chidi to choose a hobby in Episode 1.03 was really just Michael torturing Chidi, because he knew Chidi hated having to choose between things.
Not only does this episode change the game, but it ends on another wonderful cliffhanger that basically guaranteed that the show was going to get another season, considering how high-quality TGP is. And, the bulk of it pretty much all takes place in Eleanor’s house, keeping the drama in close quarters and the stakes high.
As an aside, I highly recommend the official TGP podcast. In the podcast episode about “Michael’s Gambit,” they talk about the blocking, staging, and all the little minute details of how this was filmed. It’s really fascinating. For instance, I think it’s Schur who talks about how there’s a clown in the background of almost every shot when they’re in the house, because it was a way of conveying that it was all a mockery… something like that. It’s been a while since I listened to the episode, but those little nuggets always stick with me, and I often remember them as I’m rewatching episodes.
4. Episode 2.11 “The Burrito”
This is another episode in which we get to see just how far all our characters have come. Eleanor goes over all the ethical dilemmas of choosing to go to the Good Place without Jason and Tahani. Jason shows he has learned to calm down and focus because he knows his friends are counting on him. Tahani realizes that she’s capable of living a good life without needing validation from her parents about her choices. And Chidi… yeah, he hasn’t changed much. But, the others certainly have — especially Eleanor. Yes, she’s the only one who passed the test to make it into the Good Place, but IMO that doesn’t discount the strides that Tahani and Jason made even if they didn’t pass their tests.
Plus, we got Maya Rudolph as The Judge. While I think some of her later appearances in S3 are a little over-the-top, I love her in this episode. Also, the B-plot with Michael getting punished by Shawn and then Good Janet-posing-as-Bad Janet saving him is brilliant! The whole guest cast really nails it in this episode, as does the regular cast. And, as always, there’s plenty of comedy along with the comedic moments, the best of which is about the eponymous burrito. And, now, talking about “The Burrito” is really making me hungry…
3. Episode 2.02 “Dance Dance Resolution”
On the whole, this has to be one of the funnier TGP episodes so far. Watching that montage of Eleanor realizing the truth in these weird scenarios — holding balloons in a field of cacti, working on a farm with Chidi (as pictured above), walking around with a group of monks, seeing a clown gliding through her house — is absolutely perfect; as is the montage of all her various soulmates, including a golden retriever. But, somehow the montage of Michael continuing to reboot Janet is even funnier as Janet thinks of new ways to beg for her life — “If I’m gone who will take care of my birds?!” — and then falls over into the sand. Poor D’Arcy Carden! And then the montage of all the changing restaurant names and Jason figuring it out in one reboot is another cherry on top.
But, of course, this is another episode that turns the whole show’s premise (up to that point) on its head. Season 1 shows the initial trial with the humans figuring it out at the end; and the two-part Season 2 premiere shows them figuring it out much quicker thanks to Eleanor’s clue she’d left herself. So, like Michael, the audience was probably expecting that Season 2 would focus on a third reboot, now that everything’s been reset and there are no more clues. However, TGP throws that out at the end of the cold open! The show burns through several seasons’ worth of material in the span of a 10-minute montage. And, while I bemoaned some of the decisions made in S3, this is one instance where the writers going breakneck speed actually works. Yes, let’s burn through 800 reboots because we want to get to the more important story, which in S2’s case, is Michael’s arc. The showrunners have said that S2 is primarily Michael’s season, as it starts and ends with him, visually, and he has the most complete arc of any of the characters (at least, without getting reset). Thus, it makes sense that this episode ends with Michael coming to the humans out of desperation, because that’s the next step in the story that’s really important.
Creative decisions like this, as I said, are great because it keeps the plot moving, the characters developing and the audience engaged. No wonder I love this show in general, and this episode specifically, so much!
2. Episode 2.12 “Somewhere Else”
Another season finale makes the list, because of course it does. Gah, this is such a great episode. As much as I hated having to wait between Seasons 2 and 3, this was the perfect episode to keep me company during that long hiatus between April 2018 (when I first discovered the show and binge-watched Seasons 1 and 2) and that September when S3 started airing. I honestly feel like this could’ve been a series finale. We got all these great little beats — Eleanor and Tahani discussing their friendship, The Judge deciding to reboot the humans on Earth, Michael saving Eleanor from the shopping carts, Eleanor learning to be a better person and then back-sliding when it became too difficult, and watching Michael and Janet keeping an eye on how their four humans are doing.
And, of course, I absolutely love that scene in the bar with Michael and Eleanor. It might be my favorite in the entire show. Not only is it well-acted and well-paced, but the dialogue is so emotionally charged with all these things that Eleanor might not recognize but we do. Plus, WE GET TO SEE TED DANSON BEHIND A BAR AGAIN!!! I only vaguely remember watching reruns of Cheers as a kid, but even I freaked a little when I watched this episode for the first time. But, most of all, the entire conversation is centered on this moral/ethical discussion of what it means to be a good person, why people should pursue goodness, and what prevents them from doing so. The idea of moral dessert — that we should only do good things because it either 1) makes us feel good and/or 2) we get some kind of reward for it — is posed. TGP had indirectly tackled it before, but now confronts this idea head-on. And, as a viewer who loves these characters and the journeys they’ve been on up to this point in the show, hearing Michael quote Eleanor back to Eleanor about how and why she needs to act with virtue — seeing how she inspired him to be a better person (or demon, rather) — is so gratifying and meaningful. THIS is the kind of stuff I need on TV. And hearing him ask her the question “What do we owe to each other?” — which has become the show’s officially unofficial thesis question — almost makes me tear up as I re-watch the scene right now. Fork, this show is so good, you guys!!! Plus, her watching Chidi’s speech and then immediately flying to Australia to meet him was such a great way to end the episode and the season.
As I said, it was a long wait between Seasons 2 and 3, but these emotionally charged moments of both plot and character development was exactly what I needed to get me through it.
Honorable & “Dishonorable” Mentions
So, before I get to my #1 pick, I want to highlight a few really great episodes that didn’t make the list. They are, in chronological order:
- Episode 1.12 “Mindy St. Claire”
- Episode 2.03 “Team Cockroach”
- Episode 2.06 “Janet & Michael”
- Episode 3.04 “Jeremy Bearimy”
- Episode 3.06 “A Fractured Inheritance”
- Episode 3.07 “The Worst Possible Use of Free Will”
- Episode 3.11 “Chidi Sees the Time-Knife”
These were all episodes that I really wanted to put on this list, but was unable to. “Team Cockroach” had been on here at one point, and I really wanted to include one more S3 episode, at least, but this show has too many good episodes to choose from. Ugh!
Now, while TGP is far and away better than most comedies currently on TV, especially network shows, that’s not to say it hasn’t had some ‘lesser’ episodes. Sure, even the worst of these is better than the best episodes of other shows, but that doesn’t mean they’re amazing by TGP standards. It basically boils down to a combination of not funny enough, not enough well-done character moments and too sitcom-y. So, I just quickly want to highlight a few ‘dishonorable’ mentions. They are, in chronological order:
- Episode 1.03 “Tahani Al-Jamil”
- Episode 1.10 “Chidi’s Choice”
- Episode 1.11 “What’s My Motivation”
- Episode 2.07 “Derek”
- Episode 3.02 “The Brainy Bunch”
- Episode 3.05 “The Ballad of Donkey Doug”
And now … The moment you’ve all been waiting for!
The best episode of The Good Place thus far is…
1. Episode 2.08 “Leap to Faith”
If the criteria for best episode of TGP is a combination of successful jokes, character-building and plot developments, then I think this has to take the cake.
Not only do we get great moments like the Bad Place comedy roast, Janet acting ‘drunk,’ and Bad Janet DJ-ing the neighborhood’s destruction to “She Hates Me” and “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” on repeat, but we are asked the question “Has Michael really changed?” The show’s plot has been so unpredictable up to this point, especially in S2, that I think — like the humans — I could easily see it going the other way. Michael was only behaving ethically because the humans had forced him to join their little study group, and he didn’t think there was a real way out for him otherwise. But, Tahani’s right, maybe him being offered his dream job is enough to make Michael turn on them. Of course, long-term the show benefits from Ted Danson’s character being a good guy, I think. But, as I said, it could easily have gone the other way. There’s some question in the audience’s mind, because we know what Eleanor knows. Michael was really trying. He had doubts. He had questions. He was trying to understand the ‘why’ BECAUSE it mattered to him. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have made the effort to ask Eleanor.
But, of course, it all works out in the end. Michael really is a good guy who was leaving them clues on how to escape the whole time. And while it doesn’t cement his arc like Episode 2.10 does, the revelation that he was working to help the humans escape the demons cements his status as a good guy. Plus, I love how the show re-used that ‘Bad Place’ music cue + camera zoom-in from Episode 1.13. The first time, it was to show that this angelic figure was actually a demon, whereas here, it’s to show that the demon is actually a savior. It’s a great reversal and the kind of little detail TGP regularly uses, which I really appreciate.
Additionally, I really love that bit in heist movies where you see the end result and then they walk you back and show you how the characters pulled it off. And, that was another well-executed part of this episode.
So, on the whole, I love seeing character development paying off, even if the characters make the same arc multiple times. (But, that’s okay; it fits within the show’s premise.) I love how unpredictable the plot can be and how it can progress so quickly to keep you interested. And, I love this cast, these characters, and the moral/ethical questions they continually ask us, such as, “What do we owe to each other?”
And now that we’ve reached the end of this incredibly long post, I’m going to borrow the sign-off from the official TGP podcast and say:
“GO DO SOMETHING GOOD.”