What is “The Good Place”? Eleanor Shellstrop doesn’t know, but she knows that she wants to stay there. After she is killed in a freak shopping cart/trailer accident, she is surprised to find herself greeted by architect Michael and welcomed into what he refers to as the Good Place. After her orientation where she learns the criteria for being granted admission, Eleanor realizes she doesn’t belong in the Good Place: she is, in reality, a terrible person, selfish, close-minded, greedy. When asked by her mentor/soulmate Chidi, an ethics professor, to come up with one good act in her life she could point to to validate her presence in this version of heaven, she is unable to. And so begins Eleanor’s investigation into moral behavior and what philosophical theory would most advance her to earn a permanent spot. What viewers discover at the end of season one is that this isn’t the Good Place after all; in fact, it’s very much the opposite. Michael, taking as his guidebook Sartre’s “Hell is other people,” has designed his vision of eternal torment to make characters who believe they are heavenly soulmates to be so incompatible that they will be miserable for eternity. The essential miscalculation of Michael’s plan, however, is that not only are other people not hell, the bonds they form are the only constant in a universe in flux, where trying to apply any individual moral philosophy falls short, and rules are largely arbitrary. Aside from being a delightfully funny show, The Good Place deconstructs any system purporting to measure good and evil, leaving only the relationships between the characters as the only thing they can truly rely on.
About the presenterLaura Dickinson
Associate Professor of writing at the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, PA.