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The Good Place final episode: what the fuck y'all.
- Thread starter maxxpower
- Start date
a week before i went to pax east last year, i visited my uncle. he was in the hospital, but he'd been in the hospital a lot recently for things like fluid in the lungs and the sort. he was supposed to go on a diet and didn't want to. but we saw him and he chatted about getting his footage of the races he filmed into the world, wanting to use my connections in the entertainment industry. i said i'd look into it (and did, briefly, on the day before my flight). the next friday i got a call from my parents and knew before even answering that he had died.
that night while out with friends, i was reading a post from his daughter/my cousin, and apparently he had turned down surgery. he didn't want to risk dying on the operating table. he turned down any other attempts at getting 'better'. and he spoke to his daughters and wife and let them know what he wanted. last march was the last time i saw my family before covid hit. there was an open casket funeral and he was laying down with his crazy white hair, wearing a hawaiian shirt and sporting sunglasses while 60s rock music played.
it made me think of the last episode of the good place, and i was really glad for him, that in his last moments he knew what he wanted and was really at peace. i really wish that we can all get there someday.
For characters that had spent thousands of years together, it was a very fitting ending I thought
Man, that show had NO business being so touching in its final season!
All around a fantastic, brilliant show. I love it to death but man those last few episodes reduced me into a sobbing mess. I would have never in a million years expected it to wrap up so perfectly.
I think about the finale all the time and honestly, that show's final season is how I would love to ideally imagine the afterlife as being, if there is one. God, I'm getting messed up just thinking about it.
All around a fantastic, brilliant show. I love it to death but man those last few episodes reduced me into a sobbing mess. I would have never in a million years expected it to wrap up so perfectly.
I think about the finale all the time and honestly, that show's final season is how I would love to ideally imagine the afterlife as being, if there is one. God, I'm getting messed up just thinking about it.
thanks for sharing that. reading through this thread and rewatching clips got me a bit misty eyed. such a powerful ending I really respect it.
It was the best show in recent years, and went out on top, rather than trying to stretch the concept into twelve seasons or something. It was so refreshing to have a show so sincere that took difficult concepts and tried to package them into format palatable for mainstream audiences.
I did okay through most of the episode, but lost it at Chidi's "wave" analogy. That just went right to the feels.
I did okay through most of the episode, but lost it at Chidi's "wave" analogy. That just went right to the feels.
Realize that the last episode covered 320,000 years. That's a long-ass time to live, some people are just going to run out of things they want to do, and get bored. The show really needed to do a better job of explaining that one Jeremy Bearimy is around 100 years, without that knowledge it really doesn't seem like the cast are living a long afterlife. Even Jason had been living thousands of years when he played that final game of Madden, based on Janet takling about something she had done for him "hundreds of Bearimies ago".
But I agree, I would have liked for there to be two doors at the end, with the other one wiping your memory and sending you back to Earth to have another go at life rather than just ending it.
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I was kind of mixed on it originally but I think I really dislike it now. The show should have ended the moment they got to heaven and left it completely ambigious to what happened at the end. Really didn't like the overtones of suicide. The fact we got that level of closure on these characters kind of sucks ass, actually.
I dunno. I can see why people think it's good and daring but I just found it to be kind of way too definitive and too removed from reality to feel any sense of connection personally.
I dunno. I can see why people think it's good and daring but I just found it to be kind of way too definitive and too removed from reality to feel any sense of connection personally.
A satisfying and awesome finale is a difficult thing to do. Even shows with huge ratings and glowing receptions have fallen flat on their finales.
The Good Place ends so well, with so much heart and thought. I couldn't help but be moved. I introduced a m8 to the show and they blasted through it and man, did that ending make some impact.
It also serves as a commentary on shows that find success and try to overstay their welcome, only to become a shell of what they once were and when they do end, they lack impact. For as great and as iconic as Friends were, I don't remember the finale.
It also gives hope, if we all act with good intentions, and help each other, perhaps we can all get into the good place.
The Good Place ends so well, with so much heart and thought. I couldn't help but be moved. I introduced a m8 to the show and they blasted through it and man, did that ending make some impact.
It also serves as a commentary on shows that find success and try to overstay their welcome, only to become a shell of what they once were and when they do end, they lack impact. For as great and as iconic as Friends were, I don't remember the finale.
It also gives hope, if we all act with good intentions, and help each other, perhaps we can all get into the good place.
I'm kinda with you. Like, though Chidi and others were ready to go, clearly Eleanor wasn't, and even after thousands of years together it felt kinda bleak for her soul mate to be ready to peace out on her. I would've liked a more cliche saccharine ending over what we got, and the last season and a half didn't really work for me also.
I knew to expect something big based on initial impressions but I didn't know it would hit so hard. It was such a beautiful and sad ending to the show. I think the only thing different I would have wanted was to see more of the good times. Once the dominoes started falling, it felt like a wake.
Shit made me cry a lot. After my wife passed away a couple of years ago I never returned to watch anything we watched together. The Good Place is the only thing we watched together I continued after she left, because the themes are very appropriate, but God damn did it just kill me finishing it up.
I liked it, but it didn't 'quite' make me sob.
I do wish they'd sorta refocused some of the later seasons. That final episode (and arc about the Good Place's reality) had a lot of potential and depth they could have jumped into. I love the show but it felt after the first two or three twists they seemed more interested in flipping the script and keeping people guessing then letting the show breath as much as it could have otherwise.
Actually I do think Chidi leaving made me cry.
I do wish they'd sorta refocused some of the later seasons. That final episode (and arc about the Good Place's reality) had a lot of potential and depth they could have jumped into. I love the show but it felt after the first two or three twists they seemed more interested in flipping the script and keeping people guessing then letting the show breath as much as it could have otherwise.
Actually I do think Chidi leaving made me cry.
Fucking hell, man.
So sorry to hear that - that finale must have been crushingly difficult.
For anyone that hasn't seen it, please check out the Albert Brooks film "Defending Your Life" which I have to assume heavily inspired The Good Place. I rewatch it at least once a year and always get something new from it. And it just got a Criterion restoration.. looks fantastic in HD finally.
Late to this one, but thought I'd comment anyway.
It was a big deal back in the "Dr. Kevorkian" era (mid to late 90s, I think) but really hasn't been a central topic of conversation in quite some time. I can't think of the last time I heard of an active euthaniasia case, but most people recognize that the right to not be resuscitated or the right to not go through with a potentially life saving procedure because you are simply "done" and wish to pass away peacefully is a thing.
Not really. Under the new system you can "earn" your way into an eternity of happiness eventually, but most people don't end up there by default. Once in that second place ("the good place") you are there for as long as you wish- but there's the realization that even paradise for eternity will eventually turn into torture. You'll have done everything there is to do, seen everything there is to see, and existence will be a burden- not a blessing. At that point the individual has the option to "end" existence and enter the void- conciousness ends, so the burden of existence ceases to be an issue. The residual "energy" of that person does go back out into the universe as a positive influence to make it a better place, but the "person" is definitively gone at that point.
I don't see these phases being at odds with each other.
Yes. "The bad place" is no longer a hell full of testicular torture, but instead more like the (fake) Good Place, where the goal is to get those who end up there to reform enough that they're worthy of the actual good place.
The show addressed that by the time our protagonists end up in The Bad Place, it was completely impossible for anyone no matter how good they were to qualify for The Good Place because even the most simple, innocuous acts had snowballing negative repercussions due to global economics, etc. Example: buying a candy bar would get you in the Bad Place because it would send funds to Nestle who routinely engages in land and labor exploitation in third world markets. No way to avoid these things, so everyone went to The Bad Place.
So in response to where does that leave "Real Life"? At that point living Real Life lands everyone in the bad place, just due to how modern society is structured. Though some people were a lot closer to living a virtuous life than others and would have less work to do in the afterlife.
It was a big deal back in the "Dr. Kevorkian" era (mid to late 90s, I think) but really hasn't been a central topic of conversation in quite some time. I can't think of the last time I heard of an active euthaniasia case, but most people recognize that the right to not be resuscitated or the right to not go through with a potentially life saving procedure because you are simply "done" and wish to pass away peacefully is a thing.
Not really. Under the new system you can "earn" your way into an eternity of happiness eventually, but most people don't end up there by default. Once in that second place ("the good place") you are there for as long as you wish- but there's the realization that even paradise for eternity will eventually turn into torture. You'll have done everything there is to do, seen everything there is to see, and existence will be a burden- not a blessing. At that point the individual has the option to "end" existence and enter the void- conciousness ends, so the burden of existence ceases to be an issue. The residual "energy" of that person does go back out into the universe as a positive influence to make it a better place, but the "person" is definitively gone at that point.
I don't see these phases being at odds with each other.
Yes. "The bad place" is no longer a hell full of testicular torture, but instead more like the (fake) Good Place, where the goal is to get those who end up there to reform enough that they're worthy of the actual good place.
The show addressed that by the time our protagonists end up in The Bad Place, it was completely impossible for anyone no matter how good they were to qualify for The Good Place because even the most simple, innocuous acts had snowballing negative repercussions due to global economics, etc. Example: buying a candy bar would get you in the Bad Place because it would send funds to Nestle who routinely engages in land and labor exploitation in third world markets. No way to avoid these things, so everyone went to The Bad Place.
So in response to where does that leave "Real Life"? At that point living Real Life lands everyone in the bad place, just due to how modern society is structured. Though some people were a lot closer to living a virtuous life than others and would have less work to do in the afterlife.
Yeah absolutely rough to get through for all the right reasons IMO. One of the better finales up there with 6 feet under imo
Good show with aspirations of wokeness it can't deliver. The number of times it has to brute-force the plot along with some huge contrivance is basically part of the style.
In Paradise, everyone you love can just disappear and abandon you forever? Uhhh
In Paradise, everyone you love can just disappear and abandon you forever? Uhhh
I both liked the ending but also hated the ending. At least it was better than most shows that's for sure, but something about it also didn't hit right with me.
Hey that is one of my favorite "no one knows about this movie". This and one with warren beatty where he is a footballer picked up by mistake before dying by an angel.
I liked season one quite a bit, but it all went downhill for me from there. I watched the rest because it was at least funny/entertaining. The finale just struck me as a reasonable way to end the show and nothing more though.
I love Heaven Can Wait! And yeah, I love introducing people to Defending Your Life. No one knows about it, and everyone loves it when I introduce them. Hope someone here catches it because of this conversation. :)
Yup.
Coming up with a good finale for the series was already an incredible hard task, considering the theme. But then they gave us a perfect ending, no plot twists, just simple goodness.
I thought this show had its ups and downs, but the ending is truly phenomenal
I love the show but really struggled with the finale. I thought it was well done but the ending wrecked me to the point that it made me upset. When it aired last year on NBC, I had recently come home from the hospital having open heart surgery after feeling pretty awful for a couple years, giving me a new perspective on my situation and being incredibly thankful to still be alive with my wife and daughter. I could not wrap my head around Chidi being done and not wanting to stay with Eleanor. I know that my 38 years on the planet can't compare to hundreds of thousands of years, but still, him ready to just nope out of existence really made me upset. I spent an entire session with my therapist talking about it.
One of my favorite movies actually. The ending especially is wonderful!
Beautifully finale. I was angry and upset while I was watching it- I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that they would "force" a twist or a darker ending...but you know what? They didn't force anything.
The ending is a natural part of the conversation that the show has been having throughout it's run. And it's not intended to be dark, it's supposed to be about peace and contentment.
Ending sealed it as one of my all-time favorite series.
The ending is a natural part of the conversation that the show has been having throughout it's run. And it's not intended to be dark, it's supposed to be about peace and contentment.
Ending sealed it as one of my all-time favorite series.
The show had a bit too many episodes in the last two seasons but it was an enjoyable product all the way through.
After spending hundreds of thousands of years doing anything and everything they want, the cast once they've had enough existence (I've done all there is to do) one by one (when they are ready at diff times) step through a door that scatters their essence (IE really truly cease to exist dead forever) across the universe.
Meh this is a bad take. I hated when the finale aired and people said that it glorified suicide which is not the case at all if anyone has any sense of context or understanding of the themes presented
Everyone in the Good Place is a legitimately good person who cares deeply about other people's feelings. No one is going to be an asshole and just abandon their loved ones at a moment's notice. Chidi waited until he knew for sure Eleanor would be able to handle it, and even then he still would've stayed longer if she wanted him to.
I can't even imagine what that must have felt like. I hope it was worth finishing and helped more than it hurt.
I'm glad to see that most people got the point of the ending, and that it was effective and emotionally resonant. For those who seem to bump up against the ending, especially comparing it to suicide, I offer a post I made in the Season 4 OT here at ERA:
That's not too bad I suppose but still a bit depressing IMO. Don't think I'll ever bother with it.
It didn't hit me as hard as the season finale for the season before, but it still cut onions. One of my favorite comedies of all time on TV