Warning: This article contains spoilers aboutThe Good Place.Read at your own risk!
The Good Placehasalready been renewed for a third season, so wecanhave nice things.
No other show so deftly blends joke-a-second wit and brain-bursting cleverness, lighthearted human comedy, and black-hole-bleak frustration.
Credit: Colleen Hayes/NBC
I propose to you that no character on television has it worse.
For these people, the world is already lost.
If you’re able to laugh at that, you’re able to laugh at anything.
The second season of Michael Schurs afterlife sitcom hasnt just flipped the shows concept.
It exploded it, refracted the narrative purpose, made the farce mythic.
The two-part premiere brainwashed the lead characters and then watched them replay the first season in fast-forward.
Last weeks episode saw the apparent destruction of the main setting, the glittering fauxtopia fading into formless void.
And then, on Thursday: A trip to the underworld.
Im a sucker for characters playing dress-up.
(Star Trek: Discoverysdoing it, too!)
AndThe Good Placecast was well-suited to the daffy espionage.
Tahani (Jameela Jamil) adopted a broad American accent, Hey, pass the Nascar ketchup!
The plot fun of this episode was the ticking clock.
Michael stashed his pals in a torture museum, not realizing a party was coming in.
I got dizzy watching this episode, had to watch it again just to catch all the jokes.
The hot new deodorant in the Bad Place makes you smell the wayTransformersmovies make you feel.
And theres an exciting new department reserved for punishing Toxic Masculinity.
The shows fizzy mood makes every interaction a laugh riot.
At one point, Michael brought his boss a folder with a detailed plan.
His boss threw the folder in the trash.
Is that where were putting top priority files nowadays?
asked Michael, Danson giving the line that peculiar Zucker Brothers twang of sincere absurdity.
And then Chidi started talking about Immanuel Kant, and Eleanor counterargued with some Jonathan Dancy.
He seeks order, but life is confusing.
Eleanors a mess, but that means she can understand chaos.
You have to choose your actions based on the particular situation, she advised.
Its a tricky piece of advice, beyond zealotryandcheap cynicism.
There is a moral choice, but the choice is never obvious, because maybe morality shouldnt be.
And then Jason threw a molotov cocktail!
That was after the partys Big Reveal: Robotic doppelgangers of our runaway damned, their torture memorialized forever.
Then came the last scene.
On the run from his bosses, Michael sent his friends through the portal to meet the Judge.
But he was short one portal-pass-jewelry-thing.
So, with the Baddies closing in, Michael told Eleanor that he finally solved an intractable moral quandary.
The Trolley Problem forces you to choose between two versions of letting other people die, Michael explained.
The actual solution is very simple.
Dansons a wonder onThe Good Place.
And now here was another surprise: His alliance with the humans has led to some kind of redemption.
He pushed Eleanor through the portal, and turned around to meet his fate.
This couldve been the season finale.
Weve seen Hell and something like purgatory.
With comedy this divine, anything is possible.
Pass the Nascar ketchup.
