I don't typically put spoiler warnings in my recap but trust me. If you have yet to see the last episode of The Good Place's first season, do not read this review. You'll thank me later.
-Twists are tricky. A well-deployed one can change or re-contextualize the direction of the narrative in a way that revitalizes the story and captures the hearts and imagination of the audience. A bad or poorly-executed one can sink the story and drive the audience away in droves. It's especially hard if your show is full of big twists because if you're not careful, you could wind up sacrificing meaningful character development in service of the plot. The Good Place had a new twist practically every episode, but it managed to pull it off because the show was always keeping it rooted in the characters and their journeys. The twists and the mystery were fun but also besides the point. And when tonight's finale featured a massive twist of world-shattering proportions, it worked like gangbusters because of how well it clarified it's characters in addition to what was happening around them.
-The best twists are the ones that are hidden in plain sight, unseen because we don't realize what we're looking at or what clues we should be paying attention to. Throughout the first season of The Good Place, something has always felt a little off. It's not just that Eleanor and Jason wound up in the wrong place by some kind of convenient cosmic error, it's also how Michael was always terrible at putting his guests at ease (As well as just being terrible at his job in general) or how for heaven, no one was ever at peace. It's how Tahani managed to get in, despite the fact that the motivation behind her lifetime of good work was always suspect or how a nervous wreck like Chidi who couldn't even write his book qualified. There was something not right, but that feeling of weirdness could easily be chalked up to (depending on the plot point) first-season kinks or the vaguely-defined rules that the show's universe followed. Instead, all the little inconsistencies and weirdness turned out to be very intentional as we learned that our heroes have actually been in the bad place this whole time, part of an experiment designed by Michael (architect for The Bad Place) to subject them to their own personal hell where they torture each other. Everyone else in the neighborhood is a bad place actor (Hence why we never really spent time with anyone outside of our core group) and they've been pushing them to make each other miserable. It's an incredible twist and one that immediately makes me want to re-watch the season to see how it plays now that the whole picture has been revealed.
-The great thing about this twist is it doesn't negate or render any of the character growth we've seen this season irrelevant. The reset sort of does it but I doubt it'll last that long before our characters have their memories back next season (Assuming there is a next season. I'm hopeful though). Sure Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, and Janet to an extent were being manipulated all season, but the growth they experienced is real and they're probably on their way to belonging to the good place for real. Well, not Jason. If anything this episode doubled down on his selfishness and awful behavior. The rest of them are getting better though.
-Chidi's flashbacks now take on greater significance in retrospect because they're no longer just about how his need to do the right thing tortured and paralyzed him over the years, they're explaining how a life of alienating and hurting everyone he cared about as a result of that compulsion to do the right thing caused him to fall short of entering the real good place. Without those flashbacks, it would be much more of a stretch that Chidi belonged in the bad place (Tahani makes much more sense as a bad placer).
-That smile though! Ted Danson has been an all-star all season but that moment when Michael gives up the charade and shows his true colours was next-level good. It's a huge shock but there's so much subtlety into how Danson plays the switch. He's like a terrific method actor who suddenly breaks character. It's super jarring in the best possible way and it'll be interesting to see him play both versions of the character if/when the show returns. It's also really impressive how manipulative the majority of Michael's behavior becomes in retrospect now that his true motivations have come to life.
-Though the twist winds up dwarfing everything else that happens in these two episodes (Especially since the whole Shawn thing was just a ruse and the whole "pick any two people to go to the bad place" thing was only there to set up Eleanor figuring out the truth), I do want to talk about the first episode of the night Mindy St. Claire for a minute, particularly the medium place.
-"Mindy St. Claire" was a strong episode for showing how far Eleanor has come since she died, despite her efforts to run away from it and live in eternal mediocrity. The opening flashback to her final moments shows her at the height of her selfishness, the culmination of years of taking care of only herself that began when she emancipated herself from her even more selfish parents. She truly has changed and even if Shawn's threat to "send" Chidi and Tahani to the bad place wasn't there, it's likely she would've eventually gone back on her own. She's not a medium person anymore and even when Jason tries to lull her into staying, she's able to stay strong and convince him of their need to go back.
-As for Mindy St. Claire herself, Maribeth Monroe does a great job, playing someone who has made peace with her life of isolation and imperfect lifestyle, despite having not entirely kicked her cocaine addiction. She also serves as the platonic ideal of a "medium" person: someone who did bad things before having the intention to follow through with a grand idea she got (while on cocaine) for a charity that would genuinely help people, which was enough to save her from torture after she immediately died (The foundation was established posthumously). She's like a heightened version of Eleanor and the perfect final temptation for her to overcome on her quest to be better than medium.
-The big question about the medium place post-twist though is if it was real or part of the post-confession scrambling. I'm leaning towards real because Janet wasn't part of the ruse and Mindy seems like too promising a character to just discard on a one-off appearance that didn't matter. I guess we'll see though (Hopefully).
-Real Eleanor turns out to be Fake Eleanor. Tirya Sircar played genuine goodness so well that it was actually shocking (and hilarious) when she suddenly drops the ruse and reveals herself to be another bad place jerk. Hopefully there's room for more of Vicky in season 2, though they'd have to find something new for her character to do since we all know Fake Eleanor's goodness is a sham.
-Janet falling in love with Jason was real! Aww, that's sweet. I don't have a whole lot of interest in an Eleanor/Chidi/Tahani love triangle (At least not with Chidi as the center) but Janet and Jason forever! Their attempts to figure out how to have sex were terrific.
-I'm not sure which joke I liked more: Jason's failed attempt to destroy the train with a Molotov cocktail or Eleanor realizing that she might legit be into Tahani. Both were great for different reasons. Jason's for how the episode makes you think this will work for a split second before it fizzes out terrifically and Eleanor's for how well it pays off the running joke of Eleanor describing how beautiful and perfect Tahani is.
-Marc Evan Jackson was perfect as "Shawn" (If that is his real name), both before and after the reveal. The joke that his character goes into a literal cocoon when a situation becomes the slightest bit emotional was also great and made perfect use of the dry emotionless monotone that he somehow rings so much nuance from. Who knew there was such a stark contrast between normal indifference, cruel indifference, and annoyed indifference?
-It's telling that when Eleanor has seconds to write a note to herself to help her break the cycle she chose "Find Chidi". She could've said "Don't Trust Michael" or "This is the Bad Place" or any number of things but she prioritized finding the man who helped turn her into a better person because she knows she can't become a better person or break the cycle without him. That's a more convincing sign of the Eleanor/Chidi bond than any silly love triangle.
-Also this exchange: "I feel like I failed you". "No. Don't ever think that. I was dropped into a cave, and you were my flashlight".
-Bambajan bursting in with an obscure precedent that could fix everything and being waved away by Eleanor was terrific. I really hope we get to spend more time with the employees of the bad place next season as they try to maintain this insanely elaborate ruse for 1000 years.
-The idea of starting season 2 with all the characters reset to their season 1 selves but separated from each other with some details changed is certainly promising. Eleanor being given a new shirtless mailman soulmate is funny already. Changing the focus of the show from "selfish person tries to learn to become good" to "flawed people who are better together try to come together and overcome the bad place" is a smart call. Before it was hard to see the premise of The Good Place sustaining itself for that long. Now, it's easy to see how this show could be sustainable.
-So that's it for season 1 of The Good Place. This has been one of the best first seasons of a TV comedy I've seen in a while and I'm very hopeful that we'll get more of this wonderful show in the future.
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