The Good Place (TV Show)

Cause Heaven or "The Good Place" isn't quite what you had in mind.

THE GOOD PLACE
Season Three
Format: Netflix
Genre: American comedy.

Rating: 6 out of 10. 

SPOILERS.
With season 4 just starting, I decided to go back and watch season 3. Don't get me wrong on rating this show a 6 out of 10. I do thoroughly enjoy watching it. I don't wait for it to come out specifically and I'm not super bothered if I miss some episodes. For me, that ranks it at about a 5-7. Let's delve into this series however, so you can get a recap just in time for this new season (first episode is up to bat for season 4 this month.) 

Maya Rudolph. Aka the Judge

The Judge has let Michael the demon restart all the individuals on Earth in their time lines, creating an alternate time line. Eleanor, Chidi, Jason and Tahani are all back in their life, who get better from their near death experiences after about 6 months, then become their old scumbag selves again. Chidi is probably the on the best path, as he gets an MRI to find out whats up. Michael, of course, intervenes even though he isn't suppose to and gets the gang together. Eleanor sets up Chidi with his brain analyst, much to Michael's abhorrence of the idea, because when they were in the Bad Place they fell in love. At this point though, the brain scientist and Chidi and Eleanor start making a study about near death experiences. At this point, Tahani joins in because she thinks Michael is a scuzzball business man who is trying to get all up in her business. She decides to be a good doer and ends up in the stud. Jason went from wanting to do a dance crew, to searching for meaning in his life and ends up in the study as well. All looks good till the demon, Trevor (let's take a moment to appreciate how Trevor is the worst possible name like ever and all Trevors are evil...which is the perfect name for a demon). Trevor is an asshole at this point trying to split everyone up so Michael and Janet go to Earth to try and stop Trevor's dumb ass. 

Janet, whose actually quite lovely.

Janet, whose struggling with the fact that she isn't getting information to her and also can't summon things. Trevor's antics don't work, which doesn't even matter cause the Judge swoops in and takes them all back. They get ordered to return to the Bad Place where Michael is forced to retire and Janet will get deactivated. They decide to escape. Shocker.

Michael and Janet spy on everyone for a year to make them stay together, even going as far as giving Eleanor a winning lottery ticket so that way she doesn't have to get a job and can stay within the study group. The study eventually cracks at the seams, with Tahani trying to go off with her fiance and Chidi wanting to study new participants. Eleanor, Michael and Janet are unhappy about the group splitting up so they try to sneak into the Judge's office and all the human see the portal that they forgot aout at this point. 

It's like they're two halves of a whole idiot.

Michael and Janet are now found out (again, who didn't see this coming?...cause like...how???) and then they say they have been torturing them in the Bad Place for roughly 300 years.  Humans have to earn points to get into Heaven and the system is rigged because of how complex the Earth is these days. They go crazy though. Tahani anonymously donated $2 mil to the Sydney Opera House, Jason leads her to distribute money to people who need it, Eleanor tries to be a bad person however, she ends up returning a wallet to a person and Chidi drowns his sorrows in an $880 candy chili which is just disgusting. 

Now, everyone is trying to do good to go to the Good Place. Starting with helping those from their past. Tahani helps Jason with his dad, Donkey Doug, by helping him become an electrician (which was his original goal. He has all these hair-brained ideas to make money (like energy drinks and deodorant.) Eventually, Jason gives up on his dad and focuses instead on Pillboi. Jason lies and says they are astronaut spies and that Pillboi needs to make an honest living at the nursing home and give up his life of crime. Chidi also breaks up with his brain lady just in time for Eleanor to go confront her mother. 

A scumbag from Arizona.

Eleanor runs into her mother, who faked her death or avoid a drunken bid at a charity auction. Donna now does by Diana Tremaine and is living a normal suburbs life with her husband Dave and his daughter Patricia. Eleanor is really just ticked off her mom never raised her like Patricia and is jealous. Eleanor convinces her mom to hold put and stop stashing away runaway money. Meanwhile, Tahani tries making peace with her sister in Budapest. She refuses the peace and Tahani destroys the exhibit. She sits down and really thinks about the exhibit. Realizes her parents were "wankers", making Kamilah and Tahani compete against each other for the love and affection of their parents. Now all is better. 

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Meanwhile, the gang tries to find a blueprint for society. They even find a guy who accurately predicted the afterlife and he still doesn't have enough points even though he is obsessed with getting enough. Through this, Michael is convinced that the points system is flawed, and he is hard-pressed to find out where. 

The Soul Squads escapes to Janet's void because they are are intergalactic criminals. The Accountant tries to argue that there isn't a mistake because there is no way for a mistake to be had. The gang then goes to the Good Place, escaping by portal. A committee is put together to investigate but the Good Place bureaucracy says it will take 400 years just to get a good set of investigators. Thus, the find out that the culprit is the increasingly complex modern life that has unintended consequences making net point loses for good stuff. Which is cray-cray. This is why they decide to go to the Interdimensional Hole of Pancakes or IHOP. The Judge goes to live on Earth and realizes in her time there that humans can't win in this point system. Chidi then brings up the point that the experiment be repeated with 4 new people. The demon guy selects 4 moderately bad people in a new Janet and Michael neighborhood, mimicking the first one. The first human, John, arrives in new Good Place/Bad Place. Turns out, all the four selected were specifically from the pasts of the humans involved. John was a gossip columnist who trashed Tahani, Chidi's brain lady/girlfriend shows up and Michael has a panic attack for Eleanor is pretending to be the Architect now. Chidi realizes he will break the experiment and needs to get rid of his memory or risk them all to damnation. Eleanor and Chidi have been growing into a relationship and now need to start over because Chidi forgets her.

All in all, I do enjoy watching this show. Mainly because they can't curse and use the word fork instead of fuck and shirt instead of shit. It's actually pretty amusing and is a gimmick of fake heaven to mess with everyone. Would give it a watch if you want something light-hearted and can knock out in a day or two. 30-min episodes and 13 a season make it a quick watch.