Michael Schur’s Emmy nominated comedy returns, and so does Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) and her Soul Squad with a mission to blow up the status quo and save all of humanity from eternal torment.
To briefly recap, The Good Place centres on four previously unpleasant humans who join the titular heavenly afterlife.
Knowing there’s been a mistake, the selfish and cruel Eleanor and her pals Chidi, Tahani, and Jason (A.K.A the Soul Squad) discover that they’re actually in The Bad Place: An experiment devised by the Architect Michael – a demon in disguise - to torture them.
Now, on its fourth season, the Good Place is yet another social experiment, but this time lead by Eleanor, after Michael – now reformed – discovered that no one has been able to enter the real Good Place for 521 years because modern life has become so complicated that even the kindest of acts has negative ramifications.
The fate of the world rests on the Soul Squad’s shoulders, as they (and the show) changes its moral philosophy on what it means to be a good person.
The formerly self-centred Eleanor must prove that the human race has the ability to improve and be better members of society; it’s the ultimate test to save the entire human race from an eternity of torture in the Bad Place.
The two-part premiere, “A Girl from Arizona,” picks up where season three left off; the Bad Place selected four new residents to be part of the experiment, including Chidi’s ex-girlfriend, Simone.
Knowing his anxiety could sabotage the experiment, Chidi had his memories erased, including all those of his relationship with Eleanor.
Eleanor isn’t taking this well, having fallen in love with Chidi over the course of the series, but she and Michael try to focus on the remaining test subjects.
Two of our other post-mortem-newbies for this season are John, a gossip blogger and an elderly woman, Linda, who’s not really interested in this whole afterlife thing… or so we think.
As for Simone, she refuses to believe that she’s actually dead, taking comfort in her scientific background to explain away the Good Place as a hallucination created by her damaged brain as she begins to die.
Our final resident is Brent, a smug, privileged Princeton alum, who very quickly begins to get on everyone’s nerves as he whines about how everyone is so politically correct these days.
The two-parter may suffer a little from exposition-dump, but the show continues to find an excellent balance between humour and sincerity.
Eleanor quickly begins to become overwhelmed with her duty as “the freakin’ saviour of the universe,” stating she’s just a girl from Arizona.
Bell is a brilliant actress and her talent really shines here as Eleanor begins to break down opposite Ted Danson’s Michael. But he won’t allow her to give up, believing that although she’s tough, she has a big heart and she’s the only one for the job.
It feels like a necessary evil for The Good Place to be on its final season; on one hand, there’s the worry that a comedy as silly as this can become stale and repetitive - even with the show’s episodic plot twists.
On the other hand, Schur and his team have created a series with genuinely likeable characters and a fresh sense of humour that you can’t help but want it to go on forever.
It’s delightful to sit down for a half-hour each week and watch something as funny and meaningful as The Good Place.
Alas, it’s the beginning of the end for the Soul Squad, but Schur and co wouldn’t be ending their story so soon if they didn’t think it was time.
The Good Place is available to stream on Netflix.
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