# The Good Place season 4 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 27, 2019, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903 "2019-09-27T10:08:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/181 "2020-01-27T03:48:50Z")
They walk through the door and end up in Cheers? I can think of worse places to hang out for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/182 "2020-01-27T15:54:37Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > —SEE WHAT (MIGHT) BECOME OF THE CHARACTERS: Both _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ and _Star Trek: Voyager_ used this device. Something causes a trip decades into the future that lets us see “what happened” to the characters, without committing to a declaration that this is what definitely happens to the characters–it’s all just one _possible_ future. It may have been satisfying for those particular shows, but Schur won’t want to duplicate the device. Schur did that for Parks and Rec, which is frankly one of my favorite series finales ever. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/183 "2020-01-27T21:37:36Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Schur did that for Parks and Rec, which is frankly one of my favorite series finales ever. Yes, it’s popular, because it lets people believe what they want to about the ultimate fates of the characters, while still getting the fun of seeing one possible fate/future. I guess he might use it again, but I would be a bit surprised because there would inevitably be criticism (‘one trick pony’ and the like). ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/184 "2020-01-27T21:46:22Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I don’t know if you’re glossing over this option because it’s so obvious and/or it’d be unsatisfying, but: what if everyone who’s earned a spot in The Bad Place pretty much goes through what these folks did? > > So the default experience is, you arrive in what seems to be The Good Place; and it eventually becomes clear that you’re living a lie since you can see that your faults in life, which you’re only now _really_ coming to grips with, would’ve plausibly landed you in The Bad Place; so you get put through your paces, going on a big adventure of self-exploration and improvement alongside a soulmate who’s doing likewise; and, however long it takes to get to a point where you’ve truly come to see the error of your ways and can now passionately make a philosophical case for how things _should_ be, you enter a version of The Good Place (a) that you soon realize ain’t quite right, (b) and you set to tinkering with it until you find it acceptable. > > Sure, we just watched _them_ do that; but _everyone_ in that situation does that… You could be right. It would be a twist. And (if I’m remembering correctly…?) none of them have had extensive conversations with people being tortured in the Bad Place, so it can’t be ruled out that the people being tortured previously went through an experience such as Eleanor et al have had. One problem with the idea is that the '_Michael the demon gets a brand new idea for a Bad Place neighborhood–make it look like a Good Place neighborhood’_ plot element wouldn’t work with it. Or at least, not in a way that I can see. > [@Sherrerd](#): > > … The Point System may be abandoned and only hints of what will replace it will be discussed, maybe, leaving that bit of open-endedness that we tend to expect from the wrap-ups of beloved shows. … I do feel confident in predicting that one part of the finale will be an explicit abandonment of the “damned for eternity because of unintended consequences of a good act” element. Being held responsible for unintended consequences of carelessness or negligence strikes most people as “fair”----but being held responsible because the consequence of a consequence of a consequence (etc) of an act that was _not_ careless or negligent, turned out badly, does not strike most people as being just or reasonable or fair. So they’ll deal with that, I think. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/185 "2020-01-27T21:56:02Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I do feel confident in predicting that one part of the finale will be an explicit abandonment of the “damned for eternity because of unintended consequences of a good act” element. > > Being held responsible for unintended consequences of carelessness or negligence strikes most people as “fair”----but being held responsible because the consequence of a consequence of a consequence (etc) of an act that was _not_ careless or negligent, turned out badly, does not strike most people as being just or reasonable or fair. > > So they’ll deal with that, I think. They already dealt with it. Three episodes ago when they came up with the new system. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/186 "2020-01-27T22:28:02Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > They already dealt with it. Three episodes ago when they came up with the new system. I don’t recall that dialog; I’ll have to watch the episode again. I thought they just decided to let everyone have an extended time—_after_ death, not before—to try to improve. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/187 "2020-01-27T23:10:11Z")
Maybe I’m not understanding what you’re trying to say. The entire plotline of this season, if not the show is “Trying to judge someone for eternity based on what they did in their short life is unfair.” The solution is “Everyone will get as many chances as they need in the afterlife to try and be a better person.” That plot line is resolved. They aren’t going to throw that all out in the last second. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2020, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/188 "2020-01-27T23:31:31Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > They walk through the door and end up in Cheers? I can think of worse places to hang out for a long time. Eleanor wakes up next to Bob Newhart and realizes it was all a nightmare. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/189 "2020-01-28T00:06:08Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > You could be right. It would be a twist. And (if I’m remembering correctly…?) none of them have had extensive conversations with people being tortured in the Bad Place, so it can’t be ruled out that the people being tortured previously went through an experience such as Eleanor et al have had. > > One problem with the idea is that the '_Michael the demon gets a brand new idea for a Bad Place neighborhood–make it look like a Good Place neighborhood’_ plot element wouldn’t work with it. Or at least, not in a way that I can see. Well, this whole experience has also made _Michael_ a better person, right? He went from being _‘the insulting demon who laughs at people while trying to concoct new and interesting ways to make them suffer’_ to being _‘the guy you just saw, in this latest episode, getting asked to make The Good Place better; and the audience pretty much thought, yeah, I like the idea of him taking point on that_. So you could — if you wanted — help a demon think he just now came up with an innovative breakthrough, one he’d want to experiment with (a) tout de suite, and (b) while cackling; and, in the inevitable _getting-to-know-you_ phase of watching humans who get a second chance work at making themselves into better people, why, he’d become wise and compassionate too. And you could run demon after demon after demon through that, _while_ working to lift quartet after quartet after quartet of humans into, uh, heavenliness. ---
**Author:** ![Taber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/190 "2020-01-28T00:37:22Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Maybe I’m not understanding what you’re trying to say. The entire plotline of this season, if not the show is “Trying to judge someone for eternity based on what they did in their short life is unfair.” The solution is “Everyone will get as many chances as they need in the afterlife to try and be a better person.” That plot line is resolved. They aren’t going to throw that all out in the last second. I think Sherrerd is referring to the bit where the show explains that you used to get points for buying roses for your grandmother, but now it is a net negative because they were from Monsanto seeds, and picked by child laborers and shipped over here by smoggy vehicles (I don’t remember the exact ways the roses were immorally created). It seems unfair to lose points for that even if you later get to rectify it. I think that, and other parts of the point system are somewhat flawed, but I don’t think they have enough time to gives the characters motivation to fix it, and to fix it, given how it does seem to be somewhat mitigated by not really mattering in the end, but I’ve been wrong about this show before. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/191 "2020-01-28T00:39:34Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Eleanor wakes up next to Bob Newhart and realizes it was all a nightmare. Exactly what I was going for. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/192 "2020-01-28T01:59:38Z")
Here’s my crazy speculation: First they realized that having everything you want for eternity will be terrible. So they introduced essentially death with a promise of heaven (“it will be peaceful, but that’s all we know”), which seems to invigorate everyone. Next, they’ll find out that always getting what you want is also boring. And the absence of evil will make being good kind of pointless. The concept of struggle will be re-introduced. Maybe they’ll mix the people from the good and bad place, so good and evil can interact. In the end they’re going to discover that they have re-invented Earth, and that there is no need for a good place or a bad place at all. Just Earth, and maybe death becomes reincarnation on Earth (equivalent to the memory wipes). In the end, we wind up with a secular Earth with no heaven and no hell. It’s up to the individual and their own behaviour to make it their good or bad place. I’m probably totally wrong, so don’t worry about the possible spoiler. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/193 "2020-01-28T02:58:46Z")
TV Guide has a description of the upcoming finale tat gives it all away: > [@TV Guide](#): > > Various conversations take place among Various groups of people. Oops. Forgot the spoiler tags.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/194 "2020-01-28T05:39:23Z")
They decide that pushing the button on the earth rebooting garage door opener thingie is really the only solution. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/195 "2020-01-28T05:40:32Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > TV Guide has a description of the upcoming finale tat gives it all away: > > Oops. Forgot the spoiler tags.:smack: Netral Janet’s description of every episode. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/196 "2020-01-28T14:11:10Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > Yeah, I mean. I think you just landed on the analogy. Life has meaning because it ends. To give the afterlife meaning, it also has to end. > > Janet doesn’t know, because the whole point is that they’re letting people pass OUT of known existence. And, just like WE don’t really know what happens when people die, Janet (still a being OF this known existence) can’t really know what happens when somebody passes out of it. Though I was thinking that maybe one of the reasons everyone is so bored is that there hasn’t been a new person coming in in the last 500+ years. New people every so often would make things a lot more interesting - new conversations, new concepts of what is going on, etc. I think that aspect was ignored. Though being able to end your existence on a high is good too. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/197 "2020-01-28T18:55:56Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > Though I was thinking that maybe one of the reasons everyone is so bored is that there hasn’t been a new person coming in in the last 500+ years. New people every so often would make things a lot more interesting - new conversations, new concepts of what is going on, etc. I think that aspect was ignored. > > Though being able to end your existence on a high is good too. I think this was actually answered a little with Lisa Kudrow’s character. She DID seem to be energized by the new people somewhat, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the brain melting nature of eternity. One of my favorite things about the episode was how she didn’t decide to walk out the door immediately, but the presence of the door made a huge difference for her. Really underlined the point they were making, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/198 "2020-01-29T01:39:00Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > …The entire plotline of this season, if not the show is “Trying to judge someone for eternity based on what they did in their short life is unfair.” The solution is “Everyone will get as many chances as they need in the afterlife to try and be a better person.” That plot line is resolved. They aren’t going to throw that all out in the last second. > [@Taber](#): > > I think Sherrerd is referring to the bit where the show explains that you used to get points for buying roses for your grandmother, but now it is a net negative because they were from Monsanto seeds, and picked by child laborers and shipped over here by smoggy vehicles (I don’t remember the exact ways the roses were immorally created). It seems unfair to lose points for that even if you later get to rectify it… Right–I wasn’t referring to the ‘not enough _time_ on earth to demonstrate fitness for heaven,’ but instead to the way humans were being held personally responsible for things they couldn’t, realistically, know or control. The “unintended consequences run wild” thing. I still think the issue of personal responsibility (and its reasonable and fair limits) will play a part in the finale. But of course there’s a lot to be shoe-horned into that hour or so ( a bit unclear, given that there is apparently an aftershow in the time slot, too). So we’ll see. > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Well, this whole experience has also made _Michael_ a better person, right? He went from being _‘the insulting demon who laughs at people while trying to concoct new and interesting ways to make them suffer’_ to being _‘the guy you just saw, in this latest episode, getting asked to make The Good Place better; and the audience pretty much thought, yeah, I like the idea of him taking point on that_. > > So you could — if you wanted — help a demon think he just now came up with an innovative breakthrough, one he’d want to experiment with (a) tout de suite, and (b) while cackling; and, in the inevitable _getting-to-know-you_ phase of watching humans who get a second chance work at making themselves into better people, why, he’d become wise and compassionate too. > > And you could run demon after demon after demon through that, _while_ working to lift quartet after quartet after quartet of humans into, uh, heavenliness. I agree that the issue of the demons and potential personal growth for them should be dealt with in some way. Of course, I’d like more closure on the origins of a system containing demons, a Good Place Committee, AI-units with nearly unlimited capabilities, and a powerful judge who seems obsessed with American popular culture—but I don’t know if we’ll get that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/199 "2020-01-29T07:26:32Z")
This is pretty much how Christopher Hitchens described the concept of a religious afterlife. It might sound a bit depressing to be told (regarding your existence on Earth) “The party will go on, but you have to leave”, but it’s somewhat worse to be told (regarding your existence in an eternal afterlife) “The party will go on forever, and you can _never_ leave. Further, the boss commands that you have a good time.” Anyway, I think the pending arrival of millions of new souls should provide enough novelty to shake the longterm residents out of their ruts for a while (not _eternally_, of course, but for a while) though they seem to be aware of developments on Earth, which I’d’ve thought would have the same effect. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903/200 "2020-01-30T02:29:03Z")
People have been making jokes about the Christian heaven forever, like they’d be bored with all the pious people or that they’d want to go to hell because that’s where their friends would be. The obvious flaw with this reasoning is that it’s human-centered nonsense. If heaven is perfect, then it’s perfect. Perfect is not flawed or boring or short-lived. The Good Life is obviously about Christian eschatology so the same objection holds here. Humans can’t imagine a world higher than humanity. All they can do is imagine what they’ve already experienced and nothing that transcends that. It’s not satire to give us non-transcendence; satire would be mocking us thinking that we could possibly imagine it. The last episode was a lot funnier than they’ve been. All the lines were not only sharp but built character. The surroundings sucked. Not one of those people died less than 500 years ago, so the party would have been incomprehensible. No different from Christians somehow believing that they will see all their dead ancestors in heaven, who somehow will know everything that has happened in all the years since they died and also speak English. The show wasn’t satirizing that nonsense; the plot depended on it being real. Christians, amirite? Tomorrow’s ep is 90 minutes, so I’m hoping for some twists to get past this Sunday-school infantilization and into something interesting. At the very least, keep up this level of funny. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-good-place-season-4/840903.md?page=11)