The Good Place, Goofus and Gallant

Okay, I'll just get over my Ted Danson phobia and watch. Maybe not binge, though.

Michael Schur swears he didn’t name Michael, the avuncular architect played by Ted Danson on Schur’s metaphysical sitcom, “The Good Place,” after himself. The character was actually based on St. Michael the Archangel, who according to Christian tradition is involved in the final judgment of souls.

But the parallels are undeniable. Over four seasons on the NBC comedy, both Michaels spent their time devising elaborate, twisty fictions and trying to settle on a suitably just plan for the afterlife.

“That character is some sort of a showrunner — he’s writing scenarios and putting people in different positions,” Schur said recently. “I gave up trying to argue and have just accepted the fact that my subconscious will live on the show.”

“The Good Place” is ending this week, wrapping up Thursday night on NBC with the series finale followed by a live panel discussion, hosted by Seth Meyers, with Schur and the cast — Danson, Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto and D’Arcy Carden.... (continues)

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Help is other people
Through a series of metaphysical twists (this is a rare sitcom with the momentum and galaxy-brain surprises of a drama like “Lost”), we discover that eternity is broken: No humans have qualified for heaven in centuries, less because we’re so bad than because the point-based system is out of whack.




The series was largely about the obligation to help others be good.

So Eleanor sets out to fix it, with the expertise of Chidi (William Jackson Harper), a student of moral philosophy; Tahani (Jameela Jamil), a self-absorbed socialite; and Jason, (Manny Jacinto) a small-time Florida criminal and Molotov cocktail enthusiast. Each alone is a Goofus. Put together — and abetted by a renegade demon (Ted Danson) and a hypercompetent A.I. assistant (D’Arcy Carden) — they may make enough of a Gallant to fix the universe.

It’s that “together” that connects “The Good Place” to Schur’s other communitarian comedies. A lot of TV series are about what it means to be good — even “Breaking Bad” was, albeit using a negative example. What distinguishes this one is that it’s ultimately about our obligation to help other people to be good, to tutor and challenge one another, to learn and to pass lessons along.
As its trial-and-comedy-of-errors shows, you can push yourself, work the program and accrue the points, but it’s nigh impossible to do it alone. An entirely individual morality, in its vision, is a kind of solipsism doomed to fail. Making a better world — or even one better person — has to be a team effort. (One Season 4 episode had the sunny-Sartre title, “Help Is Other People.”)

“The Good Place,” charitably, blames our circumstances, not ourselves, for this situation. Modern life, it argues, has become so complicated, the effects of our actions so far-reaching and unpredictable, that it’s impossible to live a good life on the first blundering try. (One small but resonant example is Chidi’s love of almond milk, the virtuous-seeming beverage with the giant water-usage footprint.)
nyt
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A big part of my early moral education. Seriously.


g&g
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Postscript. I watched the finale and I liked it. Turns out the denizens of paradise find eternity a drag, and only perk up when they're shown where to find the exit. Nice concluding secular message. And Hypatia of Alexandria too! Thanks again, Ed.


https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a30653064/hypatia-of-alexandria-lisa-kudrow-the-good-place-season-4-explained/


Lisa Kudrow's The Good Place Hypatia of Alexandria Cameo Explained - Why Chidi Met Hypatia in Season 4 - esquire.com
In introducing Chidi to Lisa Kudrow's Hypatia of Alexandria—a cutting-edge feminist scholar from ancient Egypt—The Good Place makes a sly comment about what kind of person gets into heaven.
www.esquire.com