5 Years Ago, The Good Place Delivered a Devastatingly Brilliant Finale

It’s hard to imagine that a show whose final line is “Take it sleazy” could be something both morally and emotionally profound, but that’s the sneaky brilliance of creator Michael Schur’s The Good Place. The show’s heartbreaking yet hopeful finale aired five years ago this week, and it remains one of the greatest all-time endings of a TV series. Its message of solidarity and optimism is even more valuable in a time when both of those qualities seem in shockingly short supply.

For its entire four-season run, The Good Place mixed sharp wit with weighty existential philosophy, while developing a core ensemble of flawed, relatable characters — even though two of them are immortal celestial beings. Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, and Manny Jacinto play “medium” people who learn to better themselves in the hereafter, thanks to a reformed demon (Ted Danson) and an omnipotent ethereal assistant (D’Arcy Carden).

The finale, titled “Whenever You’re Ready,” mostly takes place following a time jump, after all the major plot points of the season and series have been resolved, and the characters are left to deal with internal, personal choices rather than grand universal threats. That’s a risk for a plot-heavy show that placed the entire fate of humanity at stake on multiple occasions, but Schur (who wrote and directed the episode) and the cast pull it off beautifully.

The title of The Good Place refers to what many mainstream religions call heaven, although thanks to various schemes and deceptions, the characters don’t arrive in the actual Good Place until late in the final season. By that point, they’ve challenged the entire afterlife hierarchy and the means by which humans are judged during their time on Earth, and they’ve earned the eternal reward that awaits them. But things are never that simple on The Good Place, which is always in active dialogue with complex philosophical ideas, and the characters end up having to completely reinvent the Good Place once they get there.

That’s all taken care of once “Whenever You’re Ready” begins, with a smoothly running afterlife system that allows people to grow and change even after they’re dead, just as the central human characters have, giving everyone a chance to become the best version of themselves. That’s a rational, enlightened approach to finding redemption after life, but what makes “Whenever You’re Ready” so poignant is what comes next. Because limitless pleasure has no meaning if it’s infinite, the Good Place now also allows its residents to take one final step, letting their essence dissipate into the universe.

“Whenever You’re Ready” charts the final choices of the four human characters, as well as Danson’s Michael, who’s become more human as he’s embraced his connection with the people he was once assigned to torture. “None of this is bad,” says ethics professor Chidi Anagonye (Harper) as he spends some of his last moments with his soulmate Eleanor Shellstrop (Bell), and The Good Place makes the literal disintegration of its protagonists into something uplifting and meaningful.

One by one, they start to feel what Chidi describes as “a kind of quietude in my soul,” realizing that they’ve gotten all they can out of their time in the Good Place. Not all of them elect to discorporate, but they all make definitive exits from the potentially endless existence of everything they’ve ever wanted. After all the time they’ve spent fighting to assert their value and escape unimaginable torment, that act of letting go carries real significance, for both the characters and the audience.

These are still goofy characters, and “Whenever You’re Ready” finds room for humor, in Michael’s inept attempts to write a psychedelic rock song, Eleanor’s continued perviness, and the dim-witted but good-natured observations from hardcore Jacksonville Jaguars fan Jason Mendoza (Jacinto). Carden’s Janet, whom Michael calls the most powerful being in the universe, remains delightfully weird, even as she shares a genuine, inexplicable love with Jason.

Plenty of long-running sitcoms engage in protracted, maudlin farewells in their final episodes, but while “Whenever You’re Ready” is undoubtedly emotional, it’s never manipulative or excessive. Schur knows when to rely on viewers’ investment in getting to know these people over four seasons, and when to rely on his deep knowledge of philosophy and spirituality — and when to just make a dumb joke about the Jaguars.

When Chidi is comforting Eleanor before he walks through the mystical door to end his existence, he paraphrases a Buddhist conception of mortality, likening each life to a wave that is absorbed back into the water once it crashes onto the shore. It’s an elegant perspective on one of the greatest mysteries of human life, and one that would rarely get such careful consideration in a network sitcom. It’s also an expression of compassion from a man to the woman he loves, whose love has grown across the most dire challenges anyone can face. After all that they’ve been through, Chidi and Eleanor face one final challenge with grace and humor, and The Good Place brings the audience along with them.