The Good Place review, season 3, episode 11: Subtle, cutting commentary on Trump’s America

Thank Doug, The Good Place (Netflix) has finally escaped the shackles of Earth.

Season three has, for the most part, been a meandering mess, even if the eventual outcome was fairly predictable. We knew our whimsical quartet – Eleanor (Kristen Bell), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jason (Manny Jacinto) – would inevitably get back together. We knew Eleanor and Chidi would yet again begin their on/off relationship (a sitcom-speciality). And we knew Michael (Ted Danson) wouldn’t be able to stay away for long.

What’s worse, having “Team Cockroach” stranded on Earth sapped The Good Place of what made the show so unique: the Good Place itself, where Janets appear with a bing, existential questions are the topic of conversation and there’s an indefinite supply of frozen yogurt.

Thank Doug, indeed, that we’re finally back in that fanciful world. For it’s the fault of Doug – the human who prophesised the points system and attempts to live a perfect life – that Michael and the team have returned to the afterlife, on a mission to discover why even this ultimate utilitarian cannot earn enough points to enter The Good Place.

“The Book of Dougs” starts with the gang finally entering the actual Good Place – or, at least, the post room of the Good Place. Enter Gwendoline (Nicole Byer), a mail woman with a permanently fixed smile, who innocently takes everyone’s words at face value. Despite her being arguably the nicest character to ever appear on television, the tension ramps up as the humans realise they cannot make a wrong move or they’ll be labelled trespassers.

From here, the group split into three factions, with Michael guiding the main narrative. Danson, on particularly gleeful form, revels in the role as his character meets with a committee of eternal Good Place dwellers: essentially a group of Shoreditch/Brooklyn hipsters (ones who must have freshly picked peaches – no, pluots! – from the farmers’ market).

Michael implores them to take a decisive action on the points system, which has not allowed a human into the Good Place in over 500 years, but the committee wants to spend another thousand years – years in which humans are being tortured – making up their minds.

Considering an earlier line from Jason about their fears of getting kicked out of the Good Place (“What kind of messed up place would turn away refugees?”), the comparison creator Michael Shur seemingly wants us to make is with Trump’s America. Like Michael, Americans are calling for change (impeachment) yet many politicians are doing nothing (waiting for investigation results) while damage is being done to the country’s people.

It’s a cutting, subtle social commentary on the current political climate and hints at the future of the show – that the real Good Place, like the fake Good Place, is actually not a good place at all.

Elsewhere, there’s lots of crying as Eleanor and Chidi go on their first date and the Janet/Jason/Tahani love-triangle inches slowly forward. Both are the continuation of the same sweet stories that have served The Good Place well, but neither have bearing on the narrative and don’t particularly play with the afterlife’s potential.

Still, the show’s much better now there’s a narrative path to follow – fighting for mankind’s right to enter the Good Place – and that should put fans’ disappointed with the earlier episodes of the season at ease.