Show Review: The Good Place (Season Three Premiere)

The season three premiere of The Good Place shows promise of being the very best so far. The show is written by Michael Schur, who also wrote Parks and Recreation and currently writes for Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

(Fun fact: he also played Dwight’s odd cousin Mose in The Office).

The episode starts us where we left off in the last season, with Eleanor meeting Chidi. With just this first scene, The Good Place is able to remind us as an audience of why we care so much about this show. The characters are so real and fleshed out, you understand them better  than you understand some people in real life.

Since the beginning of the show, we’ve been in the heads of every main character. Now in season three, we can actually predict what they are going to do.

Watching Eleanor try and turn her life around while still battling her demons is familiar and comfortable to watch, as she slowly but surely is on the way up. She’s still the same bad person that she was before, but it’s more obvious than ever that she has good, too.

Watching Chidi struggle with a new relationship is heart-wrenching, as he’s been through the same relationship hundreds of times and has done fine by himself.

Watching the dumb but lovable Jason realize that he wants his life to have more substance than a “50 person dance crew” feels incredibly satisfying because he’s now grown through the other-worldly challenges he faced in seasons one and two.

Tahani separating herself from the material world and then being tempted to come back, but instead choosing to help people, makes us feel proud.

The characters have all grown over the course of the show, and it is exciting to see how they’ll use that knowledge to conquer season three.

Schur does an amazing job of showing us what our four protagonists have been doing for a year in a condensed, hour long special. Rather than stretch the story out, the characters, Michael and Janet, act as a gateway to the viewer, letting us see what they’re doing naturally by being present or just asking directly. All of the characters are saved by a literal deus ex machina and all have new paths they take. We’re shown almost exactly what we want to see.

The show is also as funny as ever. Eleanor referring to herself as a “human trash-bag” (big mood), Chidi taking an hour to pick a muffin at a stand or Jason revealing that his biggest accomplishment in life is riding a wheelie on a dirtbike completely through a Waffle House are just a few of the amazing gags that season three is going to bring.

Throughout all the emotional drama, the show still manages to make us laugh.

This season is just like the last two in that they take the same scenario, but change one thing, then we watch as all the different scenarios play out. This season’s wrench in the machine promises to show us everything we want and more.

I believe this is one of the best comedies on television. Schur’s new show blows his others out of the water.