‘The Good Place’ and Weaponizing Tropes
The greatest twist in sitcom history works because it was camouflaged in plain view the whole time.
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Situation comedies are the comfort food of our entertainment lives1. Like a crime procedural, they follow a fairly rigid pattern in every episode, but instead of twisted serial killers and grimly dedicated law enforcement officers you get gentle comedy and a reinforcement of the social contract2. The Good Place is an interesting example of a modern-day sitcom mainly for its premise: A group of people die and are informed that they made it to the titular Good Place (not exactly heaven as we know it, but close enough) due to the way they lived their lives—except one of them is actually an Arizona Dirtbag who has been mistaken for a much better person with the same name3.
That’s a great premise, and the show works it to great success over the course of its first season. The aforementioned Arizona Dirtbag, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kirsten Bell), terrified of being discovered and sent to the Bad Place, enlists the help of ethics professor Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper) in an attempt to better herself and earn her spot, and becomes entangled with Jason Mendoza (Manny Jacinto), a sweet idiot from Florida also in the Good Place by mistake, and Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), a wealthy philanthropist obsessed with her more popular sister. Meanwhile, Eleanor’s presence seems to be sowing chaos in the Good Place, and the four principle characters find themselves in an ever tightening swirl of chaos when the mistake is revealed to the afterlife authorities (Ted Danson as Michael, the “architect” of their little slice of the afterlife) and the bill comes due.
This is all quite funny, but what really sets the show apart is the incredible twist at the end of the first season. After months of being miserable in paradise, Eleanor finally realizes the truth: They’re not in the Good Place at all. They’re in the Bad Place, being tortured in the most byzantine way possible4. Everything about the Good Place is by design: Eleanor was told she was there by mistake in order to torture her with a fear of discovery, and the other three are the only other humans there because they’re being tortured in various ways that intersect with each other, forming a tight ball of self-generating misery5.
This is confirmed by one of the greatest heel turn acting moments in the history of television courtesy of the brilliant Mr. Danson:
There’s a good reason the twist lands so well. If you watch the first season a second time, something becomes very clear: What seemed like your standard sitcom conventions and tropes were actually all part of the torture machine6. It’s all right out in the open.
Motherforking Shirtballs
Sitcoms all run on the same basic engines. A show like The Good Place initially seems pretty straightforward: Eleanor’s accidental inclusion in a heaven-like afterlife instead of the eternal torment she knows she probably deserves leads to a series of comical misunderstandings. Misunderstanding is one of the key drivers of situation comedy7, and is almost always coupled with a lack of communication, because most of these misunderstandings could be resolved with a single conversation. In bad sitcoms like Three’s Company, the lack of communication makes little sense — people just make insane decisions to never explain themselves despite having multiple opportunities to do so8. But in The Good Place, it works because if Eleanor and Jason’s situation is revealed, they go straight to hell. Of course they can’t reveal themselves — even, initially, to each other.
This leads to a typical spiral of insanity as Eleanor and her friends have to build layer upon layer of ridiculousness in their frantic efforts to keep all those metaphysical plates spinning. This sort of escalating spiral isn’t unusual in sitcoms—plenty of shows have built arcs or entire seasons around a slowly boiling series of crazy events as one or more characters attempt to hide something or otherwise keep control of a chaotic situation. So upon initial viewing all the running around and construction of crazy schemes to keep the big secret just feels like normal—and pretty funny!—sitcom plotting.
Once you know the reveal that’s coming, however, you realize this wasn’t just escalating insanity for laughs as in most sitcoms. All the insanity was part of the torture. The Good Place wasn’t a crazy and uncomfortable existence just to enable a deep well of existential jokes. It was crazy and uncomfortable because it’s literally Hell9.
Everything is Fine!
Most sitcoms don’t have this kind of justification. When Rachel and Monica get into hijinx on Friends because they don’t want a secret revealed, there’s no justification for their insane behavior beyond that: They’re insane, and it’s funny. Frankly, you wouldn’t want to know most sitcom characters in real life because of the insane behavior10.
Initially, The Good Place seems like a similar dynamic—Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Michael, and the magical AI Janet (D’Arcy Carden, getting a ton of mileage out of her twinkling “Not a person!” dialogue) just seem like ridiculous people who start building plate-spinning machines out of miscommunication and stupidity for our entertainment. And they sure are ridiculous, especially in the early going. But once the twist hits it does what all truly inspired twists do: It re-contextualizes everything11. Suddenly the plate-spinning chaos is revealed as torture. As people being thrust into insane situations with incomplete information in order to make them miserable, and for perhaps the first time in television history sitcom characters being dumb just to make a bizarre comedic situation come to life makes actual sense.
Well, actual sense as long as you accept that the afterlife could be run by a demon named Michael who likes bow ties and designs entire pocket universes just to torture four people. Why not? We were willing to believe that a group of adults in 1980s Boston would spend literally all their time at one bar, a bar that was never crowded, and where the bartenders just chatted amiably with you for hours at a time12.
As for me, I know I am going to a formless void where my molecules will be reabsorbed by the universe and probably repurposed to make kazoos or something. I am okay with this13.
NEXT WEEK: Red Rocket nails the rhyme.
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Much like how mozzarella sticks are the comfort food of our comfort food. Or something. I haven’t slept in days.
Except for Seinfeld and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, shows that shit on the social contract on a weekly basis. They’re the exception that proves the rule.
This is certainly my plan. There are a lot more Jeff Somerses out there than you think, and I fully intend to steal an identity or two when Judgment Day comes. Also: My Rapture plan is to grab onto The Duchess’ ankle and hold on for dear life. I got this.
Sort of like being in church, but not as subtle.
This kind of torture is something you can experience any time you want simply by taking in roommates, of course.
The idea that sitcom tropes could be used to torture people is brilliant. Imagine being on a date with two people at once … forever. Muhahahahahaha.
For example, my life is hilarious because I understand almost nothing but pretend otherwise. At this point people are paying me to explain stuff to them and it’s all getting out of hand.
To be fair, I still haven’t explained the state of my haircut after all these decades. To be even more fair, I myself do not understand what my hair is doing at any given time.
Personally I would have been suspicious the moment I saw that Heaven was essentially an open air mall. Everyone knows malls are hell. Everyone.
Is this why I have no friends? No, I have no friends because I never wear pants. I thought this was well-known.
For example, I love the realization that it couldn’t have been heaven because they still had to do stuff like take out the trash and do the dishes.
Hot tip: If you’re even in Boston, don’t go to the Cheers bar. You’ll be sad.
I TURNED MYSELF INTO A KAZOO, MORTY! I’M KAZOO JEFF!