‘The Good Place’ finale reaction: The Bad Place twist for the ages

Tonight, “The Good Place” aired its season 1 finale, and let’s just say that the hour-long affair contained one of the biggest twists that we’ve seen in any comedy so far this year.

Basically, what we had was this: Michael was never the architect of the Good Place at all. Instead, these characters have been in the Bad Place all along, and the entire place was meant to torture them and bring out their worst fears and insecurities. They made each other constantly miserable, or at least that can be said for our four main characters — Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani. This was all a little game that Michael decided to play, and there were a couple of twists and turns along the way — nobody was able to predict that Janet was going to fall in love with Jason. (How could they?)

If was Eleanor who ultimately figured out precisely what was going on with Michael, and while she was really proud of herself for a moment or two here, there were some problems that quickly arose — after he realized that she and her new friends actually made each other happier and better, he wanted to “tinker” a little bit, erase everyone’s minds, and start anew with some sort of ridiculous experiment. Basically, he couldn’t allow them to be happy.

In the closing minutes of the episode, Eleanor woke up without any memory of what happened, and she got the same sort of greeting to the Good Place that she had last time. Everything had restarted, and that included having a new “soulmate” (one who happened to love to take his shirt off — and we actually do mean shirt in this case). However, one thing was different: She stuffed a note in Janet’s mouth before losing her memory, and upon being rebooted, Janet handed her the note to find Chidi. She may not remember anything at the moment about her life, but maybe there’s a way for that to change.

Ultimately, what a heck of a forking great finale. We’re now suddenly DESPERATE to get more of this show in the future. This has to be one of the best twists we’ve seen in a long time.

What did you think about the finale of “The Good Place” tonight? Share in the comments, and head over here to see our piece about whether or not the show should be renewed for a second season. (Photo: NBC.)