Why The Good Place is ending; a decision years in the making
Why is The Good Place ending already? There’s a good chance you’ve asked this question to yourselves many times over and no one could blame you. If you’re a person who loves to laugh and/or loves shows that push the envelope, this series is right up your alley.
When the laughter stops — or when the laughter is about to stop — that’s also when The Good Place comes to a close. That’s at least the philosophy of show creator Mike Schur, who didn’t want to keep the story going just for the sake of doing so. This is also a move that was long in the works, as the showrunner tells TVLine that this decision was made back early on during season 2 and then revisited throughout the remainder of the process:
“[We were considering the end when] we finished Season 1 and got picked up, and we’d already worked a little on Season 2 during Season 1. When we figured out that the big move at the end of Season 2 was that they were going to be sent back to Earth, which was pretty early in Season 2’s discussion, then it became even more evident. It was like, “Alright, if that’s Season 2, and Season 3 starts on Earth… and that suggests what Season 4 will be”… it just became clear that that was the end. There were a couple moments here and there where it was like, “Well, wait a second, maybe there’s this thing that could get us into Season 5.” There were a couple moments where it felt like, “You know what? Actually, if we hustled and we really crammed everything in, we could probably finish it in Season 3.” But pretty steadily, from the end of Season 1 and the very beginning of Season 2, it seemed like four years was the right number of years. We waited until we were absolutely, one hundred percent sure, and that happened at the end of last year.”
Now, The Good Place has a opportunity to end with a full season building up to a well planned finale — something that doesn’t happen very often for most shows that just get canceled and your left wondering what happened to your favorite characters? We have our moments where we get upset with NBC for canceling various shows, but they’ve done right by this one in allowing it to dictate its future for most of the journey.
What is the episode count?
Schur notes that the final season will run for 14 episodes, one more than the typical 13. Meanwhile, the series finale is going to serve as a one-hour episode, a way to tie together loose ends and leave viewers hopefully satisfied. We say hopefully just because it’s television, and we certainly know at this point just how divided people can be on the subject of series finales. Not everyone will be happy, it’s just the nature of the beast, but as long as they don’t Dexter the situation we think everyone should be pretty satisfied.
What do you want to see on The Good Place before the wheels come off and we learn where Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason end up? Share right now in the comments.