The Good Place: Whenever You're Ready (4x13/14)

Okay yeah I cried cried cried. That was powerful.

Cons:

I don't really have the heart to nitpick and critique this finale. It was as good an ending to a TV show as I've seen in a very long time.

I guess... I wish it was longer?

Pros:

Just conceptually, this version of the afterlife is so freakin' gorgeous and ideal and even though I'm an atheist and don't think there's an afterlife, I... hope this is what the afterlife is like?

It just... works, on every conceivable level. Think about it. You die, and then you get to go through simulations where you learn about yourself, where you learn to improve and be a kinder, better person. And then after that, you get to go to a fun place where you can live whatever kind of life you want with absolutely no worries - the conventional dream of Heaven. You can be peaceful, or you can learn new things, you can achieve goals, you can repair relationships with people from your life on Earth. You can do whatever you want, for as long as you want. But after that, you go into the great unknown, and are finally, fully, at rest. We even see a hint of what these souls do when they're at rest - they linger within humanity, inspiring people to do better, to be better, thus continuing the cycle.

How... perfect. It's an afterlife built around the thought that effort is important. That trying is what really matters. We see all of the different ways it can manifest. We see that some people take forever, we see a snippet of Brent still trying to learn and grow but not there yet... but other characters, like Tahani's sister and parents, eventually do improve and heal through the program, and get to have a meaningful reconciliation, their family complete at last.

And then there's the paradise part, where we see different goals and dreams coming to life. Tahani spends her afterlife in self-improvement, learning new skills. I like that she doesn't have a shoe-horned romance, and that hers is a life that is fulfilled without the necessity of a single life/afterlife companion. And she doesn't go into that great beyond. We don't get to learn Tahani's "ultimate" fate. She becomes an Architect and spends at least a part of her eternity helping other people to improve, thus fulfilling the purpose she pretended to have on Earth. I like that her story feels unfinished, in a way. Maybe someday she goes through the final door. Maybe she doesn't. It's okay that we don't know.

Jason plays a perfect game of Madden, he gets to hang out with his dad and the rest of his dance crew, he gets to have a meaningful and loving relationship with Janet. And then, after letting his thoughts go blank and spending several Jeremy Bearimys alone with his thoughts (like a monk), he goes through the final doorway, off to bring encouragement to some soul back on Earth.

I loved the fake-out, where Jason is the first to leave, but then it turns out he hung around to give Janet the necklace he made for her. He was ready to leave, but he also didn't mind sticking around. Eternity means there's no harm in waiting. And it was such a fun callback for him to achieve the spiritual peace of being a monk, when that was a part of his deception and fear during season one.

Chidi's section of the episode is the part that made me bawl. See, the thing is, this show never really gave me "feels" about the characters in the way that other shows do... but that's because it gave me more... conceptual feels. I loved watching... love happen on the screen in front of me, more so than I was invested in the specifics of Chidi and Eleanor's romance. But this - the very concept of this - Chidi being ready to move on, but sticking around for Eleanor. Eleanor selfishly holding on to that love, and then learning that she owes it to Chidi to let go. And then... Chidi sharing with Eleanor a Buddhist idea of death - that life is like a wave, and death is returning to the ocean. The wave was just... a different way for the water to be, for a while.

God, I don't know what it was, but that thought... it soothed something in me. It touched me, spiritually, because of the journey we've watched these characters go on for so long. They got to have as much of an eternity as they wanted. They got to be fulfilled in every way that they wanted to be, and then they got to return to the ocean, from whence they came.

I'm also obsessed with Michael's ending. He begins to feel unfulfilled as an Architect, and so the next logical step is for him to become a human, and go through the system like anyone else. I particularly loved that Eleanor pointed out to him that there's no guarantee - the system has been working, but what if Shawn changes it? What if something goes wrong? Michael has to make that leap of faith, and as he reminds Eleanor, the very fact of his unknowing is an essential part of being human. We see him living his life on Earth. Good days, bad days, days in between. And we don't get to watch him live out the remainder of his life, die, go through the system, get his eternity, and walk through the final door. But we can have faith that that's what happens, and that faith is enough.

Janet isn't a human, and she doesn't want to be a human, so we've got another ambiguous/unfulfilled ending with her. I like the moment early on, when she talks about how she experiences time differently from humans. For her, she's everywhere and every time at once. So there's not really any tragedy to the thought of her existing on in perpetuity, befriending and existing among humans forever more. She formed really meaningful bonds with Jason and the others in the Soul Squad, so she'll do it again. She'll grow and love and continue to be not a girl, not a robot. It's lovely.

Sometimes show finales can feel like curtain calls, and this episode certainly had a lot of guest appearances from characters we've gotten to know over the years. Each one felt intentional and worthy of inclusion. I loved seeing Simone again, and John, albeit briefly. I loved seeing Mindy, and knowing that she too goes through the process for self-improvement. Her parallels with Eleanor helped to show how much our protagonist has grown as well. Derek was hilarious. Tahani's family was great. We got mentions of Eleanor and Chidi's mothers, too. Vicky was there. The Judge. Shawn. The list goes on.

And then Eleanor. Her journey is so stunning. There's something so relatable about the fact that she's the last to be ready to move on. And that she's not sure what she needs to do to feel fulfilled. I... felt that. I understood it on some deep level. It meant so much to me that Eleanor's fulfillment wasn't any one thing, any more than Tahani's or Chidi's. Living an eternity with Chidi wasn't it. Helping Mindy wasn't it. Helping Michael... that was the thing that finally tipped it for her, but it wasn't just that alone. It was a combination of all of those things.

I loved this finale so very much. It was powerful in a way I don't know how to describe. I've often found that finales of TV shows can either be astoundingly good, or incredibly disappointing. They are very rarely somewhere in the middle. This one was astoundingly good, and I'm so happy.

10/10

I have to review this show as a whole. Sure, I can think of things I would have changed, ways it could have been stronger, more exactly my own cup of tea. I could have used more queer representation. I could have used less memory wipes and re-sets in seasons two and three. But these things don't change the fact that this show had a very clear message. A very powerful philosophy. And it made a very persuasive argument for the ideas it espoused. I want the world to work like this. I want humanity to work like this. I want people to have the chance to grow, and change, and I want to acknowledge that it's not always easy, that it often involves a lot of time, and that it requires help from others. I'm so happy I watched this show. I'll definitely be recommending it to people for a very long time.

My over-all rating is...

9.5/10