Every Season Of The Good Place, Ranked

If you somehow missed "The Good Place," an existential afterlife comedy from "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and "Parks and Recreation" creator Michael Schur, I implore you to fix that immediately. The series premiered in September of 2016 and introduced audiences to Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper), Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), and "Jianyu," whose real name is Jason Mendoza (Manny Jacinto in arguably his best role). When these four humans die on Earth, they end up in an afterlife that they're told is the "Good Place" by the specific "heavenly" neighborhood's architect, Michael (Ted Danson). Michael, who's flanked by his not-a-robot, not-a-girl assistant Janet (D'Arcy Carden), guides Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason through this seemingly idyllic celestial neighborhood, until a twist late in the show's first season reveals something absolutely enormous. Also, there is a Bad Place, and Michael says the core four do not want to end up there.

I will be discussing the entirety of "The Good Place," including that twist and many, many others, and there's one other thing I need to get out of the way before I really dive in. I think basically every second of "The Good Place" is nothing short of spectacular. The concept (for which Schur got an assist from "Lost" showrunner Damon Lindelof, fitting nicely into the latter's oeuvre of that series and "The Leftovers") is brilliant, the performances are pitch-perfect, it's heartwarming and extremely funny, and it's one of the best network TV comedies in recent memory. That's why ranking the four seasons of "The Good Place" from "worst" to "best" is as impossible as navigating your way through a realm full of demons wearing a human skin suit to avoid detection. With that in mind, please know that the lowest-ranking season isn't the "worst," but simply just "not the absolute pinnacle of an extremely good, very thoughtful, and all-around wonderful show." 

Okay! Now that I've made it quite clear that "The Good Place" uniformly rules and choosing favorites here was extraordinarily difficult, let's proceed with a ranking of its seasons from "least incredible" to "wow, oh my God, I'm laughing and crying!" 

When Eleanor Shellstrop ends up in the Good Place, she's a little confused. Even though Michael says she ended up there because of all the innocent people she helped as a lawyer, Eleanor knows better; as she eventually puts it, she's a "dirtbag from Arizona" who worked at a call center that sold fake allergy medication to seniors. Eventually, Eleanor realizes that the silent Buddhist monk whom Michael says is named "Jianyu" is actually Jason Mendoza, a dopey guy from Jacksonville Florida who dabbled in everything from drug dealing to amateur DJing (which, in my book, are equally serious crimes). As for Chidi, he's Eleanor's "assigned soulmate" and a former professor of moral philosophy, and Tahani is a high-flying socialite known for her extravagant parties and celebrity-packed contact list.

Eleanor confesses to Chidi, who agrees to help her become a better person — even in death — through moral philosophy lessons, while Tahani is dismayed to learn that her "soulmate" Jason isn't a serene monk, but a guy who loves video games and then-Jacksonville Jaguars player Blake Bortles. As for that twist, we learn in the finale that this entire thing was an enormous ruse: Chidi, Eleanor, Jason, and Tahani have been in the Bad Place, not the Good Place, the entire time, and Michael is a demon torturing them by tricking them in the first place. As Eleanor uncovers the truth, Michael snaps his fingers and resets her memory, giving audiences a phenomenal cliffhanger for season 2. 

The reason that season 1 of "The Good Place" lands last on this list is because, for a lot of its early episodes, it goes back-and-forth a lot about what Eleanor should do and whether or not she really "belongs" in the neighborhood. Yes, the twist is absolutely spectacular, but the season leading up to it isn't as strong or confident as the seasons that follow ... though I do want to give Michael Schur flowers for bringing his regular player Marc Evan Jackson in as Shawn, a high-ranking demon who shows up to antagonize Michael, comedy pinch-hitter Maribeth Monroe as Mindy St. Claire (the only resident of the "Medium Place"), and his "Parks and Recreation" star Adam Scott as Trevor, a demon from the Bad Place who sucks so hard (in the funniest possible way).

The final season of "The Good Place" is very, very good, but as it heads towards the endpoint, it does drag just a teeny-tiny bit. After the Judge, played by the always perfect Maya Rudolph, orders Michael and Shawn to participate in an experiment that mimics the original journey of Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani, who worked together to become better people in the afterlife. Because the Bad Place is allowed to choose the humans, they end up working with former gossip columnist John Wheaton (Brandon Scott Jones), entitled, Princeton-attending golf-lover Brent Norwalk (Benjamin Koldyke), Chidi's ex-girlfriend from their time on earth Simone Garnett (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), and a taciturn older woman whose name doesn't matter because she turns out to be a Bad Place demon in disguise. 

The Bad Place also throws a fake Janet into the mix to replace the real one we've seen throughout the show — though our heroes figure it out — as Michael, intimidated by all of his failed attempts at this experiment before, breaks down and leaves Eleanor to pose as the neighborhood's all-powerful architect. Thanks largely to the fact that Brent is absolutely terrible, the experiment goes poorly, and the Judge decides to erase the entire universe to start fresh.

Thankfully, the core four, Michael, and Janet do come up with an actual afterlife system — well, it's mostly Chidi's plan — and get sent to the real Good Place as a result, only to discover that everyone there has a totally atrophied brain from years of blissful boredom. After one more system tweak that involves a door you can pass through when you're "finished" in the Good Place, we watch as Jason, Chidi, Eleanor, and even Michael step through the door in the stunning, tear-jerking series finale "Whenever You're Ready." (Tahani stays behind to become a neighborhood architect in the real Good Place.) Michael, in the last few moments, gets to live out his life as a human; when he tells someone to "take it sleazy" like he's always wanted, it's a well-earned and oddly touching end to the series as a whole.

After the events of season 2 of "The Good Place" — which we'll cover in just a moment — Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason are given "do-overs" on earth to see if they improve with only light meddling from Michael and Janet. (This meddling, light as it may be, is totally unsanctioned by the Judge and other higher-ups.) Tahani, Eleanor, and Jason all end up in Australia to learn from Chidi, who teaches at a university there; they're joined by Simone Garrett, who, during her time on earth, was a neuroscientist. Calling themselves the "Brainy Bunch," they all learn how to be better people from Chidi while Simone studies their brain patterns ... and despite a reappearance of Adam Scott's demon Trevor (who's even worse when he's being overly earnest), they succeed.

Still, things always go awry on "The Good Place," and when the Brainy Bunch starts splitting up due to a variety of events — Tahani is planning to marry the fourth Hemsworth, Larry (Ben Lawson) and move to London, for example — Michael and Janet grow more and more desperate in their attempts to keep the foursome together. Thankfully, this means that Michael and Janet just explain everything to the humans, bringing everyone back up to speed. Though season 3 falters a bit when the gang splits up — Eleanor and Jason confront their parents on Earth, and Tahani finally makes peace with her overachieving younger sister Kamilah (Rebecca Hazlewood) — it picks up steam once again when Michael learns from the afterlife's head accountant Neil (Stephen Merchant) that nobody has entered the Good Place in over half a century. Armed with the news that the Bad Place is brazenly gaming the system, the gang confronts the Judge, who comes up with the experiment from season 4.

Thanks in large part to a crackerjack cameo from Michael McKean — who plays Doug Forcett, a guy who figured out the concept of the afterlife after a mushroom trip and lives according to his frankly absurd set of rules — and the episode "Janet(s)," where D'Arcy Carden plays all of the main cast (except for Michael) when they spend time in her boundless void, season 3 of "The Good Place" is almost perfect. It's a very close second to the best season of the whole series, which directly precedes it.

Season 2 mostly takes the top spot because it features one of the best episodes of "The Good Place," if not the best — "Dance Dance Resolution" — but the rest of it is excellent too. After the season 1 cliffhanger, we watch Eleanor, Jason, Tahani, and Chidi restart their adventure in Michael's secretly sinister neighborhood, and in that aforementioned installment "Dance Dance Resolution," we're treated to an incredible montage of Eleanor figuring out they're really in the Bad Place, with one exception where Jason discovers the truth. (Michael is particularly dismayed when Jason figures it out, just as he is when he starts recording an audio log of his experiment only to realize he left his office door open and Eleanor heard the entire thing.) 

Between the existential crisis Michael experiences in the middle of the season (where he demands that Janet conjure him up a sports car and wear tight dresses on his arm as "Jeanette"), the origin of Michael and Janet's relationship as undead mythical beings, and the introduction of Derek — a half-formed human-like thing that Janet creates after a breakup with Jason, who's played beautifully by the wonderfully erratic Jason Mantzoukas — season 2 of "The Good Place" is basically perfect. It's also the season that introduces Maya Rudolph's Judge (who reveals to Tahani that her name is "Gen, after 'oxygen,'" because that's the only thing that existed when she was born), the season where Michael officially teams up with the humans (who he calls "the cockroaches") and stages an elaborate ruse to trick the demons, the season where Chidi and Eleanor figure out that they love each other, and the season where the whole gang infiltrates the Bad Place pretending to be various demons. (Tahani's job as a demon named Rhonda involves putting hot dogs in unmentionable places.) Season 2 of "The Good Place" is the series at its sharpest, funniest, and best, though it genuinely is a close call. Man. What a good show!

"The Good Place" is streaming on Netflix now.