The Good Place (Season 3)

Season 3 is generally considered to be the weakest season of The Good Place, and I definitely understand why. A lot of time is spent on Earth with is way less interesting than the afterlife. However, I think Season 3 has a lot going for it, and would definitely say it's better than people give it credit for being.

Season 3 starts with the cast back on Earth, given another chance to improve their morality. Michael tries to manipulate things by going to Earth and getting everyone to meet, only to get stuck there and forced to find a way back. Look, there's a lot of great stuff in this storyline. Michael struggling to adjust to Earth life? Hysterical. All of the subplots fleshing out the cast pre-death? Fantastic. The Good Place is still as funny and sharply-written as it ever was in Season 3... but you can tell something's off. Part of why I like The Good Place is the colorful and surreal afterlife world, and to be perfectly frank, Earth is kind of a boring setting in comparison. Sure, it's novel at first but the longer you have to wait until the characters go back to the afterlife, the more Season 3 feels like it drags. It's this reason that I understand why many fans think this one is the weakest, the Earth storyline has its good moments but it's generally pretty dull and goes on way too long.

Thankfully, once the characters leave Earth, Season 3 kicks into high gear and never lets up once. In the course of five episodes, we get some of the best plot twists in the series, probably the only ones to even come close to topping Michael's Gambit. Essentially, it's revealed that the Good Place system is incredibly flawed, and that hardly anyone has made it in, not even the guy who predicted it, Doug Forcett. So, these last few episodes really revolve around the cast trying to think of a new solution and prove that they deserve to be in The Good Place, culminating in the decision to recreate Michael's original experiment. It's the show at its most morally fascinating. But even better are the surprising emotional beats that happen in this part of the season. All of Season 3, even the Earth stuff, had a pretty heavy focus on Eleanor and Chidi's relationship, but it's in these last few episodes where everything really pays off for them and it ends up feeling incredibly impactful.

Highlights:

Don't Let The Good Life Pass You By: This is the point where Season 3 really gets good. Most of the episode involves Michael visiting the real Doug Forcett only to learn that he's basically driven himself crazy trying to do everything he can to get into the Good Place, which is already a great storyline on its own, but then the episode ends on a crazy bar fight that ends with Janet dragging everyone from Earth.

Janet(s): And in case the last episode wasn't amazing enough, Janet(s) is an easily contender for best The Good Place episode period. Since most of it takes place in Janet's void, pretty much every character is played by her actress, D'Arcy Carden, and she nailed every single personality to a tee. Even more, we learn that not even Doug is getting into the Good Place, Chibi and Eleanor officially get together, and the episode ends with the group finding themselves in the actual Good Place.

Chidi Sees The Time-Knife: This episode probably came the closest to topping Michael's Gambit in sheer plot-twistery. In the course of a single half hour, the Judge is convinced that the system is flawed, Shawn is brought in and forced to work with Michael, the group plans to re-do Michael's initial iteration as an experiment to prove people can improve, and the episode ends with Michael having a panic attack forcing Eleanor to take over for him. I swear, watching this live was wild.

Pandemonium: Compared to the first two finales, Pandemonium was a bit more low-key, trading in crazy plot twists for sheer emotional gut punch. Shawn brings in Chidi's love interest from Earth, Simone, to be one of the participants, so Chidi decides to get a mind wipe at the cost of having to break up with Eleanor. While I may have been a bit tired of mind wipes at this point, the tragic feel of the episode and the fact that only Chidi suffered from it this time still left me liking it. 

Overall, Season 3 is a mixed bag for me. Its first half, while still fun, lacks the creativity and spirit of the earlier seasons due to taking place on Earth. However, once the characters leave Earth, I'd say the second half of Season 3 is probably the best stretch of episodes in the whole series, packed with fantastic twists and strong emotional punches.

4/5 Stars