The Good Place – Pandemonium

By: Ariba Bhuvad

The Good Place Season 3 finale ended on a shocking note as Chidi (William Jackson Harper) made the ultimate sacrifice for the group. The episode picked up at the point where we last left Michael (Ted Danson) who was freaking out over the plan they had come up with to show humans aren’t all that bad. His freakout was timed horribly as the first human was ready to be introduced to The Good Place (well, the fake Good Place). As a result, Eleanor (Kristen Bell) had to step into the role of the architect and do Michael’s job.

She plays it off as Michael pretends to be her assistant while she escorts the human around The Good Place. The human is naturally curious to learn more about where he is now in his post-death life, but Eleanor is simply too overwhelmed by it all. She asks Janet (D’Arcy Carden) to step in and answer any questions that he may have. One of the questions he has for Janet is regarding the craziest celebrity hookup–Drake and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

As time goes on, Eleanor starts to feel comfortable being the architect claiming lying is what she does best. But she has something else coming when it’s revealed that on Earth the new human ran a gossip blog. One of the people he often negatively wrote about is Tahani (Jameela Jamil), who he simply did not have nice things to say about. It turns out that the humans that are to be brought into the fake Good Place are specifically selected to make it impossible for the four of them to accomplish their mission. This is confirmed when the second human arrives and it turns out to be Chidi’s ex-girlfriend, Simone (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). The group goes to speak to the Judge (Maya Rudolph) about it and the decision is made that Simone’s memories of Chidi and everyone else will be erased so as to make it fair. When Simone comes to once again, she has no recollection of the past she shares with any of them, namely Chidi. But all of this has Chidi feeling some sort of way because he doesn’t believe it will work out. He feels like he will be too obvious and awkward around Simone and cause the entire experiment to fail. The only way he sees this working is if his memory is completely erased. This would mean he doesn’t remember that he’s in love with Eleanor or anything that has happened as a result.

Eleanor is torn and broken over the idea that this is their only option and tries to come up with other solutions. She suggests wiping the part of Chidi’s memory that contains any memories of being with Simone, but that is not plausible according to Michael. With no other options left, the decision is made to wipe Chidi’s memory. For their last night together, Michael decides to surprise them with a video montage of all their memories together since they first met. It ends up being a very emotional moment for the two as they watch how they fell in love and everything they’ve shared in their time together. But all good things must come to an end, and as the video comes to an end, so does Chidi and Eleanor’s time together. Eleanor remains hopeful that they will find their way to each other again as they have many times before.

Eleanor hopes to find comfort from Janet by asking her if she can provide any answers to her predicament. But Janet has been feeling more and more human due to her connection with Jason (Manny Jacinto) and realizes that answers pertaining to love are often better left unanswered. In the spirit of accepting the pandemonium around her, Eleanor decides to move along with the plan Chidi has decided on. As she opens the door to greet the next human, we see Chidi sitting on the sofa completely unaware of who she is and what they once shared.