the_good_place | Season 4 Episode 13: Whenever You're Ready

Crap, I'm still two eps behind and I cannot get caught up in time. Stupid work. Stupid sleep.

I'll be back once I do catch up, going to avoid everything tomorrow to dodge spoilers.

Everything is fine!

Good luck escaping spoilers until you can catch up! I'm pretty sure the rest of us won't run out of feelings before you can join us here...

I don't think I've got anything coherent to say tonight, except that I really appreciated getting to see the cast all sitting together as themselves afterwards. If you watch the finale in a format that doesn't include the 15 minute aftershow with Seth Meyers, I hope you're able to find it separately -- it really helped put my heart back together again to see them all caring about each other.

I wanted to post my thoughts so I didn't watch the special, but I will do that tonight. :)

Oh, I hope you enjoy and/or have enjoyed!

I wrote a review here! https://author-by-night.dreamwidth.org/1269934.html

In essence, I really liked this episode. I'm sorry to see The Good Place go, but am also good with where it ended. I loved that it was just ambiguous enough, yet also tied up loose ends. Finales are never easy, but I think The Good Place did it to near perfection.

Although I feel a little sorry for Janet, but she does assure us that she experiences time all at once.

My SO and I were both fine with how it ended. We didn't think it ranked among very memorable finales, but it had to end somehow and it made sense the way it went. But I was expecting a little more, some final twist, and that didn't happen. Instead it was more of a "tidying up and saying goodbye" sort of finale, with various people making a return or having little cameos, and us saying farewell one by one.

I did rather like that it was Tahani who, along with Janet, continued on the longest. It made sense in both the nature of her arc and in response to developments. She had reconciled with her family, whose attitude towards her had always made her build herself up in external ways, since no one else was giving her support. Once she had it, she could truly challenge herself in other ways, being the person who does instead of who receives. I feel like we never saw as much of her arc development until this final episode, compared to the way we did with others. Perhaps that's because it would have seemed too much like Eleanor's. Because we already had Eleanor largely in charge of running a self-improvement experience as an architect, so her doing so much longer term wouldn't have gone anywhere new.

By comparison, Tahani getting coffee for demons and forever working behind the scenes rather than as the party hostess was humbling herself in a way that revealed that personal growth. (And it seemed like she was taking some time to get certified, not a short internship at all). So I liked that resolution for her even if I still feel she was shortchanged throughout the season. It does make me think, though, that this end for her was always in mind which is why it wasn't hinted at earlier.

There were a few issues regarding how time works that stood out to me as a problem. For example, if Janet sees all of time together, does that mean she sees the future as well? Or can she only experience all of time once it becomes the past?

Secondly, how long IS a Jearimy Bearimy? Because the world that Michael ends up in sure doesn't look like the future (unless we consider junk mail as being eternal). Athens and Paris looking like our everyday ones was explained by it being recreated memories. (It had certainly seemed to me that they had filmed on location, so I was glad to hear that confirmed in the series special with Seth Myers). Yet all of this finale episode must surely have taken hundreds of years if not thousands.

I was amused by Jason being first and yet actually second, spending a considerable amount of time simply wandering around a forest! But if Janet sees all, why was this a surprise?

That Chidi would be second, and that he stayed longer for Eleanor, was a surprise mostly in that he had reached true certainty in his life! Of all decisions, one would have expected that to be the hardest. And yet Eleanor's letting him go also showed her own growth, and her overcoming the fear of being alone. I loved the Chidi calendar left for her. And it made sense that she'd want to tie up loose ends with Mindy and that it would be Michael's departure which would also make her ready to go. After Chidi, she had bonded most strongly with him and he with her.

It also made perfect sense that Michael would want to become human and experience his great plan from the reverse POV. He clearly had loved humans over time and it had been one experience always out of reach. It was special to see that of all of them, he was the one Janet had the hardest time letting go of. To some degree, Michael had been her creator, developing her potential just as he had developed the humans' as well as serving as a partner in crime.

I thought it was interesting that Jeff finally got a real frog just as Michael was off to become "a real boy."

That going back into the ocean seemed to mean becoming the good impulses living humans had in everyday life was a nice idea. That in the end, their journey towards greater perfection ended up as the seeds of goodness in the greater universe was a less rigid version of guardian angels and the angel on one's shoulder.

I think that it was Kristen Bell who said this in the post-show segment that the finale tied into the idea of life in general, where things end just a bit too soon. I definitely think there's something to that with shows and I think Good Place made the right decision to go through that door at this point. I really enjoyed the run but I think it had said what it needed to.

By comparison, Tahani getting coffee for demons and forever working behind the scenes rather than as the party hostess was humbling herself in a way that revealed that personal growth.

Yes! Like you, I would have liked to see her get more to do throughout the season, but at least we know that in the true Good Place, she really shines.

Chidi's calendar and Michael getting to be a human were great moments, too, I agree. And I hadn't thought of connecting Michael becoming human to Jeff getting a real frog, that's really interesting! It was also a very kind gesture for Michael to make as he was leaving the afterlife and embarking on humanity.

So this episode ended up being both hard to watch and better than I'd hoped. I could have done w/o a few things, like Tahani's sense of well-being only being complete when her parents made it through their own growth and turned loving and supportive. Nope to that. I enjoyed other tidbits more than expected- like:
- Eleanor's friends showing up at that dinner, that was fun.
- The Frog Guy! I was so happy for the Frog Guy.
- Eleanor going back for Mindy.
- Derek being the final, BIG special effect was amaaaaaing! A nod to that first disembodied look we get at the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, with a touch of 'digital sphinx/Face of Boe' kind of thing going on. Something about that whole scene and Mindy hitting the reset button was my favorite part.

I could have done with a whole lot less sad in this show. I can imagine them having gone in a more fun, lighthearted, less (sorry) preachy way, but.... that's where they went. And the Chidi wave speech was gorgeous.

I'm glad we had it to love. I'm read to move on - from it. :}

Edited 2020-01-31 20:39 (UTC)

I feel like Tahani's sense of fulfillment was coming from all the other stuff she did. "Finally get the love of my parents" wasn't anywhere on her checklist -- it's just an event that happened to occur at the same time.

The conclusion of her arc was 100% my favorite, too.

+1 to all those tidbits. I was really glad about all the other reappearing characters, too. (John is fine! Simone is fine! Brent is...still going through the process!)

Haha - yes, Brent... he will keep an architect or two busy for many Bearamies.

Oh ouch, I hadn't even thought about Tahani not being able to move on from what her parents did to her, but that really is uncomfortable. But yeah, it was so sweet that Eleanor offered Mindy a chance to grow, and I was so happy for the frog-loving doorman too!

I would have liked a more lighthearted grand finale too, but if nothing else, there were a lot of moments I could appreciate.

I liked it!

...It didn't give me profound revelations or sobbing breakdowns like a lot of the internet seems to be getting, but it was fun and sweet.

I really, really wish the previous episode had been written differently. It's like they were too attached to the pattern of "there's a Dramatic Twist where our heroes realize that something is Horribly Wrong, and must come up with a cunning philosophical solution to fix it" -- except they were too close to the end of the show to give it any real deep attention, so they whipped out an insta-solution that wasn't well-examined or well-supported and raised too many unanswered questions to be satisfying.

The penultimate episode could've been "our heroes arrive in the Good Place and find it even less-populated than expected, are briefly afraid it's because something is Horribly Wrong, but then discover that the Oblivion Door already exists and reason out why some souls have voluntarily gone through."

That way, the writers don't have to assert that it's the Best Possible Solution, but oops it's the end of the episode, so the audience better just roll with it! They just have to assert that it's Not A Bad Option To Have. That's an idea they would've been able to support in the screentime they had left.

-- and it could've led into exactly the same finale, minus a lot of the implications that left a bad taste in my mouth in the first place.

Oof, I think you're right that a lot of the same plot points would have been a whole lot easier to swallow without that Fun Dramatic Twist last episode. Part of what got to me was how rushed it was, and you're right, it really didn't need to be.

But like you said in another thread, there were some great moments, the cameos of the test subjects definitely included. I'm just sorry we didn't get to see what Simone had to say about the experiment once she found out the full story!

Honestly, I got six minutes into it, realized that I really, truly was going to have to watch at least some of the characters I've followed for these four years go to the magical perma-suicide box with beautiful speeches, and I stopped watching. I realized that, right now at least, it doesn't matter how emotionally moving this individual hour of television was, or how funny, or how great the acting is -- I'm too disturbed and saddened by the conclusion of this story to try to approach the finale on its own terms.

Weirdly enough, I have never felt more okay, philosophically, with the idea of living forever.

Noping out before it gets to be too much is a highly valuable skill, and it sounds like you put it to good use.

For whatever it's worth, my PMs are always open if you could use targeted spoilers or someone to commiserate with.

I agree so much, and in a weird way I'm glad that someone else feels the way I do. I still haven't watched it and I'm not sure if I ever will. My partner watched it first and I asked her for spoilers, and this entire concept actually made me cry, not at all in a good way. I don't want to make myself even more upset on purpose.

I haven't watched it and am not going to. I had so many problems with the way the solution was presented in 4.12 that I decided to look up spoilers for 4.13 after it aired, and after reading them, decided not to watch.

I did watch it, but... yeah, the crying jag I had afterwards was not the good kind, either. I'm glad you had the information you needed to decide to steer clear.

Yeah, I did watch the whole episode, but it truly did not sit right with me and I'm glad to see someone else agrees, because all of my friends seem to have loved it and I don't want to harsh their vibes. I think I disliked it mostly because of my personal views of death and the afterlife that sort of fundamentally disagree with their ethos at the end. When I rewatch, I'm gonna stop at 4x11 and pretend that's the end, tbh.

When I rewatch, I'm gonna stop at 4x11 and pretend that's the end, tbh

Ditto.

When I rewatch, I'm gonna stop at 4x11 and pretend that's the end, tbh.

That's a great idea. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, either, but... judging by the last couple of episodes, the show they were making was not the show I had thought I was watching. And it's really only the imaginary show I thought existed that I liked.

Season 4 Episode 13: Whenever You're Ready

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