Finding Forgiveness in The Good Place

Spoiler alert: this article contains plot spoilers for all four seasons of The Good Place

The hit NBC show, The Good Place, recently wrapped up its final season, closing the doors on four seasons of morality, honest humor, and trolley problems. At the heart of this philosophical comedy, however, is a message about forgiveness that reminds us of the sanctity of our faith.

The series follows four humans, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), Chidi Anagonye (Willian Jackson Harper), Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), and Jason Mendosa (Manny Jacinto) through their experiences in the afterlife, following their respective deaths. In the first season, they find themselves in The Good Place, a neighborhood designed by the architect Michael (Ted Danson) and is seemingly perfect in every way. However, we quickly learn that this is not the case. Despite the heavenly environment, all four characters are unhappy. Eleanor and Jason believe they are in The Good Place by accident, Chidi is forced to live with someone he is incompatible with and Tahani tries desperately to be the well-most liked member of the neighborhood. After many trials and tribulations, the season ends with the revelation that all four of them are actually in The Bad Place, and Michael is no more than a demon trying to make their afterlives miserable.

The plot progresses throughout the second season to the point where the four humans are trying to get into the actual Good Place, and Michael is genuinely attempting to help them on their way. Through these experiences, both on Earth and in the afterlife, they find that the system that admits people to The Good Place is fundamentally flawed, only allowing in those with a very high, positive sum of the points associated with each action they did on Earth. The system subtracts points for “bad” actions and adds points for “good” actions, with the magnitude being proportional to the action itself.

The final season sees the group trying to mold a new system that allows for moral development after one’s death, subsequent admittance to The Good Place, and the option to blissfully end their afterlife and dissolve back to the universe whenever they feel called.

The original system in which the eternal fate of a human’s afterlife was decided by the total sum of their actions, was a system void of forgiveness. It was easy, methodical, and based on trusted formulas, and the worth of a life was that fateful number. But there was no room for repentance or change. With a little help from one another, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason identified the flaw in this system. They made strides to create a new paradigm in which repentance was celebrated, change was necessary, and the capacity for good in each person was recognized. They created a system that relies on the forgiveness that God bestows upon us.

At its core, The Good Place is a TV series about a fictional reality that we enter into when we die. It serves as a good reminder, however, of why the sacrifice of Jesus and the forgiveness of God is so necessary to our lives, both on heaven and on earth. If there was no mercy, we would subject our worth to being defined as a single number that determines our entire eternity, as under the original system. The good news is that there is forgiveness. We can repent and change our ways. With that, the gates of the eternal resting place in heaven are opened, our fates are not sealed, and we can live with the hope of everlasting life in heaven with our great God.