The Good Place review: Committees, mailmen, and a door

The Good Place brings in a committee to discuss Michael’s point system findings. But will they decide the Bad Place is up to no good?

It’s been far too long since The Good Place graced our screens with new episodes. Unfortunately, there are only three episodes left this season. But we’ve made it to the real Good Place!

So… where do we head now?

Let’s recap…

Apparently the smell of warm pretzels and absolute moral truth smell very similar. Michael doesn’t think they’re in the main Good Place, but let’s find out!

Enter Gwendolyn, she introduces them to the correspondence center. There is a door to the Good Place, but it won’t open for them, no matter how many things Eleanor tries to throw at it to make it break. “We’re four Oreos from Heaven!” She exclaims to Chidi.

Chidi takes Eleanor on their first date where they crack open a bottle of champagne and it’s all sorts of adorable. He even dresses up like a mailman and Eleanor bursts into tears.

Michael makes a call to the Good Place committee to come meet him in the correspondence center. They are all super nice, super friendly people and they’re willing to hear him out.

Michael leads with Doug Forcett. If he can’t get in—who can? While the committee tries to find a solution to the problem, Michael gets showered with compliments.

They decide to take decisive action! They’re going to form an elite investigative team and they’re only giving themselves 400 years just to form the team. Basically, it’s all bluster. It will take 1500 years before anything gets started and by then, the Bad Place really will have won.

THE GOOD PLACE — “The Book of Dougs” Episode 311 — Pictured: (l-r) Ted Danson as Michael, Kristen Bell as Eleanor — (Photo by: Colleen Hayes/NBC)

Tahani’s complaining about her attempts to cheer up and uncomplicate Janet to Michael give him the best brainstorm:

Unintended consequences! He looks up a couple different Dougs, one from 500 years ago and one from a few years ago. Both gave their grandmothers roses, but one gained 140 points, one lost four. The world keeps getting more complicated. Being a good person gets harder.

And so Michael turns them in. They’re meeting the Judge at IHOP.

Favorite Moments and Lines

“The smell of the barf from the wave pool is really helping,” Eleanor says as she calms down.
”…How?! … Why?!” Chidi replies.

Also Eleanor’s tears taste like the nacho cheese from her favorite movie theater. Pretty sure I’d also cry constantly if my tears tasted like nacho cheese.

I’m going to miss Gwendolyn, she was such a cheery, ridiculous addition for an episode. But perhaps she’ll show back up. Maybe Eleanor will jimmy that lock open.

I didn’t touch much on the Jason/Janet/Tahani arc because it didn’t add too much to the rest of the episode. But it was nice to see Janet and Tahani have a touching moment together.

So now that they’re heading into the belly of the beast and meeting the Judge head-on… where do we think this will go? Will she reset the universe back 500 years and re-run the point system to not be so persnickety?