The Good Place season 4 episode 9 review: Chidi, this is your life

The Good Place arrives at its mid-season finale, and it’s Chidi’s time to shine. But first, we have to start at the beginning of everything

So, can Chidi save the world on The Good Place? Is this still part of one last final test for our original humans? Are we over-analyzing everything? Let’s see what this midseason finale has in store!

Not-So-Short Summary & Analysis

Michael decides to reboot Chidi by starting at the beginning. And we see how it all starts: listening to his parents argue and fight and how he makes a presentation, at eight years old, on why they shouldn’t get divorced.

And they don’t. He’s persuasive, they’re as in love as ever, and he tells Uzo his realization that “every problem has an answer” as long as you research and know where to look.

And because he helped his parents stay together, he has always turned to finding the answer through philosophy.

The question of his life keeps coming back to: Where is the heart? He’s analytical and calculating, but devoid of emotions. That’s a problem.

And then he dies the first time. We never saw Chidi’s introduction to the fake Good Place. Everything in his house chooses for him. We fast forward through his introduction to Eleanor and go to a pep talk with Chidi and Jason after Jason and Janet’s marriage.

And then we jump to a pep talk between him and Tahani and her ability to find confidence and roll with anything. It’s very nice to see Chidi asking his friends for help in various reboots before he really knew any of them.

And how he can’t quite grasp what they’re saying. Not yet.

He even gets a heart-to-heart with Eleanor after a sneaked kiss (her hilarious expressions after his ulcer comment is peak Eleanor). I love how The Good Place frames it, reboot after reboot of him and Eleanor finding each other, both lovingly and arguing.

In his last moments before Michael erases his brain, he writes something down and gives it to Janet to give to him when they see each other again. He asks for it back when Michael wakes him up. What does it say?

”There is no “answer,” but Eleanor is the answer.”

Favorite Moments & Lines

“You like Kant, I like Kant.”
”We’re not a book group!”
”But… we’re not not a book group!”

”No one’s asked me for help before, and you’re a high school principal!”

So many callbacks this episode! Fork in a garbage disposal. The boots!

I think my favorite soulmate was Esmeralda. Blood and fire in a game of charades was a birthday party. Who knew?!

This episode was such a gentle emotional roller coaster. William Jackson Harper deserves all of the praise, and D’Arcy Carden’s glazed eyes when he hands her the note back is just icing on the cake.

Well, that’s it for The Good Place for 2019! It will return in January 2020 with its final four episodes and an entire afterlife system to build!