10-29-2025, 08:18 PM
The more The Good Place goes on the less the coherence of the universe holds together. Especially right at the end, it really flubs the entire thing. The "system" the entire show is based around simply couldn't work that way. Nor is the "solution" plausible in the least. It falls apart the instant you think about it at all but the random Phoenician dude in The Good Place I think is a tell that even with supposed philosophical experts advising the show they had no clue at all at how to even begin constructing a coherent system. Sure, we're supposed to accept that his life was so non-complex that he easily got into heaven, but how? How could he have earned any good points? Especially if Doug can't earn enough to get in to somehow offset all the bad points he's apparently earning?
And sorry, I can't see how teaching everyone ethics can possibly teach them to follow the exact system when every ethics philosopher in history explicitly failed to understand the system. Doug was the only person to get even close and he abjectly failed. How could Chidi know and be able to teach everyone in history? Especially when all of it is wrong and doesn't apply to the value judgements of the system?
I can't comprehend why the show couldn't advocate that the system was fatally flawed or even come up with a way to explain who created it and why it was created. We have all these beings who existed since beginning of time and none of them had any insight into it, or why it even existed. It exists to judge humans who wouldn't exist for billions of years, so why would it exist before humans? So they must have been around when the system was created and surely there's people with insight into its creation? The Good Place beings aren't humans and clearly established following rules no matter what the results even though that couldn't be part of the system as intent has weight in the system.
They didn't need to do this to avoid saying which religion was right or that God created the system, they could have simply left it that the Good Place and Bad Place negotiated as to what other beings were allowed into them. But this doesn't work either because why do souls have to be allowed into either? Why no medium place for souls regardless? It's just endless weeds. Which is probably why the second half just doesn't work. It takes the flaws in the setup and rather than avoid discussing them makes them the focus of everything.
I also didn't care for the handwave about the memories being given back to everyone. Then this also being made a revelatory moment for one character while the others were completely unaffected by it. Nor does the Judges decisions seem to make much sense. Or why anybody listens to Michael at all about anything.
I guess my main point is that when tackling the meaning of the universe and the construction of the system that resembles Christian canon (but wink wink everyone else too) Michael Schur could have done with reading less Western academic Ethics and more Mike Carey's Lucifer.
And sorry, I can't see how teaching everyone ethics can possibly teach them to follow the exact system when every ethics philosopher in history explicitly failed to understand the system. Doug was the only person to get even close and he abjectly failed. How could Chidi know and be able to teach everyone in history? Especially when all of it is wrong and doesn't apply to the value judgements of the system?
I can't comprehend why the show couldn't advocate that the system was fatally flawed or even come up with a way to explain who created it and why it was created. We have all these beings who existed since beginning of time and none of them had any insight into it, or why it even existed. It exists to judge humans who wouldn't exist for billions of years, so why would it exist before humans? So they must have been around when the system was created and surely there's people with insight into its creation? The Good Place beings aren't humans and clearly established following rules no matter what the results even though that couldn't be part of the system as intent has weight in the system.
They didn't need to do this to avoid saying which religion was right or that God created the system, they could have simply left it that the Good Place and Bad Place negotiated as to what other beings were allowed into them. But this doesn't work either because why do souls have to be allowed into either? Why no medium place for souls regardless? It's just endless weeds. Which is probably why the second half just doesn't work. It takes the flaws in the setup and rather than avoid discussing them makes them the focus of everything.
I also didn't care for the handwave about the memories being given back to everyone. Then this also being made a revelatory moment for one character while the others were completely unaffected by it. Nor does the Judges decisions seem to make much sense. Or why anybody listens to Michael at all about anything.
I guess my main point is that when tackling the meaning of the universe and the construction of the system that resembles Christian canon (but wink wink everyone else too) Michael Schur could have done with reading less Western academic Ethics and more Mike Carey's Lucifer.
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