The Good Place debuted in 2016 with an interesting premise–does being a good person matter? In this show, yes it does. In fact, each action is weighed and given points that enable a person to get to the “good place.” If you don’t make it, you go to the “bad place” and eternal torment. Initially, the main character Eleanor wakes up from her death experience to find that she has arrived at the good place. The problem is she didn’t deserve to be there. What follows are humorous situations where she tries to fool everyone and then decides to try and become the kind of person that deserves to be there.
Without giving away the whole storyline, let’s just say that they all discover that no one deserves to go the “good place.” Decisions are complicated and one can’t guarantee what one desires is what actually occurs. No matter how hard someone tries they cannot make everything right.
This point of the show really illustrates the moral weaknesses of humans. We cannot always know what the absolutely right thing is in every situation. Even if we did know, we might not have the moral fortitude to even see it through. I appreciate the philosophical conundrum that this show has taken on. It will be interesting to see how they will finally resolve the show. I am relieved to know, however, that there is an answer to the challenges of being a human and that this answer isn’t “try harder.”
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