You better forking believe it: Both seasons of the most innovative series on TV are finally available to stream in one place. That’s right, benches, The Good Place Season 2 just landed on Netflix. You officially have no excuse not to catch up before Season 3 premieres. I’m about to get into it, so if you haven’t seen both seasons, turn away now. Season 2’s episodes are dense AF, but they only clock in around 23 minutes. There are only 13 episodes to rewatch — 26 if you count a Season 1 binge — so it shouldn’t take you more than an afternoon or two to plow through them. If you were considering ditching Netflix for Hulu, then hang onto that subscription a little longer.
Okay, I waited as long as I could to get into the details so, for real, if you aren’t clear on what happened in Season 2, turn back now! Season 3 is shaping up to be the show’s most inventive yet, but let’s get into a little bit of what made its predecessor so special.
The genius of The Good Place — well, part of it, anyway — is that it’s an excellent half-hour sitcom that plays with viewer expectations. It doesn’t deconstruct the nature of humanity and television the way that, say, Community often did, but it’s not afraid to go wide and weird. For example, when Season 2 kicked off, viewers were concerned about how everything would play out. If Eleanor came to the realization that they were in the Bad Place a second time, how would the season work? That’s where the genius kicked in. The first season walked us through the crew’s realization, and the second season looked like it was going to do it all over again — trapping the characters (and the viewers) in an endless loop of recognition and reset. Instead, the series solved the problem by flipping itself once again.
By episode two or three, they’d run through so many “Good Place” simulations that the show was free to move into its next stage: Our heroes teamed up with “the bad guy” to cheat their own fates. They even threw in a brilliant jump cut (various realizations and/or possible romantic pairings) that made fans eager for the thing they feared.
Then, once the gang joined Michael for real, things only got nuttier. The visual gags alternated between silly and surreal and the banter never stopped being delightful. That’s before you even contemplate the purpose of the show. How many primetime sitcoms deal with questions of philosophy, morality, life after death, and include “69 420” jokes? One. Just one, and it’s The Good Place. If our favorite (terrible) humans can actually make it there is another question entirely.
By the end of Season 2, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Michael, and Janet had moved through an increasingly funny, improbable, and awe-inspiring chain of events. We watched the fake Good Place collapse, thoroughly examined Janet’s bugs, and tested out the power of love, and that’s before they even made it in front of a judge (played by Maya Rudolph).
When the show wrapped, it looked like Michael and Janet were overseeing a simulation for each of the humans. Had they learned enough in the afterlife to earn their spots in the real Good Place if they had the chance to do it again? That’s what Season 3 is shaping up to explore. Maybe. Probably.
Without so much as a teaser trailer to go on, it’s still hard to say. At any rate, the first two seasons are here, so you can force your friends to sit down and watch before The Good Place Season 3 premiere on Thursday, September 27.
Not forking around!
Source: Read Full Article