The Season 2 finale of “The Good Place” was titled “Somewhere Else” — now we know where that elsewhere is, thanks to creator Mike Schur giving out one big clue ahead of the comedy’s return this fall.
As fans of the critically-acclaimed NBC series remember, the second season ended in February with a cliffhanger that rivaled the first year’s twist. While Season 1 revealed that Eleanor (Kristen Bell), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Tahani (Jameela Jamil), and Jason (Manny Jacinto) were actually in the Bad Place this whole time, Season 2 ended with Michael (Ted Danson) dropping the group back on Earth to prove they have learned to be good. Well, we were pretty sure that’s where they were unless it was actually some kind of simulation to test them.
Oh, no, Schur says it’s the first option.
“The four of them are straight-up back on Earth, in a new timeline where they didn’t die,” Schur said in an interview with Rolling Stone published Tuesday, adding that “a lot of the progress they have made as people has been sort of theoretical… it seemed like a natural move to send them back to a time before they made that progress, and to use the idea of nearly dying to test their ability to improve.”
OK, if they are truly back on Earth, will we still see them interacting with Michael — and more importantly Janet (D’Arcy Carden) — regularly this season?
Hopefully, because Schur said that while he and the other writers were “worried” about how the new setting would element supernatural elements of the show when it comes back for Season 3, “one of the things we set as a goal for ourselves in the first two seasons was to have at least one weird magical thing in every episode that could only happen in the afterlife. I think we’ve found some good ways to sustain that idea even when they’re on Earth.”
“The Good Place” returns this fall, Thursdays at 8:30/7:30 c on NBC.