What you need to know about The Good Place

The inventive comedy drama is back for a third season

NBC/Netflix (Netflix)

This is a mess, morally speaking… this is a putrid, disgusting bowl of ethical soup,” claims “tortured academic” Chidi (William Jackson Harper). And, indeed, Netflix’s The Good Place is an ethical “mess”, but it’s also the most wildly inventive and funniest sitcom currently on TV.

Season one saw potty-mouthed, pathologically selfish Eleanor Shellstrop (the excellent Kristen Bell) die in absurd circumstances — hit by a billboard truck advertising an erectile dysfunction drug — and find herself in “heaven” or “the Good Place”, which is artificially bright and jolly. At the end of this season, she shockingly realises (spoiler alert) that she and her damaged compatriots — very uptight Chidi, needy socialite Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and drug-dealing Floridian DJ Jason (Manny Jacinto) — are actually in “the Bad Place” (Hell), overseen by Ted Danson’s overseer/supernatural demon Michael and chirpy “robot” Janet (D’Arcy Carden).

Michael has been charged with psychologically torturing the mismatched quartet and impressing his demonic boss, Shawn (Marc Evan Jackson), who constantly berates him: “You’re the Thomas Edison of incompetence.”

(Colleen Hayes/NBC (Colleen Hayes/NBC)

Season two charts Eleanor and her dysfunctional crew’s attempts to escape the Bad Place, assisted by an increasingly likeable (and humane) Michael and the regularly wacky Janet (“I’m very high in potassium. Like a banana!”).

Michael Schur’s comedy blends fantasy, morality, satire and slapstick, but what appeals most is its unapologetic silliness, especially dozy Jason (“Maybe I should have realised this wasn’t the Good Place because of all the diarrhoea”).

Season two ended with Chidi finally kissing Eleanor, Janet confessing her love to Jason and Michael sending the four characters back to Earth, rewinding them to a different timeline before their deaths. So, in Season 3, will Eleanor and Chidi — and Jason and Janet — finally become a couple on Earth or in the Good/Medium/Bad Place? And what is going to happen to Michael? Will he be punished by Shawn? It’s a series that will put you in a very good place.

Season 3 of The Good Place starts on Netflix on 5 October

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