The Good Place

Eleanor?

Come on in.

Hi, Eleanor. I'm Michael.

How are you today?

I'm great.

Thanks for asking.

Oh, one question.

Where am I?

Who are you? And what's going on?

Right, so,

you, Eleanor Shellstrop,

are dead.

Your life on Earth has ended,

and you are now in the next phase

of your existence in the universe.

Cool.

Cool. I have some questions.

Thought you might.

How did I die?

I-I don't remember.

Yes, um,

in cases of traumatic or embarrassing deaths,

we erase the memory to allow for a peaceful transition.

Are you sure you want to hear?

All right, so you were in a grocery store parking lot.

You dropped a bottle of something called

"Lonely Gal Margarita Mix for One."

And when you bent down to pick it up,

a long column of shopping carts

that were being returned to the shopping cart collection area

rolled out of control and plowed right into you.

Oof.

That's how I died?

No, sorry, there's more.

You were able to grab on

to the front of the column of shopping carts,

but it swept you right out into the street

where you were struck and killed

by a mobile billboard truck advertising

an erectile dysfunction pill called "Engorge-ulate."

Funnily enough, the first EMT to arrive

was an ex-boyfriend of yours...

Okay, that's... I get it, thank you.

Oh, okay, sorry.

Um, so who was right?

I mean about all of this?

Well, let's see. Hindus are a little bit right,

Muslims a little bit.

Jews, Christians, Buddhists,

every religion guessed about 5%,

except for Doug Forcett.

Who... who's Doug Forcett?

Well, Doug was a stoner kid

who lived in Calgary during the 1970s.

One night, he got really high on mushrooms,

and his best friend, Randy, said,

"Hey, what do you think happens after we die?"

And Doug just launched into this long monologue

where he got like 92% correct.

I mean, we couldn't believe what we were hearing.

That's him, actually, right up there.

He's pretty famous around here.

I'm very lucky to have that.

So...

Maybe my biggest question:

am I...

I mean, is this...

Or...

Well, it's not the

heaven or hell idea that you were raised on.

But generally speaking,

in the afterlife, there's a Good Place

and there's a Bad Place.

You're in the Good Place.

You're okay, Eleanor.

You're in the Good Place.

Well, that's good.

Sure is.

Okay, let's take a walk, shall we?

Oh, did I have a purse?

No, I'm dead, right. Okay.

So this is how it works.

The Good Place is divided into distinct neighborhoods.

Each one contains exactly 322 people

who have been perfectly selected

to blend together into a blissful harmonic balance.

Do all the neighborhoods look like this?

No, every neighborhood is unique.

Some have warm weather, some cold.

Some are cities, some farmland.

But in each one, every blade of grass,

every ladybug,

every detail has been

precisely designed and calibrated

for its residents.

There's a lot of frozen yogurt places.

Yeah.

That's the one thing we put in all the neighborhoods.

People love frozen yogurt.

I don't know what to tell you.

You're gonna have a million more questions, I know.

For right now,

better grab a seat.

Movie's about to begin.

Ah.

Hello, everyone.

And welcome to your first day in the afterlife.

You were all, simply put, good people.

But how do we know that you were good?

How are we sure?

During your time on Earth,

every one of your actions

had a positive or a negative value,

depending on how much good or bad

that action put into the universe.

Every sandwich you ate,

every time you bought a magazine,

every single thing you did

had an effect that rippled out over time

and ultimately created some amount of good or bad.

You know how some people pull into the breakdown lane

when there's traffic?

And they think to themselves,

"Ah, who cares? No one's watching."

We were watching.

Surprise.

Anyway, when your time on Earth has ended,

we calculate the total value of your life

using our perfectly accurate measuring system.

Only the people with the very highest scores,

the true cream of the crop,

get to come here, to the Good Place.

What happens to everyone else, you ask?

Don't worry about it.

The point is, you are here because you lived

one of the very best lives

that could be lived.

And you won't be alone.

Your true soul mate is here too.

That's right.

Soul mates are real.

One of the other people in your neighborhood

is your actual soul mate,

and you will spend eternity together.

So welcome to eternal happiness.

Welcome to the Good Place.

Sponsored by:

otters holding hands while they sleep.

You know the way you feel when you see

a picture of two otters holding hands?

That's how you're gonna feel every day.

So who is in the Bad Place, that would shock me?

Uh, well, Mozart,

Picasso, Elvis,

basically every artist ever,

uh, every U.S. president except Lincoln.

That sounds about right.

What about Florence Nightingale?

That was close, but, no, she didn't make it.

Wow, all those amazing people

down there, it just seems so hard to believe.

Again, it's an incredibly selective system.

Most people don't make it here.

But you, a lawyer who got innocent people off death row,

you're special, Eleanor.

And by the way,

welcome to your new home.

Oh, it's perfect, isn't it?

You see, in the Good Place,

every person gets to live in a home

that perfectly matches his or her true essence.

Cool.

So I guess that's why my house, for example,

is this adorable little cottage,

whereas other people might have homes that are bigger,

like that one.

Exactly.

Oh, I'm so happy you get it.

As you can see, the interior has been

decorated just as you like it,

in the Icelandic primitive

Oh, oh, and, uh, of course,

you love clowns, so...

I do love clowns.

Now, let me show you the, uh...

the video system here.

You can review everything that happened in your life

from your point of view.

There we go.

This is your Human Rights mission to the Ukraine.

I mean, you got a ton of points for that one.

It really put you over the top.

Oh.

Chidi, come on in.

Eleanor?

I'm Chidi Anagonye,

and you are my soul mate.

Cool, bring it in, man.

Now, excuse me.

I have other people to attend to.