My Favorite Thing

(Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers for The Good Place)

Because I am incapable of turning off my brain, I often find myself watching a show/movie and asking questions. Questions that don’t need to be asked and don’t really help people when I ask them.

They could be little questions like “why did they trust the villain?” or “why would they think to do that?”, but I never hold questions of motivation that high on my list of problems. That would be ridiculous. It’s essentially getting upset because someone thinks differently than you.

Questions that bother me and ruin my experience are over structural inconsistencies.

The key to telling any good story is to having the audience believe the things that are happening could happen. No, I am not saying a fantasy novel is only good/works if the audience believes in dragons. What I’m saying is that it’s only good if the world the author has built allows for dragons, so that when they are introduced, no one thinks it’s crazy.

I can not tell the number of things I stopped enjoying because these types of questions. I couldn’t just enjoy a show or a movie. No, my writer brain has to notice the unresolved problems, the under established world, the writing shortcuts, and ask questions until I hate it.

But in that moment, something spectacular can happen. At that moment, when my morale is low and I’m just about drop the show, a twist can happen. Suddenly, all my questions are answered, and the story makes sense again.

Very recently, this happened to me while watching The Good Place. As season 1 went on I couldn’t help but notice something odd. In this group of people, who were meant to be the best of the best. Out of everyone on the planet, these were the top 300 people chosen to end up in paradise, and they were jerks.

It was little things here and there. Like how very little of them bothered to help clean up trash on flying day. Or how so many people shunned Eleanor when she revealed she wasn’t supposed to be in the Good Place. But the biggest confusion to me was Tahani.

Tahani was a strange character to me. She was very self-centered and only really did nice things for praise and adulation. Despite all of this, she ended up in the good place. I figured that the point system in the show worked on an ends-justify-the-means policy. As long as her actions caused good things, it didn’t matter how selfish her motives were.

Or at least, that’s what I thought before Eleanor revealed she shouldn’t be in the good place. The story shifts to Eleanor trying to earn her spot in the Good Place by doing good acts, and we learn some rules for how the point system works.

A person can’t earn positive points if their actions have ulterior motive. No matter how great of act they preform, the point don’t matter if they have any selfish desires attached to their actions. Because her morals are corrupt, Eleanor wasn’t earning points.

And so, I found myself asking, “Then, how is Tahani here?”

This realization opened the flood gates.

Sure Chidi seems nice, but how did a philosophy professor end-up in the good place? Does teaching just give that many point, or are we not seeing something?

“Why are the people who are supposed to be the best of the best not all helping clean the garbage?”

“Why aren’t all the residents fighting to help Eleanor if they are so good?”

Just then. when I was going to write off the show as a poorly planned project that needed a couple more rewrites, the twist was revealed.

They were not in The Good Place. They were in the Bad Place.

Just like that it all clicked. Tahani’s condensation fit. Chidi’s basic deficiency but lack of good deeds fit. The residents being less than perfect fit. The prices all fell into place. The show made sense. It was well thought out and executed.

And that, when a story answers all my questions and complaint, is my favorite thing.