What I’m Watching: The Good Place

The Good Place: Season 4, Episode 10 “You’ve Changed, Man” (B+)

I’m really going to miss this show. This episode was probably the most satisfying half-hour it’s produced in a while, mainly because something concrete happened and now we have a new direction for the (sob) final three episodes. All of the judge’s repeated mentions of her TV-watching habits resulted in the wondrous conjuring of Timothy Olyphant as his character from “Justified,” there to convince here to stay and listen but also more than ready to offer an unwanted opinion of his own. I really like confident Chidi, who asked for a chalkboard and warm pretzels and kissed Eleanor when she got into all of the philosophical talk. I liked Michael’s suggestion of a medium place, and the idea only got better as they added new layers to it, like tests to see how well someone understands how they did in the world and a way to have them carry over some of what they’ve learned from reboot to reboot. Shawn was the main impediment to all of this working, and it was great to see Michael convince him to agree so that he’d have something to keep him engaged for the next billion or so years. Chidi saved the day and got them to work together to come up with a plan so that humanity wouldn’t be destroyed, and now it should be a fun ride to see our six protagonists work with architects and other representatives from both the good and bad places to come up with a fair version of what they’ve all been experiencing these past few seasons.