At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, The Good Place cast offers some insight into the creation of the show, the first two minutes of season three, and the gag reel for season 2!
One of NBC’s most adored shows, The Good Place, has captured the hearts of many of its viewers. Created by Michael Schur, he is also responsible for several other incredibly popular shows including The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn Nine Nine—which, following its cancellation by Fox, was picked up by NBC following an enormous fan crusade. The Good Place places its central characters in an afterlife managed by an eternal being, Michael (Ted Danson). Eleanor (played by Kristen Bell) initially believes herself to be mistakenly brought to heaven and enlists her supposed soul mate, Chidi (William Jackson Harper) to help her improve herself and earn her place in heaven. Season one ends with a superb twist; ‘The Good Place’ is actually hell and Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani (Jameela Jamil), and Jason (Manny Jacinto) were all bad people in life and ‘The Good Place’ is in fact the method by which they are being used to torture each other.
But The Good Place is a notable for the manner in which it examines questions of morality while optimistically portraying the capability for people to become better people.
Within a packed room at San Diego Comic Con, the cast and Schur answered several fan questions, and also played the first two minutes of season three. Schur spoke to the initial concept of the show as the combination of a “hobby-level” interest in ethics, and a habit of assigning moral points to people he observed around Los Angeles.
A hallmark of Schur’s shows is a minute attention to detail in crafting jokes, often investing a great amount of effort into passing gags, which make the experience of rewatching them highly rewarding. Schur revealed the details of one of his favourite jokes in season two, a poster in The Bad Place which reads ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 6: The Haunted Crow’s Nest or Whatever, Who Gives a Crap?’ with a line at the bottom saying, ‘Playing in every theatre, everywhere, forever.’ This came from the origin of the lot that served as The Good Place which had last been used for a scene in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Schur’s comment was that “the only thing that had been shot there in years is this one short scene from, like, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 31,’ or whatever it was”.
Ted Danson, playfully addressed by the panel’s moderator Marc Evan Jackson (who plays the demon Sean, as well as Captain Holt’s husband Kevin in Brooklyn Nine Nine) as “Emmy nominee Ted Danson”—deferred the praise given to him, but eventually noted, “This is Emmy time and you have to adopt some false humility.”
When asked how he felt about how his role on The Good Place introduced his work to a new generation of fans he said, “It’s actually a deeper question, because [Cheers‘] Sam Malone was entirely about his penis. We’ve come very close to establishing that Michael doesn’t have one. It’s the perfect arc in life”.
Who IRL would go to #TheGoodPlace or The Bad Place? The cast sounds off with their thumbs. #SDCC pic.twitter.com/KvlfLBn1yw
— The Good Place 🚂 SDCC (@nbcthegoodplace) July 21, 2018
In relation to the moral development of the characters in season two and their eventual arrival at the position of ‘moral particularism’: “this world view that says there are no absolutes, no moral rules, no laws — you have to sort of evaluate the morality of each particular situation you’re in at a given time”, Schur noted, “We just sort of wrote that because we thought it was funny, but then Kristen sort of became a moral particularist. It was like ‘The Secret.’ We put it out there, and it happened.”
So what does season three have in store for us? Well, the cast were pretty tight-lipped. However, they did play the first two minutes of it where we see Michael getting approval from an entity known as ‘The Guard’ to travel down to earth and reverse the deaths of the four lead characters.
Michael proceeds to save Eleanor’s life (as was seen in the final episode of season two), which Schur confirmed wasn’t a simulation but is in fact “the four of them are straight-up back on Earth, in a new timeline where they didn’t die.” The next shot is then Michael grumbling about “the traffic” and “pigeons”.
Certainly it was enough to whet the appetite, and the next season is eagerly anticipated!
Season 3 premieres with a one-hour episode on September 27 and it is expected to stream on Netflix internationally (excluding the U.S) the next day.
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