- ❝ Holy motherforking shirtballs... ❞
- —Eleanor
Chapter 13: Michael's Gambit is the 13th and finale episode of Season 1 of The Good Place.
Plot[]
Eleanor and her friends contemplate their fates in the Good Place as they are faced with the decision of which two will go to the Bad Place.
Summary[]
Eleanor and Jason return, just barely missing Shawn's deadline, joining Chidi and Tahani. Shawn decides that they can choose any two of the four humans to go to the Bad Place. Many arguments are made for who should go and who should stay, with Jason arguing that he just tried to stay out of trouble while Chidi had outright lied. Real Eleanor comes in, offering to take one spot, as she already knows what the Bad Place is like and she knows Chidi doesn't love her. This means one of the humans will have to go.
As their arguments become more heated and frustrating, Eleanor laments how torturous this is... and then has an epiphany: the four of them have been torturing each other not by accident but by design, meaning they've been in the Bad Place all along. Michael laughs and grins, admitting that this is true - while brainstorming at his architect job, he had come up with an innovative idea for a section of the Bad Place posing as a Good Place neighborhood run by a stolen Good Place Janet where Eleanor, Jason, Chidi, and Tahani, the only human inhabitants, were to drive each other to agony while the demons did enough work to needle them and keep them on edge. But the plan went awry when Eleanor confessed; after that, Michael and everyone else had to scramble to keep things from going off the rails. He also didn't foresee Jason and Janet falling in love.
Eleanor then wonders why Tahani and Chidi are in the Bad Place, as they were ostensibly good and moral people. However, Tahani immediately realizes she was sentenced to the Bad Place because her charitable deeds weren't motivated by genuine altruism, but by a selfish desire for attention and to outdo her sister. Chidi initially believes he was sentenced to the Bad Place because he still drank almond milk despite knowing it was bad for the environment, but Michael clarifies that it was due to his rigid and indecisive behavior, which he refused to correct in any way despite knowing it made his friends and family miserable.
With his scheme exposed, Michael begs Shawn for a "redo" by erasing the humans' memories and changing some parameters, figuring the reason why he failed was that putting the humans together turned them into a team; by putting them farther away from each other in a second attempt, it could be a slower torture. Shawn grants Michael's request. In a last-ditch effort to do something, Eleanor rips out a page from one of Chidi's books and writes a message to herself which she then hides in Janet's mouth. Eleanor taunts Michael, telling him he'll never win, to which he snaps his fingers, erasing the humans' memories. Eleanor awakens in the waiting room once again and Michael takes her around the neighborhood. After taking her back to her "house", Janet appears and gives Eleanor the note she'd written to herself. It reads, "Eleanor - Find Chidi".
Cast[]
- Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop
- William Jackson Harper as Chidi Anagonye
- Jameela Jamil as Tahani Al-Jamil
- D'Arcy Carden as Janet
- Manny Jacinto as Jason Mendoza
- and Ted Danson as Michael
Recurring Cast
Guest Cast
- Marc Evan Jackson as Shawn
- Bambadjan Bamba as Bambadjan
- Luke Guldan as Chris Baker
- John Hartmann as Bart
- Jama Williamson as Val
Co-Starring
- Braxton Beckham as Dave (flashback)
- Joe Mande as Todd Hemple
- Monnae Michaell as Nina (flashback)
- Josh Siegal as Glenn
- Jamila Webb as Woman in Green
Trivia[]
- This is the highest rated episode of Season 1 with a rating of 9.3 on IMDb.
- Original broadcast audience: 3.93 Million
- ||SPOILER|| When Shawn and Michael are alone together, Shawn is still pretending to be the all-knowing judge of everything, when he actually is in upper management of the Bad Place. Since both he and Michael know better, there is no need for the pretense.
Gallery[]
