Everything is fine, even if everything has to end. The last episodes of The Good Place brilliantly reflect that endings are what give things meaning, whether its spending precious time with loved ones or spending precious time with characters you’ve grown really attached to. Nothing lasts forever, and while it’s difficult to say goodbye to the ‘smartest dumbest show on television,’ the fifty-two-minute finale ‘Whenever You’re Ready’ leaves you thoroughly reassured that it never could have ended any other way.

Although a run of just over fifty episodes may seem short (at least by American standards), it doesn’t feel like The Good Place is ending prematurely. In fact, choosing to bow out after four seasons ensures that the show ends with its integrity, dignity and originality still intact, a fate that not many shows are lucky enough to have. The show’s creator Michael Schur writes and directs a perfect finale that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure. Most importantly, the finale will leave you totally satisfied that there is nothing left to tell as our journey through the afterlife comes to a close. 

A satisfying final episode is never easy to pull off but Schur, already an expert from Parks and Recreation’s excellent finale five years previously, wraps up every major theme and character arc while revisiting fan-favourite jokes and plenty of old friends along the way. For a show that asks such complex questions about life, death and what it means to be human, it would be easy for the finale to feel too dense or get caught in the trap of trying to provide one last definitive answer. Instead, The Good Place asserts that the most human thing of all is simply not to know, in a way that makes the depths of moral philosophy delightfully accessible. 

The fundamental problem with writing a sitcom finale is that most sitcoms are designed to be able to never end. The structure of many of the sitcoms we know and love are, for better or for worse, episodic – the characters never seem to grow, instead of being trapped in perpetual cycles of moral dilemmas only for everything to be reset again at the start of the next episode. If The Good Place is celebrated for anything, it should be celebrated for how innovative it is simply by being a show about how all of us can change and grow. It is a flagship comedy for the streaming era – not only are the episodes heavily serialised and unafraid of a call-back, but they also have a quality and attention to detail that keep you coming back again and again for yet another rewatch.

At the end of every episode of The Good Place: The Podcast, host Marc Evan Jackson tells the listener to ‘go do something good’ – there is perhaps no better phrase (except maybe ‘holy mother-forking shirt-balls’) to sum up what makes this show so special. It never preaches; it never looks down on its audience from a moral high ground or makes you feel guilty for that one time you never returned a library book. Instead, The Good Place gently encourages us to consider what we owe to each other; to do the right thing, not because of a guaranteed reward, but simply because it is the right thing to do. 

A show that places loyalty, empathy and love above all else feels incredibly significant, and will definitely be missed – but by no means forgotten, if its critical success and the dedicated fanbase is anything to go by. This is an endlessly creative and optimistic show you can watch again and again, with anyone in your life you don’t mind sharing a healthy balance of Aristotle and fart jokes with. Ultimately, this is a show that is sure to leave a lasting legacy of good deeds in its wake, and that alone should earn its cast and crew enough points for a guaranteed spot in ‘the good place.’