Three years ago, NBC’s The Good Place took the edict “all comedy is horror with a punchline” to an even greater level: the sitcom we know and love is literally set in hell (known in-universe as the “Bad Place”) and our characters are trapped in it together as a means to torture one another.
And though the show has become known for its cheerful palette, ample puns, and hopeful outlook, “A Girl from Arizona,” the two-part season four premiere, is not The Good Place at its cleanest or perkiest.
Season openers on The Good Place have always been a little messier than the show’s usual airtight pacing. Each one calls for a soft reboot, with scene-setting designed to separate the characters in order to draw them back together.
This season we get various disparate threads as the “Soul Squad” hunkers down to replicate the experiment they went through first hand: Can humans teach one another to be better people after death? The stakes are high—hanging in the balance is the redemption of all humanity’s souls: Eleanor (Kristen Bell) is trying to manage heading the entire operation. Jason (Manny Jacinto) worries that Derek (Jason Mantzoukas) is moving in on his ex-girlfriend/wife Janet (D’Arcy Carden). Janet, meanwhile, is busy trying to hold the fabric of the neighborhood together (literally, as she is a celestial being who can produce anything that humans can imagine), while Michael (Ted Danson) and Tahani (Jameela Jamil) back up Eleanor however they can.
Jason still lacks control over his impulses, (“So you’re saying wanting to do something isn’t a good reason to immediately do it…Man, I wish someone had taught me this on Earth,” he muses. “People tried. Mostly judges,” Michael responds.) and Eleanor is ready to quit when things gets hard.
After last season’s final twist, we get a few glimpses of Chidi (William Jackson Harper). Now mind-wiped and part of the neighborhood, he’s officially the fourth human the team has to help improve as a person.
But those brief scenes pack a punch for Eleanor, who’s stuck remembering how happy she and Chidi were in love the day before. Eleanor is struggling, and Bell lets it leak out when no one can pay too close attention. It’s a smart way to thread the needle of this reboot-ad-infinitum plot device: We need to see Eleanor grapple with what Chidi’s sacrifice means for her and the group, even if it feels a bit redundant. When Chidi rejoices at his book-summoning powers, when Jason suggests that they call him to help his ex-girlfriend Simone (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) adjust, or when Judge Gen (Maya Rudolph) compliments Chidi’s butt — Bell uses these smaller moments to tell a larger story, letting pangs of longing wash over her with the brusqueness of a busy career woman who doesn’t have time to deal with any of it.
“A Girl from Arizona” is mostly table-setting for the final season’s experiment; as is (re)established here, they have one year to get the humans in their care to show significant moral growth or all humans will continue being sent to the Bad Place. Gone are creator Mike Schur’s open-ended final moments designed to compel the viewer to watch more. In their place are smaller beats that feel more akin to a breath in-between sentences. By letting the chaotic zaniness of the proceedings bubble up, the show is operating like a shell game, hiding its twists of both plot and knife.
Inside the hubbub is still the sort of pensive emotionality that drives the engine of The Good Place. This week those moments are mostly shared by Eleanor and Michael, who provides the pep talk Eleanor needs when she’s ready to tap out. He is gentle but firm, caring and understanding, despite acknowledging that he’ll never fully understand what it means to be human.
But for all there is to say about Danson’s performance, I suspect the twists have already begun. I could be reading too much into it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the strangely tranquil and reserved performance is part of a longer con — after all, the “previously on” made sure to highlight that the Bad Place goons have a Michael suit they want to use to torture the humans, and he’s been almost too calm in “Part 2.” Even after the revelation that the Bad Place sent a spy in disguise—as Eleanor and Tahani discuss (in pointed dialogue) the Bad Place’s switcheroo, involving Chris the demon wearing an old lady suit to look like “Linda,” was almost too transparent.
In an episode that in many ways serves as a mirror image of the series opener, it would be yet another echo of his first season arc for Danson to be using his charming reassurance as a means of torment. But, as the Bad Place saying goes: “Dead Eyes, Eat Hearts, Can’t Lose.”