WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Good Place.
The Good Place is one of NBC’s most critically-acclaimed comedies in years. With Season 3 almost upon us, a teaser for the premiere has solved one of the second season’s greatest mysteries.
Season 2 of The Good Place, a show about four dead humans and a demon in the afterlife, ended with a cliffhanger of an episode. The characters started their lives from scratch, focusing on Kristen Bell’s Eleanor. She’s saved from death by a mysterious being and pushed toward being good by Michael, a demon played by Ted Danson. It led to a shockingly unique episode that stands on its own, but sparked a new question: how did it happen? Luckily, this clip provides some answers by introducing multiple timeline shenanigans.
In the extended sneak peek at the new season, it’s revealed that Michael met with someone named “The Doorman” and started an entirely new timeline on Earth.
The exact details of how anything in the world of The Good Place happens are never really addressed, but it’s fascinating to see series creator Michael Schur playing fast and loose with high sci-fi concepts. He even mentions potential ripple effects brought about by meddling with time travel, a classic trope of the genre. And though Schur is certainly dabbling with a common story element, the series’ past has shown it can deviate from any sort of predictable storytelling in an instant, turning the show back around on itself to criticize those tropes.
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In typical fashion for The Good Place, the clip moves fairly slow, taking up most of the four-minute runtime with banter between Michael and the Doorman. It doesn’t necessarily move the plot forward or build the world, but it does what the series is best at — creating a cheery tone that makes for one of cable television’s most delightful half-hours.
A montage at the end of the clip features a montage of Michael saving the lives of all of the primary characters, setting up a season 3 which looks to take place mostly on Earth. But guessing where this show goes basically never works out, as the series generally throws curveballs with every episode.
The Good Place, created by Michael Schur, premieres September 27 on NBC. It stars Kristen Bell, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper and D’Arcy Carden.