Good Place Thoughts
Feb. 5th, 2020 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crystalcazzieOk, first of all I just want to say that I am still working on my Ships of the 2010s list. I've completely missed my self-imposed end of January deadline but I am making progress. I have next week off work so I should have more time for it then, although not the whole week cos Monday will be taken up with watching the Oscars (I've given in to the fact that I'm too old to stay up until 5am to watch it live any more) and then on Tuesday I'm going to London to see Hamilton a second time (Yay!) and am planning to stay for the quiz on Wednesday and come back on Thursday.
I am so ready for this week off cos I feel completely worn out by work. And just in general. I've spent the last few days feeling really tired and heavy and like I just want to curl up and cry for a while.
Also, I've been having thoughts about The Good Place finale and I wanted to put them in writing, so here we go:
First of all I want to say that I love that the show went out on its own terms. The writers had a story that they wanted to tell and they did it, they did it without dragging the plot on so much that it lost its way or having to resort to silly gimmicks. I also love their vision of heaven - a place where you can do and see anything you want whenever you want. I also completely agree that even the most idyllic of afterlife paradises would become intolerable if you were there for eternity so it makes perfect sense that there would have to be a way out, a final door to walk through to completely end it all once you'd seen and done everything you wanted to do.
But here's where my problem with the finale comes in; I don't believe that the characters were at that stage when they each walked through the door. They'd apparently lived through thousands of Bearimys, equivalent to countless earth years, but they seemed exactly the same as they were the episode before. Especially Chidi. It broke my heart when he went though cos I didn't get the impression that he was a man who'd spent the better part of eternity exploring everything the universe has to offer with the woman he loves. He seemed more like a guy who was bored with his middle-class, suburban lifestyle and wanted a change of scenery more than anything else.
I fully acknowledge that I would have been sad either way. I've always found the trope of flashing forward to the end of characters' lives (or afterlives in this case) to be a very depressing one, but at least in other places I've seen it I've actually felt that the characters had lived and loved and experienced a lot in the intervening time. That's what was really missing here.
Tahani's ending was great though.
I am so ready for this week off cos I feel completely worn out by work. And just in general. I've spent the last few days feeling really tired and heavy and like I just want to curl up and cry for a while.
Also, I've been having thoughts about The Good Place finale and I wanted to put them in writing, so here we go:
First of all I want to say that I love that the show went out on its own terms. The writers had a story that they wanted to tell and they did it, they did it without dragging the plot on so much that it lost its way or having to resort to silly gimmicks. I also love their vision of heaven - a place where you can do and see anything you want whenever you want. I also completely agree that even the most idyllic of afterlife paradises would become intolerable if you were there for eternity so it makes perfect sense that there would have to be a way out, a final door to walk through to completely end it all once you'd seen and done everything you wanted to do.
But here's where my problem with the finale comes in; I don't believe that the characters were at that stage when they each walked through the door. They'd apparently lived through thousands of Bearimys, equivalent to countless earth years, but they seemed exactly the same as they were the episode before. Especially Chidi. It broke my heart when he went though cos I didn't get the impression that he was a man who'd spent the better part of eternity exploring everything the universe has to offer with the woman he loves. He seemed more like a guy who was bored with his middle-class, suburban lifestyle and wanted a change of scenery more than anything else.
I fully acknowledge that I would have been sad either way. I've always found the trope of flashing forward to the end of characters' lives (or afterlives in this case) to be a very depressing one, but at least in other places I've seen it I've actually felt that the characters had lived and loved and experienced a lot in the intervening time. That's what was really missing here.
Tahani's ending was great though.
