The Good Place Finale - I sort of called it.

Last week was the finale of my favorite show in recent years "The Good Place".  How on earth, or other planes of existence, a comedy about philosophy and the afterlife got green lighted I cannot imagine.

I made some predictions as to how the writers would wrap it up. 

Basically I said that the final theme would be the redemption of the erstwhile demon Michael (Ted Danson) and that the four main characters would be revealed to be angels.  That's not far from being right.

Michael tries to go through a portal that would allow him to cease to exist and to rejoin the matter of the universe in a sort of Buddhist way.  But he can't.  But through the intervention of the Eleanor character (Kristin Bell) he is allowed his ultimate dream of becoming human, with the opportunity eventually to die, reach the Good Place and then move on to what ever lies beyond.  OK, close enough.

As to the four main characters being angels, whether they knew it or not, also...close.

Tahani explicitly becomes a "Good Place architect" helping design variations of paradise.  And the other three characters go through the mysterious portal....but it is evident that they still influence human affairs as small glowing motes of light appear after Eleanor goes through.  And swirl about a human who then makes a small, good decision.

So the only question is who is God in this cosmology.  Well, nobody really.  Doug Forcett does turn up but only as an indulgent party animal.  Seems fair actually after he led a totally ascetic life on earth.

And I'm OK with this last question being left open.  The "Good Place" managers that we did get to see were a batch of benign incompetents.  Clearly they were working for somebody much higher up.  High enough that they seemed to have no clear concept.....and they were effectively angels.  So for us lesser beings its fair to just leave it an open question.

One on the other side of the portal.