First off I never seen the show besides commercials or accidentally flipping through the channels while it was on. It was not until I heard the creator Michael Schur on Tim Ferris Podcast, did I realize wow this guys a brilliant genius! Schur went to Harvard and was part of the Lampoon like Conan, he also produced the USA version of the Office, Brooklyn 99, Parks and Recs, I pretty much enjoyed all of those so I decided to give TGP a try.

I was instantly hooked and blown away probably because this was a very original show in that it pretty much deals with the afterlife but with a focus on philosophy and morality verses religion or your standard boring done a billion times religious heaven vs hell theme. When I got to the BIG plot twist at the end of season 1 I was like WTF??? Did not even know that or see that coming. So it made me want to keep watching the show to see how it ends or at least where it goes.

I think the writing was very good in making you really care for the core group of characters. The way the shows written and shot it does make the audience want the best for everyone of the main core characters Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, Tahani and even Michael and Janet even though yes shes "not a girl" as she keeps reminding us.

Tahani is fine as hell! Damn that beautiful face, those eyes, that rack and those legs! Even though we were supposed to believe she was jealous of her sister the whole time, I was just like yeah right this is the finest women in the world! LOL Tahani alone was enough motivation for me to keep watching and binging but the rest of the characters were also really good and compelling enough.

Chidi is a really down to earth guy who's super book smart but has a ton of anxiety and issues with pretty much any social interaction. I would actually like to be friends with him and just not leave any decisions up to him as that pretty much was his whole downfall with everyone right? He was pretty much the moral compass of the show kind of like how Maggie's dad was on The Walking Dead.

Jason was by the far the funniest part of the show. The whole bashing Florida nonstop with his character was the most extreme Florida bashing I have ever seen on anything! Unfortunately I know a lot of Florida people who are just as dumb or even dumber than Jason believe it or not. The actor who plays Jason was lean as hell kind of like those emaciated fashion models, which is totally not what the typical Floridian man looks like. A typical Florida Man looks like Joe Exotic with blonde highlights and horrible tattoos and piercings. But I get they tried to make him more of a EDM DJ and dance crew vibe. The way that Jason dies and that whole scene was hilarious and made me crack up out loud! His friend Pill Boy trying to do a Super Mario Bros Italian accent to disguise his true identity was probably one of the funniest things I seen in the past 20 years!

Eleanor was kind of like Jason, in that they were trying to bash Arizona, having her from Arizona. Obviously the main star of the show. I like Kristen Bell, I think shes really talented and a good all American movie/tv star, but again Tahani aka Jameela Jamil is so fine I'd watch anything she would be casted in and hear her sexy British accent talk. Hopefully we could see ore of Jameela star in new comedies in the near future.

Initially I thought Janet was pretty annoying as others pointed out but as they "humanized" her she became a pretty cool character and ending up with Jason was good twist.

Michael was also a good character since we never knew which side he was really on until the later episodes, I won't elaborate in case other newbies who haven't seen the show yet come across this. Ted Danson is just a real rare situation as huge as Cheers was and his role of Sam Malone, he was able to keep landing good big shows over and over and reinventing himself while many other TV actors often only get one show if that.

I was wondering the entire time how they could successfully end the show in a satisfying manner and what they came up with was good. I don't want to go into spoilers but man things got real in those final scenes of the show.

Another interesting thing for me was I kept thinking an "ultimate GOD" character would be revealed towards the end and was surprised they never went that route at all. If anything the judge played by Maya Rudolph was the highest "GOD" like character on the show in terms of the highest form of authority and the one who ultimately calls the shots and decides things.

Other interesting observations I noticed were any of the demons or traditional hell creatures were often seemed as goofy, cartoony, or just non-threatening. Not sure why they did that? Was it to not make the show too deep, and intimidating? Or was it to show us that bad or evil people look like just normal people and not like obvious menacing monsters?

Going back to the podcast Michael Schur explained that since he was so successful with The Office/Brooklyn99/ParksNRecs etc the networks gave him full creative freedom to do the first season of The Good Place all on his own. So he said The Good Place was picked up for 13 episodes ( the entire first season) before he even wrote the show (while most shows have to shoot a pilot and be popular enough to go on to the first season if they even make it that far)so you can really see how the first season was the best season and they really did take big risks in just doing the show the way they wanted in that first season. I know many consider the first season to be the best season of the show as well.

I'd like to see what shows Michael Schur ends up doing next! I'd love to see anything Jameela ends up doing and I also like to see Manny (Jason Mendoza) in other things as I found him to be the funniest part of TGP. If Manny can do drama or action as well he could also be a huge star being all lean and cut. It would be funny to see how he normally talks instead of the slow dumb style that Jason Mendoza speaks with LOL.

I heard a lot of people identified or related to this show a lot since we all were locked down in the pandemic for the final year of the show and all and of course the whole pandemic causing most of us to face mortality and all. It would be good to have shows like this really influence us all to be better people and kinder towards each other and better at humanity.