Best Good Place Episodes Ranked

In 2015, after nearly 20 years of success with the network, NBC offered "Parks and Recreation" and "Brooklyn 99" co-creator Michael Schur total creative control over his next project, ordering it to series based on the pitch alone. The result was "The Good Place," a high-concept supernatural comedy that somehow managed to explore deeply philosophical topics like death and morality while remaining consistently, startlingly hilarious. Its four seasons were a success with audiences and critics alike — it won several awards, including multiple Hugos, and holds a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating. As we approach the five-year anniversary of its debut, we have a philosophical question of our own: What are the best "Good Place" episodes?

The show's characters would probably have something to say about the very concept of "best," and like a flawed experiment, any ranking runs the risk of being fatally subjective, so we're taking our lead from IMDb's star ratings. We are also about to spoil the entirety of a show with more twists and turns than Jeremy Bearimy, so this is your last chance to turn back!

While the first season of "The Good Place" received critical acclaim, the show didn't truly find its footing until Season 2. Despite the strength of the initial premise — a woman accidentally finds herself in heaven despite knowing she doesn't belong there — there aren't many episodes from that first season on this list. 

One exception is "Most Improved Player," which takes place immediately after Eleanor publicly reveals that she was brought to the Good Place by mistake. This episode has everything that makes "The Good Place" great, from the "dress bitch" story (possibly the worst thing Eleanor has ever done) to Chidi's impassioned defense of her capacity to change and grow. It also introduces Adam Scott as Trevor, the cringiest demon in history, and Tiya Sircar as "Real Eleanor," aka Vicky, and it's a fascinating episode to re-watch with the knowledge that "the Good Place" isn't real and the humans are actually being tortured. 

Oh, and Janet is malfunctioning and keeps summoning cactuses, which never stops being funny.

"Leap to Faith" kicks off the best multi-episode stretch of "The Good Place" – everything between it and the Season 2 finale appears on this list, including its immediate follow-up, "Best Self." 

Having eluded the demons, the humans turn to Michael to fulfill his part in their original deal: getting them to the real Good Place. Michael produces a magical hot air balloon that will only allow someone on if they are the best version of themselves, but the balloon turns out to be merely a stall tactic — he actually has no idea how to get to the Good Place. This results not only in one the show's single best lines of dialogue ("You humans have so many emotions! You only need two: anger and confusion!") but in the humans resigning themselves to their inevitable re-capture, getting hammered, and drunkenly deciding to risk everything by traveling through the Bad Place to take their case before the judge. 

Bonus points for Michael's "human starter kit," which includes car keys, a stress ball, and a Dr. Oz book.

Like the first season, Season 3 has low representation on this list. "Pandemonium" is also the only season finale that doesn't appear in the top ten — though that's our decision, not IMDb's. 

After Judge Gen allows the humans to set up a new version of Michael's original Good Place facsimile, designed to test whether humans can improve after they die, we meet the experiment's first subject, John Wheaton. John, a stereotypically queer gossip columnist, is one of the weaker characters in "The Good Place" — he gets a little better in Season 4, but "Pandemonium" earns no points for introducing him. 

The real problem, though, is the episode's horrifically effective tearjerker ending, in which Chidi is forced to lose his memories to counter the Bad Place's attempts to sabotage the experiment, erasing his newfound relationship with Eleanor in the process. If you're able to keep it together in any way during the "Some Memories You May Have Forgotten" montage, you have tremendous emotional fortitude.

Season 2's first episode deals with Michael's second attempt to use his fake Good Place to torture his human victims. Its second episode deals with the ensuing 800 attempts. 

From the meticulously layered structure of "Everything is Great!" we move to the rapid-fire "Dance Dance Resolution," which chews through centuries of time in the afterlife as Michael reboots the humans' memories over and over again in an effort to finally prevent Eleanor (or, in one case, Jason) from discovering what's really going on. After the tremendous montage of Eleanor proclaiming, "This is the Bad Place!" in increasingly ridiculous situations (her soulmate surprising her with a "three-hour spoken word jazz opera" is a dead giveaway) the other demons go on strike, Vicky takes control, and a haggard and worn-down Michael is forced to rethink his plans. 

The episode also features one of several phenomenal appearances from Maribeth Monroe as Mindy St. Clair, the sole resident of the Medium Place, and the beginnings of what will become the primary series romance between Eleanor and Chidi.

Another Hugo winner is "The Answer," the Season 4 episode that sees Michael, in an effort to solve the problem of the afterlife before Judge Gen restarts everything, restore the entirety of Chidi's memories all at once. 

The majority of "The Answer" takes place within the single second it takes Michael to snap his fingers, sending Chidi's mind, and the viewer, through a series of flashbacks that finally give us the story of Chidi's childhood and how he became the quagmire of indecision that he is. We also glimpse a conversation he had with Michael just before having his memory erased in "Pandemonium," in which he finally understands that his search for the answer to every question he encounters is futile, but that the ultimate answer lies in his love for Eleanor. 

As a massive bonus, we get the sole appearance of Esmerelda, one of Chidi's fake soulmates in Michael's series of reboots, whose knives, disdain for game night, and sexually-charged relationship with her ravens made her an instant legend.

There's a lot to love about "The Burrito," the episode where the four humans lay their case before the judge of all the universe. The individual tests each character is put through to prove their improvement are delightful, particularly the late reveal that Chidi's test is just to choose between two hats, at which he fails spectacularly. 

Ironically, the only person who does pass their test is Eleanor, and any questions about how far she's come as a person are laid to rest when she pretends she also failed so her friends don't feel bad about themselves. Back in the Bad Place, Michael appears doomed to spend eternity in a tiny cell with a constantly growing stack of Reader's Digest magazines, only to be rescued by Janet. 

But the reason this episode is in the top five is the introduction of Maya Rudolph as Judge Gen, a casting choice that couldn't have been more perfect if the judge herself made it after one of her frequent human television binge-watches.

The combination of hilarity and philosophy that powers "The Good place" simply doesn't get much better than the Season 3 episode "Janet(s)," which concerns itself directly with the philosophical question of identity. 

While Michael and Janet learn more about the morality points system by visiting the afterlife's accounting department (shown around by an unreasonably cheerful Stephen Merchant) the four humans are inside Janet herself, and as an unintended consequence, they all look like Janet while they're there. The result is a tour de force from actress D'Arcy Carden, who expertly, hilariously imitates each of her cast members in their roles, and a lesson on identity from Chidi, who is struggling to reconcile the hundreds of previous versions of himself that have been erased from his memory. 

Of course, the lecture is really just a way to avoid talking to Eleanor about their feelings for each other, which leads to the fracturing of her own identity, until Chidi finally kisses her again, restoring her sense of self. It's exactly the kind of episode that only "The Good Place" could pull off.

It's rare for a show's final episode to also be its best, particularly for network sitcoms. "The Good Place" defies this tradition, partially thanks to the fact that it didn't overstay its welcome — the story ended after Season 4 because that was where Schur decided to end it, not because it had gone stale. 

The main reason, though, is that the finale is both achingly sad and shockingly beautiful. "The Good Place" was always a show about death, and while our heroes have made it to heaven, Schur refuses to simply cut away, to fade out on smiling faces and leave the fates of his characters to our imagination. Their stories have to end, and the final episode is devoted to when and how each of them decides to move on. It's a strangely bittersweet chord to finish on, but "The Good Place" is also a show about life, and life is bittersweet for the very reason that it's finite. 

To conclude in any other way would be a disservice to everything Schur's series represents, and while each of the humans must eventually walk through that last door, the final scene provides a reminder that existence, while short, is inherently worthwhile, as Michael finally completes his journey and becomes human.