You know this is all spoilers rn right? If you haven’t watched the first two seasons of The Good Place yet, go ahead and flick to your Netflix tab and watch ’em. Save this in your now-overwhelming Facebook Saved section and come back here when you’re done.
Okay good, let’s begin.
[jwplayer 3Ti4mum0]
Can we all agree rn that our favourite thing about The Good Place so far has been watching Ted Danson‘s Michael become both increasingly human-like – more empathetic, caring, emotional – and more enamoured with practical human being things, like public transport and activities like “attempt[ing] something futile with a ton of unearned confidence and fail spectacularly!”
If you’re with me on that one, then you’re going to enjoy the leaked first three minutes of season three just as much as I did.
Entertainment Weekly got the scoop, so you’re gonna have to head over HERE to watch – if you remember the end of the last season well, skip to 45 seconds in.
You can also check out EW’s first look photographs from last month, featuring commentary from series creator Michael Schur, HERE, where you’ll spot Killing Eve‘s Kirby Howell-Baptiste as a new character called Simone.
You can watch the first scene of #TheGoodPlace season 3 premiere from here to eternity https://t.co/3PullxxX5b pic.twitter.com/XAJx1Hqfuy
— Dan Snierson (@dansnierson) September 12, 2018
You remember what happened – at the end of season two, Michael and Judge Gen (Maya Rudolph) resolve that the only way to find out whether or not people (in particular our philosophising heroes Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason) can change and become good people, without knowledge of what frozen yoghurt horror awaits them in the afterlife, is if they’re given the opportunity to return to their lives on Earth.
Schur explained the set-up for season three to Rolling Stone in June: “The four of them are straight-up back on Earth, in a new timeline where they didn’t die… It seemed like a natural move to send them back to a time before they made that progress, and to use the idea of nearly dying to test their ability to improve.”
Our first minute of season three has Michael meeting frog guy, The Doorman (Mike O’Malley), the guardian of the doorway between the Bad Place and Earth, on his way to single-handedly save Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil and Manny Jacinto, all without any of his powers.
The Doorman literally tells him he’ll have to get around on the bus to Michael’s glee: “A bus! Oh boy, I’m gonna sit in a front-facing seat. Oh no, maybe a sideways-facing seat. I’m gonna get so motion sick, oh man!” (Michael is all of us the first time we went overseas and sat at the front of a double-decker, just sayin’.)
He returns from his adventure – you see him play the kind samaritan four times over in different guises – having thoroughly enjoyed his time blending in as a people: “I was just on Earth. It was incredible: the traffic, the pigeons, and I saw this place that was at once a Pizza Hut and a Taco Bell!”
I could watch Michael’s sense of whimsy in response to incredibly mundane facets of human life for hours. The way that character’s sense of wonderment fulfils me is on the same level as Will Arnett narrating a microwave. Or the promo videos NBC have been releasing for season three, which are just cute out-of-place animals, like this bunny in a bucket.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teenPzuBJno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyfxvjmrjt8
Weekly episodes of The Good Place start to drop on Netflix later this month, kicking off with a one-hour premiere, ‘Everything Is Bonzer!‘ on September 28.
