Here Are Some Interesting Theories About How "The Good Place" Will End

    Raise your hand if you're not ready for this show to be over.

    Jenna Guillaume
    by Jenna Guillaume

    BuzzFeed Contributor

    This week marks the very end of The Good Place. It feels like we're all already in the Bad Place.

    NBC

    Warning: spoilers below if you aren't caught up on all of the episodes.

    But for once, our fave cockroaches are NOT. In the penultimate episode, the gang finally made it to the actual real Good Place.

    NBC

    Of course, it wasn't exactly a smooth "happily ever after." Instead, the Good Place turned out to literally be too good to be true, with its inhabitants bored and mush-brained in the face of an eternity free of challenges and troubles.

    To fix the problem, Eleanor and Michael came up with a plan: They basically introduced death into the Good Place. People can now choose to walk through a door that, it seems, will cause them to cease to exist. The episode ended with the gang settling down to (after)life in the Good Place, content at having finally made it and free from the burden that it must go on forever.

    It felt like it could have been a satisfying finale — but there's still one whole, long episode to go. And this is The Good Place, one of the most twist-filled and genuinely surprising shows on TV. So what does that mean for the finale? Let's take a look at some of the options...

    1. There'll be a flash-forward to when the cockroaches have spent enough time in the Good Place and they decide to walk through the existence-ending door.

    NBC

    The fact that this episode is called "Whenever They're Ready" definitely indicates that this will be the case.

    Which is...kind of bleak and depressing? After spending all this time with these characters, we'll see them basically choose to kill themselves. Not exactly uplifting, is it? Although if any show could pull it off, breaking us and somehow healing us all at once, it's this one. I mean, the characters have actually been dead the whole time (except when they were brought back to life only to be killed again), so maybe a happy — but not endless — afterlife is a satisfying conclusion for them.

    On the other hand, this ending almost feels TOO obvious at this point. There might be some more twists in store for us yet.

    2. Team Cockroach will be reincarnated.

    NBC

    Some fans have pointed out that the show hasn't specified exactly what happens when you step through the new door to leave the Good Place. Perhaps, rather than ceasing to exist, the gang will be reincarnated? And, like all the reboots that came before, we'll get to see Eleanor and Chidi, and all the others, find each other once again.

    It would be bittersweet, leaning more into the "sweet" side.

    3. Some or all of them will stay in the Good Place.

    NBC

    When they introduced the door, there was an emphasis on choice. Inhabitants of the Good Place can choose to stay there forever, if they want to. They don't have to use the door.

    It's not totally unfeasible that some of the characters will choose to "live" happily ever after in the afterlife. But the idea that they all will doesn't feel totally realistic. They didn't introduce the idea of the door just for fun, after all.

    4. They're not actually in the Good Place.

    NBC

    This theory is pretty out there but has traction in the fan community. Some people believe that the whole show has been one long afterlife test and the big reveal will happen in the finale. Opinions are split as to who exactly is being tested — Eleanor is a good candidate, obviously, although there's a decent amount of people who think it's Michael who is somehow being tested.

    Honestly, this kind of twist doesn't seem much better than "and it was all a dream!" It doesn't feel very likely.

    More likely, perhaps, is the idea that they didn't travel to the Good Place this season and are still in the Bad Place for some reason. But there aren't a lot of options that would really make this logical.

    5. They were in the Good Place all along.

    NBC

    Or, at least, they were never in the Bad Place.

    Here's the thing: It's interesting that a big problem with the Good Place before the cockroaches show up is basically boredom, right? Well, they've been anything BUT bored for the least four seasons. Perhaps the whole thing is just an elaborate way to keep the afterlife interesting — which is ultimately what makes it the Good Place?

    Look, crazier things have happened.

    How do you think The Good Place will end?