Episode 52: Comedy, Death, and "The Good Place"

Eleanor contemplates the gateway to what comes after the good place, which is described as a peaceful oneness with the universe.

We would need an eternity to discuss everything that was great and groundbreaking about The Good Place, which just aired its series finale. We talk about how this weird afterlife comedy combined the workplace sitcom with weighty questions about ethics, psychology, and capitalism. Then we get metaphysical and ask why the afterlife is so funny. Also, why is it easier to imagine the bad place than it is to imagine the good one?

Notes, Citations, & etc.

The Good Place, created by Michael Schur

faith vs works debate

Nietsczhe’s idea of the “eternal recurrence” is explored in The Gay Science and Thus Spake Zaruthustra

Immanuel Kant explored “our duty to improve ourselves” throughout his work. Philosopher Robert Johnson has written a long essay about it.

Heaven Can Wait (1978), dir. Warren Beatty and Buck Henry

To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip José Farmer

The Discovery, dir. Charlie McDowell

Flatliners (1990), dir. Joel Schumacher

Donnie Darko, dir. Richard Kelly

The Lovely Bones, dir. Peter Jackson

The Sixth Sense, dir M. Night Shyamalan

What Dreams May Come, dir. Vincent Ward

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

Neuromancer and The Agency, by William Gibson

Caprica, TV series

Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks

Ken MacLeod’s recent trilogy is called “The Corporation Wars”

Images of Angkor Wat’s wall reliefs of hell can be found in countless places online

“Heaven is a Place Where Nothing Ever Happens,” by The Talking Heads