Michael's Gambit
After Eleanor (Kristen Bell) and Jason (Manny Jacinto) barely miss the deadline to return to the Good Place, Shawn (Marc Evan Jackson) decides the Bad Place is owed two individuals and gives Eleanor, Jason, Chidi (William Jackson Harper), and Tahani (Jameela Jamil) thirty minutes to pick who to send.
They say their goodbyes, but the "real" Eleanor (Tiya Sircar) appears and announces she would rather go to the Bad Place than stay with Chidi, her supposed soulmate who does not love her.
Tahani realizes her fundraising efforts were tainted by selfish motivations, and Michael explains that Chidi's rigidity and indecisiveness made others miserable.
In an interview with IGN Schur revealed that when developing The Good Place, he turned to dramas such as Lost and Breaking Bad, which contained many cliffhangers and, in his words, left viewers "so absorbed in something and so intrigued by something that you have to know how it ends.
Originally, the writers had several other ideas for how to have Eleanor tell herself about Michael's scheme, including writing a message on herself in a manner similar to Memento, before deciding on giving Janet the note.
'"[5] Schur also told the writers about the twist at the beginning in order to ensure the writing would be consistent and set up the finale,[5][4] but he did not tell the other actors on the show until they were near the end of filming for the season.
"[5] While NBC had made previous episodes available to the press early, the network did not release the finale ahead of time, likely to preserve the twist.
[6] "Michael's Gambit" originally aired on NBC on January 19, 2017, as part of an hour-long block with the previous episode, "Mindy St. Claire".
[10] Eric Goldman of IGN rated the episode 9 out of 10 and said, "The Good Place was already a very funny and clever comedy, but this reveal raises the stakes in a big way."
He praised the twist and thought that "finding out Michael was actually the villain was what really made the whole thing amazing"; he also highlighted the humor in the episode, adding that the humans' debate "awesomely spotlighted the distinctive personalities of all four of the main characters.
"[6] Allie Pape of Vulture gave the episode 5 out of 5 stars, remarking that the twist "is the sort of move that masterfully adds depth to all the show's emotional bonding" and praising Danson for "utterly nail[ing] the heel turn".
[11] Writing for Variety, Maureen Ryan compared the episode favorably to Westworld, another plot-heavy show with big twists; she noted that unlike Westworld, The Good Place's twist "wasn't necessarily easy to figure out, and even if you'd guessed it, it didn't really matter, because the show was a whole lot of fun regardless of what was going on in the main plot."
She described the reveal as a "a Truman Show/No Exit-style nightmare" and remarked that the "structural sitcomminess—where the show has to revert to the status quo" set the foundation for season two nicely.
In her review, Pape noted that it "couldn't be a better reflection on the world we're about to live in, where Donald Trump is president: One man's desire to do something entirely different and to be the envy of his peers leads to hell for many, many other people, who are mostly being punished for the crime of being human.
[15] However, Jones noted that the show also challenged liberal attitudes, with the four humans embodying "the traits conservatives most disparage in their defeated foe: Tahani's smug condescension; Chidi's indecisive idealism; Jason's obliviousness; and Eleanor's ironic detachment.
