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Chidi and Eleanor are totally forking soulmates on The Good Place

By Erin Qualey

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THE GOOD PLACE — “Dance Dance Resolution” Episode 203 — Pictured: (l-r) William Jackson Harper as Chidi, Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop — (Photo by: Colleen Hayes/NBC)

As The Good Place continues to move at a bonkers breakneck pace, we’re most excited about the development between Chidi and Eleanor. Spoilers for S2E3 follow.

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Woah. The Good Place Season 2 just keeps throwing us curveball after curveball and we’re only three episodes in. So many things came to light in “Dance Dance Resolution” but the biggest shocker was the reveal that Chidi and Eleanor had finally found their groove… on eight different days (but, like, twenty different sessions).

Unlike *that* twist at the end of Season 1, of course we all saw these two crazy kids getting together, but not necessarily so soon into Season 2. While Chidi and Eleanor were originally assigned to one another as fake soulmates as part of Michael’s grand scheme for torture, could they be real soulmates after all? Do soulmates even exist? What is happening?!

Given this exciting development, I enlisted Good Place expert Reed Gaudens to chat with me about everything Chidi and Eleanor. We talked couple names, why these two might be magnetically drawn to one another, and how this relationship might mean that The Good Place could be closer to LOST than anyone thought.

Erin: There were so many forking plot twists in the latest episode of The Good Place! 802 attempts?! A revisit to the Medium Place?! Michael wants to be friends?!?! But nothing shocked and delighted me so much as the moment that Mindy popped her DIY “lookin” video into that ancient VCR. Chidi and Eleanor! CHIDI AND ELEANOR!!!! I love the two of them so much. They’re literally the modern day TV equivalent of The Odd Couple, but with crackling sexual tension. Is it somehow possible that they got paired up soulmate-style even though they’re being punished for all eternity in the Bad Place? And also, more importantly, what’s their couple name? Chileanor? Elidi?

THE GOOD PLACE — “Everything is Great!” Episode 201 — Pictured: (l-r) Kristen Bell as Eleanor, William Jackson Harper as Chidi — (Photo by: Colleen Hayes/NBC)

Reed: I’m honestly beside myself with how The Good Place managed to dig itself out of that forking hole and reinvent itself in style. Who would have ever imagined that Michael would flip the script and team up with his literal tortured souls? I guess even in the afterlife people can be used as utility for one’s own personal gains. But nothing on television in the past year made my heart jump for joy or jaw drop to the floor more than seeing Chidi and Eleanor (I’m voting for Chileanor) tangled up in bed together. It’s one of those situations where you knew they belonged together, but you couldn’t fathom them discovering that quite yet. It’s also an intriguing thought that they could have actually been soulmates that never met in real life. Michael could be exploiting more secrets than we even know.

Erin: First, I’m fully on board with Chileanor. Second, it’s so interesting because we’ve seen moments where Eleanor was clearly physically and emotionally attracted to Chidi, but we haven’t seen too much of the opposite until now. Case in point: This is actually the second time we’ve seen Eleanor declare her love for Chidi (once in S1 episode “Chidi’s Choice”), but there were crickets from Chidi the first time. Obviously it was all part of the torture sequence Michael had planned, but I like your idea that there’s more to Michael’s pairings than meets the eye. Love is a complex thing that is never all sunshine and rainbows. One of the tragic quirks of human behavior is that we often hurt the ones we love the most. So – not to burst our Chileanor bubble here – but we might just be seeing a love-hate dynamic play out over the course of the season.

Reed: It’s this love-hate dynamic that scares me! Because, as you said, Chidi and Eleanor have shown physical and emotional attraction in the past, the stakes have been exponentially upped now that Eleanor knows what’s on the tape and Chidi doesn’t. Eleanor knows that in each of the 802 attempts, she and Chidi always orbit around each other. They’re the constant. How long will it take for Chidi to learn the truth, and how will that change the game? We all know how he handles stress and decision making and anything that can’t be perfectly spelled out by logic. Not to mention, Eleanor’s still got that pesky bad habit of self-sabotage. But of all the moving parts currently in play, the one question I would love answered circles back to Chileanor in bed. Given both of their flaws that tend to push them away from each other, what was it about that time that allowed them to let their guards down?

THE GOOD PLACE — “Dance Dance Resolution” Episode 203 — Pictured: (l-r) William Jackson Harper as Chidi, Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop — (Photo by: Colleen Hayes/NBC)

Erin: Soooo I don’t know if you ever watched LOST, but it’s interesting that you bring up the idea of Chidi and Eleanor being each other’s “constants”. In the context of LOST, a “constant”, aka: a person who anchors another person in time, was used as a huge narrative device. The Good Place creator Michael Schur reportedly consulted with Damon Lindelof, one of the creators of LOST, while developing the show, and that pairing has definitely shone through at times throughout the series thus far. As a huge fan of LOST, the idea that Chidi and Eleanor are constants for one another is just delightful. Now I’m giddy with the idea that we could see their bond transcend the bounds of space and time at some point in the near future! Given the pace of the show this season, I’m not sure if we’ll ever get to circle back to why Chileanor fell into bed and declared their love for one another that particular day at Mindy’s, but we’ll probably get some sort of repeat of that situation as the episodes progress. Or at least I hope so. Just like Mindy, I’m rooting for these two!

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Reed: Clearly, I’m psychic (or just perceptive) because I haven’t watched LOST, and the concept of constants hits Chileanor right on the nose. That’s exactly what they do: Anchor each other in time. It all makes so much sense! I hope, too, that we get to see what this bond of theirs looks like beyond the Good, Bad, and Medium Places and what it means in a grander scope. Thinking in broad strokes about the endgame, I think The Good Place will land on a message much more meaningful about friendship and love than its surface level exploration of the afterlife. The four humans at the center of this experiment were perfect strangers who must have needed a piece of the others. Maybe they’re all constants. In Kesha’s song “Finding You” she sings, “I know forever don’t exist, but after this life, I’ll find you in the next.” No matter who’s pulling the strings and manipulating the madness, Chidi and Eleanor find each other with every new memory cycle, and that’s something worthwhile to hold onto.

‘The Good Place’ airs Thursday nights at 8:30/7:30pm on NBC. 

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