The Good Place Season 3, Episode 13 recap: Chapter 39

This week was the third season finale of The Good Place. We watched as Eleanor took a new role in the neighborhood, and as Chidi made a hard choice.

Ouch. Last night’s The Good Place really did a number on my heart. While in the past the show has used its finales to launch the show in a new direction, this year, they used it to mix things up even more.

We start the episode exactly where we left off last week. The new human is awake and Michael is on the ground having a panic attack. Time is ticking, and Eleanor needs to come up with a plan quickly.

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She welcomes John, introducing herself as the architect of the neighborhood. She sits behind the desk, and she tries to tell John all the good stuff he did, but his file is written in a weird symbol language she can’t read.

She takes him on a tour of the neighborhood and calls in Janet to answer his questions, which he has a lot of. And then she kicks herself because it would have made much more sense to have Janet in charge than her.

In an alley, Eleanor catches the rest of the group up on what’s going on, and they all seem to have doubts about Eleanor being able to pull everything off. But Chidi has faith in her.

It doesn’t take long for Tahani to figure out that the Bad Place has set the experiment up for failure, however. She is recognized by John, who turns out to be a writer for a trashy blog that was always really mean to Tahani. Turns out the Bad Place chose four new humans who have ties to the four originals. Namely arch rivals, tormentors and exes.

Enter Simone. Chidi’s ex, who everyone had so many theories about back at the beginning of the season.

They hold a conference call with Shawn and the judge arguing that it isn’t fair. That Simone knows who they all are, and that this will completely ruin the experiment. The Judge rules that technically Shawn didn’t break any rules, however, Michael can erase the group from Simone’s memories.

Things seem to be looking up, with Eleanor and Michael feeling pretty good about their roles as face of the Good Place and mastermind behind the scenes, but then Chidi speaks up, and everything just gets sadder from here on out.

Chidi realizes that he’s not going to be able to pretend that he doesn’t know Simone, and she’s smart enough to realize that he’s lying to her. He knows that he’s going to ruin the experiment, so he asks to be rebooted.

This makes everyone incredibly sad. Jason gets increasingly sadder when he realizes Chidi won’t remember the fun stuff they did together in Australia. Michael thinks there has to be another way. And then Tahani points out that Chidi and Eleanor won’t be together anymore, and while Eleanor tries to act aloof about it, you can tell she’s really hurting.

Michael has a gift for Eleanor and Chidi in the town square. It’s all the memories of them together from all the timelines. And we watch as they fall in love over and over and over again. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

At the end of the reel, Eleanor is crying, and Chidi reassures her that this is not the end. Time means nothing. Jeremy Bearimy. He’ll find her and they’ll “chill in the dot in the I forever.” Eleanor feels reassured and tell Chidi that they will find each other again. One more kiss and Chidi goes off with Michael to have his memories erased.

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Back in the office, Eleanor calls in Janet demanding to know the answer. The answer to the question about why everything is the way it is and why fall in love when everything is going to just hurt in the end.

Janet tells Eleanor she doesn’t have the answer, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to tell her. But Janet does promise Eleanor that she will help her get through this. Since she knows exactly how it feels having someone you love not recognize you.

Feeling a little bit better, Eleanor opens the door to welcome…Chidi. And that’s where we leave off until next year.

What did you think about the finale? Do you think Chidi and Eleanor will find each other again with this new dynamic? Please let us know in the comments below.

Catch up on The Good Place on Hulu or the NBC app.