‘The Good Place’ Series Finale Originally Had a Different Ending
Though it seems like a lifetime ago that The Good Place officially wrapped with season 4, it wasn’t that long ago at all. The series finale of the hit NBC comedy premiered earlier this year, back in January of 2020. And while many fans were devastated that their favorite show was ending after just four short seasons, the ending was one that left viewers truly satisfied. Funnily enough, the ending that fans ended up experiencing wasn’t the original one.
Though the writers for The Good Place didn’t know exactly how the series finale of the show would go, they started talking about the ending for the show as early as season 2. In a recent interview with Vulture, Mike Schur, who created the show, got candid about what was known early on and what the writers figured out in the moment.
‘The Good Place’ writers knew how they wanted the show to end way ahead of filming season 4
“We knew they were going to fix the afterlife, they were going to get to live there for some amount of time, and then they were going to truly move on,” Schur admitted about what he and The Good Place writers discussed. “The actual real details of it we didn’t really get into until we were breaking it, which was at the beginning of season four. But it was really great because — knowing as early as the end of season two that there were going to be four seasons unless something really weird happened — we got the chance to slowly keep adding ingredients to the pot.”
One thing the writers and Schur were sure about was the last line of dialogue spoken in the season 4 finale. “Take it sleazy” was a great callback to a previous episode of The Good Place. However, the situation around how the line was executed was originally something different. Rather than having Michael interact with a stranger who’d gone out of his way to bring Michael his mail, which was a callback to a similar act by Eleanor, the original exchange took place in a coffee shop.
The original series finale ending was slightly different
“In the original conception, it was slightly different,” Schur revealed. “I think he was buying a cup of coffee and the barista misspelled his name on the coffee cup, and that made him really happy. The barista misinterpreted that as making fun of him, there was a brief argument, and then the barista apologized and Michael said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Mistakes happen. It’s part of being human.’ And then on his way out, he said, ‘Hey, take it sleazy,’ and the barista laughed.”
Schur went on to say that while the situation surrounding the final scene of The Good Place series finale might have changed, the last line of dialogue was always set in stone.
Why ‘take it sleazy’ was the perfect way to end ‘The Good Place’
“We changed the little details in the margins, but we knew for at least a year that the show was going to end with Michael finally getting to say ‘Take it sleazy,'” Schur told Vulture. “It just seemed like the perfect amount of meaningful because he had said in season one that he always wanted to do that, and also just ridiculous and silly and lighthearted because it’s a bizarre way to end the show.”
We’re sure fans of The Good Place still wish there was more to see, but they can’t deny that the show truly ended in a (pun intended) good place.
