'The Good Place' Showrunner Just Cleared Up That Huge Question From The Season 2 Finale

There really is no other show that keeps viewers on their toes quite like The Good Place. NBC's afterlife-set sitcom ended its second season with a massive cliffhanger earlier this year, but now showrunner Mike Schur is clearing up all the questions that fans have about where our not-great-but-not-terrible heroes ended things... and that includes the biggest question of all: Are Eleanor and Chidi really alive in The Good Place Season 2 finale? Mike Schur also dished on what Season 3 will look like after that twist ending.

The Good Place showrunner Mike Schur is clearing up all the questions fans had about the show's surprising Season 2 finale in a new interview with Rolling Stone. Of course, the biggest question is about whether or not we can trust what we are seeing in that episode. After proving that they actually have become better people throughout their time in the afterlife, Season 2 ends with hell-god Michael seemingly returning Eleanor and Chidi back to Earth and preventing their deaths, remarking that this would be their second chance at becoming good people. But... are Eleanor and Chidi really alive again or is this just another one of Michael's simulations? After all, the big Season 1 twist was that Michael had been tricking Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason into thinking they were in the Good Place when it was actually the Bad Place, and Season 2 saw Michael putting the four in countless more simulations.

But this time, what we see is actually what we get. Mike Schur confirmed that Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason are all legitimately alive and back on Earth:

Normally I don't like to just flatly state what's going on, but here I don't see the benefit of people experiencing ambiguity: The four of them are straight-up back on Earth, in a new timeline where they didn't die.

So that's one mystery solved! The Good Place fans do not have to worry about Michael secretly tricking our hapless humans again with one of his simulations... at least not this time. But what does this mean for the show going forward? Mike Schur also talked about how Season 3 will look now that it is taking place on Earth instead of the zany, magical afterlife.

Mike Schur stated that the writing staff always made to to include at least one "weird magical thing" in every episode of the show for the first two seasons to full embrace the anything-goes realm of the afterlife, and he was worried that moving the main characters back to Earth might put an end to that element of the show. However, Schur teased that he has worked out a way to keep up the wackiness in an earthbound Season 3:

One of the things we set as a goal for ourselves in the first two seasons was to have at least one weird magical thing in every episode that could only happen in the afterlife. I think we've found some good ways to sustain that idea even when they're on Earth.

Hmmm, interesting. Mike Schur did not go into more details on the new season, so we will just have to keep waiting to see what he means by that. Schur also cleared up that quibble some fans had with Chidi speaking in English on Earth when he was originally stated to have spoken in French while alive. The showrunner said they did play with accents for Chidi, but finally decided to just have actor William Jackson Harper speak in his normal voice for fear that a linguistic change may be too confusing or throw off the characters' chemistry.

The third season of The Good Place was picked up by NBC part-way through the second season's run, and although a premiere date has not yet been officially announced for the new season, The Good Place Season 3 will likely begin airing towards the end of September.