The Scenes that Made Me: The Good Place (2016)
Tue 13 January 2026
Professor Chidi Anagonye stirring a pot of Marshmallow-Peeps-and-M&Ms chili in class as he rants
Note: Minor spoilers of Seasons 1-3 of The Good Place follow. Also, minor discussion of religion.
Anyone who follows me on the Fediverse will know that I have been more than slightly obsessed with the TV Show The Good Place ever since I started watching it last summer. I'm currently on my fifth watch-through, and I don't think it'll be the last, by any stretch.
I've been promising a detailed blog post/analysis on the series ever since I completed my first watch-through, and that is in the works, but this post is not that.
Instead, I want to go over my favorite scene from my favorite episode of my favorite series. In Season 3 Episode 5, "Jeremy Bearimy," Chidi and the three other humans find out that they had died, were psychologically tortured in The Bad Place for a few centuries, and are now in a pocket reality where their lives were spared so that they could hopefully improve (and prove that humans can become better), but because they overheard Michael and Janet discussing the afterlife and its points system, they are now hopelessly lost, because anything they do now would be out of a corrupted motive.
Uhh, this is a comedy, I promise! And also a very endearing and enheartening show, even though it sounds very dark. ^___^
Beyond all of this, when asking about how time works in the afterlife, the explanation that Michael gives completely breaks Chidi's brain:
CHIDI: Well, how is it possible that all these things happened to us but no time passed on Earth?
Did you go back in time to save us?
MICHAEL: Uh, I didn't have to because of "Jeremy Bearimy."
CHIDI: (Looks around incredulously) Who's Jeremy Bearimy?
MICHAEL: Okay. Things in the afterlife don't happen while things are happening here, because while time on Earth moves in a straight line
(one thing happens, then the next, then the next), time in the afterlife moves in a "Jeremy Bearimy."
ELEANOR: What?
MICHAEL: (Scribbles on impromptu whiteboard) In the afterlife, time doubles back and loops around and ends up looking something like "Jeremy Bearimy."
This is the timeline in the afterlife. Happens to kind of look like the name "Jeremy Bearimy" in cursive English, so that's what we call it.
ELEANOR: Sorry. I'm— my brain is melting.
How can events happen before the ones that happened before?
MICHAEL: It's just the way it works. It's it's "Jeremy Bearimy."
I don't know what to tell you.
That's the easiest way to describe it.
CHIDI: Okay, but, um... what the hell is this? The dot over the I. The hell is that?
MICHAEL: Okay, um, how do I explain this concisely? This is Tuesdays and also July.
JANET: And sometimes it's never.
MICHAEL: That's true.
Occasionally that moment on the Bearimy timeline is the time-moment when nothing, never occurs.
So you get it.
CHIDI: This broke me! The dot, over the I, that broke me.
I'm— I'm done.
Chidi goes on to walk around very much dazed and confused. I won't give away the rest of what happens in that episode, you have to watch it yourself. Heck, you have to watch the entire series. I've haven't been so gung-ho in recommending a TV Show since I was a teenaged Star Trek: TNG fanatic. It's just that good.
There was a moment in my own life which very much mirrored Chidi's total cognitive collapse in Jeremy Bearimy. I was at a bible study in the fall of 2025 when one of the guys at the bible study mentioned the late Charlie Kirk in passing, saying something like, "Yeah, we want to be like Jesus, or Paul, or Charlie Kirk."
My brain completely broke at that point. Here you have a racist douchebag, ultra-right-wing political provocateur being compared to the Apostle Paul and the Lord himself.
I don't remember saying anything at that point, but I stopped going to that bible study and pretty much gave up on Bible Study Fellowship from that point. Much like Chidi, I literally walked around in an utter daze for several days after that. I was completely unable to process what I had heard, and stumbled around like an Asimov robot after receiving equally-weighted conflicting orders.
Previous entries in this series:
Lars and the Real Girl
Star Trek
Star Wars
Category: Philosophy Tagged: ADHD Bible Christianity Content Warning Entertainment Ethics Hobbies Humor Language Life Non-technical post Personal favorites Philosophy Video Series: The Scenes that Made Me
