It’s a brilliant ending to a season, one that forces you to immediately reconsider the very fabric of the show you’re now invested in. But if the season 1 finale was Mookie throwing the garbage can into Sal’s, then season 2 was the riot that burned the entire store down. As you might expect Eleanor does find the note and discovers Michael’s real intentions despite changes he made to separate the four doomed souls. But most shocking is that she discovers this in the first two episodes of the season, which feel like the trajectory of an entire year. Almost as though it’s already over and the good guys have lost again, another erase and reset.

Episode 3 entitled “Dance Dance Resolution” takes the speed of episodes 1 and 2 and ramps it into overdrive. In one of the most spellbinding episodes in any sitcom, Michael goes through 800 more resets. The result is an insane mix of Edge of Tomorrow (2014) meets No Exit, as time and time again Michael fails because someone (once even Jason) eventually figures it out. The episode is one of the most tightly packed and deeply funny episodes of any show I’ve ever seen, moving at a breakneck pace through literal hundreds of years of attempts and failures. This entire episode feels like the show’s 7 year traditional run packed down into a single 22 minute chunk, dealing with everything from teasing a much loved ship (Tahani x Eleanor) to jokes about cowboy worlds, an amazing myriad of food pun restaurants, and even a butt reset. The episode then ends with a crazy reveal that Eleanor and Chidi, who have been slowly evolving into a flirtation, have not only slept together in multiple resets but actually pronounced their love for each other in one. Imagine if in one episode of the The Office, season 2 Jim and Pam jumped to season 4 Jim and Pam and you get the madness. We now know Chidi and Eleanor have the capacity to love each other, the question is will they ever find it again? Schur is a master of the long-drawn-out, deeply sweet, romantic coupling; here in a single episode he upends his best game while basically throwing every idea card on his writer’s room white board in your face.

After Michael’s successive failures, his crew of demon helpers turns on him and he is forced to side with the humans. That’s when Schur reveals his real intentions for season 2, that it isn’t about the humans rehabilitating themselves but them rehabilitating Michael and Janet. Can people so flawed they failed to enter paradise help an eternal demon and a godlike being with seemingly infinite knowledge and power? It’s a bold choice and one that pays off immensely. Like a magic trick, Michael begins to change throughout the season to the point that when he seems to sacrifice himself for the greater good it doesn’t feel hackneyed, but a lifetime of improvement condensed into a handful of episodes.

Once again Schur sets fire to his world, this time literally, destroying the very "good place" town I expected the entire show to subside in for years. The fact a sitcom got rid of a permanent main set in less than two seasons is itself insane, but to lose that sense of place is a big deal. In a way, The Good Place can never go home again. The gang eventually meet The Judge, an all-powerful entity who weighs in on complicated moral dilemmas.

All the gang but Eleanor fail The Judge’s tests (Eleanor lies), but Michael and Janet arrive and present the clever solution of reincarnating everyone. Eleanor now avoids her death by shopping cart/truck displaying an erectile dysfunction ad (god I love this show) and has a new lease on life. At first, she improves, but after receiving no reward she relapses. Thankfully Michael breaks the rules and intervenes by nudging her towards Chidi and season 2 ends with her meeting the reincarnated Chidi in his university office and asking to talk.

Think about that for a moment. Season 2 began with hopes that Eleanor would discover the truth of her eternal damnation and ends with her former torturer helping her lead a better life. Thus a show supposedly about the afterlife ends with the main character alive again! I don’t know where The Good Place will go from here. Maybe it will be a full season on Earth or just one episode. Maybe we’ll go back to spend some extended time in one of the hundreds of resets or maybe we’ll be done with Earth in the first ten minutes of episode 1 of season 3. Maybe this whole thing was a type of purgatory and Michael is God. Maybe it’s all a secret Black Mirror episode. I have no idea but I’m so happy to be on the ride.