Creator Michael Schur on Ending ‘The Good Place’ After Four Seasons [Video]

Michael Schur is the creator behind everyone’s latest comedy obsession, The Good Place, starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson on NBC.

However, before he started dabbling in the philosophy of the afterlife, Schur also had a hand in bringing many of television’s top comedies to life. He worked as a producer and writer for The Office and co-created both Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. So yes, the man is somewhat of a legend.

For those that are currently binge-watching The Office for the twentieth time, you may also recognize Schur from his iconic role as Dwight Schrute’s brother Mose.

At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I had the chance to chat with Schur during a roundtable interview about his shocking decision to end The Good Place at the top of its game and what we can expect from the show’s series finale.

When it came to envisioning an ending for The Good Place, Schur had a gut feeling in Season 2 that he knew how he would end the series but it would actually take several more years for the idea to come to fruition.

“We, as a group, didn’t fully commit to the idea until we were actually discussing the outline of Season 4. It remained pretty close to what I had imagined a couple of years ago.”

And when it came to describing just how we can expect the series to wrap up, Schur pulled two interesting examples from television’s past to illustrate his point.

“I would say on the spectrum of endings from The Sopranos to Breaking Bad, it tends more towards the Breaking Bad type where you will have a pretty clear idea of what happened with almost every character.”

As for what he will miss most about working on The Good Place, Schur had a pretty good answer.

“I get regular phone calls from Ted Danson, that’s pretty cool.”

Schur went on to discuss his friendship with the cast and elaborated on just how special these people has been to work with over the course of four seasons.

“This is the first time I have worked with any of the cast, except for Kristen guest-starring on Parks and Recreation a couple of times, but I am going to miss them all a tremendous amount. The ability to write dialogue and imagine exactly how good you think it’s going to be when they do it and then have it be better than you thought it was going to be is a rare and special thing. I will miss that.”

The Good Place made waves early on for the show’s ability to reinvent itself from episode to episode. However, with the series heading towards an endgame this season, Schur said we can expect less of the unpredictable formula that won so many over as we inch closer to the end.

At a certain point in the season, things happen to a degree where there are no more surprises. We’re in the final stretch and here’s how everybody ends up. From that point on there isn’t like enormous oh-my-god twists and turns. It becomes more of a coda,” he explained.

“But for the first three-quarters of the season, we’ve tried to keep the DNA of the show, that stuff has to happen that shakes things up, very much present.”

It isn’t just fans praising this show, critics have also praised The Good Place for it’s profound and wacky take on heaven and hell. Now the show is getting the recognition it deserves with two Emmy nominations for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Comedy Series.

As the proud creator, Schur expressed his excitement for Ted and the cast but couldn’t help mentioning some notable names that were left off the nomination ballots. 

“I was very happy for Ted. I was morally and righteously outraged on behalf of Kristen and D’Arcy and everybody else in the cast. But the show getting nominated is nice because everyone gets to share in it.”

Check out all of our coverage of San Diego Comic-Con right here. There is a lot more to come!

The final season of The Good Place will premiere this fall on NBC.

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