Top TV Memes: The Best Meme Formats From 'The Good Place'

The Good Place is a comedy show about living in Hell. After dying embarrassing deaths, Eleanor, Tahani, Jason and Chidi wake up in "The Good Place," a utopian version of Heaven, where Eleanor knows she doesn’t belong. In an attempt to hide this mistake, Eleanor (played by Kristen Bell) enlists the help of her designated "soulmate" and ethics professor Chidi (William Jackson Harper) in an attempt to make her a better person and stop the natural disasters she is unintentionally causing around town.

As the series continues, Eleanor must dodge The Good Place’s "architect" Michael (portrayed by Ted Danson) and his robotic assistant Janet (D’Arcy Carden). Eventually, she realizes she’s not the only mistake in the system but has to face the repercussions of her existence there nonetheless as the fantasy world takes many turns for the worse. Running from 2016 to 2020, this show has sparked many memes in its lifetime and beyond. Here are some of the best episodes to find them. As a note, some of these contain mild spoilers for the first season.

Most Popular Memes: Season 1, Episode 13: "Michael’s Gambit"

Here, we find one of the series' most popular memes, competing with the more recent Confident Chidi meme. This episode serves as the finale for the first season. At this point in the show, the four must decide which of them will be sent to "The Bad Place." Eleanor, an obvious choice, comes to a realization during the debate — they’ve been in The Bad Place all along, living in a carefully fabricated cookie-cutter nightmare for them to torment one another for all eternity.

Eleanor’s quote "This is The Bad Place!" has become a viral meme and is used to represent anything from our descent through 2020 to sitting in an office cubicle, staring at the clock hands as they tick slowly towards lunch break. When she figures out this secret, the illusion they’ve all been living in is restarted, and the four have their memories wiped, which is memeable simply for the "try turning it off and on again" solution. Eleanor and the others have annoyed the creators of their universe to the point where everything had to undergo a factory reset where they are welcomed by a slightly ominous sign.

Most Meme Potential: Season 1, Episode 11: "What’s My Motivation?”

This episode is perhaps the best episode to see the true Jason Mendoza (played by Manny Jacinto) in the aftermath of his shameless wedding to a robot. Though he was mistaken for a monk stuck in an eternal vow of silence, Eleanor quickly discovers Jason is another glitch in The Good Place’s matrix. While the episode itself revolves around Eleanor’s attempts to boost her "Good Place Points" score so she can stay, the viewer also learns a lot about Jason, Jacksonville’s most mediocre DJ and graduate of the local junkyard's Lynard Skynard High School. Jason has been referenced in numerous memes simply because he’s an awkward presence and an odd representation of Jacksonville culture.

Much of Jason’s backstory is revealed here (most notably his death is explained). After hatching a “plan” with his best friend Pillboi, the pair attempt to rob a Mexican restaurant. To do so, Jason crawls inside a giant safe with the intention of sneaking out after the safe has been installed, stealing all the restaurant’s money, and crawling back inside the safe until its uninstalled. Instead of doing any of this, Pillboi flees the cops and abandons the safe, where Jason proceeds to do whip-its until he dies of suffocation. Anything here makes a great meme, just like Jason’s idiotic confusion of basic words and his fangirl obsession with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

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