Andy is told by Karl that he needs to meet him at a specific spot and alone. Karl explains his mission and briefes Laura about her father’s proclivities when they were young. He then gives a worn-out lecture on how the world has been destroyed and how only radical action – forceful in nature – can redeem it for future generations.
Andy is followed by a team of MI6 agents. The instructions take him to a pub that he and Karl used to frequent as college students. Bill, the bartender, hands him a beer and an earpiece that he can use to communicate with Karl. Andy talks with Karl on the earpiece and learns that the terrorist has hacked into MI6’s surveillance networks, making it harder for them to catch Andy’s drift. As planned, Andy loses the trail of the agents and a boat takes him across the lake towards Karl’s location. ..
One of the agents gets Ash’s address and Cameron decides to send a team to his house for clues. When they reach his house, they find a basement with environmental awareness posters and data points. It shows his association with the AW and how the operation was carried out on his part. One of the agents also notices a football team’s poster on the wall, Thetford FC. They deduce that Karl’s location might be the Thetford Industrial Estate, which has been abandoned for a long time. Cameron gives the orders to put a plan into action.
Karl greets an upset Andy and demands to see his daughter to which Andy responds calmly, saying she is okay. The reason why Karl brought Andy here is to preclude him from working on a solution to the bacteria, something that only a handful of people in the world can do.
Almost five hours remain until the zero hour kicks in, after which the fossil fuel economy will be finished as the world knows it. Laura is indeed fine but Andy is shocked to see a full-fledged training camp being set up in the woods. Karl has indeed planned it on a big scale and has expanded his organization considerably. He keeps reminding Andy of the fact that it is “their” efforts that have counted so far. ..
Laura starts recording a live stream with Andy and Karl, where Karl accuses Andy of weaponizing the bacteria. Andy insists that he was the one who came up with the idea, and that he only wanted to force world leaders to take action. ..
It seems like Laura is turning against Andy when she picks up Karl’s gun against Andy but eventually it is revealed that she was only feigning it to deceive his men. Elena comes downstairs to see the flag of Thetford FC being displayed on a laptop. When the agent says they have gone to Thetford in New Cross, Elena corrects them and says the correct place is actually Thetford Forest, where Andy and Karl used to go as students to relax.
The MI6 team immediately changes its location to the woods. Although Andy concurs with Laura and Karl that the world’s resources are indeed being depleted at a faster rate than being replenished, this is not the way to bring about change. Laura and Andy make a run for it. They are able to hide momentarily from Karl and his men. But Andy says they need a diversion and hence leaves Laura to go and confront Karl. At the edge of the mountain, Karl and Andy again have a fistfight, only this time to be interrupted by the MI6 agents.Karl shoots and kills himself, living up to this word of “even being prepared to die for the cause”. He was successfully able to create a diversion long enough for zero hour to kick in.
Karl’s plan was successful in eradicating the bacteria. In a voice-over, Andy explains the aftermath of the fossil economy being destroyed. ..
This tectonic moment should have marked the end of the world, and it did for a while. Society was thrown into chaos and people reverted to their base instincts of looting and killing to hoard as much as they could. But there is something like a crisis that can unite people. They all came together to fight this new challenge with joined hands. The collective wisdom of the people saved them from a new dark age. The season ends with Sam seeing up at the sky and calling a flock of birds flying together in aesthetic patterns “beautiful”, indicating his surgery went well and that he can finally see.
The Episode Review
This was a disappointing finale for me. All the subplots and loose ends of the story unraveled instead of coming together. The sole purpose of the final episode felt like wrapping things up in just under the prescribed limit of forty-three minutes.
The downfall of lob-sided writing can be seen in the unsatisfying end to an extremely uneven season. When we first started watching the show, the term “plausibility” seemed relevant. By the time we reached the end, it had gone out the window. Creators and writers thought literally anything could fly in an apocalyptic, sci-fi film. An ambiguous and sweeping remark “together, we can do anything” was plastered to give the series relevance and significance. ..
The finale of “The Good Place” was a bit of a letdown. The story was more about a man trying to get his family to safety and the members of the family doing the same, but the jarring turns in tone completely took away the chance for the series to make the emotional core about one single thing. That is exactly what the finale is about; everything and nothing. There is a sense of deep disappointment in how the storyline for the finale was devised. More to come in the season review… which will not mince words!
