One of the best parts of NBC’s The Good Place is the ways the show has progressively changed. After the first big twist in season 1, where we find out that The Good Place is actually a new experiment of The Bad Place, curated by Michael, the show’s characters change immensely, from selfish and self-centered people to caring folks who put their friends first.
Eleanor is the character that changes the most throughout the seasons, since she was the worst of the original cohort that included Chidi, Tahani, and Jason.
As the show ends, here are the biggest ways Eleanor has changed from the beginning to the finale and how she hasn’t!
10 Changed – She Has A Moral Compass
Eleanor started the show not having a moral compass. After she died, she landed a spot in the fake Good Place because she led a morally corrupt lifestyle and was considered the worst of the original four. While she was alive, her job at a call center involved stealing from old ladies who didn’t know any better. However, throughout the later seasons, she starts doing things based on what’s right and what’s wrong, not based on what’s good for her, after being helped out by Chidi in his moral philosophy classes.
9 Changed – She’s Self Sacrificial
Eleanor used to only do things if they were self-serving, and never really thought about other people. For example, she left her friend’s dog that she was supposed to be dogsitting on its own to go to a concert.
But when they had to erase Chidi’s memory so that he could be in the second Fake Good Place with Simone, Eleanor agrees to help him. She did this despite the fact that Chidi would forget that they are in love, sacrificing her happiness for her friends.
8 Hasn’t Changed – She’s Still Funny
Despite being a good person, Eleanor doesn’t loose her quirky sense of humor. When trying to figure out if Michael is the real Michael in episode 4 of season 4, they tell him to reveal his true self underneath his person suit. When he explains that his real form is scary and would scar his friends, she says, “I’ve seen a lot of weird hogs in my life, dude.”
In the very next episode, while telling the neighborhood about their next activity, she says it’s going to be called “Earth Day. We know that’s a thing on earth, but what are they going to do, sue us?”
7 Changed – She’s Nicer
Eleanor is actually quite nice in the later episodes. She is a bit of a tyrant at the beginning of the show, barking at the others and playing tricks on them. She doesn’t really like other people and is grossed out by affection and healthy human connections. As the show progresses, she softens up and starts to really care about other people. Which brings us to our next point…
6 Changed – She Cares About Other People
Eleanor, as shown through so many examples throughout the show, actually starts to care about other people than herself. She ends up being really good friends with the other characters and even tells Michael, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, and Janet that she cares about them.
Whereas in the past that would have made Eleanor cringe, she becomes a softer person who puts other people’s needs first and is able to talk about her feelings and her love for other people, including her romantic love for Chidi. Which brings us to the next point…
5 Changed – She’s In Love With Chidi
At the beginning of the show, Michael paired Chidi and Eleanor up as fake soul mates to get them to torture each other. This worked for a while until Chidi starts teaching Eleanor moral philosophy to help her earn her “stolen” spot in The Good Place. Their friendship starts to develop and they end up supporting each other and liking each other. After several reboots of The Good Place/New Bad Place, they even fall in love several times, making a really cute couple.
4 Same – She’s Still Inappropriate
While she is nice, that doesn’t mean she still isn’t crude. Eleanor still makes jokes about inappropriate things and hits on people like Tahani all the way. She makes fun of Elton John: “Ugh, I hate jazz. Every jazz song is like 40 minutes long. It’s like, we get it. You can blow on a trumpet. Wrap it up, Elton John.” She still very vulgar, even while quoting Kant: “Kant would say that lying in any scenario is wrong. On the other hand, snitches do get stitches.”
3 Changed – She No Longer Hates Tahani
As the show moves along, especially after the first season, Eleanor and Tahani’s relationship changes and they actually become friends. Eleanor starts really valuing Tahani’s friendship and cares about her a lot, wanting to make sure that they all end up in The Good Place, and they all make a pact to work with each other.
Maybe she was jealous of Tahani, maybe she was annoyed by her, but by the end of the show, they’re great friends who always look out for each other. They even joke about being best friends.
2 Changed – She’s More Observant
One thing about being selfish and self-serving is that you don’t realize what’s going around you, given you’re the center of your own universe. This was the case for Eleanor. At the beginning of The Good Place, you couldn’t get her to think about anyone but herself, so she wasn’t able to notice that other people had needs or feelings. By the end of the show, she’s noticing Chidi’s patterns and anticipates his cyclical behaviors, allowing her to help him out of his ruts before he gets into them. The old Eleanor wouldn’t have even noticed.
1 Hasn’t Changed – She’s Still Vengeful
When dealing with Brent, as he deals with the nonsense of his white privilege and his consistent self-centered behavior, she screams “We gotta bust him open like a piñata.” While the vengefulness she exhibits is no longer targeting everyone, but rather the “bad people” in the show who try to disrupt her and her friends’ lives, she still has a bit of a vindictive streak, which she uses to get back at the bad people.
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