This review contains spoilers. Over the course of its four seasons, “The Good Place” kept its audience on the edge of their seats with one big plot twist after the next. While this unusual sitcom beautifully balanced high-stakes conflict with individual character growth, the finale began with the show’s biggest questions already answered. From redesigning the fundamentally flawed afterlife to reorganizing The Good Place, all plot points had been resolved. All that was left was to spend a supersized episode with the people, demons and Janets we have grown to adore. Showrunner and creator, Michael Schur, has only concluded one other show, “Parks and Recreation,” and the similarities between these two shows’ finales are undeniable. If you can recall, the “Parks and Recreation” finale served as an epilogue of sorts, giving viewers a preview into the future of each of the ensemble characters’ lives and careers. “The Good Place” replicates this formula, but on a more timeless scale. Rather than leaping ahead years, “The Good Place” reveals the countless “Bearamys” — how the show quantifies units of time in the afterlife — possible for the main characters. Still, the message remains the same: follow each character’s path to their specific happy endings. The penultimate episode solved the final problem of The Good Place: Eternal happiness has no ending. Eventually, that happiness becomes mindless. So, our favorite saviors of the afterlife created a way out — once you have completed everything you ever wished you could possibly do, you can peacefully end your existence — making an infinite afterlife feel slightly less endless. Naturally, this episode titled “Whenever You’re Ready” follows our characters’ voluntary, peaceful and chosen ends of their existences. While the show’s premise was originally centered around protagonist Eleanor (Kristen Bell, “Frozen 2”) and her inadvertent placement into the Good Place, the show eventually evolved, following the main characters’ attempts to repair the inequalities present in the afterlife. Instead of one big final plot twist, “The Good Place” returned to how it began, before the larger issues of humanity outweighed smaller developments like the romance of Jason and Janet. Endings reveal the true priorities of television shows. “The Good Place” resolved the big questions first so it could return to where it has always belonged — with Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Michael and Janet. Through its discussion of moral philosophy and exploration of ethics in a just society, “The Good Place” took an optimistic outlook on humanity: People can be self- centered, indecisive, impulsive and arrogant, but given the chance they can also learn and grow. I’ll raise a margarita to that any day. The final scene suggests the greatest reward for living on earth is the ability to continuously touch the lives of those we left behind. As individuals, we can only hope our actions will contribute to making the world a better place for those who still live in it. Yes, it may be as simple as deciding to take the garbage out or emptying the dishwasher when you know it’s not your turn. But maybe, just maybe, you were unconsciously inspired by some random spark of goodness by someone from your past. It makes sense that the character that underwent the most change gets to say the final words of the show. In the words of the demon-turned- human Michael, “with all the love in my heart and all the wisdom of the universe — take it sleazy.” The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Arts Wednesday, February 5, 2020 — 5A ‘The Good Place’ moves us past the afterlife in finale NBC JUSTIN POLLACK Daily Arts Writer My fingertips were first rolled in what felt like an ink stamp pad. The artist then pressed a cold drawing utensil to the skin of my left arm. I sat there, sterile, removed from my own body and experience. My left arm stuck through the wall, vulnerable to the gallery’s cool air. Basel Zaraa’s “As Far As My Fingertips Take” is an artistic performance curated by UMS, a multi-disciplinary arts presenter affiliated with the University, in partnership with the University’s Institute for the Humanities. “Fingertips” is one of four performance titles that comprises UMS’s “No Safety Net” festival. All of the performances in “No Safety Net” deal with socially or politically relevant issues. “Fingertips” runs from Jan. 23 to Feb. 9 at the U-M Institute for Humanities and the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, MI. The motif of fingertips is inspired by the Dublin Regulation, an EU database that tracks refugees’ fingerprints. Quite often, these refugees would be sent back to the last country their fingerprints were recorded in. Zaraa is an artist and musician, and a Palestinian refugee born in Syria. He currently resides in Birmingham, UK. Tania El Khoury, a prolific contemporary experimental performer based in Beirut, commissioned Zaraa to create this intimate and empathy-building installation. This performance is based on his sister’s refugee journey. UMS programming director Mary Roeder described the performance as emotionally hefty as it is physical, allowing audience members to understand the personal refugee journey. Senior programming director at UMS, Marc Jacobson described the performance as an “intimate, one-on-one, performance experience that’s approximately 10 to 15 minutes” for “anyone who wants to become closer to the understanding of the refugee crisis globally.” “Many of us in the West, me included, have a sympathetic response to the global crisis, but speaking for myself, I’m not readily in touch with members of this displaced global community. After experiencing ‘Fingertips’, it becomes very personal, empathetic,” Jacobson said. When my fifteen minutes arrived last Thursday night, the artist’s cold hands adjusted my arm and fingers for each part of the drawing. It felt like one of those childhood games or secret codes where you try to guess what word someone was writing on your thigh or back. The elongated lines and focused splotches of ink made me think it was a vine adorned with flowers and leaves. As the artist drew on my exposed arm, old-fashioned headphones covered the entirety of my ears. I heard the waves first. The crashing waters of the Mediterreanian harmonized with the cawing of seagulls. Zaara’s voice crooned through my headphones, narrating the journey he and his sisters took through Europe. He said he was going to play a song, the English translation written on the wall above my seat. The song began with a traditional wail and instrumentation, then the artist transitioned into rapping the second half of the song. The cold utensil sailing across my skin felt otherworldly, distant and sacred. We were offered to wash our arms and hands in a basin right after the experience. To rinse away the experience begged the question of how the rest of the world, not personally impacted by the refugee struggle, decides to respond to this suffering. It felt almost disrespectful to erase an experience like this. I felt that it deserved to linger and be on the forefront of my mind for at least the time the ink remained on my skin. After the performance, I told Zaraa that it felt like going to confession. Something about the separation with the white walls and the shadows of the room recalled a kind of spiritual cleansing, an acknowledgement of the vastness of the world and human experience. In the days following “Fingertips,” I looked up how the refugee crisis has evolved in the past few years. I also lamented the drawing’s slow fade on my skin, saddened every time a shower or sweater rubbed a certain part away. One of the most vulnerable parts of the experience was the drawing of a boat attached to a string drawn from the center of my palm to the tip of my middle finger. My arm featured people all walking in a single direction carrying backpacks and suitcases, even the children. They all moved towards the crook of my elbow where a line was drawn around the circumference of my upper forearm. They seemed to be walking to the harshly drawn black line of discrimination and apathy they faced on their journey. Roeder remarked on what lingers in the consciousnesses of those who participated in “Fingertips.” “I think you can intellectualize things all day long and post on Facebook that ‘I feel so bad these things are happening,’ but what action are you taking? What impact is that ‘feeling bad’ having? Does it take having this physical encounter with someone to find change in yourself?” ‘As Far As My Fingertips Take Me’: A performance COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW NINA MOLINA Daily Arts Writer COURTESY OF NINA MOLINA Needles littering the floor, desperate addicts searching for a score, shuttered windows and crumbling homes; the opening picture author Liz Moore paints of Kensington conveys a relentlessly bleak and hopeless world. Moore’s new mystery thriller novel, “Long Bright River,” takes us into the underbelly of Philadelphia, into a once-respectable neighborhood now plagued by the opioid crisis. The sad reality of opioid addiction is a subject many authors shy away from in popular literature, but Moore digs deep without hesitation. In her new novel, Moore explores the harsh truth of addiction and weaves a gut-wrenching tale of familial devotion, poverty and crime. Told in urgent and concise prose, “Long Bright River” follows the story of two sisters separated by circumstance. The older of the two, Mickey Fitzpatrick, is a police officer charged with the impossible task of curbing crime in Kensington. Her sister, Kacey, surrendered to the temptation of narcotics at a young age like her mother before her and now lives out her days on the streets, doing just about anything for a score. Though inseparable growing up, the two sisters are estranged because Kacey is unable to get clean. When a string of murders racks Kensington just as Kacey goes missing, Mickey, motivated by sisterly devotion and love, goes looking for her. One of Moore’s clearest strengths is the deliberate and carefully measured manner in which she constructs the narrative. Moore expertly divulges just enough information in calculated increments to keep the reader hungry for more. The story is told from Mickey’s perspective on two alternating timelines, the girls’ childhood (“then”) and the present (“now”), where Mickey spends her days patrolling the streets with her irritating new partner Eddie Laffery. The beauty of this structure is the insight it offers into why Kacey is the way she is. We get to see young Kacey, a bubbly, fierce and passionate girl who “made friends every place she went” and who rose “ardently and often violently to the defense of those in her class who were lowest in the pecking order.” Comparing the bright teenage Kacey to the lifeless shell of a person that she becomes under the influence of drugs makes the emotional impact of her downfall all the more searing. The novel starts off slowly, and at first it is hard to acclimate to Mickey’s reserved and often pessimistic personality. However, as events unfold and the story picks up, the book becomes almost impossible to put down. Each chapter brings new suspects and a surprising turn of events, leaving us grasping at straws until the very last pages. Mickey also blossoms into a three-dimensional character as the sacrifices she makes for her sister and son reveal the depth of her love for them. The reader is swept up in a gripping mystery, speculating alongside Mickey on who is responsible for the murders and why Kacey disappeared. All of the elements of a good novel are there: suspense, love, tragedy and intrigue. But the most powerful characteristic of “Long Bright River” is its depiction of the endless cycle of addiction. It both humanizes the victims and provides a raw, unembellished perspective into horror and hopelessness of narcotic dependence. As Moore beautifully puts is, addicts are trapped “in a river, no fount and no outlet, a long bright river of departed souls.” At times, fighting addiction seems futile. Nevertheless, small rays of hope shine through as Mickey tirelessly fights for her sister. The lengths she goes to find Kacey are heartening and inspiring. A lot of buzz surrounded the release of “Long Bright River” in the literary community, and, without a doubt, the addictive tale lives up to the hype. The novel could ensnare the heart of any reader in its roller coaster of emotions. The story is real, raw and heartfelt, and Mickey unfolds into a three- dimensional heroine before our eyes. It leaves the reader with a new perspective on addiction, the inevitability of it and the seemingly predestined fate of the addict. The novel also inspires sympathy for the victims, who, more often than not, turn to drugs as a result of environmental factors out of their control. We realize: It could be us, in other circumstances, in a parallel life. We avoided this wretched life through luck, because we didn’t have family members who pressured us into narcotic use or lived in an environment like Kensington where drugs are the norm. “Long Bright River” reminds us of the fragility of good fortune and to cherish what we have, because for some, even the simple act of experiencing life sober is a daily struggle. ‘Long Bright River,’ a gut- wrenching addiction story EMMA DOETTLING For The Daily But the most powerful characteristic of “Long Bright River” is its depiction of the endless cycle of addiction. It both humanizes the victims and provides a raw, unembellished perspective into horror and hopelessness of narcotic dependence. The Good Place Series Finale NBC Now Streaming TV REVIEW TV REVIEW BOOK REVIEW Long Bright River Liz Moore Riverhead Books Jan. 7, 2020 My fingertips were first rolled in what felt like an ink stamp pad. The artist then pressed a cold drawing utensil to the skin of my left arm.