Watching The Good Place is like a nightmare. Admittedly it’s a hilarious and even heartwarming nightmare, but it’s not hard to see yourself in the shoes of the four main ‘bad’ people on Team Cockroach. Before we go any further, you should be warned that this entire article is full of SPOILERS. If you aren’t caught up, you should definitely do that. The lead characters, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason, are just regular people who think they lived alright lives, but for various reasons, they’ve been sent to a strange variation of Hell. In this universe, their personal hell is run by a demon named Michael. He had a brilliant and innovative plan to take four ordinary people and torture them for eternity by convincing them all that they’d accidentally gotten into heaven wrongfully. Of all the characters on the show, Chidi is probably the closest to a genuinely decent human being. He’s also the most flawed and anxiety-ridden. We all love him for it, and for his ongoing efforts to teach Eleanor and the gang what morals are in spite of his failings. We collected ten facts about him that you might have missed, especially if you’re anything like Eleanor, Tahani, Jason, or even Michael.
1. Polyglot
If the term above is unfamiliar to you, a polyglot speaks three or more languages. Chidi Anagonye is a polyglot. During the first season, he and Eleanor talk about how ‘The Good Place’ automatically translates everything from your native language. He’s actually speaking French while she speaks American English. This leads to Eleanor later accusing Tahani of being extra superficial because she’s “choosing” to maintain her British accent. Regardless, Chidi explains that while French is Native to him, he went to American schools and speaks English as well. Then he also mentions that he speaks German, Greek, and Latin (just in case it makes a comeback).
2. A Dog Named…
Chidis primary “sin” is his indecision. The result of his inability to make any choices ever was a lifetime of causing pain and suffering to the people around him even though he sought moral truth and goodness quite literally as a career. When he first discovers he’s in the Bad Place, Chidi thinks it’s only because he used almond milk when he knew it was a bad moral choice. That was one thing he genuinely and decisively knew he liked, so he kept using it. At one point during the third episode, Michael helps explain this to him by reminding him he was so indecisive that he never even named his dog. When the animal ran away he put up missing posters that said: “responds to long pauses.”
3. Lies Are Like Tigers
In season one, episode seven Chidi recites a poem to Eleanor. Unfortunately, it’s a one-liner about how lies and tigers are bad. He then says, “I guess it’s more poetic in Mandarin.” This leads us to believe he may have lied about something else. If Chidi knows how poetic that line is in Chinese, then we can warrant a guess that he speaks at least some Mandarin. Tisk-tisk Chidi, we’re shaking a finger at you for that little white lie.
4. Dream Home
Also during the first season, Chidi reveals his home to Eleanor. He lives in the town square. Since all the main floors appear taken up with businesses, we think he lives in an apartment, probably one that’s above a frozen yogurt shop. We never get to see inside his place, but there’s nowhere else for it to be located as far as we could tell. As dream homes go, that’s not very extensive. However, it does show what a genuinely humble person he is.
5. You Don’t Remember Either
When they’re first introduced, Chidi quickly ends up taking Eleanor to task for her selfishness. Though he says it as plain as day several times, she cannot remember where Chidi lived during his life on Earth. The answer, of course, is Senegal. What she also failed to remember, and you’ve likely also forgotten is that he wasn’t born there. Chidi Anagonye was born in Nigeria.
6. Even Your Dream Job Can Be Hell
One of Chidi’s driving motivations throughout the show is teaching people, but especially Eleanor, ethics and moral philosophy. Sure, his dream job is to lecture on the subject of his passion, and he even has a captive audience that is dependent on his every thought about the subject. However, he discovers that sometimes doing what you love can be frustrating, dull, and frankly hellish. The couple fights how much work it is to teach Eleanor how to be decent, and Chidi finds that he can’t win for losing when he has the chance to leave the situation and get a break from her but feels even worse about that.
7. He’s Not a Murderer
We know, we know, Chidi Killed Janet. He won’t stop talking about it. When Eleanor convinces him to help her wipe out Janet, they go through the ordeal of Janet’s pleading. Eventually, they change their minds and in the process have to stop Jason, which leads to Chidi accidentally killing Janet. Despite what her alarm says, Janet was never properly murdered. We’re not saying she’s not alive. As a sentient and basically omnipotent, if inexperienced, superbeing we’re going to count it as living even if you don’t. However, technically, what Chidi did was called involuntary manslaughter. In short, an accident is not murder; it has its own name.
8. Directional Insanity
In addition to his anxiety, overthinking everything and indecisiveness, Chidi has another serious problem. No, we don’t mean Eleanor. We’re not even talking about the fact that of the four doomed humans he’s the only one who tried to be good just because it’s the right thing to do. Chidi suffers from “Directional Insanity.” There is a real-life condition matching his description (he once was lost on an escalator) known as Directional Dyslexia, Spatial Dyslexia, or Geographic Dyslexia. They all mean the same thing, and ‘directional insanity,’ is a pretty apt, though far from politically correct, description of what happens.
9. Mistaken for Food
The demons who inhabit The Good Place would happily make a soup out of Chidi. However, it’s Eleanor who thinks that he might be food. During the first reboot, she shoves a note into Janet’s mouth that says “Find Chidi.” Sadly the self-absorbed ‘Arizona dirtbag,’ has no clue who or what a “Chidi” might be. She speculates that he might be soup.
10. William Jackson Harper
If you’re not familiar with the actor who plays Chidi, then you’ve been missing out on some outstanding shows and performances for over a decade now. This is not his first job as an actor by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the first show we ever saw him on was Law and Order: Criminal Intent where he played Chayne Danforth on the 2007 episode Self-Made. Moreover, he’s been in at least thirty shows, movies, and even video games. William was considering leaving the field before he got the part of Chidi in The Good Place, but we’re glad he stayed.
Final Thoughts
As complex, brilliant, and flawed characters go, Chidi is one of our favorites ever to hit the screen. We’re delighted that William went for the part because we couldn’t imagine anyone else playing him quite the same way. His on-screen charisma with Kristen Bell is fantastic, and we certainly wouldn’t mind seeing a whole lot more of him, with or without the sweater-vest. Overall, both William and Chidi have been on our radar a while, and hopefully, they’ll both be there for quite a few more seasons.
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