I have deluded myself into 100% believing a theory I’ve crafted that the show The Last Man on Earth is actually a spin-off of The Good Place
Good Place spoilers below!!
I 100% believe that the world of The Last Man On Earth is nothing but a good place neighborhood made after the finale by Eleanor Shellstrop herself, based off recurring nightmares she had about having been the last person on earth.
Each character like the OG good place are picked purposely to torture each other and are a perfect mix of designated medium & bad people.
Some characters are also actors of course,
Here are the characters and what they are;
- Tandy Miller - Test subject; Designated to go to the bad place, Eleanor saw a lot of herself in him and is hoping this helps.
- Carol Pilbasian - Actress; perfectly picked to torture Tandy specifically, ended up genuinely falling in love with him despite herself. (Almost Michael like in eventual desire to become human.)
- Melissa Chartes - Actress.
- Todd Dimas Rodriguez - Test Subject; medium person designated to go to the Bad Place, has failed this simulation and is going to have to try again.
- Phil Miller - Actor.
- Erica Dundee - Test Subject; Designated to go to the Bad Place (criminal record), has the best chance of passing the simulation.
- Gail Klosterman - Test Subject; Designated to go to the Bad Place, has a higher chance of passing the test after befriending Erica.
- Mike Miller - Actor. (Was really Tandy’s brother and actively volunteered to help redeem him.)
- Lewis = Actor, Pamela = test subject, Gordon = Actor, Pat = test subject; failed, Karl = Actor who went rogue?? Or test subject that ended up in the wrong simulation by accident??
Genuinely, the only way to gain anything good from watching this show is to watch it through these lenses.
It not only makes sense, it becomes actively funnier to imagine this way.
FOX has canceled The Last Man on Earth after four seasons and 67 episodes,
Despite being left on a cliffhanger, I am glad that the show is finally over.
For my expanded thoughts on FOX’s The Last Man on Earth, feel free to keep reading. There will be spoilers.
The show begins in 2020, almost a year after a mysterious virus has eradicated most of civilization. A survivor named Phil (later known as Tandy) arrives back home in Tucson, Arizona, after taking a cross-country road trip looking for survivors. Having been unable to find anyone else still alive, he decides to kill himself only to stop when he sees smoke. He meets Carol, who was also spared by the virus, and they decide to get married. They eventually meet other survivors and now have to find a way to survive in their new post-apocalyptic world.
The series was created by Will Forte of Saturday Night Live and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the directors of The Lego Movie. The three have previously worked together on both the aforementioned film and short-lived 2003 MTV animated series Clone High created by the latter duo. In both productions, Forte played wildly different interpretations of Abraham Lincoln.
This show’s title becomes an artifact by the end of the first episode when Phil meets Carol. Even if one were to stretch it as Phil being the last male on earth, it still becomes an artifact by the introduction of Todd in the fifth episode.
When the show began airing, I mostly watched it because of Will Forte. I already knew him from his time on the aforementioned Saturday Night Live. As for Kristen Schaal, I quickly recognized her as the voice of both Mabel from Disney’s Gravity Falls and Louise from fellow FOX show Bob’s Burgers.
The show’s first season did a good job of showing the characters forming their new impromptu civilization, but subsequent seasons would follow the exact same formula: The group moves to a new location, Tandy screws everything up, and a crisis occurs that forces them to move to a new location. They also added token antagonists such as a conspiracy nut and a cannibal along with the occasional cameo by a comedian who quickly gets killed off.
Films and shows set in post-apocalyptic worlds often have the characters do things they never had to do, such as grow crops and find alternative ways to get around.
That rarely happened on this show.
The group conveniently had everything they needed such as canned goods, gasoline, and solar-powered devices. The only times they struggled were when they had to use the restroom or required livestock for milk. It was not until the Series Finale where after they ran out of canned goods, and their batteries began to rot, that Tandy decided to finally start growing food rather than keep moving around to raid stores for food that may have already expired.
(And while there were the occasional tomato plants, they still mainly relied on conveniences to survive.)
The show’s best episodes were "Alive in Tucson” and “Got Milk?”. The former was about Phil being on the verge of suicide while the latter was about Pamela (Kristen Wiig) alone in a bunker with her dog. For a show airing on broadcast television, they were experimental by featuring very little dialogue and heavily relying on these comedic actors having to give mostly one-person performances.
They were also the show’s least comedic episodes, each only having one funny moment that felt more depressing than hilarious. "Alive in Tucson” had Phil talking to sports balls with faces similar to Wilson from Cast Away. “Got Milk?” had an expository news montage of the virus infecting President Mike Pence and the rest of Donald Trump’s presidential cabinet.
As for the virus, it was never explained where it originated and how everyone got infected. No explanation was necessary since most of civilization was already dead and the survivors were randomly immune to the virus. Had the show been renewed for a fifth season, it could have taken the opportunity to reveal its origins.
The only positives I could give to the show were the likable characters and Tandy’s beard. You want to see the characters survive despite their conflicts and it is sad to see them struggle or fail, such as Phil Miller’s death being caused by the characters’ medical inexperience or Tandy’s brother Mike wanting to find more people so he could start his own family.
Tandy’s beard was hilarious mostly because Will Forte actually grew it out instead of wearing a fake beard. Whenever he went to promote the show or attend a public event, he was either sporting the whole beard or a partial beard depending on what was being filmed at the time.
The Series Finale ended the show on an awful cliffhanger, with Tandy finally deciding to settle down in Mexico and the group being surrounded by the underground survivors. Had it been a Season Finale, it could have set up a clash between the group and other survivors. As a Series Finale, it leaves the show without any resolution.
Should this show be saved by either another network, Hulu, or Netflix? No.
There are far better shows that deserve to be saved from cancellation than The Last Man on Earth. Only a day after FOX canceled it, NBC picked up Brooklyn Nine-Nine after a huge amount of support from celebrity fans such as Mark Hamill and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Fans of Lucifer and Designated Survivor are currently tweeting hashtags and petitions to either convince their original networks to reconsider or move them to Netflix.
Despite losing its time slot to Thursday Night Football, Gotham was renewed for a fifth and final season.
The Last Man on Earth was just a dark comedy unsure whether it wanted to be funny, depressing, or both. Even if there had been an additional season, it would have probably begun revealing that the new survivors were surprisingly friendly. Their leader would have been played by yet another famous comedian and somehow be killed off.
In other words, the show just became extremely predictable.
If the show does get picked up by another network, then I wish it can become far more successful than when it aired on FOX. Former FOX shows such as Power Rangers, The Mindy Project, and American Dad! have all thrived on other networks. If those shows were able to succeed after leaving FOX, then so can this dark comedy.
The Last Man on Earth is currently available to watch on FOXNOW and Hulu.
