ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE:

Several years ago, Michael Schur went to a Starbucks and pondered the human condition. He had purchased a cheap coffee and waited until the barista turned toward him to toss his change into the tip jar, realizing immediately how silly it was that he wanted recognition for such a small act. Stuck in traffic later on, he mulled over his "corrupt and bad" motivations -- only to have his thoughts interrupted by another driver pulling into the breakdown lane to speed past everyone else.

"Well, if someone is keeping track," Schur, in an interview with The Washington Post, recalls thinking, "that guy just lost 25 points."

Hold on. If someone was keeping track of it all -- not in the manner an organized religion would, but in a "purely mathematical, moneyball way" -- would he, Mike Schur, have gained or lost points earlier for doing a good thing for a bad reason? How many points would he gain for a purely good deed?

Thus, "The Good Place" was born.

The NBC series, the showrunner's first solo outing for the network but his fourth sitcom overall, airs its finale Thursday, capping a four-season exploration of what it means to be a good person. It's the rare show in this doom-and-gloom era to consistently find humor in its rendering of the afterlife. Viewers laugh at Eleanor Shellstrop, Kristen Bell's character who realizes a points-based system has "mistakenly" landed her in a heaven-like utopia. They might also share her desire to make up for countless moral imperfections by learning to be a more ethical person.

"When I threw that 27 cents into the Starbucks jar, my reaction was purely and simply to laugh at myself," Schur says, "It was like, 'You idiot. What are you doing, you goofball? I can't believe how dumb it is that you care that the barista sees you tip 27 cents.' "

"I think people don't like being lectured to -- I don't like being lectured to, frankly. If moral philosophy wasn't just going to be a tertiary part of the show but instead was going to be baked into the very center of it, then comedy was a much better delivery mechanism."

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