'The Good Place' preview: Round 2 for Kristen Bell and Ted Danson

Mandi Bierly

Kristen Bell may very well earn her wings in real life for dining and racing wheelchairs with senior citizens while hunkering down in Orlando for Hurricane Irma, but on NBC’s The Good Place, her character, Eleanor, is still due for an afterlife of eternal torture.

As Bell reminds fans in the exclusive preview above, Season 2 of the comedy, which returns Sept. 20, is almost an entirely new story now that the audience knows “the Good Place” to which Eleanor believes she has been falsely admitted is actually a “Bad Place” designed by demon Michael (Ted Danson). After stripping the memories of Eleanor and her fellow damned — Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Jason (Manny Jacinto), and Tahani (Jameela Jamil) — Michael has rebooted the neighborhood.

“We thought to ourselves, ‘Let’s treat [Michael] like an indie film director who’s trying to make his masterpiece movie with a very limited budget and an unwilling crew,’” creator Mike Schur told us in our fall preview. “He’s scrambling to try to keep his crazy experiment afloat, so you’re seeing the chaos that’s happening behind the scenes, which is really fun.”

The Good Place has a special one-hour premiere Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 10 p.m. on NBC, following The Voice, before settling into its regular time slot, Thursdays at 8:30 p.m., starting Sept. 28.