‘The Good Place’: When Will The NBC Comedy Return?

“The Good Place” fans have to wait for two months for a new episode of the NBC comedy.

According to Deadline, Season 2, episode 9 of the Michael Schur-created series is set to air on Thursday, Jan. 4 at 8:30 p.m. EST.

Plot details about the next installment are being kept under wraps, but the episode is expected to reveal why Shawn (Mark Evan Jackson) was at Michael’s (Ted Danson) office at the end of Season 2, episode 8.

Shawn and Michael last talked to each other at the end of the Season 2 premiere, in which Shawn asked Michael for an update about his second attempt to torture Eleanor (Kristen Bell), Chidi (William Jackson Harper), Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jason (Manny Jacinto). But instead of telling the truth that his second attempt also failed, Michael lied to Shawn and said that everything was going as planned.

Shawn previously told Michael that he isn’t going to have another chance in the event his second attempt didn’t work, so the ambitious afterlife architect decided not to tell his boss that he has in fact rebooted the neighborhood over 800 times already. But when Vicky (Tiya Sircar) threatened to tell Shawn what’s really happening in the neighborhood, Michael was forced to secretly team up with the humans.

In an interview with Vulture last month, Danson said that Michael’s choice to go against her fellow demons revealed that he’s not that clever despite pioneering an innovative way to torture humans. “He’s not as smart as Eleanor, for sure. Eleanor is way smarter than he is,” Danson said when asked what he learned about his character after finding out that Michael needs the help of the humans in order to survive.

Although Danson acknowledged that Michael’s change of heart could mean that “he kind of loves humans,” the actor concluded that the move is really more of saving his self. “Michael is just scrambling, he’s just trying to really save his own ass,” the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor said. “And the truth is if they don’t help him save his ass, they’re all going down. But it does have a very self-serving, manipulative smack to it.”

Aside from revealing the reason behind Shawn’s unexpected visit in the neighborhood, Season 2, episode 9 is also expected to show how Eleanor and Chidi’s dynamic changes after Eleanor revealed to Chidi that they had been sleeping together in previous versions of the neighborhood.