The Judge, commonly known as Judge Gen (Gen being short for Hydrogen, the only element in existence when she was born) is the all-knowing judge found in the Neutral Zone between the Bad Place and the Good Place.
She rules on cases brought to her, such as that of Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani in Chapter 25: The Burrito. Gen's real name is only said once and she is credited as Judge, which is what everyone refers to her as.
Character[]
Gen is good-natured, but does not like to step outside of the rules of The Afterlife, which she enforces.
While she hears the cases of the four humans, she sentences them to eternity in The Bad Place, but not before playing a cheerful montage of their time together.
She also enjoys binge watching NCIS and Deadwood.
While she is later convinced by Michael to attempt an experiment in which the humans do not die, to see if they can become better people on Earth, Gen reacts to discovering that Michael had snuck back down to Earth twice by telling him that he will face retirement.
It can be assumed that she was also responsible for deciding on the case of Mindy St. Claire, which led to the creation of The Medium Place.
Season 2[]
Gen was at first startled by the unexpected appearance of the humans in her dimension after they escaped The Bad Place. She was at first conflicted about giving them a case, but she gave them a case because she was bored.
Gen gave each of the humans trials, which all of them failed except Eleanor (who lied about failing to spare the feelings of her peers.) Her Honor judged that they should go to The Bad Place, however Michael and Janet come in and inform her of the nature of their experiment. Gen then comes to an agreement with Michael and then gives him permission to only go down to Earth once and that was to save the Four Humans.
Gen also allowed Michael and Janet to stay in her realm and monitor the humans.
Season 3[]
Gen continued to allow Michael and Janet to stay, and had no idea about their antics on Earth. However, she soon found out after weird things started happening. Gen then told Michael that he couldn't monitor the humans any longer and that Michael and Janet had to return to the Bad Place.
However, at this point the stuff Janet wanted to summon on Earth appeared, giving Michael and Janet time to escape from Gen. She then calls Michael and Janet via the key to express her anger at them, and they (unsuccessfully) attempt to break the connection.
After Michael returned to the Afterlife with Janet and the humans, he set up a meeting with Gen at the IHOP, which she angrily agreed on. There he explained that Earth was more complicated, and thus the point system was unfair. Gen traveled down to Earth to determine whether this was true, and when she returned, she agreed with Michael.
She summoned Shawn, and Chidi came up with the idea to create a new Neighborhood and experiment on four new humans, an idea of which Gen approved, and set up guidelines for the experiment, stating that she would monitor the humans' progress, before departing to the Neutral Zone.
Season 4[]
After being informed of the Bad Place's attempt to sneak a demon, Chris Baker disguised as Linda into the experiment, Gen bans Shawn from interfering in the experiment any further.
The judge then decides on the fate of the experiment and rules to reboot earth. However, Gen's shortsightedness blinds her to the fact that this won't do anything useful; since humanity will just get back to this point again, where the Point System will remain lopsided.
After Bad Janet arrives, along with the other Janets, Gen begins to marbelize them as she is looking for the Humanity Eraser Thingy device. Good Janet tries to convince the judge to maintain Earth. Knowing that Gen is a fan of Justified, the team tricks her into listening to their plan by having Janet conjure Timothy Olyphant (played by himself) inside her void. Gen only agreed to the plan once Shawn eventually got on board.
After the Joint Afterlife Committee is running smoothly, Gen agrees with Eleanor's request to turn Michael into a human; after being told it would allow her peace from all of them.
Powers & Abilities[]
Gen is an extremely powerful immortal being who serves as the highest authority in the Afterlife.
- Immortality: Gen, like all eternal beings, is immortal.
- Dimension Manipulation: Gen was shown to be able to modify her neutral dimension to her will in order to create the trials and even changing Eleanor, Jason, Tahani, and Chidi's outfits. It is also a possibility that she is not limited to manipulating only the Neutral Zone. She is also seen to make a picture with a frame appear after looking at a slideshow with said picture with the four humans
- Telekinesis: Gen was seen using telekinesis to throw Trevor, and Janet's objects into the void.
- Judgement: Gen has the unique ability to judge people's fates and where they will reside in the afterlife. This was seen how she could open portals to the Good Place and the Bad place.
- Power Granting: Gen was able to grant Janet the ability to turn Michael human.
- Humanity Wiper: Gen is able to erase all life on Earth thanks to the human eraser thingy.
Gen's abilities are limited in the IHOP, being only able to manipulate dimensional matter on the same scale as other Immortal Beings.
Trivia[]
- It is stated in the Podcast that Mike Schur originally knew that the Judge was going to be played by a woman, which is why he chose Shawn to pretend to be the Judge in Michael's experiment.
- Gen hates the IHOP.
- She has been shown to have a presumably romantic attraction to Chidi and actors Timothy Olyphant & Mark Harmon. It is also mentioned that she usually has attractions to the father figures in the TV shows that she watches.
- According to Judge Gen herself, she was unaware that she was considered ‘black’ amongst the humans.