They are all actors and actresses. All stakes, sex, rape, violence, and deaths are fake. Also, the writers can always pull some deus ex machina to bring anyone back from death or bring them back as robots in WW, or reset/reboot them in TGP/TBP. It is impossible to suspend my disbelief when watching these shows but…

Personally I would not trust anything that Michael says or any of the flashbacks for that matter. Maybe he faked all their past memories and just likes to torture people for their entertainment, regardless of whether they have been good or bad. Maybe there is no such thing as "the good place", only bad places.

They could of reduce the animation budget for all the episodes instead of just one episode after the news of the budget cut, whilst improving better story script to compensate. Plus have longer opening/recap/ending themes for every episode (personally I really like their opening and ending animation/music themes and…