In season four, the main new human from the Bad Place is Brent Norwalk. He is selected as one of the human subjects in Michael’s experimental neighborhood, designed to test whether people can improve under fairer conditions.
Brent is a wealthy, entitled businessman whose confidence rests on the belief that he is inherently a good person. His behavior repeatedly challenges that belief: he is chauvinistic, insensitive, competitive, and unwilling to recognize the harm he causes. Rather than accepting the experiment’s moral lessons, he tries to reinterpret every situation so that he remains the hero of his own story.
The Bad Place uses Brent because his personality makes him a difficult test case. If someone so convinced of his own virtue can learn genuine humility and concern for others, Michael’s theory becomes much stronger. His presence also creates tension with the other test subjects, including Simone, John, and the disguised demon Chris.
Brent is sometimes confused with Linda, who is actually Chris in disguise, or John Wheaton, another human participant. The intended answer is Brent Norwalk.