adverbian

I cannot accept that the world was so broken it needed to be eliminated.

I do not believe that, when Aziraphale heartbrokenly expressed that all he wanted was Crowley, that Crowley wouldn't suggest they stay in that Garden for as long as they can -- just to give that last gift to his Angel -- before resuming this cruelly unnecessary path with God.

I reject the concept that after 6000 years of studying Aziraphale's every thought and action, S3 Crowley no longer has ANY CLUE as to who his Angel is, what he wants, how hard he's tried, and especially how much he loves and needs some peace with the person who completes him.

I find it ridiculous that, when Crowley said what he wanted, he somehow did NOT see the faint hope in Aziraphale's eyes fade and be replaced with numb despair. That he said, "DID I SAY THE WRONG THING?" with no attempt to convey how much he valued his Angel.

I think it's bizarre and insanely OOC that Aziraphale would say, "Otherwise I wouldn't need to find him, would I? AND I WOULDN'T NEED YOU." Our Angel was torn apart leaving him in the Final 15, and torn apart in losing him to God's rigidly uncaring games.

I will not accept that Crowley was so defined by his traumatic history that he accepted all this, and them disappearing into the ether, without even a delay or a struggle or a massive brainstorming session about all those damned empty pages that become a NEW BOOK OF LIFE.

I refuse to justify this ending with the idea that Crowley's life was so defined by his pain that ending his existance - AS HIMSELF - was some romantically tragic destiny.

*****

I'm trying so hard to be "Nice", and "Accurate", and reasoned, and helpful. But this was some crappy OOC despairing nihilistic Giving-Up, by the former demon whose whole arc in S1 was that he learned to NOT GIVE UP. Where was the fight that comes before the noble sacrifice?

Their story, the part of the story that was ACTUALLY THEM, ended in that diminished bookshop. It was to end as it began -- in a Garden.

This is Linda, 60

Alexis, 64

Helena, 63

Kendrah, 72 (!!)

Tasha, 65

at some point neil gaiman and terry pratchett wrote these up and they’re very good

Crowley:

Resolution #1: I must accept that Super-Gluing valuable coins to the sidewalk and then watching events from a nearby café is not proper demonic activity.

Resolution #2: The same applies to rearranging the letters on wayside pulpits.

Resolution #3: Try to come up with something as good as cell phone ringtones, following one last stab at convincing Downstairs that cell phone ringtones are right up there in the whole Human Misery stakes. And iPods. Has anybody Down There even said thank you for iPods? Or “Googling yourself?” Frankly, I deserve some kind of award for “Googling yourself.”

Resolution #4: I must encourage greedy people to use the term, “Low-hanging fruit,” because that’s just like old times.

Resolution #5: This year, I will get a desk near the window.

Resolution #6: I will try to understand why Hell is a no-smoking area. I just think it’s ridiculous having to stand around outside the gates, that’s all.

Resolution #7: On the orders of Head Office I will encourage the belief in Intelligent Design, because it upsets everyone.

Resolution #8: Stop Googling myself.

Aziraphale:

Resolution #1: Spread peace and love and glad tidings of great joy throughout the world. Also try to get out more.

Resolution #2: I will be charitable to people who use the term “core values,” however difficult this may be.

Resolution #3: Notwithstanding Resolution #2 (above), I will redouble my efforts to have the utterance of the phrase “core values” classified as a deadly sin. I believe Himself is with me on this one.

Resolution #4: I will try to be nicer to the customers. They want to buy books; I want to sell them. It can’t be that hard. (Memo to self: Regular opening hours? Mark prices on books?)

Resolution #5: I will try to be polite to Gabriel, no matter what the provocation.

Resolution #6: Find out exactly what an “Internet” is.

Resolution #7: Really must resume dancing lessons. Learn the “Galloping Major,” the “Gay Gordons,” the “Mashed Potatoes.” Possibly even the “Twist”?

Resolution #8: Thwart Infernal Wiles (ongoing).

Resolution #9: I will try to understand why Heaven is a non-smoking area.

Resolution #10: On the orders of Head Office I will encourage the belief in Intelligent Design – despite the fact that the human airway crosses the digestive tract. Who thought that was intelligent?

Resolution #11: Feed the ducks.

Love, grief, and magic in the mundane

We can’t know for sure how those of us who are having a lot of grief, anger, betrayal, and so on would have felt if “a cottage in the South Downs” had never been uttered publicly by TP or NG. But I’m guessing I would have the same feelings, although probably not as intense. The Good Omens finale still betrayed the Agreement (see what I did there) that it had made with the audience. I am in no way an expert or professional critic, but I do have quite a bit of media literacy and these are some of my Thoughts*.

Genres have specific conventions, expectations, tropes, etc. that audiences know they will see at least some of. If a tv series was giving all the signs of following a particular path, without foreshadowing (even subtly and only viewed in retrospect) that it would actually be making a sharp right turn up ahead, the audience is going to be rightfully shocked. Indeed this is wanted and expected by the writers, otherwise they would have stayed on the road most traveled.

Writers are making choices at every step of the story. And these writers decided, in this condensed final episode, to abruptly take what has been building for 12 previous episodes of a fairly lighthearted, considering the apocalyptic content, fantasy romcom** and make it neither a romcom (there’s nothing comedic about the unexpected death of everyone- especially your romantic leads) nor a fantasy (they opted to create an ostensibly supernatural-free universe). The audience was definitely flabbergasted, at a minimum. We were supposed to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient being has only two options moving forward. And that Crowley, the notably creative demon, who has been literally and figuratively burned by Heaven before, is going to both abandon all attempts to think outside of the box and trust God at her word?

Thus far we also entirely jumped over the uneven Swiss cheese that constituted the preceding hour plus of plot. Much of the stress and anguish it contained seemed unnecessary and was ultimately futile. Many of the characters seemed to be behaving inconsistently within the episode and also not as they had before. Nothing in this story prepared the audience in any way for what was coming. No previously dangling strings were tied up, even while entirely new ones were unraveled from the previous season’s story.*** And no satisfying conclusion resulted from any of this.

The writers did, however, tack onto the end a fluffy little sketch of a romcom, which almost seemed mocking in its milquetoastery. It gave us the very beginning and the very end and NONE of the substance that makes us care about the characters or their relationship. This was right after they had nuked the Characters of all time, who we were there to see! It’s as if Crowley had all of the swagger and sarcasm drained out of him along with his cherry red hair dye. Then apply that to everyone.

The camera in the pub gliding past groups of two humans that look a bit like demons and angels from a previous universe, long ago and far away, also seemed like an attempt to manufacture a feeling of closure. The extremely improbable circumstances which led to all of these lookalikes not only knowing each other but also being in the same place at the same time does seem to stretch the belief that god has not put more of a spin on things than she told Crowley.

Seeing (but not hearing or knowing) these couples felt a bit like the Great British Bake-off catching you up on what all the contestants have been doing with their lives but instead it’s just the same phrase for each person “Look- they still exist!” Actually they don’t because they were all turned into Thanos sparkle dust. These are simulacrums. Asa and Anthony are fine! But we expected our vintage of awkward nerds living a happily ever after to be a particular flavor of angel and demon, not unfamiliar human.

As much as I love Cyndi Lauper, it feels like one more Queen song might have been more appropriate for this ending- “Who Wants To Live Forever”.

*Many of these Thoughts are the same ones that a lot of us have had and shared in quite a few convos.

**If anyone thinks it’s not a romcom or that it only became one in season two, I have a whole other essay I can give about that! 😂

*** The song just kept going through my head as I was writing this, so I’m passing on the earworm 𓆙

If you got this far 😅 how would you describe the One Job the writers had? Doesn’t have to be the same job I think they had