Space Cadet

I know we only had 1 episode and whole plotlines were scrapped but I was just left feeling so empty after the finale given how powerful and moving and profound the themes of season 1/the book were. So buckle up for a long ride let's talk about it

Theme 1: Human Incarnate

The book and the show established that humanity is unique because it is neither purely good or purely bad. From the book: "Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people." This Aziraphale describes as "much better" than either Heaven or Hell

This is one of my favorite sequences in the whole show. And the music is soaring and gorgeous (but was never released in the official soundtrack, unfortunately, but I digress). Adam recalls the things in his life he has come to know and love; his parents, his friends, his dog, his home. He makes it have nice weather all year. Aziraphale could feel that love at the Tadfield Manor. Heaven and Hell tried to create an instrument of destruction. But by putting that inside a human boy, they didn't realize the strength of that boy's love would be strong enough to literally burn the hell out of him. He told Satan himself to shove it and rewrote reality to have the dad he truly loved. The power of humanity's love is stronger than any immortal power could ever be.

This is the idea that would have been so cool for the finale but unfortunately never paid off. As the second coming prepares to destroy Earth again, Aziraphale and Crowley could have teamed up with the power of humanity to reshape heaven and hell for good. Adam and Jesus as the Antichrist and Christ born to end the world and instead used their humanity to save it. Instead we got the book-of-life arc and humans were literally left to dust

Theme 2: Free Will

Good omens establishes that angels and demons are just puppets but humans are the ones with real free will because they have the ability to be good or bad. Even with heaven and hell, the humans on Earth always have a choice. Aziraphale even describes free will as the defining characteristic of humanity, as the crucial element that angels should exist to protect. In seasons 1+2, they agree on this, but Crowley's main grievance is the inequity of it all. Humans have free will but it still isn't fair.

God made angels and demons and humans but the humans never had to follow her 'plan.' Free will and the ability to recognize what is truly right outside the propaganda of good vs evil is what saves the world.

Humans always had free will, even if God was around to kill a bunch of them with floods or take their stuff to win bets or something. Creating a new universe without God wouldn't change that. They would still have free will, just less threats from above/below, I guess. Crowley just kind of assumes that without a God, humans will somehow have more free will than they do now, and that will somehow solve all of the problems they’ve encountered in humanity?? What Crowley's established character really should have wanted here was to fix the inequity inherent in human society. That's what is truly holding them back, not a lack of will. Removing God from the universe doesn't actually solve the root problem.

Theme 3: Our Own Side

This is something Crowley learned very early and spends the whole show trying to teach Aziraphale. That good must be separated from heaven and bad must be separated from hell.

Heaven can do some truly appalling horrors and demons, at least Crowley (and somewhat Beelzebub I guess) have the potential to be kind. 'Their own side' is one where they have the freedom of humanity, to do what is objectively right. Not of heaven or hell, but true morality. Aziraphale and Crowley sort of found their way there in the finale, but it was all rushed and Aziraphale never really turned his back on heaven, it sort of just became irrelevant when everything started disappearing. What a beautiful world they could have created together, not one of good or evil, but one that--for all its flaws--is kind.

Theme 4: Love Conquers All

What was it all for? Love. God implies Aziraphale and Crowley were made for each other because she liked to smile at the silliness of their love. The literal only constant in the entire universe. Their love for the world and each other saved it. I think the decision to turn Aziraphale and Crowley's queer love story into a tragedy was the biggest mistake of seasons 2/3. Forcing the soft and romantic comedy of good omens into a queer tragedy was the moment it all crashed and burned. Now everything is tainted leading up to the pain and destruction of it all and the whimsy and lightness is gone. There were moments of it, but it was all leading toward the end. And queer love deserves to not be a tragedy. We have far too much tragic queer love in our society. Yes we got the south downs, but Aziraphale and Crowley never got to experience that freedom. They finally came together just to instantly be destroyed. We deserve happy and fulfilling queer love that is sweet without the bitter parts. Good omens was intended to be a comedy, not a tragedy

And then this was SUCH A COOL IDEA they introduced. Perhaps the first time ever an angel and a demon performed a miracle together. The power of their love could create magic stronger than anything heaven or hell had ever seen. I was so excited to see the wonders they were going to create, they ways in which they could have rebuilt the world better using that love. If they had this kind of power doing a tiny miracle, what could they have accomplished if they really put their minds to it??? God herself couldn't have stopped them. And instead, the finale literally revoked Crowley's miracles for the entire episode. They sacrifice themselves for a new earth and people that didn’t even exist yet instead of using any of their power to change it. The god awful execution of this theme is probably the biggest letdown of the entire finale imo

Theme 5: Fix It, Don't Replace It

This is so obviously established in seasons 1/2 I cannot believe how badly they missed the mark with this one

Literally shows us the horror of replacing the Earth with all new people. Even children can recognize that just because something is broken, it doesn't mean you throw it away and start over. They loved the world enough to want to save it. The world is inherently worth saving, flaws and all. If you love something, you don't abandon it. The ENTIRE PLOT of season 1 explores the horrors of humanity and yet humans, Aziraphale and Crowley do everything in their power to save it.

It absolutely blows my mind how directly this scene contradicts the entire message of the finale. Job didn't want new children, he quite liked the old ones. Aziraphale and Crowley didn't want the antichrist's new Earth, they quite liked the old one. We didn't want new human versions of Aziraphale and Crowley, we QUITE LIKED THE OLD ONES. Where the hell did that mentality go when they told God to create an entirely new universe?????????? Season 1 said the world is flawed but it deserves saving exactly as it is. Season 1 said an angel and a demon go off to the ritz together, exactly as they are. The finale said the world is too broken, we have to make it disappear and start over. The finale said Aziraphale and Crowley have too many issues/traumas to be happy, we have to destroy them and start over. That's why as cute as Asa and Anthony's love is, we quite liked them exactly as they were, angel/demon trauma + history and all. They deserved saving too.

At the end of everything they’re giving up, we are simply left with asking: What is the "real world" the finale is trying to make us value? One without a god to screw things up sometimes??? All we see of this new world is Asa and Anthony finding each other. There's no evidence to show that humans are doing any better, there's any less pain or suffering, that humans have any more opportunities or free will than before. They seem to imply it's the exact same world, just without God or angels or demons. Then what was the actual point of destroying the original one??? If the real problem was God, they should've just destroyed God and left the world alone. I guess they didn't have enough time to really explore it. But they're hinging everything on the new universe being better but then do next to nothing to support that idea.

Adding to this because I'm so frustrated with how GO3 ended and disregarded everything IMO.

Adding onto the themes that were disposed of completely in the finale, and the many plot holes or side plots that didn't go anywhere and had no real purpose to the plot. At first I thought the mafia man who stole Crowley's car was going to die of a heart attack, become a demon and be the new big bad they faced. But nothing really happened with that except Aziraphale telling his daughter that she can 'love her dad, and not have to be like him'.  (Paraphrasing)  The only purpose I can see for that line is Az realizing he can love God and not be what God (and heaven) expects him to be. He can be his own person and still be 'good'.  But again, nothing came out of that.

I get Aziraphale winning the Bentley back was a form of reconciliation between them, but they could have put the Bentley in danger another way that made sense to the plot. (Or another way for them to reconcile.)

I could have accepted that they sacrificed themselves for humanity IF they didn't ask God to help them. We've established that they were powerful enough together to perform a 25 Lazarus level Miracle. This could have been used as the final FU to the ineffable plan. God could have come and told them all that she did and crowley could have stopped time, discussed it with Aziraphale, then used their combined powers to create the new universe they dreamed of.  In doing this, their love for each other and humanity would influence that world for the better.

(A little fan theory I've been thinking about is because they Miracled up a new universe with their love, it would have been so rewarding and satisfying to see them meet up in every lifetime, echoing the many times we see them meet in their original timeline. (Eg as knights, Shakespeare's time, in Germany, Edinburgh, the bookshop, etc) Upon first meeting, everytime, instantly falling in love and kind of recognizing each other in a 'have we met before...?' way as a nod to them being soul mates and an incarnation of their love that they used to make this universe. )

It bothered me that they didn't use the continuous theme of fixing it, instead they chose starting new, eliminating the 'problem'. 

I really had hoped they'd use Jesus more. It made sense for Jesus to come to earth and be taught by humanity to say FU to heaven's plan. And kind of poetic to have him meet and/or team up with Adam who is human incarnate and the anti christ to save the world and humanity.

Text: Aivelin Illustration: a-ida

The series finale of Good Omens dropped this Wednesday, leaving the fandom shaken and in absolute distress. The audience reaction was immediate, driving the Rotten Tomatoes score for Season 3 down to a disappointing 36%. The online debate grew so heated and overwhelmed with grief that numerous fan accounts faced 24-hour social media bans for their highly emotional confessions.

Viewers are highly divided. While a fraction accepts the heavy ending as a necessary evil, the overwhelming sentiment across platforms is utter bewilderment and heartbreak: "These characters do not feel like the ones we grew to love in previous seasons!"

This raises painful, critical questions: Is this sudden shift in characterization a narrative misstep? Is the tragic, suicidal ending a harsh subversion of the original book, which famously promised a comforting happily ever after?

To find the answer, one must look closely at who held the creative reins for the scripts of Seasons 2 and 3. By analyzing the writing credits, clear and undeniable patterns emerge, linking these distressing plot choices directly to Neil Gaiman’s broader, often dark and subversive, body of work.

The Solitary Vision and the Realigned Mold

While the first season captured the shared spirit of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 novel, the subsequent seasons belong to Gaiman’s solitary vision. When viewed alongside his wider world of storytelling, such as The Sandman, American Gods, and Stardust, the tragic fractures in Aziraphale and Crowley’s bond lose their surprise. Gaiman’s worlds are populated by immortal beings who are deeply fractured at best and cruel at worst. In these narratives, it is almost a rule that celestial entities will take advantage of the hearts that love them, turning devotion into a tool before abandoning those souls to a devastating fate.

Crucially, Gaiman always veils this emotional cruelty behind high-minded dilemmas. The act of abandonment is never framed as simple coldness; instead, it is masked as a profound moral crisis ("We cannot be together because I am a god and you are human"), a sacrifice of monumental importance ("I must leave our future to save my kingdom"), or an unyielding divine necessity. Even when Gaiman’s romances lack outward malice, they are consistently denied peace. In Stardust, the mortal husband passes away, leaving his immortal, celestial wife to endure eternity in silent, isolated grief. By transforming Aziraphale into a colder, more emotionally distant figure who abruptly leaves Crowley for a heavenly promotion, Gaiman is merely reshaping Good Omens to fit his favorite creative blueprint.

Deeply Pessimistic Parallels

Ultimately, the ending of Good Omens Season 3 and the conclusion of The Sandman reveal deeply pessimistic parallels. The Sandman closes with its protagonist suffering the consequences of his own rigid nature, forced by higher powers into self-destruction so that his kingdom might survive. In the wake of this death, the universe offers a surrogate replacement - a new entity stripped of the original’s memories, whom the remaining characters are forced to accept despite their lingering grief. 

Aziraphale’s sudden, illogical decision to leap at Heaven’s offer mirrors this exact brand of narrative cruelty. Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley deserved to have their hard-won autonomy stripped away for the sake of a grandiose self-sacrifice. 

A Profound Departure from Terry Pratchett

This shift represents a profound departure from the late Terry Pratchett’s fundamental worldview. Pratchett harbored a deep-seated aversion to suicide tropes and grand, sacrificial violence in fiction. His works respected the dignity of both life and death. In his narrative, the Apocalypse is defeated not through self-sacrifice or bloodshed, but by the quiet resilience and stubborn pragmatism of ordinary people. The first season beautifully honored this philosophy, as the Antichrist and a group of children stopped the Apocalypse through sheer, down-to-earth humanity.

The subsequent seasons discard this logic entirely, altering the very cosmology of the universe. In Season 1, God was an infallible, detached observer whose ineffable plan quietly empowered the right people at the right moment to prevent ruin. By Season 3, God is reframed as a petulant, semi-malicious entity capable of erasing existence on a whim.

Furthermore, while Pratchett and Gaiman likely brainstormed the concepts of the South Downs cottage and the conflict between Heaven, Hell and Earth together, Pratchett would never have designed an intentionally suicidal and destructive endgame. In his philosophy, survival is achieved through an attachment to mundane, earthly joys. In the first season, Crowley is saved from hellfire by his love for his car and his human-like imagination, while Aziraphale survives because of his eccentric, earthly devotion to collecting rare books.

Conclusion: Fanfiction or Harsh Reality

A true thematic continuation of both authors' visions would look radically different. It would find Aziraphale and Crowley left alone in a quiet bookshop for eternity, weaving their magical memories and shared love for humanity together to rewrite every lost book back into a brand-new universe. If that choice ultimately stripped them of their divinity and left them mortal, it would be a logical, bittersweet happily-ever-after within the sanctuary of a beautiful, earthly garden.

And they really thought they ate with this ending like it’s so crazy…

He's God, isn't he? Part of the "triune godhead." Then we could have gotten a completely different version of the scene in the bookshop, one where Jesus defends the world he knows and the people he's met and the things he learned (in his short time back on Earth) about love and generosity and helping people become better people. 

Maybe Aziraphale and Crowley ask him to create a world without angels and demons. Maybe he says, but aren't they people too? Can't they learn about love, and generosity, and helping people become better people? Of course they can. Look at the two of you.

And we could have gotten a beautiful mirror to the end of Season 1, where Christ does the same exact thing as the Antichrist, where he doesn't destroy the world but puts it back just the way it was. Even slightly better. 

I know we only had 1 episode and whole plotlines were scrapped but I was just left feeling so empty after the finale given how powerful and moving and profound the themes of season 1/the book were. So buckle up for a long ride let's talk about it

Theme 1: Human Incarnate

The book and the show established that humanity is unique because it is neither purely good or purely bad. From the book: "Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people." This Aziraphale describes as "much better" than either Heaven or Hell

This is one of my favorite sequences in the whole show. And the music is soaring and gorgeous. Adam recalls the things in his life he has come to know and love; his parents, his friends, his dog, his home. He makes it have nice weather all year. Aziraphale could feel that love at the Tadfield Manor. Heaven and Hell tried to create an instrument of destruction. But by putting that inside a human boy, they didn't realize the strength of one boy's love would be strong enough to literally burn the hell out of him. He told Satan himself to shove it and rewrote reality to have the dad he truly loved. The power of humanity's love is stronger than any immortal power could ever be.

This is the idea that would have been so cool for the finale but unfortunately never paid off. As the second coming prepares to destroy Earth again, Aziraphale and Crowley could have teamed up with the power of humanity to reshape heaven and hell for good. Adam and Jesus as the antichrist and christ born to end the world and instead used their humanity to save it. Instead we got the book-of-life arc and humans were literally left to dust

Theme 2: Free Will

Next good omens establishes that angels and demons are just puppets but humans are the ones with real free will because they have the ability to be good or bad. Even with heaven and hell, the humans on Earth always have a choice. In season 2, they agree on this, but Crowley's main grievance is the inequity of it all. Humans have free will but it still isn't fair.

God made angels and demons and humans but the humans never had to follow her 'plan.' Free will and the ability to recognize what is truly right outside the propaganda of good vs evil is what saves the world.

Humans always had free will, even if God was around to kill a bunch of them with floods or take their stuff to win bets or something. Creating a new universe without God wouldn't change that. They would still have free will, just less threats from above/below, I guess. What Crowley's established character really should have wanted here was to fix the inequity inherent in human society. That's what is truly holding them back, not a lack of will. Removing God from the universe doesn't actually solve the root problem here

Theme 3: Our Own Side

This is something Crowley learned very early and spends the whole show trying to teach Aziraphale. That good must be separated from heaven and bad must be separated from hell.

Heaven can do some truly appalling horrors and demons, at least Crowley (and somewhat Beelzebub I guess) have the potential to be kind. 'Their own side' is one where they have the freedom of humanity, to do what is truly right. Aziraphale and Crowley sort of found their way there in the finale, but it was all rushed and Aziraphale never really turned his back on heaven, it sort of just became irrelevant when everything started disappearing. What a beautifully flawed and nice world they could have created together

Theme 4: Love Conquers all

What was it all for? Love. God made Aziraphale and Crowley for each other because she liked to smile at the silliness of their love. The literal only constant in the entire universe. Their love for the world and each other saved it. I think the decision to turn Aziraphale and Crowley's queer love story into a tragedy was the biggest mistake of seasons 2/3. Forcing the soft and romantic comedy of good omens into a queer tragedy was the instant it all crashed and burned. Now everything is tainted leading up to the pain and destruction of it all and the whimsy and lightness is gone. There were moments of it, but it was all leading toward the end. And queer love deserves to not be a tragedy. We have far too much tragic queer love in our society. Yes we got the south downs, but Aziraphale and Crowley never got to experience that freedom. They finally came together just to instantly be destroyed. We deserve happy and fulfilling queer love that is sweet without the bitter parts. Good omens was intended to be a comedy, not a tragedy

And then this was SUCH A COOL IDEA they introduced. Perhaps the first time ever an angel and a demon performed a miracle together. The power of their love could create magic stronger than anything heaven or hell had ever seen. I was so excited to see the wonders they were going to create, they ways in which they could have rebuilt the world better using that love. If they had this kind of power doing a tiny miracle, what could they have accomplished if they really put their minds to it? God herself couldn't have stopped them. And instead, the finale literally revoked Crowley's magic for the entire episode. They sacrifice themselves for a new earth and people that didn’t even exist yet instead of using any of their power to change it. The god awful execution of this theme is probably the biggest letdown of the entire finale imo

Theme 5: Fix It, Don't Replace It

This is so obviously established in seasons 1/2 I cannot believe how badly they missed the mark with this one

Literally shows us the horror of replacing the Earth with all new people. Even children can recognize that just because something is broken, it doesn't mean you throw it away and start all over. They loved the world enough to want to save it. The world is inherently worth saving, flaws and all. If you love something, you don't abandon it. The ENTIRE PLOT of season 1 explores the horrors of humanity and yet humans, Aziraphale and Crowley do everything in their power to save it.

It absolutely blows my mind how directly this scene contradicts the entire message of the finale. Job didn't want new children, he quite liked the old ones. Aziraphale and Crowley didn't want the antichrist's new Earth, they quite liked the old one. We didn't want new human versions of Aziraphale and Crowley, we QUITE LIKED THE OLD ONES. Where the hell did that mentality go when they told God to create an entirely new universe????????????? Season 1 said the world is flawed but it deserves saving exactly as it is. Season 1 said an angel and a demon go off to the ritz together, exactly as they are. The finale said the world is too broken, we have to make it disappear and start over. The finale said Aziraphale and Crowley have too many issues/traumas to be happy, we have to destroy them and start over. That's why as cute as Asa and Anthony's love is, we quite liked them exactly as they were, angel/demon trauma + history and all. They deserved saving too.

Please excuse the text and let me be cringe, that ending fucked me up so bad I’ll be recovering longer than from OFMD Izzy’s death

Plus a little extra:

like/reblog if you save/use it please

We first stumbled across the signal by chance. A mistake at the scanner board caused the sensors to pick up a very faint, exceedingly archaic signal that the operator only noted because of the extreme quiet and boredom of our stellar mapping run. Entirely on a whim, they logged the signal and spent a moment honing the receiver for a diversion, thinking that it was some hobbyist’s tinkering or a museum demonstration of ancient technology.

The moment the radiation interference cleared, they realized it was in no language they had heard before, and a search against the database of all known modes of communication in the Alliance turned up no matches.

A new species! A new language! Such had not been discovered in two generations of High Guardians of the Alliance! Every linguistics devision of the Alliance raced to decipher anything of this looping message, eager to be the first to know what it said, to begin to peel back the shroud of mystery into this new species no one had ever heard before! Every scientific exploration ship tuned scanners and every starmap toward every uncharted sector, racing to find the origin of this message. Every ship wanted to be the first to make contact with a new species after a two-generation span since the latest induction to the database.

Then, after three more High Guardians came and went, and no source for this signal was found, suddenly it stopped. Ship sensors and exploration into uncharted space had finally begun to narrow down a direction that rendered the signal more strong, and the termination after so long of searching and listening to what the linguists were certain was a hopeful call from a species that thought itself alone… to all involved in the search, it seemed like a portent of doom. That something terrible had happened to this species that called out for so long.

The search doubled. Planets that had not sent ships to the search, equipped and sent their fastest vessels to assist. Nearly as one, the Alliance followed every update compiled by the united search fleet. It became the fastest-moving charting arm of the unknown reaches since the first hundred High Guardian cycles.

Every crew member feared finding a planet recently devastated by some disaster, with echos of that same kind of transmission reverberating in the system. Too late to say greetings back to them. Too late to tell them they were not alone.

And then, seven High Guardian’s after the last transmission was heard, a new spiral galaxy was breached, half of its massive sprawl of stars investigated and marked off as void of life, and then one little ship moved to the outermost reach of a little yellow dwarf system, and caught the faintest echo of that ancient, oh so ancient kind of signal caught in the radiation belts.

Every being on that ship held their breath as their ship shot past planet after planet, scanning, scanning, no life signs, no life signs, no life signs… over and over.

As the message spread through the fleet, every ship turned its heading and all power towards this little system.

Live updates shot back to Alliance High Central.

Every reporting outlet turned toward this story and every update.

Six planets, no life signs.

And then, the seventh set of readings came back: so much life! So many technology signals! And the species! The species had so many languages over so many channels!

Across galaxies, celebrations erupted even before first contact, even before the first ship crossed the asteroid belt between the gas giant and the tiny planet before the living one!

Once the asteroid belt gave way to open space again, the research ship gained a new wealth of readings! The species had satellites, they had things all over their own orbit! Their little blue planet was so alive and loud and spinning away around their star with their little moon whirling around!

And then… then every linguist’s jealous dream was realized through the enthusiastic fingers of one communication expert that optimized their ancient set of equipment to send a message in that sound they had received the most of over that frequency in what they hoped approximated a message of good will.

And waited.

Their ship drew closer.

And they waited.

And the little planet’s signals began quieting.

And they drew closer.

And they waited.

And the signals from the planet grew fewer. And fewer.

And their ship drew closer.

And they waited.

The signals from the planet seemed to have quieted by half, and then it seemed that rudimentary scanners reached outward, toward the exploratory ship creeping closer to the blue, blue planet.

And then, a communication signal on that so, so ancient bandwidth reached back out.

The linguist raced their own respirations to translate as much as they could from the tiny, skeleton-sparse reference every comm specialist had memorized in the fleet.

With shaky confidence, they pieced together what seemed to be a request for identification, and a question of motive.

The whole ship erupted in cheers!

The linguist scrambled to form a response approximating the ship’s identification and greeting.

Communication sent.

More waiting.

Then, a steady transmission seemed to open up from the planet, and the comms officer tuned it into their equipment. It was voiced! A voice calling out, in so many new words they had never logged, live over the signal, and the linguist called back in the words they hoped were best, “Hello! What are you called?”

In answer they heard over the scratchy transmission, “We are Humanity, this is Earth.”

The comms officer could not mute the signal quickly enough before the whole station erupted in an excited roar that only lasted until the linguist cursed them all to silence again! The Humans were transmitting again!

“-you read? Do you come in peace?” That little voice asked.

“We come in peace on behalf of the Alliance of Systems. We received your transmissions, and searched for you for eleven generations of High Guardians. Apologies on behalf of the Alliance for taking so long to reach your system. We feared the worst when the transmissions ended.”

Static overtook the open signal for too many respirations.

“You looked for us on purpose?” It did not take a linguistic genius to hear the hesitation over the sound waves.

“We raced to find you. We wanted to return your greetings.”

“I…” a pause. “You said you come in peace?” The voice sounded softer in comparison to what had obviously been a more stressed tone, now that they had heard the difference.

“We come in peace.” The linguist said again, very visibly rocking in their seat in suspense.