Season 3 Vs. The Rest of Good Omens
I originally typed most of this out as a reblog to somone else's post, but in the interest of not going too off topic, I decided to separate it into a big ol' spiel of its own.
One of my own more complex opinions in regards to the ending of the finale is that it COULD have worked.
In a different story, with a different set up.
There are a lot of optimistic fans who will theorize and headcanon and explain over and over again why the ending "makes sense" and is a "bittersweet" but happy one. But every argument I've heard in that regard only "makes sense" if you narrow down the show to ONLY the third season and the direction the showrunners took it in.
It's because so much of S3 it directly contradicted the rest of the show that myself and many others didn't just dislike it, but felt betrayed by it. And while I am not, and never will be, the type of person to express their distaste for something directly to a series' creators and writers, it really does feel like the people who took over for S3 chose to pay very little mind to the sorce material and previous seasons.
• For example, the turn of having god act as a direct antagonist, insisting things must end, instead of them continuing to be the absent, ambivalent force they were in the book and S1 and 2.
• Another issue I've brough up many times already: The issue of free will having never really existed was entirely invented in S3 as well, seemingly only to somewhat justify the drastic measures of having to scrap everything and start over.
Because up until S3, free will was one of the major themes of GO. Not the questioning of its legitimacy, but the constant reinforcement that everyone has it and can make their own decisions.
Adam chooses not to be the antichist, despite everyone telling him he has no choice in the great plan. Aziraphale and Crowley find loopholes and choose to try to avert armageddon, all while denying their own free will and taking the long way around to get anything done. Gabriel, Beelzebub and the Metatron insist upon armageddon under the excuse of having to follow the great plan, all while abusing their free will in choosing to do so. Anathema burns the second book of prophecies, choosing to live her own life and break the cycle her family had been stuck in.
The book insists upon free will, and S2 even goes out of its way to show us another example (besides Azi and Crow) of angels and demons indeed having free will of their own despite always denying it, when Gabriel and Beez run off together.
Thematically and literally, free will has always been a very real driving force in the GO universe, but S3 chose to retcon that.
• Then, another one of the biggest contradiction: The message of S2E2 with Job's children. The show spells out for us how, when it comes to people, replacing them, even in abundance will never make up for the loss of them in the first place. It's a sorry and down right insulting excuse for a reward and a happy conclusion.
• Not to mention in S1, when the exact same scenario of the world being too corrupt and just needing to start over is being discussed by Adam and The Them, the moral the story chooses to enforces is literally "That's a reason to fix it, not destroy it!"
Looking back at all of that, the ending they gave us, while technically "bittersweet", was bittersweet in same way that adding motor oil to an affogato instead of espresso would make it "bittersweet." There are recipes where bitterness plays a valuable part, but it won't be enjoyable or even make sense if you're going to use ingredients that have no place in that particular kitchen.
Almost all of the foils, themes, issues and sacrifices that were introduced in S3 could have worked in another story, with a different sorce material, with a different message and build up. Good Omens was a comedy. A sweet, deep, somewhat hearbreaking comedy. But an optimistic one. With a satirical take on heaven and hell, and always a loophole to jump through to find a way out of a bad situation
The sacrifice Aziraphale and Crowley were forced into at the end was on account of them being put into a uncharacteristically hopeless situation, under uncharacteristically hopeless circumstances, in a story had had always been and was supposed to be inherently hopeful!
So the bleakness of those last 20 minutes instead felt jarringly uncanny
Motor oil works excellently in cars. Couldn't get around without it! But it's not so great in a coffee... In other words, nihilism and seemingly unavoidable "noble" self destruction have no place in a story that had always been about hope and finding another way.
Even as a "metaphor for dismantling institution" it doesn't hit at all. At least not in theme with the message that came before it. And I only bring that interpretion of it up because I've had that point barked at me plently of times now.
S1, S2 and the book told us: Despite being born into/as a part of an abusive sytem (Adam, Aziraphale, Crowley) you can make a very real change by refusing to participate in it. And even without the power to rebuild it completely, you can still carve out a life for yourself independent of it and make your own side.
But S3 said: At the end of the day, there is no escaping the institutions you were born under. There are no changes you can make that will last, no choice you can make that is really your own, and no real freedom from it for yourself or others in your lifetime. BUT! If you're willing to sacrifice everything, you can make things better for the people that will come -after-.
(And if I had been looking to engage with a story that enforced the latter, I wouldn't have been watching Good Omens.)
It could be argued that, assuming this was indeed always the way the story was intened to end (though I don't believe that, personally), that with a full 6 epsiodes, the writers could have gradually worked the story of S3 to more convincingly justify the same outcome, with the same sacrifice from Aziraphale and Crowley and the same end and rebirth for humanity.
But even then, if that had been the case, and it had been handled better, I'm still not convinced that the core message of S3 could have ever aligned with Good Omens as a whole.
When it comes to the heart of Good Omens, the story that we've all loved for so long, that ending, when placed alongside the book and first two seasons feels very much like (and is almost objectively) a bleak, tone-deaf disregard of what came before it.
Some bitter part of me just wants to see those contradictions acknowledged. You can like the finale, you can love it! But isn't it odd? The weird shift from everything we'd been show already? It feels dishonest to embrace it as anything but a turn from the previous morals of the series.
(Also, side note: People love to echo "But it was their choice! Aziraphale and Crowley chose this! They got exactly what they wanted!" As if fictional characters have a choice. If the writers chose to write Aziraphale and Crowley into bland hetero relationships apart from eachother, would you look at that writing direction and go "Aww, but at least they got to choose it for themselves UwU", or would you be mad that the writers made a terrible writing decision for the characters they'd been entrusted with?
Even on a non-meta level, operating WITHIN the rules of S3, either:
Free will had indeed never been real, in order to somehat justify starting over, BUT that in turn means that Aziraphale and Crowley did not make their sacrifice of their own free will and the ending was just another hollow extention of the almighty's game.
OR
Free will HAS always existed in the GO universe, so the decision NOT to rebuild and reform the world they'd both come to love and instead let it be scrapped and started over, was a poorly thought out and and cruel one.)
