Extremely Alcoholic Breakfast

I keep thinking about how Aziraphale, when Crowley did not immediately leap to his feet to help him, just turned around and walked away.

He didn’t try to help him up. He didn’t crouch down to his level. He didn’t even look remotely pressed, and he left Crowley lying there, depressed and dirty and drunk and barely conscious, like he was a piece of trash. Like he meant nothing. (I also haaaaate what they did with Crowley here, but that’s another post entirely)

To think they made Aziraphale into the villain so many people thought he was post s2, and for what? To what end? For what reason? It feels so unnecessarily cruel. So callous. So very much not Aziraphale.

“But Crowley told him to go away! Aziraphale was just respecting his boundaries!”

Nah. No. I mean maybe if Crowley was just chilling having a drink somewhere all upright and not covered in shit and mired in despair, then fine. But he’s lying on the fucking street in the alley muttering that nothing matters anymore. I would argue that when someone you care about is THAT depressed and THAT deep in a dark, dark place, that is precisely the time to ignore their attempt to shove you away. At the very least you reach out to them, anyway.

Was that angel the same as this one? This soft but fiercely tenderhearted sweetheart?

Are we supposed to believe this was that same angel we watched walk away from the same demon he guided through that Edinburgh cemetery with firm but careful hands before he was snatched down to Hell?

Out of all the possible things that could’ve happened in the finale— of all the possible endings and scenarios I thought about for months and months— one thing I never even considered to be remotely possible about this angel who always looked at Crowley like he was everything?

I never thought that Aziraphale wouldn’t help Crowley up off the ground.

And apparently, neither did Peter Anderson Studio.

... Meaning, I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman did it ON PURPOSE, knowing how much it would upset the fans.

Neil knew how badly we wanted Aziraphale and Crowley (OUR version of Aziraphale and Crowley---the specific version of them we met in Season 1) to be together. He knew we wanted to see them resolve their issues and ultimately choose to be with each other in the end.

Instead, Aziraphale and Crowley forgo that emotional journey in favor of unnecessary pain. Neither of them experience real character growth in the finale; they are shown to be the worst and unhappiest versions of themselves, without getting a real shot at redemption. They never fix their communication issues. They don't express their true, authentic feelings for one another (don't @ me with that bullshit hand kiss thing). They never manage to get on the same page emotionally---even when they both agree to commit suicide (which I'm pretty sure was not the "one thing" Aziraphale wanted).

"Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?"

EMOTIONAL WITHHOLDING is a common abuse tactic utilized by men like Neil. They enjoy creating ATTACHMENT in their victims and then "TAKING IT AWAY".

It's easy to see how much Neil enjoyed frustrating his fans in retrospect. He actively taunted us on social media with the catchphrase "WAIT AND SEE" and threatened to make Aziraphale and Crowley kiss---but in a way we "wouldn't like". He loved dangling the implied promise of a happy ending over our heads, which we now know he never planned to deliver on.

Neil was unkind to his audience. He was also unkind to his characters. Aziraphale and Crowley are treated as punching bags throughout the entire series---shown to be "messy" for the sake of entertainment, but not as a real obstacle for either of them to overcome. The God character herself says she enjoys seeing how much Aziraphale values his relationship with Crowley. This turns out to be her justification for "taking it away". (Tell me THAT isn't some fucked up shit.) Aziraphale and Crowley experience real emotional pain as the result of her actions. And this is consistently demonstrated by the incredible acting skills of Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

Neil explicitly sold this as "a love story" when he created the show. Based on the tone of the book, an eventual union between Aziraphale and Crowley would have made the most narrative sense. It would have emphasized the overarching themes of love, agency, and the futility of "choosing sides". But that would have required Neil to possess the same ethos as Terry Pratchett---meaning LOVE AND RESPECT FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS.

We were never going to get a good love story out of Neil. Men like Neil get off on "PUNISHING" people for no apparent reason, or just going out of their way to make them uncomfortable. He obviously did that with our beloved characters. Regardless, we still manage to ascribe deeper meaning to Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to the phenomenal acting team and the dedication of this fandom. Aziraphale and Crowley remain the greatest love story of all time, not because of anything Neil actually wrote, but because of everything that was projected onto them by the people who cared. We assigned their relationship a depth "Neil himself" never could have imagined---one that exemplifies our maximalist ideals of love and the decision to choose it again and again, in spite of everything. It is never going to "end" on Neil's terms. In this rare instance, fan interpretation STILL MANAGES TO ECLIPSE THE SOURCE MATERIAL---and that is because LOVE is always a more powerful story than ABUSE.

I am 52 yrs old and I have suffered with depression since I was a teenager. Most of my life this darkness, this unworthiness has always been part of me. I had my first breakdown as a teenager, I still remember it now, partly because I had one 6-7 yrs ago when my husband left and I had to go through all that again. But there have been others too.

I have never really ever been fixed or 'right'. I do not know when or where it started, but lets face it if it started so young genes and my upbringing are probably the main sources. I have times when its just a background thing, where I can be doing the most innocent thing, be doing something that should make me happy and my brain will just go oh god it would be nice to just not exist, would be nice to just disappear and not have to be me anymore.

The real feeling of unworthiness came in relationships. I do not know why, but even from the first one I always had this voice in my head saying how unlovable I was and it was only a matter of time before he worked it out. Of course things always died cos you can't go into things like that being a broken mess trying to hide the shadows in you.

So why this ramble?

Cos of the message of Good omens 3. I kinda have always been a bit inbetweener. I am a bit Crowley (well you saw above, plus the questioning) and a bit Aziraphale (like my food, horde books etc). So the ending which I can see why it gives people hope can also give other people no hope, give people a very negative message. Crowley who was broken against his will (aren't we all, looking at you genes and family) are not able to go on. They can't live beyond their trauma. Beyond their upbringing. They can't find peace. They can't have love for any amount of time. They are just too much of a mess. they should just give up.

yeah. every single fucking universe except the one that actually mattered right?

I didnt spend 6 years loving asa and anthony. I spent 6 years loving aziraphale and crowley.

(Which is a beautiful message, especially in this nice political climate!) I've been reading quite a lot of dismissive "opinions" on why s3 left many fans disgruntled. The most annoying ones are those dismissing queer fans's reasons as "entitled" and "dirty minded" and "you only wanted to see them bone" (for wanting a kiss, which apparently in queer couples is only ever interpreted as an antechamber of sex. Don't you love the variety of emotions we're allowed?). I'm having war flashbacks to 2000s/2010s shows where queer subtext was used as bait, even encouraged by actors and writers, who teased the fans over a romance that would never textually happen (ye ol' queerbait). Shows where queer fans had to read between the lines, hallucinate love in stories that were just bromances at best. Everyone was so condescending to us all the time and it was a constant of "you just want to see two men/women fuck Lol diiirtyyy". Now we've unlocked a new variation: the "our queer romance has to be shot like a 50s Hays Code romance movie so that it can be p u r e." "You don't need a love confession, a hug, actual romantic gestures, them to actually talk about their feelings, for it to be a romantic story!". Except we got all of that in s2? And now they barely talk about their love spat, don't acknowledge the kiss/love confession, barely react when they see the other in distress (after Crowley screamed at Jim that HE DID NOT CARE FOR IT? Meh). My problem is not about the missing (and dearly missed by many) kiss, because knowing that they die, it'd have just given us a hope that was never there in the first place. My problem is with how s3 is devoid not only of warmth, fun, comedy, but also of all those overt textual, romantic tropes that made s2 such a beautiful, soft, open celebration of a canonically not-cis couple. It was this beautiful middle ground that perfectly balanced things, in a genre that often suffers from cancellations or character assassinations (metaphorical or literal). People were expecting a happy end because, really, who could have seen the end coming? How did it all go so pear shaped? S3 rolled out and there's barely any warmth left: not only everything is doom and gloom and frankly mean spirited, but A/C all but behave like a couple of friends straight out of a "buddies" (more on this later) comedy for most of the episode, the romantic element is clearly dialed down by ten*. We've regressed back to reading subtext in the initial scene, where people are seeing sexual tension (which I completely missed lol); we're back to squeeing over the camera zooming on that awkward half hug while they walk back to the car (iconic that they did find time to insert some physical touches, but only to save money on the cgi lol), we've to use a magnifying glass to see if there's a matching ring on Asa's hand (I swear at first watch I didn't notice they were married, I thought the golden ring on Anthony's hand was a subtle nod at Aziraphale's signet ring). No hug, no love confession, no comforting embrace, near to no small touches, next to no warm gazes (because, when, it's all so gloomy anyway). Only a weird hand kiss which I originally interpreted as Az giving it back, as a symbolic renounce to their chance at romance in this life. Maybe it's less sad to interpret it as a devotion gesture? But the whole way they say goodbye is so rushed and emotionally contained. Where's the emotional pay off? They don't properly talk. Aziraphale confesses his love but while looking at God, while Crowley barely reacts. Their big heartfelt talk at the tree is them telegraphically talking about wanting to save humanity. In the script (?) right after that scene, they say this:

Sorry, what declaration of love? The very dry, very contained "I only want one thing"? Crowley's declaration in s2 was far from being perfect, for me, but at least it was overt. Here we're getting even less than that. We're back to reading subtext. In the show that was an overt celebration of queer love. Then they become average humans who could be cis or not but it's all up to interpretation. We're back at square one. I'm tired. I'm tired of queer shows getting cancelled after 1 season. I'm tired of the homophobia that came back tenfold: we were called cringe fan girls 15 years ago because we dared see a possible romance between two same sex characters ("can't two men/women just be friends? Not everything has to be gay!" and it never was gay anyway, and if it was, they died lol). Now it's "oh you hoped to see a happier kiss? What do you want, them to bone right on camera? Scoff!". How did it go so badly that we're basically back to the same discourse, after s2? Hell even s1 was more warm and had more barely subtextual moments! People also say that a romantic love story doesn't have to be overt, for it to be clearly romantic. Except before s2 rolled out, no one thought of their relationship as romantic? Because it was easy to dismiss the subtext? The whole point of having overt romantic tropes in queer media, in a show that doesn't rely on explicit sex to be queer, is so that it can't be dismissed as "two buddies being bros"? Like, check the difference of genres on imdb:

Good Omens genre list:

OFMD's:

This show made A/C so central they end up "saving" the world with their noble sacrifice: there's a love confession (if you squint, there's 2), even a kiss (which is the basic "oooh they ARE in love!" in media 101), a break up. Yet it doesn't even classify as romance once? Even with the marriage ending??? Right. Evidently all that "we don't need a kiss/hug/love confession for it to be romantic" doesn't work in the real world. Last but not least. I'm also tired of having to squint to see happy endings for queer couples: "no but don't you see it's them in the real world!" this is just an interpretation, the textual evidence is that they got annihilated. What we're left with is a very nice gay couple who is not the one we grew fond of. Jury's out on if it counts as a happy end or not. "But they're in the snowglobe obviously!" that's a nice head canon that helps some fans. "But there's reminders of them in Asa and Crowley so it's clearly their souls!" that is another nice head canon, but again, I'm tired of having to hallucinate my happy ending through wishy washy hints. It's 2026, if I have to squint, to interpret, to read subtext, especially in a show that was capable of being more overt, it feels like a regression to me. "But we have a marriage in the end! It's textbook love!" Well tell that to imdb then lol. I'm as baffled as you are. Apparently it's a buddy comedy where two very good buddies who never had one romantic feeling for each other very bromancly hold hands while saving the world. Then they have an human AU meet cute in another life, we have to squint to see their matching rings, the end. Even Yuri on ice was more heavy handed with their subtext, which 10 years ago was as loud as a scream in a library. S3's subtext is a mouse screaming in a church. No wonder so many people found it unsatisfactory.

“No. That’s worse than war.”

They had 90 minutes. NINETY. MINUTES.

Wasted 2/3rds of it playing the most obvious whodunnit of all time, watching Jesus meander around uselessly, and bringing in some mafia group. And Aziraphale and Crowley, who should be at the center, hardly get to actually communicate, and pretty much never actually talk about their relationship. It was an agregious waste of time.

If they wanted to pull some meta shit, they should have given us a season to do it well. They had the option of doing a full season and chose not to, and the consequence of that is that you don’t get to write all of the convoluted crap you want. 10 minutes before the end of an hour and a half movie that had essentially zero constructive narrative is not the time to be pulling out world upending, genre changing, fandom rending controversial choices out of your ass.

(Especially when a quick google search could have informed anyone that 98% of the fandom agreed beforehand that getting some Human AU when you signed up for immortal shenanigans SUCKS. And on top of that they actually destroyed the entire universe and the main couple.)

The point being- if you are going to just have 90 minutes then you don’t waste that time and then pull twists out of nowhere so you can pretend to be ‘profound’ when neither the fans nor narrative demanded it up until they wrote some impulsive disaster at the very end.

You don’t start yanking on threads for fun, you wrap up the loose ends to make the fans happy and call it a day. 90 wasted minutes of answering none of the questions anyone had, not communicating, being overall rather out of character, and splitting screen time like they had time to give. You lost the chance to write story warping crap when you exchanged 6 hours for and a half.

All they had to do was sit them down at the ritz for dinner and everyone would’ve walked away fine- especially since they didn’t even bother to answer the questions we had beforehand like why the hell Crowley is so goddamned overpowered and what happened in the fall.

It was just generally poorly written. They set the Metatron up as someone who seemed malicious and then killed him ten seconds in. They started the concept of the second coming and then ditched it halfway through to start tearing chunks out of the universe. We sat and watched Jesus dawdle around the entire time to culminate in handing out pizza, and the mafia come out of nowhere to swallow up the first half and then leave. They had Aziraphale show up and get reprimanded for leaving by Mrs.Sandwhich and Crowley, only for them to pretty much passively avoid talking about anything by demanding forgiveness and then brushing off all the emotional baggage they had up until there was no time left to deal with it. All those talks of ‘Us’ and ‘to the World’ in previous seasons, and there’s essentially Zero closure from the characters who have been slow burning since the dawn of creation.

Say all you want about their long life together being fun, and ‘what ifs’, and ‘they find each other in every lifetime’ and blah blah- but sometimes people deserve to have the script actually address things and say them directly to each other and for the audience. It also sure as hell doesn’t help the transition that they had no clue they were gonna be reincarnated so they didn’t even get to toss out an ‘I’ll find you’ or something to soften the blow- they just DIED with zero resolution and we are expected to hinge our hopes and dreams on two strangers with bad haircuts that the audience has zero attachment to in a completely different universe. They didn’t consider how to even make this an effectively impactful ending, emotionally or logistically.

The first half reads like they were trying to obligatorily continue season 2, but the second half is disjointed and feels aimed at picking a new direction 180, and shutting everything down. HARD.

What I personally think the actual truth is, is that they intentionally wrote a way to end the universe (despite the fact that doing so contradicts pretty much every afore established ethical discussion driven by the series regarding the loss of life, replacing people, humans defying destiny, and free will, and is generally all around pretty out of character ), because they didn’t want to be bothered again. If you leave no open end, and a divisive fanbase, they don’t ask you for more. And that’s what I think this disaster really was: the response for having the audacity to ask for an answer to the cliff hanger they left us on in season 2, when all Amazon wants is to stop associating with Neil Gaimon.

I think it’s a hack job, and it’s a slap in the face to fans.

Most will actively hate it for upending all the world building and forcing them to suddenly grieve characters they’ve followed for decades at the last minute with absolutely Zero tact- but those that do enjoy the ending should be upset that it wasn’t written better. The set up could have been better, they didn’t make a choice to find each other, and They didn’t even do a montage of them finding each other in various lifetimes through history, people are just hinging their hopes and dreams on the song ‘time after time.’ And the reasoning behind the whole thing was beyond contrived.

Also, why does starting a new universe without heaven and hell mean they can’t exist as themselves as the sole immortals or just have their memories up until that point- she’s GOD, she can do whatever the fuck she wants and the story uses that to make a ridiculous contingency instead. They also literally had the ability to rewrite life in their hands and didn’t make any use of it. Why not have God just show up if you aren’t gonna do anything with the books? She’s God, she’s been watching, you didn’t need to manifest her, and I don’t know why you would want to.

So yeah, the ending was crap, objectively, simply because it was handled with all the grace and care of a bull in a china shop.

The fact they blatantly disregarded what the obvious emotional outcome of its massive die hard queer fanbase would be is just the cherry on top. The fans are loud and post constant content, it’s not hard to figure out most people just wanted them to wear silly outfits through time, TALK about their feelings, and play ‘a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square’ the end. There were six dozen ways they could’ve handled Heaven and Hell and leave the two alone on Earth, and they went with ‘let’s not handle it at all, the only way to solve things is extinction.’ Nobody in their right mind would have wanted them to forget a millennia and over six thousand years of love for each other, that was on no one’s bucket list or radar going into this.

I think it’s fucking intentional, and I think they were sneaky enough about it that instead of being collectively pissed they gave us half written slop we are arguing over whether or not the ending is satisfying- and the answer should be “NO!” either way, because there was about 10% consideration put into it from the second they said they were giving us a pathetic 90 minutes instead of a whole season, and then they wasted the majority of that time doing nothing constructive.

the fact that they even made that choice at all is a paradox!