Iâve seen a lot of people make very good points about the ways that the s3 finale either failed or flew as an ending to the show, and while I donât see it as totally bad, Iâm also not sure itâs good.
Before anything else - I could have handled a similar ending, in which they die and then either theyâre dead and gone and only humanity remains, or we see a vaguely Aziraphale and Crowley shaped pair of humans come together against the odds. I enjoy bittersweet tragedies, I almost would have preferred if Tennant and Sheen hadnât played the new versions, and theyâd found two actors who looked just close enough but not quite there to sell the idea. But it doesnât pay off in my mind - because not only do Crowley and Aziraphale die. Everyone dies with them. The world ends, that isnât fixed. They just blow it up and start a new one. That isnât a good ending to the moral of the first season, or the book, or in general.
Iâm going to point out some of the themes of the book and a few issues I think have been poking about in the background since season 1 (lost subtleties on the humanisation of characters, and how I believe this weakens the central theme), but this is not an anti-good-omens-TV-in-general post. I came to love season 1 as an adaption, itâs simply interesting to examine how small deviations may have affected the ending.
One huge theme of the book that people keep pointing out is how it emphasises Terry Prachettâs very humanist ideals, which I totally agree with. S1 follows these values (it was bound to, given how close of an adaption it was), but in a way that loses a few subtleties from the book. Not only is it a commentary on Cold War politics, itâs a commentary on how people do not have to be constrained by the position theyâre born into and then beaten into shape against by the world. You do have free will, and itâs wonderful! And ultimately the good of humanity will prevail against the bad, if we can only be bothered to act. The book emphasises this through a few British classist stereotypes. The âaccentsâ of the Them and Shadwell, Crowleyâs young sleek corporate businessisms (reflected again in the four horsemen), Aziraphaleâs old-money Eton boy aesthetic, the role of the âPostie,â after his âdeath.â All of these characters are humanised, and purposefully - it pokes fun at stereotypes surrounding class, and station, but each and every person no matter where theyâre from fills a role. Aziraphale and Crowley, as part of these two different reflections of the upper-class, frequently indulge in the âexotic commonalityâof humanity. The food, the love, the life. Yet they see still themselves, and their distance from humanity, as âbetter.â
In the show, everyone (bar a few demons, Shadwell, and Aziraphale) seems to have the same amorphously middle-ground British accent. Thereâs no statement being made against the back drop.
This might not seem majorly important - but bear with me.
Another important facet of the book, is the way in which Heaven and Hell are portrayed at once as a contrast against and a mirror to humanity. Theyâre different from us in that theyâre stuck trying to be âgood,â or âevilâ - thereâs no middle ground, no complexity. And in trying so hard to stick to their rigid and inflexible values of what constitutes âgoodâ and âevil,â Heaven ends up doing more harm than good and neither side makes much progress against the other. But thatâs also where they mirror us - not in the inability to be morally flexible (thatâs the thing that gives humans the leg-up in the end), but in their stubborn inability to consider that what theyâre doing might be âwrong.â Again, very Cold War appropriate. The book hammers home again and again that this is wrong, as does s1.
Crowley and Aziraphale directly contradict this portrayal of Heaven. Theyâre at a mid-way point, deep down a nice person, and just enough of a bastard. Theyâre still fairly representative of their respective sides, Crowley enjoys making mischief and Azirphale is kind to a fault (until heâs too righteous to be), but in many ways theyâre just as human as the rest of the actually-human characters. Theyâre also⌠just two guys/creatures. EVERYONE in good omens (the book + s1), is at their core âjust some personâ even the important people! People with status - presidents, the antichrist, witches, high-ranking demons etc, theyâre all very human. They groan and moan about paper work as much as Azirpahale and Crowley. The only difference is that they havenât spent enough time around humans to realise it, so they donât exhibit the same moral âgreyness,â as A and C on top of their âregular-guynes.â
But even more than being regular people in their general disdain for work - theyâre just regular people! Theyâre not nobodies, given their respective roles in Eden, but itâs been 6000 years since then and theyâve fallen considerably out of favour. They, like the average person reading the book, are totally beholden to the whims of the the two hegemonies puppeteering both them and their peers and more than anything are a window for us to peer through. They donât actually *do* much of anything, thatâs the beauty of it - and this is yet another example of angels and demons and Heaven and Hell not actually controlling fate. Nothing they do matters, and the only time it does is when humanity helps them along.
S1 of good omens has been pointed out, again by other people, as focusing more on a modern neo-capitalist perspective than a Cold War perspective, and I donât dislike this. Itâs extremely relevant, and still allows for a similar premise (itâs also why Iâm mystified that everyone is a part of the same gentrified upper middle class background, again barring Shadwell and Madame Tracey). Crowley and Aziraphale fail spectacularly at trying to avoid the apocalypse, and itâs saved by a young boy who loves humanity as much as they do. But whereas in the book, chapters and chapters are devoted to developing the importance of Adam and the Them, the show focuses more on Aziraphale and Crowley, culminating in a finale that involves them much more than the original. Again, I get this decision, and I love seeing them together, but it takes away somewhat from the idea that humans have had all the agency all along, and itâs only by being more human than anyone else that Crowley and Aziraphale have any free will at all.
Moreover - what message does it send, in the end, that the only way to beat this awful capitalist hellscape we live in in the real world, is to end it all? Bugger that. The book ends with them anticipating, âthe big one,â but that isnât a satisfying conclusion to the altered theme of the show, because weâre living through A big one, if not âtheâ big one right now. And, personally, I think it would have been much better if they had managed to wriggle their way out of it again. Maybe with the help of Jesus - whose plot went nowhere, or Adam - who disappeared, or some of the angels and demons like Muriel who have become more human and realised the importance of humanity itself. Why have God exist at all? Why not let God (the idea glorified of capitalist âWestern Democracyâ that has beaten a lot of world into what it is today and has been dead for a long time, if it ever existed) be dead or missing, or absorbed back into the universe. The whole Armageddon thing was pointless the whole time- it didnât need to happen, so it doesnât need to keep happening. And people put a stop to it, they show thereâs hope, and then they grow from whatâs happened. Either Heaven and Hell and the demons and angels still all have to die, and we get a tragedy where they sacrifice themselves for humanity as a collective and then it really is a proper sacrifice. OR, they donât have to die - because they were never really controlling anything to begin with, just meddling as good meddlers do. Maybe theyâll begin to fade with time, maybe they always have been fading - but whatever they do they do it for humanity, and together. Crowley and Aziraphale of the show deserved a definite ending, and so did every other character - because they were all meant to reflect that humanity, at its core, is worth saving. And that if it wants to survive, if it wants to do good, it will.















