The other thing I like about the finale ā specifically the last fifteen ā is that for the first time, when God and Satan both offer criticisms of Aziraphale, he doesnāt wither. They tell him he was greedy. Ineffectual. A liar. A glutton. Vain. Old Aziraphale wouldāve been awash with shame hearing such things, especially from God. Imagine, his most secret fears and beliefs about himself being stated aloud by his divine Mother, the being heās devoted his whole life to! One of Crowleyās most frequent complaints about Aziraphale, I believe, is that no matter how much trust and meaning they built between them ā emotional capital, as it were ā it never holds up whenever someone from up the hierarchy of Heaven comes calling with a new way to put him down.
In the final fifteen, though, it no longer affects him. Aziraphale has grown up, in a way. He can stand before his parent, heavenly or otherwise, and accept Her criticism without crumbling. āI was,ā he agrees, his shoulders squared, his gaze unwavering, his self-esteem intact. āBut also I was this.ā
This as a moment of character development, so quiet, so easily missed, is incredibly profound.
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Where the show creators have really threaded the needle, I thinkāfor me, for me, I know we are all still processing and opinions vary wildlyāis in showing Aziraphale and Crowley grow close again. Especially given how little time there was for it in a film-length finale after the devastation of S2.
We start with their first bitter exchange, Aziraphaleās hurt pride leading him to say,
āLook, I know youāre upset with me.ā
āYep.ā
āBut Iām willing to overlook that.ā (Oh come ON, angel. Come ON.)
ā¦
āClose the door on your way out.ā
āBut... you donāt have a door.ā (Priceless.)
Then, though. Then. Crowley goes after Aziraphale almost immediately. And Aziraphale doesnāt expect it. Doesnāt know, at first, that it was Crowley whoād opened the door to the bookshop. Aziraphaleās āCrowley!ā once he realizes it is an exhaleāstartled, gentleāand it absolutely murders me, the way he says Crowleyās name.
Their confessions start before that, of courseāthose rough, pained, raw confessions. Confessing their loss to othersāsometimes, at the most inopportune times.
āIāve lost worse things than that.ā
āHeartbroken. World broken. Whatās the point of anything?ā
Muriel asking Aziraphale,
āWhy donāt you ask your⦠friend friend to help?ā
and Aziraphale hurrying to say that no, no, itās out of the questionāwith that whole journey his face goes through as Muriel persists,
āHe might like to see you, anyway. Last time I saw him, he wasnāt in the best way, to be honest.ā
Then, Aziraphale finally turns to her, focused so completely on what he hears.
āHe seemed a bit⦠lost,ā she goes onāand in a heartbeat, before sheās even gone out of the room, Aziraphale is miracling himself to Earth.
Mrs. Sandwich, meeting Aziraphale as he witnesses the decay of Whickber street, tells him exactly what she thinks.
āYou never cared for him. Or Whickber street,ā she says, and Aziraphaleās face fills with pain.
āI⦠I loveāWhickber street!ā he protests: not saying it, never saying it, and yet we hear the unspoken.
Oh, angel.
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The Symmetry of Season 3 and Why That Makes It Beautiful
Ok, more big thoughts here. I just watched for a second time, and what I see on this run through is a beautiful symmetry.
Taken together, all three seasons are a dance, a back and forth between their need for each other and their love for humanity. One of them is always leading, one is retreating, hands locked together in a solid frame that can look like love or like fighting, one that gives them each the room to move, their perspectives whirling, deepening and changing as the view around them morphs.
Itās in the little things. The constant back and forth of them not thanking each other for important things. The wing lifted to shield the other from rain in Eden. The rescue at the Bastille. The thermos of holy water. The rescue at the end of the great war. The paint gun residue on the jacket. The forgiveness in the last bookshop on earth.
And itās there in the biggest things, too, in the entire frame of the show.
In season 2, Crowley is ready to choose their relationship over the fate of humanity, and Aziraphale painfully puts that aside to try to save humanity, because he couldnāt live with himself if he didnāt. Theyāre both devastated by this choice, but itās essential. wasnāt tricked by some spiked latte. He had to do what he did, and he's correct in doing it.
In season 3, by the end, Aziraphale is ready to choose their relationship over everything else. āI only want one thing, Crowley,ā he says, and itās clear he means it. Aziraphale has struggled through all of the love and responsibility for humans, discharged his duty as best he could, and ended up hereāloving Crowley and wanting only him, at peace knowing heās done everything he needed to do, ready to live for his love.
āWhat do you want?ā he asks Crowley, in their moment of privacy by the Tree of Life.
And the thing is ā the thing is, Crowley still WANTS that. He still wants it, so badly that itās etched in every line of his body. But the fact is that now heās grown tooāheās grown past the place he was in at the end of s2, where he valued his own happiness above everyone elseās. He sees the cost that Aziraphale saw all along. And now Crowley is the one who canāt live with the aftereffects of getting what he wants.
Itās *not* just that Aziraphale had to let go of his toxic attachment to Heaven to be able to deserve and appreciate Crowley. Itās that, as with most of their arguments all along, they were *both* RIGHT. Which is why their conflicts existed to begin with. They both had to grow, to discharge their duty, to get around an obstacle preventing them from joining the other.
And so they stand at the end, before God and Satan, holding hands, looking into each otherās eyes. Say what you will, but Aziraphaleās impassioned speech about how Crowley was the best angel is one of the greatest love declarations Iāve ever seen. Crowley sees it as such, Iām convinced. Aziraphale, who heās always believed holds himself as just a bit better than a demon, reveals that he sees Crowleyās core, his inherent goodness, not in a way that implies he was better before, but in a way that shows that Aziraphale understands that this is still EXACTLY WHO CROWLEY IS RIGHT NOW. He finally sees him exactly as he is, loves him, and shows him that. This brings Crowley the peace and closure heās been looking for all along, too.
Theyāve both arrived, in that moment, at peace. They know and have love. They are in perfect accord. It is the biggest and most nontraditional love the world has ever seen, and I think they know in that moment that not one second of it could have been changed. Ā
I firmly believe, given the snowglobe in the garden at the end, that their love and their characters go on and on in multiple worlds and lifetimes, but honestly. Whether you needed a kiss or not, the symmetry of this ending is *breathtaking*.
I have to say, Iām loving it more each time I watch.
Ok itās two am and Iām tired but hereās are my initial reactions. Spoilers beneath the cut.
I mostly enjoyed it and was cautiously impressed for a lot of it. It did a lot of things well. The ending wasnāt what I expected but I did like it. Would it have been better as a series? Undoubtedly. But it was better than I expected.
First of all, Iām glad to have gotten the cottage, and for them to end up together in whatever form, and to see the rings on their fingers.
I find it clever to think that where the series ended is OUR universe, where all the dinosaur fossils are real and not just a joke played by god, and that the good omens world was a precursor.
On a shallow level, aziraphale the general? Made me weak in the knees and I need a thousand clips of that right away. š„š„š„š„Aziraphale as a human? MUST we give him such bad hair? I mean cmon.
Loved the opening scene about the Great War, and the new interaction between A&C there, with all the repetition throughout the series of them asking if they should thank the other and then saying āI think not.ā
The evil smile on Aziraphaleās face in the final moments of last season? Kind of dropped. No real explanation. All our body swap theories were wrong. Ok, I can deal with that. I was never sure that was right to begin with, although it was compelling.
Crowley dropping off his plant to be babysat and crooning āwere you good?ā To it when he picked it up? Perfection. š
Jesus was lovely and his storyline was amazing. I was enthralled with every second of that side. Absolute perfection. I want to know what aziraphale wrote in the speech that he was going to deliver at the United Nations about how everyone just needed to be nice. Iām sure it would have gone over like another lead balloon.
But⦠Iām disappointed in God as shown; Iām disappointed that She proved so mercurial and cold and that Aziraphaleās long, hard fought faith in her seems to have been ultimately misplaced all along. Which is what crowley has always been saying. But I would have preferred for there to be some other truth behind the scenes, some compromise between playing dice with the universe and the warmer tone of her narration in season one. I prefer the way so many of us wrote her over the years - a bastard, yes, but one attached to her creation and not just closing it down without a thought.
Perhaps this is how crowley felt.
Iām disappointed that Crowley and Aziraphale didnāt get to be together as immortals. I kind of love that it ended in a human AU in the end, and whoever posted earlier that this is the most fanfiction ending ever, youāre absolutely right. There are interesting ramifications to it, about them finding each other in every incarnation of the universe. I like it. I can play with that and create with it. But I didnāt feel as moved by it as I could have been.
Just finished it⦠not exactly the ending I wanted but I did enjoy it quite a bit. Iām not sure where Iāve landed emotionally. Must ponder this one for a while. But first some sleep since itās two in the freaking morning.
I look forward to seeing all your brilliant thoughts and analyses!
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Really there was no other image I could have used for the last day of a fifty day countdown. Where else could we end but here, in the mystery of Aziraphaleās sinister little smile? What did it mean? What is he planning? This is the smile that launched a thousand theories, some of them brilliant, some of them a little nuts, but it led to a lot of fun for all of us. And some heartbreak. (My husband still talks about how I came upstairs after watching the finale to wake him up and sob/complain about the fact that the boys broke up.) And the creative storm of thousands of minds creating beautiful works to take this moment and expound on it, or sidestep it, or talk about what came before it or after itā¦
I love this fandom. Thank you all for everything you do and make and are.
Good omens has been a part of my life since 1994 when I first bought a copy in NYC, because a friend pointed at it in a comic store and said āYou should read that, itās funny.ā So I bought it, and somehow over the course of three decades since I have kept that original book, reread it endless times, bought multiple other copies, recommended it to a million friends, and then found the show and the fandom. Even with the Neil stuff, which was hard because I did idolize the man, I couldnāt let it go. I let *him* go, but not the story. Because something about this story - and the people who love and celebrate it - has meant SO MUCH to me. Whether Iām 100% satisfied with the finale or not, Iām happy to have been here on this world to witness this story coming into the world. And Iām happy to get to witness its close. Because it wonāt really close, will it? We will all take a breath after Wednesday, then start Ana;using and sharing and drawing and composing and creating and it will go on and on and on.
I deliberately saved the most heartbreaking images for last in the countdown ā and then flaked because I didnāt have time to keep up with it on both sites so you, my tumblr friends, missed all the happy pics in the middle. Buuuuuutttttt⦠this is the real moment we have all be stuck at, I think. I hope we get healing for it. I hope we get a do over, or the hint of one.
Also can I just say - I kind of appreciate how much I DONāT mow going into the finale. With season two there were so many clips that I felt like I had seen to much when I saw it. Not just the kiss, but also the apology dance. Various other short scenes they promoted. I just remember a vague corner of my brain was a little disappointed. This time? I know almost nothing.
And then it launched a story that is currently what I consider the best writing Iāve ever done, despite three novels and some published short stories - my post season two Oceans story is the writing I am most proud of.
And I have spent way more time in the last three years thinking about these two and their reconciliation than is probably healthy.
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Five days. Tell me, what are your watching plans? Anyone going to a watch party? I actually want to watch it the first time completely by myself⦠so I can be as obsessive and weird as I need to. And also in case Iām disappointed. Or in case I am too jubilant! But after that Iām watching it with the kid and the spouse and anyone else who wants to.
Six more days, friends. It hardly seems real. Three years weāve been patiently waiting and creating content to fill the holes in our hearts ourselves and now we are only SIX DAYS from the finale?
I blew the countdown here - mostly carried it out over on BlueSky⦠but Iām back for the last few days at least!