My feelings regarding GO3 are both Complex and still-changingā¦ but the Thoughts I settled on for Today are that;
GO1 Aziracrow was a delightful self-contained supernatural Romantic Comedy, even with the weird pacing of the Double Tacked-On Second Climax. All the character arcs and the Themes of the overarching plot work together great, with just the right amount of drama and angst and a perfectly executed Happily Ever After that's very Wish-Fulfilment with the whole "and then they live the perfect luxurious life on Earth with the person they love forever" but also absolutely feels earned.
GO2-3 Aziracrow is a conceptually fascinating but imperfectly executed narrative that's trying out some cool metafictional concept, leans harder on the religious and philosophical critiques than the outdated Cold War satire the original story was based on, as well as having less of that 90's Apathetic Optimism - about a Doomed Yaoi pair trying and trying to stop their world from being Doomed By the Narrative, and eventually managing to un-doom themselves as well, if only barely. It might've actually being really great if it, like, went through a second draft, and it's pacing wasn't a Mess.
Both of these stories only suffer from one being a canonical continuation of the other.
Like, I am finding things to appreciate about what GO3 was going for, thinking how it could've delivered it's story better even under the time constraints butā¦ I just really really wish it was not the textual canonical continuation of GO1ā¦ That it was more like the relation between Book Canon and Show Canon or, like, between 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' and 'Shock Treatment' I wish these were established as similar-but-divergent timelines, or a possible future, or different variations reflecting on the same core concepts and not one definitively following the other.
Narratively speaking, the GO1 Narrative becomes weaker by the continuation because everything about it's climax(es) and ending is clearly meant to feel resolved and self-contained, so when GO2 and GO3 go ahead and recontextualize what seemed like Big Moments of Character Development as not really having as much affect as the direction and narrative of GO1 clearly implied, that obviously lessens their impact. Crowley and Aziraphale's ending scene is clearly meant to communicate contentedness and closure, and yet the context of GO2 tells us that cracks started forming in that relationship almost immediatelyā¦
With GO3, the problems (with both GO1 and GO2 as the connective tissue between the two stories) are more numerous and more complicated. First, and that's something I kinda talked about before, which is that the whole meta-narrative throughline of God-as-the-Author and Crowley and Aziraphale and the whole Universe being Doomed by the Narrativeā¦ Asa and Anthony are clearly meant to be, like, the two of them getting some semblance of a Happy Ending, even if a Bittersweet one, despite the hardships and impossible odds and the rules of God themself. But it also falls flat to a lot of viewers because of the existence of the previous much more straightforwardly Happy ending.
Regardless of the In-Universe reasons established later as to why this status-que wasn't actually as sustainable as GO1 made it seem, from a meta-narrative perspective (that GO3 clearly wants to engage in), it's hard to dismiss the feeling that rather than Asa and Anthony being the triumph of winning something resembling a Happy Ending despite what the Narrative decreed for them, they just lost and fumbled the 'actual' Happy Ending they could've gotten. (The fact that their defiance of God starts with them insisting on how a Story can 'go past the last page of it's book' while the entire reason why GO1 wasn't their Happily Ever After is because this story went past the last page of it's book is certainly not helping!)
And then, like, thereās my biggest narrative gripe with the Asa and Anthony ending, which is that the reincarnation thing acts as a super unsatisfying Magical way to conclude Crowley and Aziraphaleās unresolved character and relationship arcs - just wiping the board clean and starting over as people who donāt have those flaws and didnāt make those mistakes. But maybe that wouldnāt be such a big dealā¦ if Crowley and Aziraphaleās character flaws and the ways they harm their ability to have a relationship wasnāt such a big deal in the previous two seasons (it was basically the Central Conflict of GO2).
And then also, like, the whole āNew Godless Universeā thing is supposed to function narratively as a metaphor for dismantling harmful power structures and unlearning restrictive mindsets. Under this lens, is it a Problem that Crowley and Aziraphale are reborn in that new world free of any lingering trauma or indoctrination from having lived in that harmful system, even after itās gone? Not necessarily, a fantasy metaphor as outlandish as restarting the whole universe under different cosmological rules doesnāt have to be one-to-one with reality.
But it does feel a bit discordant when it happens after GO2, the āeven if you try to get away from exploitative systems, the trauma and indoctrination will remainā Season. With so much time spent on how this issue affected our characters before, the lack of it in the new world kinda makes the metaphor fall apart. It makes the whole Universe Reset feel like a lessā¦ actionable solution to the viewers. I hardly think the intent is supposed to be that the world is fundamentally broken and the original Crowley and Aziraphale were just too traumatized to ever live Happily Ever Afterā¦ but the muddling of the metaphors makes it pretty understandable why some viewers ended up reading it like that.
And GO2 'walking back' on GO1's character and relationship development by basically going 'yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale are very old and set in their ways and a few Big Dramatic Moments during the extremely stressful and unusual times of the Apocalypse wasn't enough to really change that' was, at the time, really compelling and realisticā¦ but it also makes it harder for GO3 to convey Crowley and Aziraphale's character and relationship arcs via a few Big Dramatic Moments during the extremely stressful and unusual times of the other apocalypse.
Even if GO3 happened under ideal circumstances where they had more time for Actual Character Beats, it would be hard to sell the audience on the idea that we have totally emotionally resolved the core problems in their relationship this time, when they still don't get the chance to show us these changes working long-term and getting to stick.
Is Aziraphale giving Crowley the full choice to decide what to do with God's new world prove that he's finally learned to not take him for granted and sacrifice in the relationship? Well, in a standalone narrative that would convey that idea, but with GO2 existing, it feels like there's always a possibility that Aziraphale would've gone back to his old waysā¦ had he not been vaporized shortly thereafter. Definitely another thing that does not help the "Asa and Anthony feel like a Magical Fantasy Solution to resolving the problems in Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship" thing.
And in general, some of the Themes of GO3 are deliberately meant to be antithetical/deconstructive of the original Good Omens book and by extension GO1, and itās not bad for a sequel/continuation to be in such a dialogue with the originalā¦ but, like, again, GO1 is the more well-written and well-plotted part of the show (even on just a basic āthey didnāt have to to to cram six episodes worth of Plot into 90 minutesā level) so GO2-3 has a hard time reaching a balanced synthesis rather than just seeming incompatible and contradictory.
And also, y'know, smaller hiccups between the two narratives. The Body Swap seemed like such a Big Fucking Deal in GO1, but past it only seems to exists in GO2-3 when Crowley is angry at Gabriel, stuff like thatā¦
But, I mean, I can talk about narrative and thematic problems all day, but I wouldn't be honest with myself if I can't admit there's also an irrational emotional aspect to all of this. That even when I want to appreciate GO3's ideas of our Universe being made out of Love, of the idea that our brief mundane imperfect existence as Humans is better than any eternity, of how Crowley and Aziraphale are now truly immortal because we live on for as long as our effect on the world exists, that they'll find each other in every timeline, that their love was strong enough to break God's supposed iron-clad 'rules' and now they are actually 'Ineffable'ā¦
It's also very very hard for me to do because it feels like I'm killing these two all over againā¦
Some people in the fandom have been insisting that GO1 is the only 'Canon' Season and that GO2-3 should basically be looked at as glorified high-budget fanfiction, and honestly, that might be not just the viewpoint that allows me to enjoy GO1 again, but maybe also the thing that will allow me to appreciate GO2-3 on some level?
