Season 3 of Good Omens wasn't good
This is going to be long...buckle up!!
I will say, I believe my opinion is the general consensus. But if you are someone who enjoyed the ending, thats great, and you are free to peacefully share your opinion about if you wish to.
I've seen people trying to excuse the ending because of the pacing and time crunch, and while sure, the ending was always going to feel rushed because of it, however my biggest bone to pick with the ending was...what was the final message? I'm genuienly asking.
Like, Crowley and Aziraphale literally killed themselves and wished for a universe with no celestial beings or whatever, but...genueinly what was the ending of the show trying to communicate? Like, the world would be much better with free will sure !!! But free will literally already exists in the original universe.
Thematically, the series has always argued that people are more than the roles they're assigned. In Season 1, Adam defies his destiny as the Antichrist because he chooses the humans he grew up with over the role Heaven, Hell, and prophecy assigned to him.
Just like how Anatema Device refuses to spend her life following the path laid out for her. She learns that all of her choices were predicted in advance and that she's basically been living as an extension of her ancestor's plan. When she receives the new book of prophecies, she chooses to burn it rather than continue being defined by it.
And I mean, especially Crowley and Aziraphale themselves who literally fought agaianst the destruction of the world because they loved living in it. They loved the music, the nature, the hot cocoa, the books, the little every day life domestic rituals. They loved humans for who they are.
They spent six thousand years building lives for themselves despite Heaven and Hell breathing down their necks. Aziraphale and Crowley built a life worth living. They made friends, collected expiriences, developed tastes and preferances, and found their own personal meanings outside of the roles that they were born with. The point seemed to be that even within an imperfect universe governed by powerful institutions, could still create lives worth living.
The entire reason they opposed Armageddon in Season 1 wasn't some grand ideological commitment to "maximizing free will." It was much more personal than that. They simply thought the world was worth saving.
Fast forward to season 2, and the main thematic purposes are still there. Even the flashbacks reinforce this. Time and time again, Crowley and Aziraphale bend the rules, help humans, cover for one another, and make decisions based on compassion rather than doctrine.
If anything, Season 2 argues on the idea that identity is something you create through your choices.
Nina and Maggie prove this too. Aziraphale and Crowley spend half the season trying to orchestrate romantic moments and push them together, but it completely fails. Their plans don't work.
What ultimately matters is what Nina and Maggie themselves want. Their feelings develop through their own conversations, experiences, and choices. No supernatural intervention overrides their agency.
Then of course, theres Beelzebub and Gabrielâs reveal. This pair is meant to directly parallel Aziraphale and Crowley. Beelzebub and Gabirel who are both respectively powerful figures (one from heaven and one from hell, representing both sides). They end up doing something Aziraphale and Crowley have probably only dreamt of doing: choosing each other and walking away from the system that was actively harming them.
This act of rebellion inspires Crowley specifically, understanding that Aziraphale and him too, have a chance. If Heavenâs archangel and Hellâs ruler can leave together, then Crowley and Aziraphale might be able to build something beyond Heaven and Hell too.
They have already experienced brief glimpses of that possibility before!!! in their time together, in their quiet outings across the centuries, in their meals at The Ritz, and in the many small moments they carved out for each other away from Heaven and Hell.
In those moments, they were able to exist outside the roles imposed on them, simply as themselves. Because of that, Beelzebub and Gabrielâs decision resonates so strongly with Crowley, it makes him realize that the life he and Aziraphale have only been able to experience in fleeting moments could truly become something permanent.
And Crowley proposes the idea to Aziraphale, leaving Heaven and Hell behind and choosing each other openly, without the constant pressure and expectations of either side. For Crowley, it is the chance to turn the quiet life they have built in fragments across centuries into something real and lasting.
For Aziraphale, however, the choice is far more complicated. His relationship with Heaven has always been conflicted. Even after witnessing Heavenâs cruelty and hypocrisy, he still holds onto the belief that Heaven can represent goodness and that it can become what it was meant to be. Because of that, he cannot fully accept Crowleyâs offer. While Crowley sees walking away as a chance to finally choose each other freely, Aziraphale sees an opportunity to try to change Heaven from within.
Crowley desperatly kisses him as a last resort, hoping his feelings can come through, it's one of the most vulnerable actions he has done in the accumulation of the series.
Aziraphaleâs responds with a âI forgive youâ which makes the moment even more painful. The line highlights just how deeply divided they still are despite loving each other. Crowleyâs kiss is an act of honesty and emotional urgency, a plea for them to choose each other and leave everything else behind. Aziraphale, however, responds from within the framework he has always known: Heaven, duty, forgiveness, and responsibility.
Rather than meeting Crowley in that moment the way Crowley hopes, Aziraphale answers through the language of the institution Crowley has been asking him to walk away from.
That kiss is the point where the relationship stops being implied and becomes undeniable. Because the buildup is so strong and so specific, the audience naturally expects the next part of the story to deeply explore the emotional consequences of that moment: Crowleyâs vulnerability, Aziraphaleâs conflict, and what choosing Heaven over Crowley truly means for both of them.
At the end, Aziraphale choosing Heaven is still an act of free will. That choice is painful, but it is his. He is not manipulated into it and he is not choosing Crowley any less because he cares less. He genuinely believes Heaven can still become what it was meant to be, and he chooses to act on that belief. That decision fits his character because Aziraphale has always balanced compassion with a deep faith in what Heaven should represent. The tragedy is that his choice comes from love and conviction, yet still places him and Crowley on opposite paths.
Season 2 ends on a deeply tragic note, and naturally the expectation becomes that season 3 will fully commit to the emotional consequences of that ending. Crowley has finally made himself vulnerable after centuries of restraint. Aziraphale leaves despite loving him because he believes there is still something worth saving. Both characters make active choices, and both choices hurt. Because of that, the ending feels like the emotional breaking point of everything the story has been building toward.
Yet season 3 does not fully give the audience that. Crowley and Aziraphale barely have a real conversation about what happened, and when they do, it feels brief and far shorter than the emotional weight season 2 left them with.
After such a devastating ending, the expectation is that the story will finally allow them to sit with everything that happened: Crowleyâs hurt, Aziraphaleâs conflicted feelings, the meaning behind Crowleyâs confession, and what it truly cost Aziraphale to choose Heaven. Instead, those emotions can feel acknowledged only on the surface before the narrative moves forward.
Instead, a significant amount of focus is placed on the side story involving Jesus, which I do not necessarily mind, because his story feels closely tied to one of the central ideas of Good Omens from the very beginning: humanity. Across both seasons, the story repeatedly emphasizes what makes humanity meaningful. Jesusâ storyline connects naturally to those ideas, reinforcing the importance of empathy and the power of choosing humanity and kindness over blind obedience. In that sense, it feels thematically consistent with what the series has always been trying to say.
What makes it frustrating is that Crowley and Aziraphaleâs relationship had already become the most personal expression of those themes.
Their time on Earth changes them. Their love for humanity becomes inseparable from the love they build for one another.
Aziraphale and Crowleyâs emotional conflict should have been the core of the season because it ties directly to what the show has always wanted us to understand. Their relationship is the clearest expression of these themes.
Crowley represents choosing freedom and love without needing Heaven or Hell to justify it. Aziraphale represents someone still wrestling with the belief that the institution he once trusted can become what it was always meant to be. Both of them are navigating the showâs biggest questionsâwhat goodness actually means, whether love can exist outside systems of power, and what it means to choose for yourself instead of simply obeying.
Because of that, their separation at the end of season 2 feels like more than a romantic tragedy. It feels like the emotional climax of everything the story had been building toward. Their relationship had already become the heart of what Good Omens was trying to say.
But instead, Crowley and Aziraphale spend much of the season on a quest to find Jesus and the book of life, while the emotional conflict left behind by season 2 receives very little space. Their conversations about what happened feel brief, and there is very little time spent truly unpacking the pain of their separation. Most notably, even the kiss, the emotional climax of season 2 and Crowleyâs most vulnerable moment in the entire story is barely addressed directly, if at all.
Instead, the story can feel like it moves around that emotional turning point rather than through it. Crowley and Aziraphale are physically together, but the deeper conversation the audience expects rarely happens. There is little room given to Crowley expressing what that rejection felt like, or Aziraphale grappling openly with why he made the choice he did.
And then, for some comical reason, Archangel Michael is the villian who wanted to destory the book of life or whatever, and they achive it. Every character turns into infinity war ass dust paritcals, including Jesus which is insane because literally even Jesus message of unity and compassion in the finale was pointless.
The reason it feels frustrating is because Jesusâ storyline had spent so much time emphasizing compassion, unity, and the power of choosing kindness in the face of cruelty. So when the ending resolves with everything being erased (including Jesus himself) it can feel like the season undercuts its own message. If the character representing compassion and unity ultimately disappears alongside everyone else, then the story risks making that thematic buildup feel hollow.
This also makes Crowley and Aziraphaleâs unresolved conflict stand out even more. As the finale grows increasingly cosmic and destructive, the emotional center of the story feels pushed into the background. Because of that, ending the season with a universe-ending catastrophe while giving very little space to the emotional fallout of season 2 can make it feel as though the larger spectacle takes priority over the very heart of the story.
When Crowley saves the bookshop page from burning and they arrive there, everything around them is gone. The world has been erased, and all that remains is the bookshop and the two of them. On paper, it feels like the perfect setup for the emotional payoff the story had been building toward.
But even there, the emotional weight can feel strangely undercut. Instead of a longer, honest conversation about everything that happened between them, the moment leans more comedic, with Aziraphale begging to be forgiven and even bringing up the âyou were rightâ dance. The callback itself is sweet and very in character, but placed in that moment it can feel lighter than what the scene had been emotionally building toward.
They are alone, vulnerable, and stripped of everything except each other, yet it can feel like the story pulls away before fully sitting with the weight of that moment.
And then the finale escalates again: Satan appears before them, followed by God herself. Suddenly the scale becomes cosmic once more, and for a moment it feels like the emotional center of the story might finally come back into focus. Crowley is finally given the chance to ask questions he has carried for centuries, but it is Aziraphale who delivers the emotional core of the scene with the heartbreaking question: âWhy give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?â
That line lands because it finally says out loud what the relationship had been building toward for years: Crowley is not simply important to Aziraphale, he is part of how Aziraphale understands himself, his world, and the humanity he has grown to love. It is vulnerable and devastating in exactly the way viewers had been waiting for.
God laughs and answers that it's because their love always made her smile. This acknowledges the depth of what Crowley and Aziraphale mean to one another and confirms that their bond mattered on a cosmic level. But at the same time, it can feel bittersweet because the relationship is finally being named with complete honesty only when everything else has already collapsed.
Then God offers them privacy and allows them one request. And finally, after everything, the story gives Crowley and Aziraphale a quiet conversation with no Heaven, no Hell, and no one else between them.
She gives them privacy, and they talk. Aziraphale asks Crowley what he wants, Crowley scoffs and asks why he should have a say, Aziraphle responds with "because i only want one thing, and it's not about that anymore", which is crazy to me because it basically in my eyes implies he just wants Crowley.
That line is honestly one of the most emotionally revealing things Aziraphale says. For so much of the story, his choices are framed around duty, what the ârightâ thing is supposed to be. He has spent centuries tying his wants to responsibility. So hearing him say that he only wants one thing, and that it is no longer about the fate of the universe, feels incredibly personal.
And with everything the story has built between them, it feels almost impossible not to read Crowley at the center of that.
Because by that point Aziraphale has already tried choosing Heaven. He has tried duty. He has tried believing he could fix things from within. And all of it led to loss. The systems he kept prioritizing have fallen apart around him. The one thing that has remained constant through centuries of change and every impossible situationâis Crowley.
But then Aziraphale places the final decision in Crowleyâs hands, and Crowley ultimately decides to reboot the universe with no angels, demons, or celestial beings at all, and that is where the ending feels especially frustrating.
The idea itself makes sense on paper. Crowley has always questioned authority and pushed back against systems built on obedience. A world free from Heaven and Hell could be read as the ultimate extension of everything he has believed in. A universe where everyone is free to exist without celestial interference.
But emotionally, it can feel unsatisfying because it turns such a deeply personal story into a massive reset.
What about Gabriel and Beazebulb who choose themselves over the system? They presented a more intimate and emotionally grounded answer. The series shows that freedom can come from stepping outside the system rather than erasing everything entirely. It shows that love itself can be an act of rebellion. That someone can say no to Heaven or Hell and still build something meaningful afterward.
For two whole seaons, this series spent so much time building attachment to this world: humanity, Earth, the bookshop, all the strange and lovable side characters, and especially the specific relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale. The emotional weight comes from how much history they built inside this universe. And that they had found things worth living in it despite the roles imposed upon them, they found each other.
So having Crowley resolve everything by rebooting reality can feel disconnected from what made the story powerful in the first place. Instead of confronting the systems they were trapped in and emotionally working through what happened between them inside the world the audience spent years caring about, the story wipes the board clean.
Crowleyâs arc was never just about destroying systems. It was also about attachmentâto Earth, to humanity, and especially to Aziraphale. He likes humans. He loves the weirdness of living among them. He cares about the world in all its imperfection. His rebellion always felt meaningful because he chose compassion and connection over blind obedience.
Also, call me crazy but it also makes it worse implying that while Aziraphale agrees with his choice it wasn't one he ultimately wanted considering what he implied earlier? Like you give Aziraphale the development to choose Crowley just to once again, take it away.
Aziraphale telling Crowley, âBecause I only want one thing, and itâs not about that anymore,â feels like a huge emotional turning point. For the first time, he seems to separate himself from Heaven completely and speak from a place that feels deeply personal. And because of the way the scene is framed, it feels heavily implied that what he wants is Crowley.
That is what makes the ending sting. Because it feels like Aziraphale finally reaches the emotional place viewers had been waiting for, finally understanding Crowley, finally choosing him openly, finally letting go of the system, and then that development is immediately redirected.
He gets the realization. He gets the clarity. He finally seems ready to choose Crowley not out of obligation or fear or guilt, but simply because he wants him. And then the story takes that moment away almost as quickly as it arrives.
Aziraphale's arc was always meant to be built around this realization. So for it to come but at the cost of just, erasing his existence 3 minutes later leaves an empty feeling. It feels like Aziraphale finally gets the character development to choose Crowley for himself⊠only for the story to once again put that choice just out of reach.
And then when Crowley and Aziraphale say goodbye to each other...it's just a finger kiss??? Don't get me wrong Michael and David did amazing with their performances and you can feel the love in their eyes but, we deserved a better romantic climax.
So the universe gets rebooted, and weâre shown a new world where Crowley and Aziraphale exist as humans and eventually find each other again. They get their romance, they end up together, and on paper it is framed like a happy ending.
But that is also where the ending can feel especially hollow.
Because they are not really them.
These versions may physically resemble Crowley and Aziraphale, and they may even still be drawn to each other, but they do not carry the centuries of history that made their relationship so meaningful in the first place.
The reason Crowley and Aziraphale matter so much is not simply because they fell in love. It is because they spent centuries becoming who they are with each other. Their bond was built through time, through conflict, through humanity changing them, through repeatedly choosing compassion over obedience and choosing each other even when it was dangerous.
So replacing them with human versions who have none of those memories can feel less like payoff and more like losing them entirely.
Yes, those human versions may still fall in love. Yes, they may still be happy. But it is hard not to feel like the original Crowley and Aziraphaleâthe ones viewers spent years caring aboutâare gone. Because, in retrospect, they are.
And that can feel more heartbreaking than hopeful, because the story spends so long emphasizing free will and the importance of choices. Crowley and Aziraphaleâs relationship mattered because of the choices they made together over centuries. Their love felt earned because it belonged specifically to them.
So ending with alternate human versions getting the happy ending can feel bittersweet, technically they find each other, but not as the two people the audience actually watched grow and struggle and love each other for all that time.
the ending gives them the romance they were denied⊠while also taking away the very versions of them who earned it.
So again I ask, what is the emotional takeaway of the finale? What is the audience meant to feel beyond emptiness?
If the point is that love transcends timelines and they will always find each otherâthere is something beautiful in that. But it also clashes with what the show spent so long teaching us. Because Good Omens made their specific history feel important. Their love was not meaningful only because they were destined for each other. It was meaningful because of every choice they made along the way.
And if the message is that love still matters even if everything ends⊠that can work too. But the finale also spends so much time emphasizing loss and wiping away the world they spent centuries protecting that it can leave the audience emotionally stranded. The characters are technically together, yet the people viewers became attached to are gone. The systems they fought against disappear, but so does the life they built within that world.
if the versions of Crowley and Aziraphale we followed are erased, if their memories are erased, if the world they loved is erased, and the emotional conflict season 2 built never fully gets unpacked before that happens⊠then what exactly was all of that pain building toward?
What are we supposed to take from Aziraphale finally seeming ready to choose Crowley, only to lose that version of them? From Crowley finally confessing his feelings, only for the relationship to reset? From all the focus on humanity, free will, and compassion, only for the universe itself to be wiped clean?
And I understand that there were under a time crunch, but the problem wasn't only that it was rushed, but that the writing quite literally it took away the central heart of Good Omens and the strong messagining that came with it.
Also, we got no KISS?? no HUG?? and no STRAIGHTFORWARD CONFESSION??? These two deserved a better resolution.
If you read all the way MWAK I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE THESE SILLY LITTLE GUYS and thats why im so passionate discussing this. Have a nice day <3
