SlashWhore

And then GO3 actually came out and instead of getting either of these, we just got the Worst of Both Worlds. We got a narrative where Aziraphale gave Crowley nothing but the shittiest Nopologies ever and it doubles-down on the one point that Crowley, and the audience, was most upset about (Angel Crowley) and also one that treats Crowley like he is perfect and right all the time and absolutely refuses to engage with Az’s pain and continues to treat his viewpoint as nothing but overly naive foolishness!

Personally I think the fact that Crowley was so heart broken that he was self destructive has some legitimacy.

I really enjoyed slorch the vile and his assistant. I think these can fit into future fics to great comedic effect and even to make his existence have real consequences for hell.

I think the fact that Michael seemed overwhelmed and was ready to destroy everything has some substance. I really related to this aspect of the story as a caregiver myself. I saw burnout there and had empathy for her.

This is an attempt to structure my thoughts about Good Omens 3. I'll leave the third point for later.

As I see it, "the Finale" has three major problems:

The scriptwriters never watched either Season 1 or Season 2

Amazon are greedy b***.

The end of the story

I've seen feew posts lately blaming NG for the poor script, some going so far as to accuse him of doing it out of spite. That's complete rubbish. Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending NG as a person, but he is a successful professional writer. He knows how to write a COHERENT story.

Season 2 may be controversial, but it answered a great many questions left over from Season 1. How Aziracrow first met. How Crowley's Fall began. Why an angel struggles with French. What happened after the church explosion. Why Crowley reacts so strongly to Aziraphale's magic tricks.

What's more, we got wonderful historical minisodes that added even more depth to the relationship between those two.

But even then we lost several important scenes because of Amazon's greed. They didn't care. They knew people would watch Season 2 anyway, and apparently decided there was no point spending more money if they could get away with less.

A few quotes:

In fact I don’t think there are any lost scenes in Season 2. That has more to do with me having had to cut the scripts before we started shooting to hit all of our budget and shooting deadlines than anything else.

There was a dream sequence (or was it?) at the end of episode 2 that we never shot that I still miss.

- Hello! I was wondering, were there any deleted scenes of Crowley and Aziraphale that didn't make it into the final cut? - Not that were shot. For budget reasons they were all cut at script stage.

Important parts of the story were already taken away from us back then. I'm afraid they're lost forever now. Although… I do have one thought about that, but I'll save it for dessert.

In the Finale, the script was handed over to people who clearly had no intention of putting any real effort into it. It doesn't matter whether they were friends of NG or loyal Amazon hires - they simply didn't try, and, judging by the result, they weren't particularly capable of doing the job in the first place.

The script was rewritten in a hurry, carelessly and without any real thought behind it. Amazon seemingly just found the cheapest people available - people who wouldn't ask questions, wouldn't dig into the existing story, and wouldn't concern themselves with whether any of it actually made sense.

The quality of the production becomes obvious within the very first minute:

The rebel angels have lost. First we're shown Crowley – he has pale wings (and not serpent eyes), meaning he is NOT a demon yet. Then we see Aziraphale. Good Lord, why has he got what looks like a plastic bath sponge on his head? Was the costume department raided by a discount bathroom shop? Then Michael turns up wrapped in what appears to be a tablecloth. Why are the costumes so dreadful? Did they find them in a second-hand warehouse? Who did the make-up?

The entire scene is dark, shabby, incredibly cheap-looking and painfully artificial. Do you know what it reminds me of? A student theatre production. We did those as well: costumes made out of towels and curtains, a flower pot standing in for nearly every prop imaginable, villains eavesdropping by discreetly poking their heads out from behind a screen. At least our play had original poetry in it.

So apparently Aziraphale is suddenly a brilliant strategist and general whose contribution to the victory was enormous. Fine. Then why does he later become an ordinary guard on the Wall? Why isn't he an Archangel? More importantly, why is he a platoon commander in Season 1 (roughly 25–30 personnel), a position no higher than lieutenant?

Was he demoted because he gave away the sword? Nobody except the Almighty even knew about that!

Back to "Season 3". Michael then says the rebels wanted control of the Eternal Flame but failed. You know, one of those rebels is currently lying right beside that Flame. In a couple of minutes everyone leaves and he'll be there entirely on his own… and then what? You introduce a new powerful artefact and never explain its role. Space is cold, yes, I know; nobody would object to warming themselves by a bonfire.

Right. Moving on. Next, Aziraphale and Crowley… meet for the first time.

WHAT?! YES!

- Hello. I'm… - General Aziraphale, I know who you are. I saw you on the battlefield.

I'm already exhausted from commenting on this nonsense, and we're only four minutes into the film.

I have a great deal to say about the logic and internal consistency of this thing.

Wickber Street

For absolutely no reason, Wickber Street has turned into a neglected rubbish dump by the sixth minute of the film. What happened to central London? Where are all the people? I have an answer: poor little Amazon couldn't afford extras or shopfronts. Only a few actors remained, and they probably paid for the privilege of appearing in it.

Crowley

Crowley is left without miracles, without his car, and spends his time lying in a corner permanently drunk.

Why isn't he living in the bookshop when nobody else is there? Where does he get the money to drink? How does he keep the rats out of the bookshop – does he eat them? And just imagine the smell of his clothes…

Incidentally, why is he still wearing the burnt jacket from Season 1? How did they even let him into a casino?

People ask why Aziraphale left him out on the street. Well, because Crowley told him to go away. Also because he probably smells.

Then Hell drags him back and orders him to find Jesus, and he refuses. Remember Season 2, when he was ordered to find Gabriel? He didn't refuse then. Why? Because Crowley is a clever survivor.

What would the REAL Crowley have done in a REAL third season?

He would have demanded his unlimited miracles back. He would have demanded his flat back. He would have got the Bentley back. He would have bankrupted the casino. He would have miracled beer to go with Jesus's pizza. He would have popped up in Heaven for a visit.

This script turns him into a discarded rag. A remarkable achievement considering Crowley spent two seasons being one of the most competent characters in the room.

The Metatron

His storyline is simply obliterated. Not concluded. Not resolved. Obliterated.

At the end of Season 2 he had the beginnings of a genuinely substantial role. Perhaps the actor's health prevented them from pursuing it, or perhaps the character was simply thrown in the bin. Yet the set-up was clearly there.

Especially that line about him rummaging around in the Book of Life.

Jesus

Jesus is useless. Which is certainly a fascinating narrative decision.

His entire arc is destroyed.

If everything follows the Almighty's Plan, then did She really send Her Son to Earth for half a day purely so he could taste pizza?

Agnes Nutter's Book

Do you remember the Further Book of Agnes Nutter? I do. It was quite long.

What exactly was written in it if Earth had less than ten years left? A daily weather forecast?

The Further Book is fascinating, actually.

You could argue: Ah! That means Free Will doesn't really exist if Agnes was able to predict everything so accurately. So everything truly is following the Plan after all?

I have an answer to this question.

But first answer this one: why was Agnes's book so thick if the end was coming so soon?

Hell

They turned Hell into a circus, Dagon into an idiot, and Eric into a hysteric. (Why didn't he burn down the bookshop, by the way?)

Dagon needs Jesus. Why? Because Beelzebub needed Gabriel in Season 2? The writers copied the shape of the storyline and forgot the reason it existed in the first place. Like someone reproducing a maths equation by drawing the symbols and hoping nobody asks what they mean.

Aziracrow and Jesus

Aziracrow find Jesus.

But they're in a tremendous hurry because they now have the Bentley and need to get to the Eternal Flame. (Michael apparently took the last bus.)

Why not bring Him with them?

Perhaps He could have persuaded Michael not to destroy the universe, given that the two of you couldn't even manage to hold her hands.

(25-Lazarus miracle, where are you?)

The Dialogues

The dialogues between Aziraphale and Crowley, Crowley and Satan, Satan and the Almighty, the Almighty and Aziraphale…

Good Lord, I scarcely even want to comment on it.

Every single line is nonsense. Not in a poetic way. Just in a nonsense way.

No professional writer would write dialogue this absurd and meaningless. No one.

I have lots of questions. No, actually I have one question. Why did you create people and then punish them for behaving like people? Why make them both good and evil in the first place? Why are you ending everything now?

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds ridiculous? Am I the only one who remembers that Angel Crowley had much cleverer questions long before humanity even existed? Incidentally, he never got an answer to a single one of those questions. So that's sorted, then.

Satan:

"You joined us because we had a chance."

Crowley:

"I don't even remember why I joined you. I was tired and angry."

Honestly, what was he so tired from? Polishing stardust?

Like, okay, there's a level where I'm trying to be like "I have to engage with the baseline of what the story was clearly attempting to convey via it's framing and directorial choices and basic narrative structure. And the story that Good Omens Season 3 is trying to tell is that Crowley and Aziraphale have defeated God by convincing Her to make a Godless Universe. This is them wrestling some sort of agency out of God's rigged game, breaking the Ineffable Plan, and giving all of us free will"...

But also the thing is that it is so so easy, temptingly easy even, to make the argument that they never truly outplayed God, that everything that happened was exactly according to Her plan, that the Ineffable Plan was to get these two to sacrifice their lives to create a Godless Universe, that Crowley and Aziraphale just lost one final time in the Ineffable Poker Game for infinite stakes.

After all, why DID the Metatron think Aziraphale would be a good candidate for replacement Supreme Archangel? (and not any other of the 10 million Angels out there, or, say, one of the 4+ perfectly good actual Archangels hanging around Heaven who haven't repeatedly committed acts of treasons?) We never got any sort of decent explanation for that…

And how come Hell only bothered to revoke Crowley's access to Miracles just now, after letting him get away with it for years?

Well, a potential explanation would be that God was the one who actually told Metatron to promote Aziraphale and that God pulled the strings to finally suspend Crowley's Miracle Account, to get Crowley to his lowest point, to make him miserable and pessimistic and waste years gambling on rigged games, all to make him give up on Free Will and give up on his life…

Meanwhile, Aziraphale goes along with his decision out of Love, the same Love that God has already said is 'Predictable'. So… wouldn't They have predicted that Aziraphale would agree to Crowley's 'Heroic Sacrifice' right at that moment?

And how come Crowley and Aziraphale even survived after the entire Book of Life burned? Well, what was the explanation for how Satan survived? It made for a 'Good Story' for God.

So is that why Crowley and Aziraphale survived? Because God wanted Her favorite little ship around for the final round of the Universe? Why, what is the Story She was trying to 'tell' with this ending? Maybe the Story was just… GO3?

And why did She even entertain Crowley and Aziraphale's questions and requests? She had no reason too, if She truly wanted to end the Universe once and for all, She could've just done it. She didn't have any obligation to follow Crowley's request for a new universe either? Maybe because this what She planned all along?

When Crowley and Aziraphale made their request, they didn't actually specify they wanted an Earth and Humans in that new Universe, God tossed it in (even though you'd think Predetermining Evolution like that would go against some sort of Free Will..), maybe because that was already in the Plan?

After all, the World was destroyed, exactly as the Great Plan said it would…

If they actually restored that old world, you can say the Great Plan has been defied or broken. But is making a new Universe breaking it, or just continuing on the part that no one but God has ever seen?

Like, the thing is that we already introduced the concept of "actually, what if you just THINK what is happening now is going against the Plan but since the Plan is Ineffable and Nothing Can Be Against God's Will, so is just what She Planned All Along!"

Originally, it was presented jovially, with an optimistic, or at least ambivalent tone. Well, if anything you do is part of God's Plan, then you can do whatever you feel like! Maybe God wants Adam to choose his destiny, maybe God doesn't want the Universe to end, maybe God just wants Humans to have Free Will?

But then GO3 decided that, no, God is a straightforward antagonist that wants the world to end, and the existence of Her and Her Ineffability means that there is no Free Will and this world is not "real". It even emphasized the point of how someone might seem like and even think they are rebelling against God but they are actually only following Her will with Satan.

So… how the hell do we know that Crowley and Aziraphale aren't following God's will as well? That they aren't doing their jobs as characters in Her story? How do we know that this isn't also part of the greater ineffability?

I think the actual answer is just Bad, Rushed writing. The story put itself in a very difficult position, going up against an Ineffable God whose machinations invalidate the Free Will of the entire universe, and then never really establishing how or why our protagonists apparently have Free Will to defy Her this time. Even though the intent is for it to be the case.

David Tennant and Claire Rushbrook photographed at the Rivals 2 episode 6 screening event - June 2026

it forgets that the christian cosmology was the setting, told through corporate satire, not the villain. even God wasn’t an active tyrant; she was an absent CEO, leaving individual contributors like Aziraphale and Crowley to realize their job descriptions were irrelevant to the company's bottom line anyway, so they coasted by on minimum effort

Reality:

sign.

It has been since the very beginning.

NG (fuck NG) thought of a book plot where a demon finds himself in The Omen movie. But he screws up the baby switch. And the Antichrist grew up as a character in a Richmal Crompton novel. He didn't know what to do with it next. TP offered to buy the story. He changed the demon into a demon and an angel defying their bosses on the earth they both loved. He added his smart whimsy and gave the story a moral core far beyond a silly spoof. When the story was written, queer kids saw themselves in the angel and demon based on the subtext. Because they lived in subtext. Gender fluid and trans readers created stories about an angel and demon for whom gender was a choice depending on how or whether they decided to make an effort. The strangeness of fitting into a planet dominated by beings the angel and demon differed from spoke to neurodivergent readers.

Religious readers found healing after years of struggling to make sense of doctrine divorced from morality. Some ace and aro readers saw the deep and meaningful relationship beyond romance between a pair together over 6000 years. And tons of horny people from all walks of life poured their hearts into smut that made the most of beings whose bodies allowed for a range of sexual practice that would never be realistic for humans.

I explained very clearly to the manager my issue with the meat section not having the price tags listed, and they claimed it was only going to be for the meat, since meat is by weight, and the price of each item is printed on the packs of each item.

Sure. That’s how they get their foot in the door. Fast forward not even two weeks, and here we are:

Bar codes. No prices, no item descriptions. No price stickers on the individual items. Heck, not even the name of the item that is SUPPOSED to be there.

No. The only way to see the price is to scan it on your phone app, which is also recording what you looked at recently, as a way of gauging what you might be looking for in the future.

So here’s what we’re gonna do gang:

Every time you go into a store that has implemented these price-less tags:

Take 1-3 items up to the cash register. Ask the cashier for the price, or hit the price check item on the self checkout, which will likely call over the attendant.

Express that you didn’t actually want it, you just couldn’t see on the shelf how much it was.

POLITELY, AND WITH A THANK YOU FOR THE PRICE CONFIRMATION, Give the items to the cashier or attendant to put back.

When they inevitably try to push the app, politely decline. If pressed for why not, say you don’t want to have to carry your phone in-hand the whole time you are shopping in order to see how much things cost. (Not having cell service or data to use the app is NOT a valid excuse, as stores already often have complimentary WiFi AND more stores will provide WiFi rather than give up on this push for surveillance pricing)

If it’s a shelf-stable item, the cashier will have to set it aside, taking up room in their limited operating space, and eventually pass it off to someone to put in a holding area to put back later. If it’s a fridge/freezer item, it might have to get tossed due to food product sale regulations.

In either case, you are making it a pain in the ass for them to have these digital bar codes. Tie up the checkouts. Give the employees more busywork that the company has to pay them to do. Hurt their bottom line having to toss the pint of ice cream you carried around in your cart for 20 minutes before giving it back to the cashier.

Okay, but Disney movies literally do it all the time in 90 minutes. That's the norm for most animated films. It's ABSOLUTELY possible to use a ninety minute runtime wisely and make it feel like a satisfying story. You just have to make it focused and trim away the side quests unless they contribute in an important way to our understanding of theme or character.

What exactly did the subplot about Crowley losing the Bentley actually contribute? I'm not just trying to be snide here, I am actually truly wondering, what was the POINT?

(My point is, dolphins)

Obviously the answer is, it was probably one of the original six episodes that comprised Season 3, so they kept it in despite having to trim so much of it away that might have given it relevance. But why keep it in at all??

That entire sequence with the crime boss wasted SO MUCH of the precious runtime, time that could have been spent better elsewhere. Like, I dunno, maybe having Crowley and Aziraphale actually reconciling?? Or actually developing Michael's motivation as a villain?? Or giving poor Jesus an actual conclusion to his arc instead of Thanos-snapping him away before he ever "finds the lady"?

I just. I went into the finale feeling SO easy to please. I could have forgiven a rushed plot, bad special effects, some mysteries from S2 never being solved because there wasn't time. I could've even forgiven the fact that some major characters didn't make an appearance again, due to budget constraints and actors not wanting to return.

It didn't need to be Objectively Good for me to enjoy it! Truly!

I would've hand-waved it all away...if they had only given me the one thing I wanted in the end: Crowley and Aziraphale living in peace together for eternity.

CW and TW: discussions and mentions of Neil Gaiman.

Ok, it’s been a minute since my first post which basically gives a run down on my emotional state, my emotional reaction, and just a lot of deep seated feelings. I did promise I would talk a little bit more about contextual issues and today’s post is going to be devoted to the writing of the finale.

Again because this is going to be yet another critical take, I understand those of you out there who either enjoyed the finale and don’t want to see anything negative or even if you hated it but don’t want to be exposed to any further negativity may not want to read this. So I will put my thoughts under the cut.

Again, I ask that people do not argue or send hurtful or derogatory messages to each other or anyone involved in the cast and crew*

*I’d give a caveat to the writers but in the end, don’t even send them hate messages. They’re not worth your time or effort.

This is a bit of a long one, so buckle in!