Good Omens Finale : How to mess up an ending by forgetting your own messages
Foreword : I am used to do movies analysis in french. I did a 24 pages analysis of the first season and a 32 pages of the second. I really didn't think I'd write anything on the finale. But we have to talk about it, and I wanted to try for the first time in english, because I think it's important.
We have to talk about the best way to mess up an ending.
Personally, because of all the problems that happened, I didn't want to see it, I wasn't expecting it anything.
I was waiting for the book adaptation with such enthusiasm that I was sure I was gonna be disappointed : I was wrong. It was more than perfect to me. Season 2 was an emotional rollercoaster that ended with a heartbreaking finale I'm not about to forget. But I didn't look forward to this Finale, as they call it, with the same enthusiasm. I wasn't expecting anything at all. Well, they managed to disgust me anyways.
I don't hold it against the film crew, those who did everything they could to give fans an ending and bring our story an ending. For that, I can thank them. You can tell that some things were cut, you can tell it moves too fast, but the sets, the costumes, the actors' performances... all of that is still executed brilliantly.
On the other hand, I'm not going to praise the writing, which, judging by the numerous tweets and other bits and pieces here and there, wasn't done with love. Or at least, not until the last 20 minutes, because let's be honest: I enjoyed the rest, despite the fact that a lot of things seemed strange, or that the characters didn't seem like themselves at all. But the fact that the series completely misses the book's message still sticks in my throat. So, those are my issues with this finale.
1) Being human and having free will
"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people."
Here's a line taken from both the book and the series. Being human isn't about being good or bad; it's just ... about making choices. That's what Aziraphale and Crowley do: they choose. They choose to raise the Antichrist; they choose to meet, to have dinner together... In short, just like humanity, they have free will.
So ... Where, but where does this idea of Crowley wanting a world without God, angels, or demons, without hell or heaven, with true free will comes from ? Crowley has ALWAYS been the one who could make his own choices, and who helped Aziraphale finally break free from Heaven. Crowley's problem is that, for him, it is sometimes not fair (refering to Edimburg minisode) because everything depends on one's birth. That's the only real problem. As for the rest, we've always seen that Angels and Demons were the ones with the least choice, and that humans, on the contrary, had their free will. Anathema decides to burn the second Book of Agnes Nutter. Adam chooses not to destroy the world. Nina and Maggie decide they don't want to start a relationship right away. Crowley doesn't want to go back to Hell. Aziraphale decides to help Crowley raise what they believed to be the Antichrist. God never interfered in any of this.
So, yes, sometimes God wiped out people, like during the Flood and Noah's Ark, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or when God wanted to teach Job a lesson by taking everything away from him only to give him back twice as much later : but that's it. It was never stated in the series that God actually interfered in the world. In fact, God's "ineffable" plan was precisely that : ineffable. We didn't know when God was rolling the dices with the universe or not. Maybe the whole thing with the card game and "finding the lady" was a message about that, but honestly, I don't want to think about it because it's been proven since the first season that everyone is free to make their own choices. So, in short, what makes humans human are their choices. I remember the little surprise at the end of the first season: Aziraphale and Crowley each taking the other's body in order to survive. Before I understood that, I thought nothing could hurt them because they became human. And in a way, they did become human psychologically : at that moment, they no longer had sides and were part of humanity. It was even stated in both the book and the series : "In the end, it will be us, humanity, against Hell and Heaven." Where did that great war go? No, because in Season 2, when Aziraphale and Crowley performed a tiny miracle together, it was the first time an angel and a demon had performed a miracle together, and it was an extremely powerful miracle. Season 3 should have built on this idea of humanity versus the celestial beings, not, um ... the vague storyline we got.
In fact, what made everyone human with free will was that everyone had a choice DESPITE God's plans except for the Angels and Demons. They were the ones without free will. They were the ones who needed to be saved. Humans were doing just fine. In fact, in that « new world with free will », I don't see any changes at all from the one we knew.
Several times in the series or the book, we're told very clearly : Angels and Demons have nothing to do with human affairs. The French Revolution, World War II, the Spanish Inquisition... all of that is the fault of humans and their free will : God NEVER interfered in any of those stuff.
So it's rather counterproductive to see two humans-supposedly representing our favorite characters meet because it seems their fate is that they would always have met, wheareas Aziraphale and Crowley chose to meet and love each other. They've always had their free will.
Now, I don't know how they managed to miss this one. Maybe they did not read the book or watch Season 1 ? In any case, back to the series, here's what was said: "You're going to burn [the Earth] away ? Why ? Because some adults mucked things up ? That's a reason to fix it, not destroy it."
The book and the first season show us all the defaults of humanity, which is destroying everything, and yet the children (I repeat, CHILDREN) quickly realize that if something is broken, that doesn't mean you have to throw It away and replace It. If you love something, you love it with its flaws, and you don't abandon it because of that. In fact, the ones who need to be replaced, educated, and changed from the start are Heaven and Hell ! Adam says it himself: "You want to destroy the world to find out which side is better ?" The problem isn't God, it isn't that the world is doomed, it's that the Angels and Demons are too busy fighting each other to realize that humanity is beautiful. In Season 2, when Muriel discovers Earth, they're amazed, and that was the first step toward what should have concluded the series : that the Entities who think they're better than humans discover they're just as valuable as them, just as Aziraphale and Crowley discovered.
And it kills me to see that instead, we have a God who shows up and tells Aziraphale he was gluttonous, vain, or I don't know what other sins, Yes, we knew that, I even wrote it seven years ago, and that's what made Aziraphale a unique angel. Yet it's portrayed in such a cold way, with a God who looks down on Aziraphale, just as he judges his love for Crowley ... As if the angels and demons were the ones who were right.
It's always difficult to have God appear in a piece of media, and it's always best not to do it, or to keep him as a voice-over, like in the series. That way, everyone's happy : atheists, religious folks, etc. But above all, God is an entity we're not supposed to understand. So, seeing him appear and spout all that nonsense to Aziraphale, just like the angels and demons did before, made me uncomfortable. Because Aziraphale's journey in the series is about learning to stop listening to others and just be himself. But then, God-this powerful entity-shows up, tells him all that, and Aziraphale ... doesn't react ? Well, honestly, he didn't have time. But the idea remains : God is right, like everyone else, and we the viewers are the one who are in the wrong.
Anyway, that brings me to the next point: the episode with Job. The episode with Job that showed him losing everything, but regaining it all away in double.. Except that Aziraphale is surprised that the ancient children aren't being brought back. "Of course not. But we're giving them new ones." Fortunately, Aziraphale and Crowley fight tooth and nail to save the children, much to Job's delight. So, what were Aziraphale and Crowley thinking when they asked for a new world Where did their reasoning go ? No, because excuse me, but that makes no sense. At the end of the first season, they cheers to the World. And now, here we are, with every character our duo has known over the years who is DEAD, The good ones and the bad ones, Beelzebub, Gabriel, Shax, Furfur, Muriel, Uriel, Michael, Sandalphon, Saraquael, Jesus, Nina, Maggie, Adam, Wensley, Pepper, Bryan, Shadwell, Mrs. Tracy, Anathema, Newt, Dog, Job and his whole family, Satan, Metatron, Hastur, Ligur, Agnes Nutter, all of humanity, Crowley, and Aziraphale. The people we see at the end in the bar aren't the same: Adam isn't Satan's son and may never have been switched at birth; Anathema and Newt probably never met; Job's children ultimately died because they never existed; as for all those who weren't human, I don't even want to talk about them, cause they're just look alike.
We find ourselves like Job, like idiots : we didn't want the new human versions that vaguely resemble our characters; we wanted the old ones. Anthony and Asa are NOT Crowley and Aziraphale: they don't have their backstories, they grew up in unknown families, they might have siblings, abusive parents or not. we don't know and frankly, I couldn't care less about seeing these two copies that look like nothing get married and live in South Down.
I've seen people say that maybe it's a metaphor suggesting they'd end up in any universe. I feel like saying, people are clinging to whatever they can, because God makes it clear. "none of you would exist in such a universe." There are no other universes, or at least, the series doesn't show us any, and I don't want to make up something that isn't shown anywhere.
(So there is, of course, that snow globe with the bookstore and the Bentley, and if you've read other works by Gaiman, you know he likes pocket universes. But I don't want to imagine things for him.)
3) Aziraphale and Crowley
"Forever." Those are the ending words of the books. That's what we fans, whenever we became fans, after the book was published or after the series, wanted for our favorite duo. A beautiful story that never ends. Hope. The book and the first season are filled with messages of hope. Aziraphale is the one who breaks free, who manages to leave the family that traumatized him to fully live the life he wanted. Crowley Is the one who is wounded, who was rejected by his family and who finds comfort mainly through Aziraphale, "Us," "We." They are a duo, inseparable from the very beginning, since they were a single character at the very beggining, split in two to create what I consider the most beautiful duo ever seen on screen, They are adorable, funny, touching, and endearing, and it's easy to see ourselves in them because of the trials they endure.
So first of all, how did we go from a Crowley who says "We can run away together," "We're our own team," "I'd like to go ... , " "You and me, what do you say?," "no demons, no angels, just us," "it'll be all of us against all of them", in short, from a Crowley who spends two seasons drooling over Aziraphale to end up with a Crowley who ... wants to kill everyone including Aziraphale ? It makes absolutely no sense.
Anyway, I didn't want kisses or sex scenes like some fans. I was just looking for an "I love you," and a "happily ever after" ending.
Instead, I got the death of my characters. I watched them disappear forever. It doesn't work because they were completely out of character : there they were, Aziraphale saying nothing, Crowley asking for things he didn't care about a minute ago ...
But above all, the film's message is this : if you have the misfortune of living in a world where the system is corrupted, and where you are the embodiment of others' rejection, and resentment, the only solution is suicide, because you'll never find peace, love, and joy. We might as well live in a supposedly better world with a normal versions of ourselves.
It disgusts me to write something so awful. The book and the first season are so full of hope that I literally wanted to vomit watching what was happening before my eyes. Because I saw so much of myself in Azriaphale and Crowley-they were the embodiment of eternal love despite their psychological issues that it broke my heart to see such crap on screen.
While the books, Season 1, and Season 2 were heading toward a celestial battle, toward an Aziraphale who was going to fix the broken system to make it better and a Crowley who was finally going to find peace and love, while our characters could have finally lived their lives... everyone dies. Aziraphale does nothing to stop the Second Coming, Crowley decides to annihilate Earth, and both disappear. Everyone disappears after Jesus gave them hope.
Not every story can have a happy ending. But for that to work, it has to make sense, and here, it doesn't. The series completely forgets its themes, its message of hope, and we're left having to celebrate two completely unknown characters falling in love, while our favorite characters vanish. It is, I think, the worst ending that could ever have happened. In short, when you write things, never forget what came before.
I'm not going to hate the series because of this, though: I still think seasons 1 and 2 are absolutely brilliant, I love the book, and thanks to the fandom, I've been able to meet some extraordinary people. But that ending doesn't exist for me, I would never consider it canon, because it is not logic, it is an affront to the characters Terry Pratchett loved, and carries a really dangerous message for people with depression like me.
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