Anastasia

[I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming this on the director or the cast, I think they did their best with what they were given, and the harassment they've been receiving is gross and unacceptable. Despite everything, I'm glad Rachel Talalay took care of this project, and I'm forever grateful that David and Michael brought this to life for us one more time, seeing them both on screen is a joy every time. Even if I didn't like it, I'm glad they tried to bring it to conclusion.

One other thing that I can't ignore while writing this is how (as some people pointed out) this ending might have been heavily based on NG's scripts, even with some changes, and with what we heard from one of the writers I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, so this is just to say that my complains are more about the crappy writing and the awful messages than about the pacing and all the other stuff that is due to budget and runtime cuts.]

1. For a start, I think this finale places Aziraphale and Crowley on a too high pedestal that they did not need. The original story of Good Omens didn't put all of humanity's sake in their hands, and that's because the original story knew these characters aren't morally superior heroes.

That was the whole point actually.

Crowley and Azi are imperfect in many ways, and it's clear from the start that they don't just want to save humanity because it's "the right thing to do", they mainly wanna preserve their own life and the comfort they found on earth ("no more Mozart", "no more little restaurants where they know you"), and that's what's beautiful about them, what makes them human. They don't love humanity in the selfless, all encompassing way a god would, they love the earth for the same reasons that we do: because of the experiences, of the endless possibilities, the books, the cars, the whales. Yes they love humanity, but they were never meant to make this big of a choice for them.

Of course, I get the existentialism behind that last decision, to have Azi and Crowley choose humanity and offer themselves as a final delcaration of love for them, and I understand why many people found meaning in it. But I also think everything leading up to that scene completely obfuscated the intentions behind it, and the execution of said sacrifice was even more of a mess.

2. We couldn't have seen that coming. The finale spends a lot of time on plots that don't lead anywhere, it dances around Aziraphale and Crowley's problem without giving them time to solve it and TALK (you know, just literally the biggest problem that was brought up in s2 and should've been the main focus of our main characters' arc this season), then we reach the ending and our characters have to take a decision the show did not prepare us for, and then it's over.

That's why a lot of us are upset, it's not because the ending is "sad", it's because it comes completely out of the blue, overturning everything we've always known about the characters and without a setup to support said ending. We've known these characters and this universe for years, we had a pretty clear idea of where their character arcs were headed and what to expect from this story as a whole, and literally nothing, from a narrative perspective, was leading to a tragic ending.

Good Omens has always been a comedy, and even though it did touch on some grimy topics, in the end its characters always found a way out by outsmarting the system and finding loopholes (the "But is it also the Ineffable Plan?", the body swap, the trick with Job's children). The ultimate message was always that, no matter what sick rules society imposes on you, you can choose your own path in life.

So, if there was one thing us viewers could count on, it was that our characters would always come through, and for YEARS the showrunners convinced us that's what was going to happen (namely, the South Downs cottage). Then in s3 the narrative does a 180 and tells you that no, actually there is no way out of this and our characters just need to surrender to the system (why? we're left to wander, this possibility was never introduced to us, so why now?).

What left me utterly defeated in that moment is that Crowley and Aziraphale didn't even try to find another solution or one of the usual loopholes (and there were plenty, the writers just decided not to use them– they had the book of life in their hands ffs, don't give your characters an all too powerful tool if you don't want them to use it).

3. Everything that mattered to us was destroyed. Above all else, this is what hurts the most. And I'm not just talking about our main characters (and everyone else) literally dying, I'm talking about that happening before both their character arcs had reached a proper end.

I'm talking about the fact that season 2 had set up the premise for a reconciliation, which needed to happen in order for their relationship arc to be complete, for this ending to be at least somewhat happy, and instead all we got was a mockery of an apology, and our characters acting as if they had learnt nothing from their conflict (which they didn't, the writing there completely forgot they had some character development to do and decided to not bother with fixing their relationship).

How can I be happy to see these two act bitter around each other for one and a half hour and not address their emotions seriously?

The storyline we were following about these two, along with that of every other character we knew, was discarded, cut short. This is the definition of sacrificing the characters for the plot. A plot that was not even thematically coherent with Good Omens in the end!! Who asked for this? It's no wonder people are pissed. Again I could have accepted their unnecessary death if they had at least solved their own conflict before that. If the story that I had been following was brought to conclusion.

This is why I feel betrayed as a viewer. The writer/s knew exactly what the story needed and what the public expected, and they decided not to deliver that.

4. In the end the message this finale leaves us with reads as "you can't overcome oppressive systems" and it's sad to say, but it's an awful message to spread given the times we're living in, and given that the characters delivering said message are a metaphor for queerness and religious guilt.

Picture it like this: we live in a society that ostracizes gay people and has actively prosecuted and killed them for their very existence all throughout history (and still is). If we had the opportunity to change the system once and for all, of course we would want it to not have existed in the first place so that nobody ever got hurt, but reality is that we can't erase the past (and even if we could magically erase everyone and start over, that would not take away the suffering that already happened!!), we can only fix it in the present and make sure things will be better going forward. That's the most human thing you can do: learn and do better.

Erasing the past and starting from zero is a lazy easy-fix from a narrative standpoint, and it's never a solution in real life, on the countrary, it's something we have to learn to accept as not possible. So why would you try to send that message in a story that's always been a metaphor for real issues?

What are we to learn from this? That when your society doesn't even want you alive you should just hope to get luckier in the next life? To abandon everything you've ever fought for because it's not perfect? Where is hope in all of this? Where is the message of hope that was delivered in the book and in s1?

I'm sorry but this couldn't be farthest from the Good Omens I know. And neither the story, nor the characters, deserved this end. Aziraphale and Crowley didn't deserve to end in such a miserable way, the imperfect humanity they've grown to love didn't deserve to vanish either, they deserved to be fought for, just like our imperfect world does.

I actually really like Cleopandra's alternative ending idea because that feels more like Good Omens, a story where no matter what, humanity finds a way to thrive, and the protagonists are able to get out of any dire situation with a clever twist.

And that ending opens the door to a theme that's also very important to me: change. That's where I thought Good Omens was gonna end, with the system being dismantled, and with all the angels and demons being given the possibility to change.

How awesome would it have been? How satisfying, to see the "holier than thou" angels and the demons who had to make "suffering" their whole personality discover something new, a world of possibilities, and have the chance to decide what they want to do with their existence as supernatural entities. Heaven and Hell are just labels, once you get rid of the system that punishes humans after death and forces all the angels and demons into maintaining a façade, you have given everyone free will. And maybe there will be angels and demons who won't accept this change, who will still want War because that's what they've dedicated their whole life to and will be left asking "what's the point of me now?", and that's where the magic starts, that's when they'll start to grasp the human experience, when they will have to decide what their life means to them, and what they're gonna do with it.

Instead, we got nothing. All the characters we loved didn't get a chance to heal, they simply got erased, their memories and their trauma with them, as if those things weren't at all important to the story.

In the end I'm just disappointed. I know it's unfair to talk about all the stuff that they couldn't fit in just 90 minutes, and it's not like I was expecting this finale to be perfect, but I still did have some hope, because what was the point of making s3 at all if not to give us closure? Who thought not giving our favorite characters closure was a good idea?? I think we all know who, and that's a big part of why I'm disappointed.

I'm pissed at that one awful man in particular who has likely been playing with us all this time and has managed to ruin this for all of us, I'm sad because the fandom's bad reaction is affecting the actors and all the lovely people who did put passion and care in this project, I'm sad for the community who is being divided by this and for the people who had their comfort show ruined. And I'm sad for what this show could've been.