On a meta level, Good Omens S3 was EMOTIONAL ABUSE.
... Meaning, I'm pretty sure Neil Gaiman did it ON PURPOSE, knowing how much it would upset the fans.
Neil knew how badly we wanted Aziraphale and Crowley (OUR version of Aziraphale and Crowley---the specific version of them we met in Season 1) to be together. He knew we wanted to see them resolve their issues and ultimately choose to be with each other in the end.
Instead, Aziraphale and Crowley forgo that emotional journey in favor of unnecessary pain. Neither of them experience real character growth in the finale; they are shown to be the worst and unhappiest versions of themselves, without getting a real shot at redemption. They never fix their communication issues. They don't express their true, authentic feelings for one another (don't @ me with that bullshit hand kiss thing). They never manage to get on the same page emotionally---even when they both agree to commit suicide (which I'm pretty sure was not the "one thing" Aziraphale wanted).
"Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete and then take it away?"
EMOTIONAL WITHHOLDING is a common abuse tactic utilized by men like Neil. They enjoy creating ATTACHMENT in their victims and then "TAKING IT AWAY".
It's easy to see how much Neil enjoyed frustrating his fans in retrospect. He actively taunted us on social media with the catchphrase "WAIT AND SEE" and threatened to make Aziraphale and Crowley kiss---but in a way we "wouldn't like". He loved dangling the implied promise of a happy ending over our heads, which we now know he never planned to deliver on.
Neil was unkind to his audience. He was also unkind to his characters. Aziraphale and Crowley are treated as punching bags throughout the entire series---shown to be "messy" for the sake of entertainment, but not as a real obstacle for either of them to overcome. God herself says she enjoys seeing how much Aziraphale values his relationship with Crowley. And this turns out to be her justification for "taking it away". (Tell me THAT isn't some fucked up shit.) Aziraphale and Crowley experience real emotional pain as the result of her actions---and this is demonstrated by the incredible acting of Michael Sheen and David Tennant.
Neil explicitly sold this as "a love story" when he created the show. Based on the tone of the book, an eventual union between Aziraphale and Crowley would have made the most narrative sense. It would have emphasized the overarching themes of love, agency, and the futility of "choosing sides". But that would have required Neil to possess the same ethos as Terry Pratchett---meaning LOVE AND RESPECT FOR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS.
We were never going to get a good love story out of Neil. Men like Neil get off on "PUNISHING" people for no apparent reason; he obviously did this with our beloved characters, to disastrous result. Nonetheless, we still manage to ascribe deeper meaning to Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to the phenomenal acting team and the dedication of this fandom. Aziraphale and Crowley remain the greatest love story of all time, not because of anything Neil actually wrote, but because of everything that was projected onto them by the people who cared. We assigned their relationship a depth "Neil himself" never could have imagined---one that exemplifies our maximalist ideals of love and the decision to choose it again and again, in spite of everything. It is never going to "end" on Neil's preferred terms. In this rare instance, fan interpretation STILL MANAGES TO ECLIPSE THE SOURCE MATERIAL---and that is because LOVE is always a more powerful story than ABUSE.
I preface this all with I can recall the glorious moment after I finished s1 saying outloud I am so glad NG had so much control. He made it happen and got all the small parts right, what a talent, what a gift to us fans.
I realize now he did what he is so good at; taking something already there ( as he's done with already told fairy tale or myth as is common with his stories and even confessing his early shorts were fanfic-like mashups of other writers) and just adding his own style and name it. Yes, he got the best actors we could have ever got and made sure the best parts made it to screen and got a perfect production team. But it was cake mix ready to bake, he just put it in the oven. The book was waiting and btw someone else wrote a large majority of it.
I also clearly remember the addition of the Body Swap finale that was NOT in the book holding my breath, knowing the show was far too joyful and optimistic to actually kill the characters, but praying 'Please please please don't hurt them. Please don't add some stupid twist that doesn't need to be there. I don't want to see cruelty, I've been made so happy this far, they deserve a happy ending.' And there they were, laughing on a park bench and then gazing at each other over a romantic dinner .
There was no more perfect an ending I had ever seen in my life.
I recall the morning after s2 the confusion, not the 'sadness'. That...ending? After being promised by NG 'a season that could stand it's own if we don't get renewed'? 'Romantic and gentle'? That's not what I watched. I chalked it up to the jumble of Covid messing up the filming. But I described it to my sister like A DIVORCE THREATENING TO TAKE THE KIDS WITH IT. All these little fan promises and teases of maybe a queer romance, Maybe an angel and demon romance, maybe a kiss... We got Gabe and Beez together. We got tacked in Maggie and Nina. And we got a kiss that was like a rug being pulled out from under our feet. I was mortified after the kiss because it felt like the only one we were getting . And we had strange character shifts with no explanation that felt against everything from s1; Crowley's first lines sound suicidal about life and he's... sleeping in his car when you you season 1 Azi would have miracled another twin bed somewhere in the upper level of the Bookshop if not dragged Crowley by his heels to one of the sofas? And my dread of Azi messing up by trying to the Right Thing All The Time was delivered in spaded without any growth, and totally brought to a head with he'd still have any vestiges of wanting to work with Heaven and would leave Crowley like that? Worst of all was the plot of he wanted Crowley to be an angel again. The whole character relationship in the book and s1 was no matter how he acted holier-than-thou and looking down his nose at Crowley being a Demon they both really did not care and it was the least defining thing of their relationship. All these I chalked up as weak midsection writing for drama that would be cleared up, not some egotistical writer seeing what we liked the most and wanted and acting like it was his power to flex and make us squirm at his command.
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The argument that it's a Prachett ending is valid and even predicted by fans, but again, it's just like everything NG did before; just because he heard the sentence doesn't mean he couldn't put his own hook and twist on it. There's no joy, no twee humor, no DEATH just sighing and saying he's just doing a job. For the few high second in the finale between the Four in the bookshop there's something so contradictory, so cruel, so feeling like someone subjecting the followers to take it for shock because someone thinks that's clever storytelling. All this and the aforementioned points of s2 are small punishments, then pulling back and smiling, then punishing again, and pulling back again. This is what emotional abusers do (Yes, speaking from experience). You can't tell when they'll hurt you and how, they crave keeping you constantly on your toes not knowing when they just might give a twist and leave you hurt or confused again. Because it's control, which a man who wanted to be called The Master craved.
The characters are further desecrated to Azi the do-good boy-scout that pours so much oil in the waters to calm them and kills everything in them and then further turned into a punchbag for and by everyone. He's never given his proper growth. Crowley has to always figure things out for him. God even toyed with his love and devotion she had praised because it was cute and stupid? (Like a writer writing a bad book and hurting the characters for drama, weird isn't it?) And for Crowley to turn around in the end and say he wants the best for Humans like Azi had been trying to do....?
Crowley is given the continual NG writer insert dark artist spiral , somehow always guessing every problem, solving every puzzle, making every right move, and ultimately the traumatic martyr for humanity. Book Crowley and show Crowley balanced being the outside voice against Aziraphale's constant by the book logical way of thinking. He was on the other side of the the tracks, the kid that got kicked out of home so has seen it from the other side. But that was their balance.
That is why many saw the book as a love story and the show had a magical charm that in they end you feel, yes, it could be or it is a love story because of how the are always drawn to each other. NG should have just kept it simple, they always are swirling around but pulled together. Instead, angst and drama where drama was never needed reeks of cheap storyteller and a shitty writer.
Then the finale twist of a teary Azi saying how Crowley was the best and real Angel in the end utterly, again, defeats what they were created as.
I forever argue that the director (especially) and filmmakers had so little to work with and it was out of their hands to deliver anything more than they could fit in the runtime. But I'll fire one shot saying NG loudly said he had a s3 ending scripted that if he 'got hit by a bus' it was there and he had a team to get it done. He got hit. The two writers have worked with him before. That was his end as he foretold carried out.
I won't even touch on the Queer erasure and manipulations NG achieved as well, but it again fits with his abusive nature to pat us on the heads and say I'll give you what you wait but *yanks out chair*.
As the previous post said, it's the love of what was seen between the characters by the fans that transcend the source now. Even the actors seem to know they had to give us more at the moment than they normally should of (and that hurts). So, like so many fans have taken the fantastical but highly racist and dated work of H.P. Lovecraft and made it their own with fanart, fic, and conventions, do the same for G.O. as the fandom has for years. Get in the car and drive away from the abusive relationship. Make the fic and fan art, spread the joy. Don't hate anyone that finds moments of love and joy in the finale, they too are finding diamonds in the coal pile that NG made like the rest of us.
