a timeline of my GO3 finale experience:
at 12:30am i was having a great time – pre-fall content? check. chaotically drunk, heartbroken crowley? double check. adorable jesus and ridiculous supreme archangel aziraphale? checkity check check.
at 1:00am um oh er wow they continue to reference the split out loud… am i watching fanfiction with my actual eyes?
at 1:20am oh god, oh no, where is this going
at 1:40am TOTAL DEVISTATION. no memories? no kiss? no hug? no eternity? absolute rubbish WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE i don’t know them, don’t talk to me
at 1:50am queue several hours of me emulating anthony j crowley drunk in an alley muttering everything is pointless
but then… BUT THEN… i began to consider the narrative outside of the mashed together and stuck on fast forward finale
we didn’t have the time to really feel the literal YEARS that passed for crowley of total radio silence after the love of his life rejected him for the system he loathes with every fibre of his being
we didn’t get the time to digest the level at which he is drowning in hopelessness – he’s always known that the universe is rigged, but found solace in “our side.” then after multiple rejections, there isn’t any “our side” anymore and maybe there never really was, so in his words “what’s the point?”
it’s not that he doesn’t love aziraphale anymore, or that he doesn’t want them to be together, it’s just that he knows after 6000 years of the same cycle, the same dynamic, the same looking over the shoulders, the same never feeling safe, that they can never be together in the way they want
aziraphale took a lot longer, and went about it in a completely different way, but reached the same conclusion after trying to fix things from a position of power – of course nothing was fixed and it all went pear-shaped just as it always does
our ineffable bbs are TIRED™
no matter what they try to do or don’t do, it never EVER turns out the way they so badly want it to, and at this point in the story, they both know that in this universe, it never can
even if they reset their world without heaven or hell and kept their memories, there’s 6000 years of an established dynamic of pain, longing, and paranoia that comes with it
at this point in their story, the growth of each character over the course of the series has the tables completely turned: aziraphale would give up the world for crowley, and crowley will give them up for the world
it’s always been about humanity and free will, after all
1:25pm at the time of writing this
here’s how it ends/begins: without heaven or hell or god, Crowley and Aziraphale reincarnate as humans again and again, in every era, and find each other
every scene we saw of them as angel and demon, they revisit as humans without needing excuses or rescues or the threat of celestial repercussions
they get to eat oysters together in rome
they get to go see hamlet
they get to meet in full armour in the wet forest
they get to slow dance in a bookshop in the throes of world war II
they get to experience every century, every era, every moment from before plus the ones in the space between when heaven and hell kept them apart
and they get to do it on their own terms, on their own side, over and over and over again
it doesn’t end in the south downs, it’s just one of the many lifetimes together they’ve earned for their sacrifice
and at the death of this new earth, they’ll meet in the aftermath, immortal once more, as all the versions of themselves
off in the stars together, for all of eternity
