Is anyone else hugely confused by David's comments? "Crowley didn't get what he wanted" but "it's the perfect ending for Crowley"? Like... the perfect ending for Crowley is... not getting what he wanted? What??
Okay so with there being no actual evidence this specific ending was planned by Terry Pratchett (known freak and liar Neil Gaiman just saying shit doesn’t count)—with a Pratchett biographer saying TP and NG never actually sat down and wrote anything for a sequel plot, pointing out that the TP estate has no writing credits for the finale, suggesting executive producer Rob Wilkins disliked the finale, and saying he believed the cottage ending was planned by Pratchett but NOT for them to be different people, plus the finale literally erasing the entire book and rendering it pointless, everyone dying contradicting attitudes from Pratchett himself about reversing deaths in gomens, and David Tennant outright saying the ending wasn’t everything he wanted, I think we can all disregard that finale as bad fan fiction and stick to the canonical ending of the book/s1 instead lol. I’ve been saying this for a couple weeks now, but it helps that it seems like everyone involved but Gaiman hated this
With all the clarity of hindsight, you know what I would have loved Good Omens Season 2 and 3 to be? A pure, What We Do in the Shadows-style hang-out spin-off.
No world-ending stakes, no Plot with a Capital P. Just our Ineffable Duo hanging out on Whickber Street, getting up to no good for 30 minutes an episode, 8 episodes a season.
Imagine the episode lineup we could have had:
Episode 1: Aziraphale and Crowley try to matchmake Maggie and Nina. Aziraphale thinks he’s being helpful, Crowley thinks it's a lark, and the women are entirely unimpressed, but they find out their neighbours are supernatural, setting them up as regular side characters.
Episode 2: Shax turns up and evicts Crowley. He secretly lives in his Bentley until Aziraphale finds out at the end of the episode and forcefully moves him into the bookshop.
The rest of the season could be made up of historical flashbacks (Job, the Resurrectionists, wherever you want to go in history...) treated as standalone escapades. Maybe an episode that peels away and show us the offices in Heaven and Hell instead for a bit, or a meeting between Muriel and Eric who are both supposed to be spying on A&C.
Episodes 7-8: Season ends with a cosy, low-stakes two-parter about a memory-wiped Gabriel turning up as "Jim."
Then it all resets and we join them back in the bookshop again next season, where maybe Crowley loses his Bentley gambling with a gangster and Aziraphale has to reclaim it for him, maybe there's another Whickber Street Traders event...just all the nonsense like that, minus the anguish. And a lot more of it.
Just an angel and a demon being domestic and chaotic. I guess budget would have precluded anything ever like this, but it's a shame that this was always sold to us like it had to follow dramatic lines, whereas the more I look back on it, the less I think it needed it. Who do I talk to about getting this timeline instead?
Asa and Anthony are supposed to be a celebration of the ordinary imperfect human lives we all have, but because they can only come in right at the end to give the Ineffable Husbands some semblance of a ‘Happy Ending’, the only flaws in their lives we get to see are minor superficial stuff like books selling below expectations and second editions and mediocre haircuts. Which actually makes them and their happy seemingly perfect frictionless relationship come off as a lot more idealized and inhuman compared to how messy and imperfect and human Crowley and Aziraphale were.
THIS. I can't believe that even that one writer couldn't grasp that, actually, Aziraphale and Crowley were ALREADY very human, and so much more relatable than the human au
Of Snowglobes & Dual-Realities (Did we get TWO canon endings* to choose from?)
*The "Elsewhere" that could heal a divided fandom
Once again, the Good Omens fandom was given a divisive season ending, this one final. But this time, I think we've been shown an actual canon option out of this chaos, slipped in quietly for us. NOT by the authors in the script. It's in the snow globe and the end credit scenes.
I've been wondering about the final moments of this garden scene. It doesn't actually look very "real life" to me... (Yep. I'm back to analyzing again!)
Asa and Anthony were meant to be in "the real world" -- this actual world. But when the camara pulls back from their stargazing, we see an absurd and crowded display of (symbolic?) objects, including a snowglobe (right foreground). It's not a realistic garden scene. I love what the collection seems to represent, but it looks like a shadow box, or a book nook scene, or a room in a dollhouse, crafted with miniatures.
The objects are a little out of proportion with each other, just enough to look strange. (I brightened both light and color for visibility.) They make Asa and Anthony's matching chairs look unnaturally tiny. The effect is surreal. Why make it surreal, when it was emphasized that THIS is the "real world"? Because someone is telling us - maybe it's NOT.
The snow globe represents an "Elsewhere", originating from the 1988 finale for the television show St. Elsewhere. All 6 seasons turned out to be a child's imagination, looking at a snow globe. (Sir Terry Pratchett used the term as a location in Discworld, but I leave that analysis to the experts!) I've seen speculations about the GO snow globe, some good, some worried, some creating a fix-it alternative ending with Aziraphale and Crowley inside the snow globe bookshop completing their own Book of Life.
But I have another idea... And it was given in the ending itself.
What if the snow globe was placed there to indicate that THIS particular world version -- the oh-so-different SoHo and world erasure, etc., of GO3 -- might actually be the "Elsewhere"? That this entire GO3 World and new universe is in its own snow globe. Meanwhile, the universe we see in the end credits, events and places and realities from S1 & S2, is still out there alive and well and REAL.
Remember, everything erased from the Book of Life is gone forever, as if it NEVER EXISTED AT ALL. So then, why does Gabriel's statue still exist in the Edinburgh churchyard, with crosses as religious symbols when there was never a Crucified Jesus-as-Savior? Plus, that "planet" in the upper right is the S2 credits scene with elevators going up and down from Heaven to Earth! (Hell and it's spiders exist, too, on the 1st "planet"!)
We race through the universe that's beyond Asa & Anthony's garden, with more impossible moments recalling the adventures of our own Aziraphale and Crowley, until finally It ends, as it began, in a Garden.
The Garden of Eden, in fact. The one from a universe that supposedly NEVER EXISTED, yet somehow still exists, with OUR Ineffables dining and toasting To the World!
Two endings. One in Asa & Anthony's garden, one with Our Ineffables at their Ritz table in Eden. Which means we actually have a choose-your-own-ending situation here...
Maybe this was part of the plan, a direct intention of the total storytelling. (Can you hear the doubt in my voice?) Or maybe someone added it there to give us another option. A choice, rather than a conflict. We don't need to be a split fandom, as if we're on opposite sides.
I believe we can heal. We're on the same side...
I think the dual-realities we're being shown can both be valid. If you loved the ending told in the story itself, with Asa and Anthony, please bear with me a moment as I (gently and calmly) explain why I think the second ending also exists.
The GO3 scriptwriting team, NG & company, went for a dark ending of a universe erased, with Crowley and Aziraphale themselves gone. But many experts on Sir Terry insist that it's not the ending he would have written. After all, in the Good Omens novel, Sir Terry made certain that no one stayed dead. The air base soldier, the delivery man, all are shown to return, alive and well. And everyone else (even Warlock and the forgotten 3rd baby, Greasy Johnson) gets some sort of happy ending that gives them more control of their life.
We learned a few things in this post (shared by @depraveddame, with a reblogged essay about Sir Terry's philosophies by @turquoisedata). Sir Terry Pratchett is listed in the GO3 credits as co-creating the original characters, but not for contributing to the GO3 story itself -- even though we were repeatedly told it was his idea. Someone posted that was odd, and Rob Wilkins gave that post a like. (If you check out that post, TW for language and anti-go3)
I think we were given Two Endings. A choice. (I don't credit the screenwriters with this!). I think the fix-it got squeezed in there for us, straight from Good Omens HQ, courtesy of Rob Wilkins and Peter Anderson Studios.
We get to choose our own destiny, without guilt or angst.
The script tells us that the Good Omens Universe was erased, and the world of Asa & Anthony remains. The snow globe and end credits imagery tell us that Our World -- the world of Aziraphale & Crowley, of hope and choice and magic and love-overcoming-trauma and of not-giving-up and of an Ineffable Bond -- still exists.
Maybe you'll think I'm trying too hard to resolve this. Maybe you've already decided. But i hope you'll consider the possibility.
Does the story end with love and happiness for Asa and Anthony? Are the end credits racing through space and time to show us forms of Asa and Anthony reborn throughout the multiverse, always finding each other again and again? Or is it showing us that Crowley and Aziraphale and everything they loved and endured was not dissolved into non-existance, that GO3 was an Elsewhere and that Our Ineffables and their peopled world, Our World, is still there, with its history and miracles and meaning and hope?
Two choices. One fandom. Everyone united in love for Our Ineffables.
To Our World! 🥂✨
*****
I wrote another alternative -- both ideas formed at the same time. This one helps justify the other. It's written in story form instead of my usual analysis format. It's called Crowley's Nightmare, on my AO3 and also here as a Tumblr post.
so you’re telling me rob wilkins, executive producer of all three seasons of good omens, of the “aziraphale wanted crowley to kiss him again” fame, hated good omens s3. you’re telling me that filming for s3 wrapped in february 2025 and at the ineffable con in august 2025 rob wilkins said two things: “nothing can top the kiss... apart from... i can't talk about season 3 can i" and that there’s no reason for there not to be more aziraphale and crowley, they have their lives to live together going forward. you’re telling me that in august 2025 it was also revealed that post production was still ongoing, meaning that s3 hadn’t yet been finalized into its final cut. not even mentioning the layers of neil gaiman psychological torture this entire thing fucking goes… you’re telling me rob was EXCITED after filming but DISAPPOINTED after the release? do you know what i say to all of that? #rwse. do you know what that means? ROB WILKINS SECRET ENDING
It's just Discworld quotes, but the one thing they all have in common is that they mention silence. These were posted in the days leading up to the finale, and he doesn't normally post things like that, so I've been wondering if it's connected haha
You know, I can't remember ever seeing another TV show where two characters in love have a kissing scene, but the whole thing is never even brought up again? Like, were they deliberately acting as if it didn't happen or?? What am I supposed to think???
✨️some thoughts under the cut, feel free to ignore it and just enjoy the picture✨️
Whenever I dislike something very much, I change my mind often within a few days. It's been a week, it hurts less, but I didn’t change my mind this time. I don't accept the final. It doesn't feel right to me, and it doesn't feel fair. I wrote a very angry text earlier and it was rather emotional, not gonna delete it though, it made me feel better. I don't care if the s3 ending was intended to be so bitter or did they genuinely thought it's right and good, I just know that it doesn’t match the whole picture to me (and also, it's just not what I wanted, not gonna lie, but there are so many ways to end the story, and they chose THE WORST). I'd like to say it one more time: the problem for me is not the characters make the choice they did, it's the writers put them in this situation in the first place. And EVEN in those circumstances, i believe that our angel and demon would come to any other solution than this one.
When I was drawing this, I was thinking about what makes our beloved characters themselves. It is their shared past and experiences, thousands of memories that influence their personalities and choices. It's their long story, their history. It's not just a "soul", though it matters too if it exists. So, when it was erased this easily, no reincarnations could fill the hole that many of us got. Asa and Anthony are sweet and I kinda liked them after all but their happiness doesn't really bother me as much as Aziraphale and Crowley's.
Besides, I was so so sad about not only they were destroyed, but all of the people and the world we knew. It felt so wrong, especially when you think about Adam giving the Earth a chance despite it being so twisted and bad in many ways. Because, firstly it's up to no one to decide the fate of everyone, and secondly, it is wrong to give up on trying to fix things and make it better. It's so important to remember our past, our pain and our mistakes so that we don’t repeat them in the future, and when it's just gone it feels like a loss, not a win. I'm not even talking about all the good things that humanity had, and now it's all went different way. We have seen that people live just fine, and in the new world everything is very similar to ours, but this feels so... not related to us? Idk, it feels like something else. I wonder what humanity had to go through during this time, but as I said earlier, I wanted to get a chance to live on for our world, and not for someone else, who didn't even exist yet... Don't we deserve this?
That's why I've drawn this picture. I usually draw something for fun or just to create something pleasing to my own eyes, but this one feel special because of so much thoughts behind it. Pretty simple thoughts but anyway. In my head Aziraphale and Crowley are alive as old selves, happy and loved. In the cottage, of course.
The last thing I would like to add is just my opinion (as everything above, sure) but I want to say it anyway. I believe that every author should tell the story the way they want, without necessarily listening to anyone's suggestions about it. But for me this story was a comforting one, the one about and for all of the people, and now it’s neither. After the S2 I felt like this show is going to end somehow lovely, with everyone achieve the peace they deserved, and that the ending would be the most cliché (in a good way) we could imagine. Because this is what we NEEDED. We needed something that ends fair and everyone is happy, that would be a beacon to help us through the hard times in reality. There are not so many stories nowadays that seems like a fairy tale that gives us hope, like the S1. I think we all have the right to grieve about something that was so important to us and turned out to be a kind of betrayal, despite the fact that it was the author's choice. They had that right, and we have the right to say what we think about it. Also, people who paid to watch it have a right to complain about the commercial product they dislike because it is obviously rushed and not really written very well hahaha but that’s not what I’m talking about. Even if this ending would be written brilliant with a full six episodes, it would be easier to accept but I probably wouldn’t.
I'm not the talkative one when it comes to openly expressing my opinions, it's always been a hard thing to me, but this is what happens when you make an introvert feel the pain about something they love deeply lol. I know a lot of people have already said exactly what I just said but I needed to vent it too. I feel so much easier after putting all of this into words and sharing. Glad if you read it! I’m open to discussion if you have anything to add or disagree.
Thinking about a Star Trek-inspired fix-it idea where Aziraphale and Crowley get stuck in a time loop -- everytime they "self-destruct" at the end of S3, they get sent back to the end of series 1, to the "first day of the rest of their lives". And they end up at the bookshop at the end of universe again, until they start to realize what's happening and change their actions so that all the bs in the finale doesn't happen, and they finally free themselves from the time loop and can live together happy and free.
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