The power (and absurdity) of wordplay in Good Omens season 3
While I spend all of my sanity writing a follow up essay on the meaning of Job in relation to Good Omens (the first one about the meaning of Genesis is here), please allow me to take a break and have fun revealing some excellent wordplay you might have missed in season 3, what with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
1. Joy unbounded
Referring to the Gilbert and Sullivan satirical musical Trial by Jury where the the phrase "joy unbounded" appears at the absolute climax of the operetta. It is the very first line of the grand finale ensemble number, titled "Oh, joy unbounded, with wealth surrounded."
Oh, joy unbounded,
With wealth surrounded,
The knell is sounded
Of grief and woe.
COUNSEL:
With love devoted
On you he’s doted
To castle moated
Away they go.
It is classic W.S. Gilbert irony: the phrase is deliberately over-the-top, celebrating a happy ending that is actually a total mockery of justice and an ending.
But also more than likely Milton's Paradise Lost
When Milton describes the unfallen state of heaven and the worship of the angels, he uses "uninterrupted" to capture a sense of endless, seamless bliss:
"Then crown'd with Saints and Angels, and the place / Of his high Throne, with joy uninterrupted, and / Unrival'd Love."
Pitting the same nature of Good Omens dueling realities — the deeply satirical and ironic farce, and serious discussion of religion and morality — against each other in one line.
2. Harry Frish (the Fish)
Meaning of Harry
To Harass, Annoy, or Torment (Modern Usage)
In everyday modern English, to harry someone means to constantly pester, worry, or harass them, often making them feel rushed, stressed, or under pressure.
In Yiddish, the word פֿריש (frish) directly means "fresh" or "new." It shares an immediate Germanic root with the modern German word frisch. Because of this, "Frish" (or "Frisch") frequently appears as an Ashkenazic Jewish nickname or artificial surname, historically given to someone noted for being energetic, cheerful, or newly arrived in a community.
The fish symbol—traditionally known as the Ichthys (from the ancient Greek word for fish, ikhthýs)—is one of the oldest and most clever visual codes in history. Long before the cross became the universal visual shorthand for Christianity, early Christians living under the hostility of the Roman Empire used this simple design to identify one another and mark safe spaces.
"Fishers of Men": Several of Jesus' core disciples (like Peter, Andrew, James, and John) were professional fishermen. When Jesus called them to follow him in the Gospels, he used a direct occupational metaphor: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19).
The ironic inversion is that Jesus' new safe space, his disciple, isn't fresh, he's harried, and he's not a fisherman, he's already a fisher (cheat) of men.
3. I never thought you'd be back to gloat.
Mrs. Sandwich roundly chews out Aziraphale for abandoning "Whickber Street". Her final parting jab seems almost cruel, "I never thought you'd be be back to gloat." Bet you didn't know there was once a second meaning of the word.
4. Give em a bit of Pater
In Harry's cockney dialect, "You know, a bit of patter" sounds remarkably like Pater in latin. The Pater Noster (Latin for "Our Father") is the traditional Latin name for the Lord's Prayer, the central prayer in Christianity. According to the New Testament, Jesus taught this prayer to his disciples when they asked him how to pray.
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
5. Light of the world. Yes, Jesus. Mary's Bloody boy child.
Referring to Jesus: In the Gospel of John (John 8:12), Jesus applies the title to himself:
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
In this context, it signifies divine truth, spiritual illumination, and salvation breaking through human ignorance, like Crowley not even recognizing he met Jesus already while drunk.
But also, The Light of the World, a celebrated 1853 allegorical painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt, illustrating Revelation 3:20:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me".
The door in the painting has no handle, and can therefore be opened only from the inside, representing the human mind or soul that has never been opened to the divine. The weeds and brambles show a long period of neglect. The painting was considered by many to be the most important and culturally influential rendering of Christ of its time.
And also just illustration the literal meaning, to sup with each other, or to eat a meal together.
As a bonus we get an ironic inversion wordplay in "Yes Jesus. Mary's bloody boy child".
Both Jesus and Bloody Mary's (boy child) can be used as swear words or an accurate depiction of the physical Jesus, and Bloody Mary is a cocktail you would order with brunch or lunch.
6. "I ordered you enormous amounts of Dim Sum"
Literal Meaning: The characters 點心 (diǎn xīn) literally translate to "touch the heart". The portions were originally intended to "touch the heart" rather than fully satisfy the appetite, acting as light snacks served in tea houses.
But also kind of an appropriate explanation for what is happening in season 3 as a whole: Enormous amounts of emotions, without a feeling of satisfying fullness.
7. "Hell is not mocked"
I'm not gonna lie, this one is crazy, and took me a while.
On the surface level, we get this exchange.
"Hell is not mocked." In a standard or biblical sense (such as Galatians 6:7, "God is not mocked"), this means "I am not someone to be taken lightly, fooled, laughed at, or treated with disrespect." Eric is asserting absolute a semblance of inverted dominance.
"How about a gentle ribbing?" Idiomatically, to "rib" someone means to tease them, joke around, or engage in good-natured mockery. By offering a "gentle ribbing," Crowley is attempting to deflate the first speaker's intense seriousness with casual, playful banter.
If you go one level foodier, you get this:
"Hell is not mocked." Mock Duck is traditional fare in British dim-sum restaurants, replacing more expensive real duck. Eric is literally a fake duck, or an imitation threat.
"How about a gentle ribbing?" Slow steamed black bean ribs are a classic Cantonese dim sum dish, but British "chinese" cuisine often substitues them or mixes them up with for the popular takeaway dish "spare ribs". He's calling Eric an uncultured idiot.
If you go one level more religious, you get this:
"Hell is not mocked." If you look at the archaic or highly literal roots of mockery, to "mock up" or create a "mockery" of a body can imply altering, or manipulating flesh.
"How about a gentle ribbing?" Taken literally, a "ribbing" means striking, breaking, or driving an object into someone's ribs, as Jesus was pierced through the ribs by the Roman soldier's spear at the crucifixion.
8. "Potato, Po-tart-o"
The literal reading
The classic phrase "Potato, Pot-ah-to" (originally from the 1937 George and Ira Gershwin song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off") usually has a very straightforward meaning: "We are saying the exact same thing, it's just a matter of perspective." But If used in a relationship context, it can be a passive-aggressive swipe—Michael is using the phrase to dismiss uriel, while subtly calling Aziraphale dull (a literal "potato").
The historical reading
While we use it today to mean "it's all the same," the original double meaning of the song was about stark socio-economic and class differences that threaten to tear a couple apart.
"Po-tay-to" represents the working-class, everyday American accent.
"Po-tah-to" represents the affected, upper-class, high-society British or "Mid-Atlantic" accent.
The double meaning is that they aren't just arguing over pronunciation; they are realizing they come from two completely different social classes, highlighting a deeper cultural divide.
The "Burying" pun reading
In darker comedic writing or crime fiction, writers sometimes use the phrase as a chilling pun regarding death or murder. Potatoes grow underground and have to be dug up. sùaying "Potato, pot-ah-to" during a dispute over a crime can be a veiled threat implying that no matter how the argument ends, someone is going to end up "planted in the dirt".
The British slang reading
Historically and traditionally, calling someone a "tart" is a derogatory slang term for someone who is perceived as promiscuous, or who dresses in a sexually provocative or flamboyant manner. This is both a callback to season 1/slap in the face to Uriel, who bullied Aziraphale about flaunting his "demon boyfriend", while also smearing Aziraphale for being queer-coded.
9. A two week holiday in Marbella?
Marbella, located on Spain's Costa del Sol, developed a reputation in the UK as a playground for the rich & famous, while also symbolizing the criminal underworld (earning parts of the coast the nickname "Costa del Crime"). In modern contemporary fiction or satire, sending a character there for two weeks is a way for an author to signal a very specific type of lifestyle of superficial luxury.
It's also a British class dig: For a working-class or middle-class character, saving up for a two-week block in Marbella represents the absolute pinnacle of luxury—the ultimate escape from grey, rainy domestic life to guaranteed sun, English breakfasts abroad, and nightlife.
In British drama, soap operas, and psychological thrillers, a "two-week holiday" to Marbella is a classic narrative device used to disrupt the status quo: Because it’s a place associated with letting your hair down, it’s often used as the setting of a turning point in the story, where a character goes to become a different person, disappear, or hide money.
Satan is asking Crowley (and by extension us,) to choose: was it a vain and worthless attempt, or the catalyst fpr the entire rest of our story? After all, Crowley would have never become a demon without the struggle, and thus would never have ended up with Aziraphale, or there at the end.
