The Writers Had One Job: a review of sorts
We can’t know for sure how those of us who are having a lot of grief, anger, betrayal, and so on would have felt if “a cottage in the South Downs” had never been uttered publicly by TP or NG. But I’m guessing I would have the same feelings, although probably not as intense. The Good Omens finale still betrayed the Agreement (see what I did there) that it had made with the audience. I am in no way an expert or professional critic, but I do have quite a bit of media literacy and these are some of my Thoughts*.
Genres have specific conventions, expectations, tropes, etc. that audiences know they will see at least some of. If a tv series was giving all the signs of following a particular path, without foreshadowing (even subtly and only viewed in retrospect) that it would actually be making a sharp right turn up ahead, the audience is going to be rightfully shocked. Indeed this is wanted and expected by the writers, otherwise they would have stayed on the road most traveled.
Writers are making choices at every step of the story. And these writers decided, in this condensed final episode, to abruptly take what has been building for 12 previous episodes of a fairly lighthearted, considering the apocalyptic content, fantasy romcom** and make it neither a romcom (there’s nothing comedic about the unexpected death of everyone- especially your romantic leads) nor a fantasy (they opted to create an ostensibly supernatural-free universe). The audience was definitely flabbergasted, at a minimum. We were supposed to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient being has only two options moving forward. And that Crowley, the notably creative demon, who has been literally and figuratively burned by Heaven before, is going to both abandon all attempts to think outside of the box and trust God at her word?
Thus far we also entirely jumped over the uneven Swiss cheese that constituted the preceding hour plus of plot. Much of the stress and anguish it contained seemed unnecessary and was ultimately futile. Many of the characters seemed to be behaving inconsistently within the episode and also not as they had before. Nothing in this story prepared the audience in any way for what was coming. No previously dangling strings were tied up, even while entirely new ones were unraveled from the previous season’s story.*** And no satisfying conclusion resulted from any of this.
The writers did, however, tack onto the end a fluffy little sketch of a romcom, which almost seemed mocking in its milquetoastery. It gave us the very beginning and the very end and NONE of the substance that makes us care about the characters or their relationship. This was right after they had nuked the Characters of all time, who we were there to see! It’s as if Crowley had all of the swagger and sarcasm drained out of him along with his cherry red hair dye. Then apply that to everyone.
The camera in the pub gliding past groups of two humans that look a bit like demons and angels from a previous universe, long ago and far away, also seemed like an attempt to manufacture a feeling of closure. The extremely improbable circumstances which led to all of these lookalikes not only knowing each other but also being in the same place at the same time does seem to stretch the belief that god has not put more of a spin on things than she told Crowley.
Seeing (but not hearing or knowing) these couples felt a bit like the Great British Bake-off catching you up on what all the contestants have been doing with their lives but instead it’s just the same phrase for each person “Look- they still exist!” Actually they don’t because they were all turned into Thanos sparkle dust. These are simulacrums. Asa and Anthony are fine! But we expected our vintage of awkward nerds living a happily ever after to be a particular flavor of angel and demon, not unfamiliar human.
As much as I love Cyndi Lauper, it feels like one more Queen song might have been more appropriate for this ending- “Who Wants To Live Forever”.
*Many of these Thoughts are the same ones that a lot of us have had and shared in quite a few convos.
**If anyone thinks it’s not a romcom or that it only became one in season two, I have a whole other essay I can give about that! 😂
*** The song just kept going through my head as I was writing this, so I’m passing on the earworm 𓆙
If you got this far 😅 how would you describe the One Job the writers had? Doesn’t have to be the same job I think they had
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
