While the ending is certainly a tragic denouement, I think it's a mistake to interpret it as without hope or as pure nihilism. Part of my reasoning is because the bookshop at the end of the universe was initially a scene in GO2; it's in the concept art, so it seems to have been removed relatively late in the writing process. This is where the story has been going since at least 2021. The other part of this is: Dickens.
Dickens is a master of finding hope and humor in the absurd cruelty and ambivalent bureaucracy of humanity. It's not a random choice that he's called out in the script, both in GO2 and the finale.
There are two books mentioned - A Tale of Two Cities and Bleak House. Both end with a redemptive death, and hope, and with the deceased character's legacy being honored by a child with his name getting to live a good and happy life, the life he should have had.
In the former, Sydney Carton goes to the guillotine in the place of another man, and muses on his sacrifice:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance [a lieutenant of Madame Defarge], the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more.
[...]
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
Bleak House is more explicitly relevant to the finale: the antepenultimate chapter is literally titled "Beginning the World," which is used as a metaphor for redemption, forgiveness, and death:
“I have to begin the world. [...] I will not begin it in the old way now,” said Richard with a sad smile. “I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it."
[...]
“I have done you many wrongs, my own. [...] You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?”
A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not this! The world that sets this right.
While I don't totally agree with the terminus of the television story within the context of the message of Good Omens: The Book, we've been on this road a long time. The philosophy of Dickens is part of the DNA of Good Omens: TV Edition. And that's simply not a philosophy of nihilism.
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