"Good Omens 3" (short review)
May. 13th, 2026 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverJust got done watching the series ender!
Spoilers...
Now you may have noticed that I haven't posted at all about Good Omens 3 coming out, unlike with the first two series, where I gushed excitement and hype. That's because we knew that the show had been truncated from the original six-episode series to a 1.5-hour special due to Gaiman's scandal. I just didn't see how they were going to tie everything up in that short a time. Thus, I wasn't excited enough to stay up and watch it at the moment it released at midnight, but we did watch it first thing in the morning. (Well, first thing after grocery shopping, which is always Wednesday mornings.)
How was it? It's really hard to say. I've come out of it feeling like, though I enjoyed it, it didn't quite make sense. On the other hand, I felt the same way about Good Omens 2 -- I remember feeling "wth???" after the first watch of many of the episodes, especially the zombie Nazi one and the Regency ball one -- and then on rewatch, when I got to fully understand what the individual episodes were doing and how they fit together, it was amazing. So, I'm hoping on rewatch, GO3 will also be amazing.
Overall, and trying not to be too spoiler-y, I enjoyed the story, and especially like the way that they brought in elements and characters from the previous two seasons without making the story obtuse if you didn't remember them. For example, most of the Whickber Street proprietors were there, to show what had happened to the area in the absence of Aziraphale, but if you didn't know who they were already, it didn't matter: you'd still understand that they were people near the bookshop whose lives had gone downhill once the angel had left, and their dialogue explained what had happened to them.
The dialogue wasn't as fresh and snappy as we're used to, but I'm not sure if that's due to having to squeeze the story into 1.5 hours or to the show having a far more serious atmosphere than either of the previous ones had. They also had two broken main characters, so neither were at the top of their game -- character-wise, not actor-wise. Both DT and MS were great, but DT had more to work with, going from stinking drunk to sarcastic to charming to angry with the God who put them all in this mess to loving and happy, all in the space of 1.5 hours.
I think my favorite character and character arc in the show was Jesus, from the moment he woke up in Heaven wondering where all his carpentry calluses had gone to the pizza scene. (And I wrote that sentence just to confuse everyone who hasn't seen the show.) He echoed Adam from the first season, a person whose entire reason for being is to bring the end of the world, but who is entirely human and doesn't view himself as being divine and who doesn't want to bring the end of the world, but then finds the right path for himself.
My least favorite character was Brian Cameron, because he was just a gangster stereotype, being mean just to be mean.
And I really enjoyed the ending. I'm not talking about the 13.8 billion years later ending, but I'll get to that in a moment. I'm talking about the resolution in the bookshop, about all the philosophical talk (again, trying not to be spoiler-y), letting Crowley and Aziraphale actually understand what this was all about. And Crowley's decision was so beautifully in character, everything that he's always been and that he's always been so desperate to hide from everyone. I loved that Aziraphale actually spelled it out out loud, to his face, to make him realize that. And that line about the second-best angel... perfect.
And once that was all over, 13.8 billion years later... I knew exactly what was coming up, but it was still wonderful to see. I never bought into the idea of the angel and the demon loving each other like humans do -- it all seemed so unimaginative to me. And for Crowley and Aziraphale in particular, the reason the characters are attractive as a couple is the tension between them; actually pairing them up kills it. But this ending was perfect.
I'm sure I'll watch this again within the next two days and have a better-formed opinion, but for now, this was a satisfying end to the show. I'm still disappointed we didn't get a full series, but this was fine.
Spoilers...
Now you may have noticed that I haven't posted at all about Good Omens 3 coming out, unlike with the first two series, where I gushed excitement and hype. That's because we knew that the show had been truncated from the original six-episode series to a 1.5-hour special due to Gaiman's scandal. I just didn't see how they were going to tie everything up in that short a time. Thus, I wasn't excited enough to stay up and watch it at the moment it released at midnight, but we did watch it first thing in the morning. (Well, first thing after grocery shopping, which is always Wednesday mornings.)
How was it? It's really hard to say. I've come out of it feeling like, though I enjoyed it, it didn't quite make sense. On the other hand, I felt the same way about Good Omens 2 -- I remember feeling "wth???" after the first watch of many of the episodes, especially the zombie Nazi one and the Regency ball one -- and then on rewatch, when I got to fully understand what the individual episodes were doing and how they fit together, it was amazing. So, I'm hoping on rewatch, GO3 will also be amazing.
Overall, and trying not to be too spoiler-y, I enjoyed the story, and especially like the way that they brought in elements and characters from the previous two seasons without making the story obtuse if you didn't remember them. For example, most of the Whickber Street proprietors were there, to show what had happened to the area in the absence of Aziraphale, but if you didn't know who they were already, it didn't matter: you'd still understand that they were people near the bookshop whose lives had gone downhill once the angel had left, and their dialogue explained what had happened to them.
The dialogue wasn't as fresh and snappy as we're used to, but I'm not sure if that's due to having to squeeze the story into 1.5 hours or to the show having a far more serious atmosphere than either of the previous ones had. They also had two broken main characters, so neither were at the top of their game -- character-wise, not actor-wise. Both DT and MS were great, but DT had more to work with, going from stinking drunk to sarcastic to charming to angry with the God who put them all in this mess to loving and happy, all in the space of 1.5 hours.
I think my favorite character and character arc in the show was Jesus, from the moment he woke up in Heaven wondering where all his carpentry calluses had gone to the pizza scene. (And I wrote that sentence just to confuse everyone who hasn't seen the show.) He echoed Adam from the first season, a person whose entire reason for being is to bring the end of the world, but who is entirely human and doesn't view himself as being divine and who doesn't want to bring the end of the world, but then finds the right path for himself.
My least favorite character was Brian Cameron, because he was just a gangster stereotype, being mean just to be mean.
And I really enjoyed the ending. I'm not talking about the 13.8 billion years later ending, but I'll get to that in a moment. I'm talking about the resolution in the bookshop, about all the philosophical talk (again, trying not to be spoiler-y), letting Crowley and Aziraphale actually understand what this was all about. And Crowley's decision was so beautifully in character, everything that he's always been and that he's always been so desperate to hide from everyone. I loved that Aziraphale actually spelled it out out loud, to his face, to make him realize that. And that line about the second-best angel... perfect.
And once that was all over, 13.8 billion years later... I knew exactly what was coming up, but it was still wonderful to see. I never bought into the idea of the angel and the demon loving each other like humans do -- it all seemed so unimaginative to me. And for Crowley and Aziraphale in particular, the reason the characters are attractive as a couple is the tension between them; actually pairing them up kills it. But this ending was perfect.
I'm sure I'll watch this again within the next two days and have a better-formed opinion, but for now, this was a satisfying end to the show. I'm still disappointed we didn't get a full series, but this was fine.
no subject
Date: 2026-05-13 10:10 pm (UTC)Like you, I loved Jesus for his humanity. I was chuffed with all the little cameos at the end; and the best bit about Brian Cameron was the fact I could squeal, "That's Sean Pertwee!"
no subject
Date: 2026-05-17 06:53 am (UTC)I expected that people would hate it. It certainly didn't have the charm of the first one or the tight-but-insane story of the second one. I also expect that a lot of people wanted a more traditional reconciliation and romance between Aziraphale and Crowley. Did you know that they're the sixth-most written about ship on AO3 (in a ranking of number of stories written in 2025)? I bet a lot of people are upset that they weren't given a happy ending together, but boring, realistic surrogates were.
As I was thinking about it earlier, it struck me that Crowley and Aziraphale were basically given the same ending as Fourteen -- the "real" versions of the characters are gone and the "extra" versions are living happily ever after. And people weren't happy about it with Fourteen either. (I also giggled over the idea that both Fourteen and Crowley had to play a game to try to win the thing they loved most.)
Loved the cameos at the end (wished we could have seen anyone from season 1 ), though we didn't know who the person in the painting was.
Oh, I forgot that Sean Pertwee was playing Brian!