Good Omens Season Two Review

Let’s get this out of the way up top. The second season of Good Omens is, at its heart, simply an excuse for David Tennant and Michael Sheen to pal around, riff off one another, and be generally delightful with their wonderful chemistry for another season of television. After all, the first season of the series hewed closely to the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman novel it was based on. Season two? Well, that’s much more freeform. Oh, there’s a plot – it’s just as thin as one can make it. Because everyone involved knows what the audience is here for, and that’s the interplay between Tennant’s Crowley and Sheen’s Aziraphale. Everything else is just gravy on top.

The plot of season two of Good Omens is thus: The Archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm, reprising his role form season one) appears at the door of Aziraphale’s London book shop, naked and without his memory, and it quickly becomes up to Aziraphale and a very reluctant Crawley to try and work out just what happened to Gabriel to cause him to lose his memory and show up on Earth while also keeping him safe from the denizens of Heaven and Hell – both of whom want to get their hands on the missing Archangel. Throughout this plot, we get much more of the backstory regarding the centuries long relationship between our favorite angel and demon, as well as a sweet plot that sees the pair try to get a couple of humans to fall in love.

Some of the story works better than the rest – while it’s nice to see Tennant and Sheen bounce off one another throughout the various centuries, it starts to feel a bit like filler after awhile, and the matchmaking plot never quite works all that well because we know precious little about the two women the duo are pushing to fall in love – but even when the plot is dragging a bit, Tennant and Sheen can do a lot with a little. The best bits of the narrative are when Sheen, Tennant, and Hamm are given the chance to work with one another. Hamm, playing a wholly clueless Gabriel following last season where his Archangel was a force to be reckoned with, is pretty fun – Hamm is the rare actor who can shine no matter what genre he’s given to play around in. And the trio of sensational thespians, bumbling around with a delightful dose of verbal and physical comedy? Perfection, no matter the story.

So, is it worth your time to take another trip into London to see what Crowley, Aziraphale, and Gabriel are up to this time (surely there will be another apocalypse to stop, right)? Well, it depends on how much your enjoyment of season one of Good Omens was based on the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale, because that’s what season two is all about. For my money, the best part of the first season was this relationship and the interplay between Sheen and Tennant (and I say this as a massive fan of the novel, who was a tad disappointed at how the season shook out as a whole). That relationship remains intact, and the writing is focused solely on giving us more and more of it. I do wish season two took the time to ground its new characters a bit more in the narrative – there are only a couple of newcomers (the aforementioned pair who are being pushed toward one another and a new angel, tasked with investigating the missing Gabriel), but we get precious little time with them. This balance doesn’t become a real issue until the season climax, when we’re meant to care more about the potential threat to them. Perhaps cut a flashback or two from the Crowley/Aziraphale relationship and give that time to the newbies? I know it’s tempting to keep the focus on our star-crossed duo, but really, we don’t necessarily need that to be the case the whole season.

But, I certainly enjoyed the episodes provided. I laughed, I wanted to see what happened next, and I loved Hamm’s new take on Gabriel. There’s enough here to give this season a watch – if you are a fan of the Tennant and Sheen of it all.

Good Omens premieres on July 28 on Prime Video. Five of the season’s six episodes were provided for review.