I’ve been a bit vexed by the entirety of the Prime adaptation (or really, continuation at this stage of the game) of the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman* novel Good Omens. Season one was a faithful, if rather uninspired, adaptation of the novel. Season two was more or less an excuse to delve back into the electric chemistry of stars David Tennant (Crowley) and Michael Sheen (Aziraphale) without a great deal of actual narrative heft to tie their delightful moments together. As for this final outing for our favorite angel and demon, well, it’s more of the same. A paper-thin plot that really is just an excuse to let Tennant and Sheen bounce off one another, building on the cliffhanger ending to season two – that would be Crowley admitting his love for Aziraphale, only for Aziraphale to take a job in Heaven bringing about the Second Coming – with the chance to see if these two crazy kids finally get it right (both personally and professionally).
*Neil Gaiman was accused of sexual assault in 2024, which led to him stepping back from his television projects – both Good Omens and the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman. While Gaiman receives a story credit in this final installment of Good Omens, he is no longer listed as an Executive Producer and reports from Deadline indicate that his involvement with the final season was minimal.
Of course, I’m not about to tell you whether or not these two save the day – or ride off into the sunset together – but I will let you know that, aside from the moments that let Tennant and Sheen work together, there’s not a whole lot here to recommend. Your overall enjoyment of the season – which consists of a single 90-minute episode (it’s more of an episode of TV than a film, seeing as you need to have seen the preceding season to have any idea what is happening here) – will hinge on just how much you care about the supporting characters in Heaven and Hell. If you care about them a good amount, well, then you’ll likely enjoy the episode on the whole, as whenever Crowley or Aziraphale are separated from one another, they’re in the presence of the denizens of above or below. If you don’t care all that much and would rather just spend this episode watching our duo work together, well, there will be stretches that feel long and pointless.
And a lot of that is because there’s really no clear narrative arc to be had in the episode. There’s the outlines of something resembling a story – Aziraphale is tasked with sparking the Second Coming and naturally, it all goes pear-shaped pretty quickly. But that’s more or less a red herring of a tale. It’s almost as if the writers – Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith, and Peter Atkins are all credited with the script – realized pretty quickly that the machinations of an inept team ofangels and demons was far less interesting than watching Tennant and Sheen work together and basically threw up their hands midway through and let them go. So, it’s fun to watch Crowley and Aziraphale try to find their way back to one another on an emotional level, but it’s a lot of spinning wheels and not much action.
I understand that no one wants to end a story on a cliffhanger – and a sad one at that – but I’m honestly not sure we even needed to undertake this exercise to get a nice bow tied on this particular story. There is an ending. It is satisfying on a number of levels. But the path to get there is rather dull. There’s not a whole lot of fun side bits, there’s not a lot for many of the characters to even really do this time out. I didn’t find myself swept up in the story or the characters or even the performances. Yes, Tennant and Sheen still have cracking chemistry. Yes, they are great in their roles. And yes, they command the screen. But without a real story driving them, well, I got bored. So, if you’re a completest – or if you cannot help but want to see these two queer angels (or I guess an angel and an ex-angel/demon) try to find their way back to one another before the world ends, this might be 90 minutes well spent. For me? I would have been better off just waiting to read up about it on Wikipedia.
Good Omens’ final episode airs on Prime Video on May 13.
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