Two weeks ago, the last chapter of the Good Omens TV series came to an end. Due to the allegations against NG a few years back, the show was nearly canceled, and when enough folks advocated for it, eventually Amazon announced a 90-minute movie to end on instead of a six-episode series. The episode scripts, already at least half-written by NG, were sent off to a team of writers** to condense and modify into quarter of the run time, and the budget was severely cut. But we were getting a finale.

I’ve enjoyed the lead-up to the release. The drops, growing more frequent as the date approached. Discovering which characters would be returning. Speculating and even writing fanfic based on screen stills and clips. Watching S1 and 2, one episode at a time, over the first 12 days of May. The fandom was a great space to ponder and get excited and share everything we’d been waiting for these last almost-three years. Season 3 was set to release at 2am my time on the 13th, and I knew that if I didn’t set an alarm, I would be jolting awake all night wondering if it was out yet. So I set my alarm for 1:30, got my tired self out of bed, and sat down to watch with all my friends around the world. A few hours later, I was left with very mixed feelings which have since resolved into “heavy dissatisfaction” by this point.

Spoilers from here on out. Also this is long.

Something’s wrong. That line was in the trailer and in one of the promo drops, and it’s the line that kept coming to me almost from the beginning of the show. Everything felt rushed and weirdly skewed, out of character. So, okay, the rushed part made sense, given the way the script was condensed. But the out of character actions just felt wrong. The whole point of Aziraphale and Crowley’s long history is their bond to each other. Yes, it was severed at the end of S2, but the two weren’t acting like they’d ever been friends, much less in love. There was no conversation, no resolution, no true apologies on either side. Furthermore, there was no depth. It was as if the writers took the most shallow readings of all these characters and let them play out a caricatured movie. The humor was less dry-British and more slapstick. None of it vibed with earlier seasons.

It wasn’t just the weird characterizations, either. The plot was full of holes and bizarrely derivative. Michael Thanos-snapping everything out of existence one page in the Book of Life at a time, for instance. How does wiping things out of existence not create a ripple effect, remaking history every time? If Michael is so intent on destroying Aziraphale, why do they destroy everything else in the Book of Life, saving him for last? How do Crowley and Aziraphale still exist when only the page for the Bookshop is saved? How does Satan appear randomly after everything is gone? And why? That’s not to mention plot holes that go against things from previous seasons (why can the Bentley fly all of a sudden? Why can the Book of Life locate Jesus when it couldn’t locate the antichrist who had the same divine shielding? etc).

Even the plot points that weren’t full of holes were often… pointless. Josh (Jesus) was fabulous. His story was so wonderful, and I loved his scenes. But all of it could have been removed without affecting the story at all. The whole gangster/Bentley plot also could have been cut. It was as if the script, being cut down, lost all the reasons that scenes were there in the first place. It didn’t feel like NG’s half-written script was cut and then expanded to fill in the missing parts. It felt like his script was fed into an AI reader along with a bunch of fanfics, and this is what popped out on the other end: something that gave us a million nods to common fanfic tropes, but also made zero sense if you glanced at the story for more than half a second. The plot holes and the shallow characterizations and the utter lack of nuance really bothered me on a fundamental level – not because I love these characters so much, but because as a writer, I don’t like sloppy writing.

(Note: I do want to say that I know the cast and crew put those fanfic touches in there for us. They really wanted us to know they saw us. I’ve loved being in a fandom where those folks actively interact with fans. I also appreciate the limited scope they had to work within – more on this a bit later. I don’t blame them for this in the slightest. We all know whose fault this is.)

The fandom, as a whole, is very divided about the show. This division happened immediately, due to the version controversial ending. Since then, there’s been a lot more discussion of the points I mentioned above, but the ending was what originally drove many people into either bittersweet delight or utter despair / rage. I, personally, had mixed feelings about it, because the lead-up was so not-Good-Omens that I had a hard time even connecting it to the show. The more time that passes, the more it bothers me because it goes against several of the fundamental themes of the book and show, plus it really just comes out of nowhere.

This gets VERY spoilery here. Essentially, Az and Crow (STILL without ever actually having a conversation) decide to sacrifice themselves (and everyone else who is now dead, but could be brought back by God) in order to get a “real universe” where humans can exist with true free will and no outside influence from Heaven, Hell, God, Satan, angels, or demons. That is followed up by a human AU version of GO which begins with a meet-cute in a bookshop. We see Az and Crow Asa and Anthony have their first date in a pub full of humans, angels, and demons from the previous world, all just normal people now. Then we fast forward 20 years to their domestic bliss in their Southdowns cottage, married, listening to a nightingale while watching the stars.

Supposedly, this is what the fandom wanted – except it’s really not. The fandom wanted Aziraphale and Crowley to get their happily ever after, not some human AU version of them. Asa and Anthony are adorable and I love them with my whole soul, but their story has zero to do with Good Omens. It’s an AU. It’s not them-in-another-universe. And even if you can argue that it is, that’s not really the point. The point is that this ending goes against everything that Good Omens taught. Season 1 is all about how you can’t just get rid of the old people and replace them with new people. S2 doubles down on this theme with regards to Job and his children. There are also themes that run through book and show about how you work to fix a problem, you don’t just wipe it all away because someone messed it all up. The humanism aspect works as a very Pratchett-esque concept, but not played against the “everyone has to die first and basically get replaced by alternatives who aren’t the same” ending. And the message that the only way to be happy / have true free will is to never have been under an oppressive regime at all, and therefore the answer is to commit suicide?? W. T. F. Cue earlier seasons with dialogue like, “Trying to kill yourself… it’s NOT ON.”

A list of things that are wrong: The characterizations. The depth. The plot. The themes. And here’s another: Queerwashing. Yes, this ended with a 5-minute human AU where there’s a queer romance story that ends in a queer marriage. You see two men-shaped people holding hands and saying nice things to each other. It’s the most sanitized and palatable version of gay love that you can possibly show on screen. On the other hand, the love between Crowley and Aziraphale has almost entirely been stripped away. I’ve already discussed how there’s no emotional resolution between them, but when they “make a decision” (without talking) about what they want, they hold hands, leaving enough “room for Jesus” between their bodies, and the only intimacy between them is that Az puts two fingers to his own lips, kisses them, then holds them up to Crowley’s lips to kiss. It’s an adorable and lovely moment… but as the literal only moment of intimacy (by word, deed, or anything), it’s not enough. The two didn’t even hug. Not even when they were about to be blinked out of existence.

And if that wasn’t enough, the queer and gender-bending parts of the rest of the show were stripped from it completely. There were no other queer relationships. You have one half of what was once a queer marriage, but the other half of that pair is now dead. All the other queer characters have left the show. There’s one – literally ONE – nonbinary pronoun used in the entire 97 minute show. Every time a nonbinary character is talked about, sentence structure is changed around to avoid ever using pronouns. For a show that put those themes forward from the beginning, it’s maddening. Once again, we all know whose fault it is, Amazon.

People directly involved in the production have all but said they weren’t allowed to stage another actual kiss between Az and Crow. They did what they could within the parameters Amazon forced on them in a world that is growing increasingly hostile towards queer folks, and I did not care for it. Frankly, I didn’t need there to be a kiss. I liked the finger-kiss, even. But I needed there to be a resolution, as well as acknowledgement of queer and gender-whatever things, and I’m pissed that we’re still using the bury-your-gays trope. And if there was any doubt that this is exactly what they’re doing, just know that a week after the show posted, Amazon put up a reel (left) that was literal queerbaiting, with “behind the scenes” notes saying, “Crowley swallows. Is this going to be the second kiss, a declaration of love to match Aziraphale’s?” IT’S NOT ON!

Having said all that, there were positive things. The acting was great. I laughed a lot. I’ve never gotten much out of a Jesus character before and I loved him as Josh. Muriel remained absolutely the bestest thing that Good Omens has ever done, especially when they dressed up as a demon, complete with “BAD” written on their cheek. And, as I said before, I adored the human AU. Asa/Anthony have my whole heart, and I only met them for five minutes. I want to write bucketloads of stories in ode to them. It was the perfect AU, with places for all the characters to show up in new forms. That was solid writing. There was depth. There was character growth. There was showing rather than telling for the first time all movie. It was a completely different vibe to the entire rest of the finale, and in my mind, divorced from Season 3 altogether.

But all those good things – they didn’t come together into a cohesive whole, and set against a plot that made no sense, shallow characterizations, blatant queerwashing, and themes that were twisted from comedy to horror/tragedy, this was a real disappointment. I just felt so let down, and admittedly, a little betrayed. I know that the cast and crew did everything they could, did their best with the shitty hand they were dealt, and I know this was created with love. But it was just…just…wrong.

(only make that say “show” at the end)

I’ve already begun a canon-compliant fix-it version of S3. Because of course I have – this is how I deal with this type of shit. It’s a choose-your-own-season-3 that works perfectly within the parameters of “logic” that this movie built itself on. And I’m taking this movie as only one potential version of what happened next. We’ll never really know what was originally intended, and I cannot accept the swiss cheese of a movie we got in place of Season 3.

**I learned a few days ago that the original scripts were written by NG and two other horror writers, and that when he left, the script was adapted by the same writers that had been on NG’s team. I’m not sure what that means except that the script was definitely not written by anyone who had Terry Pratchett’s half of the vision in mind. And likely this was a big reason why the show plummeted from comedy into horror and tragedy so suddenly and without any real transition…