GOOD OMENS 3: Love and Relative Dimensions in Space…
After a heart-breaking parting where Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) prioritised the good he could do for the universe over his affection for partner-in-crime Crowley (David Tennant), the angel and the demon have gone their separate ways.
Predictably, the bureaucracy of both Heaven and Hell rarely works smoothly and Aziraphale’s plans to forestall the fiery ‘End of Days’ with initiating the Second Coming (so that Jesus can help humanity reach its potential instead) has gone awry. Not only has a rather naive Jesus gone back to Earth to see what’s changed, but suddenly the Book of Life – which contains the rules of creation and existence – has been stolen and various angels are meeting untimely fates.
Aziraphale is prompted to seek the help of Crowley once more, but the latter – up to his ex-demonic neck in debt and spending much of his time drunk in Earthly alleyways – is in no immediate mood to forgive him his trespasses.
But if creation is being rewritten, who is behind it and will finding the Messiah be the least of their problems?
*some spoilers*
It’s been a while coming… and by that, I mean the resolution to Good Omens, rather than the actual Second Coming. The adaptation of the late Terry Pratchett’s acclaimed tale of an askew universe was always a lasting temptation to tackle. The first outing was broadcast in 2019 (nearly three decades after the book’s original release) and was well-received. A follow-up in 2023 had more mixed reviews but retained the magic. Now, three years later and after some off-screen drama, a third and final chapter debuts on Amazon Prime…
Rather confusingly marketed as ‘Season 3’ when there’s only the one special, only those hiding under a rock in the Garden of Eden, are likely not aware of the multiple and serious allegations against former showrunner and fantastical scribe Neil Gaiman (which he denies) that led to him stepping away and the planned run reduced to a single entry – a change announced back in 2024.
Not unexpectedly, the pillar of Good Omens (apart from the core concept) remains the camaraderie between Tennant and Sheen – long-time best-friends and whose collaborations are many. They shoulder the demands of the story and script and are each the foil for the other. As always, they bring versions of Crowley and Aziraphale that are delicious in their differences and similarities. Tennant can gurn, gesticulate and raise an eyebrow with serpentine derision in his sleep and Sheen gives his perturbed Angel an idealism that is both eye-rolling and infectious. Here they’re asked to do the heavy-lifting but they’re reliable to a fault and do so with aplomb.
The story is something of a mess – more like a big ball of timey-whimey, if you must but always engaging. It’s the ‘End’ and it’s clear the moment hasn’t been prepared for. Even as the universe starts to fracture – in a story that had its origins in an unwritten novel that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman were planning – there’s definitely a sense that a season’s worth of story has been condensed – the opposite of a Big Bang, if you will. Arguably, it’s knowing that a full season was planned that tips the scales rather than the brisk pace and choice of resolution, but there are a lot of potentially great characters in the mix and clearly some of their narratives have been foreshortened by that decision to go to one special. Many of the supporting cast have good ‘moments’ rather than the arcs they deserve. The bureaucratic messes of Heaven and Hell look stereotypically so, but the assortment of angels and demons have little to do but be the straight guys to the tropes they are trying to subvert. Again, more would be more.
Sean Pertwee plays a gangland boss with a Bentley-fixation with a puzzle-solving m.o. that feels like it could have been a whole episode and I’d like to have seen more of Mark Addy’s Harry the Fish. Ironically, Jesus’ tale seems curtailed with plenty of scenes earlier on but a feeling that there was much more that could have been done with his journey through humanity.
That’s even more true for Toby Jones – who seems to be everywhere these days, essaying the kind of character that you always suspect knows (for better or worse) more than he’s saying – arriving late as Satan and though he has some good moments and commentary, I’d like to have seen more of him, especially going hoof-to-toe with Tanya Moodie’s God, who is also under-served. However, it’s always good to see the wonderful Derek Jacobi (as the Metatron) even if he looks a little frail here and kept to scenes needing less mobility.
Even with the obvious inclusion of David Tennant, there’s an undeniable Doctor Who-esque vibe to proceedings in both structure and resolution and with familiar names attached: Michael Sheen was a guest-star in the legendary The Doctor’s Wife, frequent-helmer Rachel Talalay directs, Neil Gaiman’s fingerprints are on the screenplay (though credits now also go to Michael Marshall Smith, and Peter Atkins)… and as we head into the final act it’s not difficult to see the quiet oasis of the ‘Bookshop at the end of the Universe’ as a substitute for anything other than an alternative Tardis. (In the popular but unlikely event that Sheen should ever essay the Time Lord role, this would be exactly the set I’d expect).
There’s an absolutely lovely and suitable nod to Terry Pratchett near the very end and one suspects he would have approved of the adaptation (as might Douglas Adams), even if he’d wished for a more sedate pace. As resolutions go, one can still wish for what might have been. Ultimately, though, this final entry is not so much a set of Revelations as a testament with which it is hard to argue: that love is – and always should be – the strongest force in any universe, whether a deity of any colour, stripe or hue exists or not…
8/10
Good Omens: The Finale is now showing on Amazon Prime…