behold the blessed conclusion
Truncated third season feels rushed, but also gives us a fitting end to a love story for the ages.
It’s been a three-year wait, but Prime Video finally released the series finale for Good Omens: a 90-minute single episode that sought to wrap everything up in a neat little bow. Verdict: Truncating the final season so drastically definitely hurts the first half of the series finale, which feels chaotic and rushed. But once that stupendous on-screen chemistry between co-stars David Tennant and Michael Sheen kicks back in, the old magic shines through, strong as ever, giving us a fitting end to this beloved comic saga.
(Spoilers below for all seasons.)
Here’s a brief recap, since it’s been a minute since the S2 finale. The series is based on the original 1990 novel by Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett. Good Omens is the story of an angel, Aziraphale (Sheen), and a demon, Crowley (Tennant), who gradually become friends over the millennia and team up to avert Armageddon. Season 2 found Aziraphale and Crowley getting back to normal, when the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) turned up unexpectedly at the door of Aziraphale’s bookshop with no memory of who he was or how he got there. The duo had to evade the combined forces of Heaven and Hell to solve the mystery of what happened to Gabriel and why.
In the S2 finale, the pair discovered that Gabriel had defied Heaven and refused to support a second attempt to bring about Armageddon. He hid his own memories from himself to evade detection. Oh, and he and Beelzebub (Shelley Conn) had fallen in love. They ran off together, and the Metatron (Derek Jacobi) offered Aziraphale Gabriel’s old job. That’s when Crowley professed his own love for the angel and asked him to leave Heaven and Hell behind, too. Aziraphale wanted Crowley to join him in Heaven instead. So Crowley kissed him, and they parted. Once Aziraphale got to Heaven, he learned his task was to revive the stalled plans to bring about the Second Coming, i.e., the End Times.
Aziraphale wants to make the Second Coming a bit more upbeat. Prime Video
The original plan for the third and final season called for six episodes, but production was delayed first by the 2023 writer’s strike and then by multiple allegations of sexual assault against Gaiman. (Gaiman has vehemently denied allegations of any nonconsensual sex or abuse, but admitted to being selfish and “careless with people’s hearts and feelings” in a January 2025 blog post.) The fallout led to Gaiman withdrawing from the project and Prime Video opting for a 90-minute finale rather than a full season. And here we are.
The Second Coming hits a snag
The finale picks up a few years after the S2 cliffhanger. Aziraphale is now Supreme Archangel, with plans for the Second Coming well underway—except he’s tweaked them to be a bit more upbeat, bringing peace on Earth and universal happiness rather than the rampant death and destruction of Armageddon. This doesn’t go down well with some of his fellow angels, who prefer the original plan. A heartbroken Crowley, meanwhile, is spending his time drinking heavily and passing out in a Soho alley, having lost his sense of purpose when Aziraphale refused him.
The Second Coming rollout soon hits a snag. First, the Metatron mysteriously vanishes, removed completely from reality by someone who has stolen the Book of Life. In the ensuing panic, Jesus (Bilal Hasna) wanders off down to Earth and is befriended by a former street hustler named Harry the Fish (Mark Addy). The Archangel Michael (Doon Mackichan) and plucky assistant Muriel (Quelin Sepulveda) focus on solving the Metatron’s murder, while Aziraphale heads down to Earth to hunt for the missing Jesus, lest the demons of Hell find him first. He enlists a reluctant Crowley’s help.
Good Omens has always embraced the colorfully comic side quest; it’s part of what makes this such a rich fictional universe. But you need time to flesh it all out for those subplots to really work, and time is what the finale just doesn’t have. Hell and its demons, in particular, seem little more than an afterthought here; they’re not even particularly effective as comic relief. The beats just don’t quite land.
A despondent Crowley is drinking heavily and living in an alley. Prime Video
That said, the sequence where Aziraphale helps Crowley (who can no longer perform miracles since quitting Hell) win back his classic Bentley from local gangster Brian Cameron (Sean Pertwee) is quite amusing: Aziraphale challenges Brian to a cryptic crossword contest, which the angel wins handily. That subplot also introduces the metaphor of three-card monte that runs throughout the episode.
And Jesus re-creating the miracle of the loaves and fishes in Soho’s streets with a magical pizza box that always replenishes is a nice touch. But there’s just no time to really delve into his burgeoning friendship with Harry (a great character we barely get to know) or his search for his purpose, because two more archangels have been murdered, and the end might really be near this time.
Ultimately, though, we’re really here for Aziraphale and Crowley—truly a love story for the ages—and Sheen and Tennant do not disappoint. We’ve watched this unlikely pair bond for millennia through flashbacks over all three seasons, so of course they’re going to team up one last time to save the entire universe from being erased, rocketing off into space in the Bentley with Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” blaring.
The angel and the former demon even get to confront God Herself (Tanya Moodie) and propose their own version of a universe in which humans would have actual free will instead of playing God’s rigged game—even if that universe comes at a great cost to Aziraphale and Crowley. I wish we’d gotten a full final season, but Good Omens sticks the landing with humor and heart. It’s a lovely way to bid farewell to these beloved characters.
All three seasons of Good Omens are now streaming on Prime Video.
Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.
