Other Doctor Lives: Good Omens: Series 3 – “The Finale” (2026)

*Premise spoilers, which include spoilers from the season 2 finale*

Here it is: the finale of Good Omens.

Obviously, getting here was a rocky road. The horrific abuse allegations against Neil Gaiman prompted a very necessary retooling of the final season. First and foremost, the survivors of his abuse deserve to have their voices heard, and they deserve justice for what was done to them. Full stop. The fates of the adaptations based on his work are trivial matters compared to all that.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when good works of art are tainted or disrupted by predators who are involved with them. There are shows and films I loved once that I can’t bring myself to watch anymore. There are those I choose not to watch anymore. There are those that were canceled or cut short so as to stop associations with those predators. In the case of Good Omens, pre-production on season 3 halted and Neil Gaiman was removed from the show going forward. When the dust settled from that much-needed removal, we were left, not with a full final season, but with a single 90-minute finale, and stewards of the series (including Terry Pratchett’s daughter) had to fight to get that much.

So while it’s not the final season that fans were hoping for, 1) we very easily could’ve gotten nothing at all, ending on Crowley in the Bentley and Aziraphale in the lift, and 2) there are much more important considerations here than just the ending of a TV show. Gaiman’s been poking his head out again recently, creating more harm even as he tries to reclaim his reputation, and we can’t lose sight of the terrible pain he caused.

Okay, let’s talk about the actual episode. It’s been years since Aziraphale and Crowley’s heartbreaking separation—the Metatron urged Aziraphale to replace Gabriel as Supreme Archangel, sweetening the pot with a promise that he could restore Crowley’s angel status. But Crowley wanted nothing to do with Heaven and begged Aziraphale not to go. A plea, a desperate kiss, a fracture. Since then, Aziraphale has been busy in Heaven, organizing the Second Coming of Christ, while Crowley wallows in a drunken depression back on Earth. Right on the heels of the Second Coming, the newly made-flesh Jesus disappears from Heaven and the Book of Life is stolen, which leads pieces of reality to start being unmade. Frantic to fix everything and bring about “universal happiness,” Aziraphale returns to Earth to ask Crowley for help.

Right out of the gate, there’s not enough time. We pretty much knew that was going to be the case going in—how could it not be?—but it still hurts a little to watch the characters hurry through trying to wrap everything up while simultaneously introducing the biggest crisis Aziraphale and Crowley have ever faced. There are dangling threads, the conversations we’ve been waiting for happen in truncated versions between the larger action, and it’s just not enough. That said, the pacing is less of a fault than I might have expected. Although critical moments obviously get shortchanged, it doesn’t feel like the finale is just racing through a series of plot points to check off a list. There are scenes that get space to breathe.

Because the big headline here is what happens to Aziraphale and Crowley, it’s easy to feel dismissive of the apocalyptic goings-on. Something like that needed to be happening, of course—for one, it takes something big to put them in the same room again, and for another, part of what we love about these two is watching how they work together against the forces of both Heaven and Hell. But there are points where the whole Book of Life calamity feels less suspenseful and more of a “we have to up the ante to make this The Biggest Deal of All Deals!!!!” situation that just takes away from what we really want to see.

None of this, however, applies to Jesus, who is just wonderful. Both the writing and Bilal Hasna’s earnest performance create something really beautiful here. Jesus has just become corporeal again and His memories are a little hazy—He longs to speak with one of the humans He cherished the last time He was on Earth, but of course, everyone He knew is long gone. I just love that, when He wonders why He doesn’t have scars, He doesn’t mean scars from the crucifixion. “I had good carpenter’s hands,” He says. Throughout the finale, He radiates goodness and an honest desire to connect with people, regardless of what bigger plans Heaven has for Him.

And there’s Aziraphale and Crowley. I’ll save my more detailed thoughts for a spoilery post, and by then, I might have sorted out how I feel about it a little better. These are my first impressions: some scenes feel like too little, others too much, and others just right. On the whole, there’s a lot of Crowley expressing his hurt at Aziraphale and Aziraphale offering explanations for his actions without showing much acknowledgement of Crowley’s pain. Crowley goes along with helping Aziraphale even as he argues that he won’t, and Aziraphale proves more than once that he wouldn’t get very far without Crowley. As for the very end, all I’ll say is that I’m still thinking about it.

The thing is, though, amid all the busy rushing around and the lack of time, they’re still Aziraphale and Crowley. We get another very early flashback for them, showing a period the show had never depicted between them before. We get Aziraphale being a bit bowled over all over again by the depth of Crowley’s care. We get the Bentley in a ridiculous disguise. We get ice cream and dim sum and costume changes. We get heartbreak and anger, bickering and protectiveness, jokes and quiet overtures. I would’ve wanted a lot more, but I am grateful for what we got.

Over and over, Michael Sheen and David Tennant demonstrate just how excellent they are in these roles, not to mention how splendidly they play off one another. As Aziraphale, Sheen is repressed yet hopeful, avoidant yet longing. When he finally expresses what he hasn’t been saying, it’s a long time coming.

Meanwhile, Tennant is as fantastic as ever as Crowley. In the early scenes, he manages to be numb and a raw nerve at the same time, which is an impressive feat. And once Aziraphale arrives on the scene, his pain sharpens into a focused point. Crowley is both transparently upset and badly trying not to show the extent of his grief, but the latter keeps spilling out into the former. And despite how angry he is with Aziraphale, Crowley still keeps looking out for him and helping him.

Just a few snippets, some of my favorite non-spoilery bits from Tennant here. Crowley leaves a plant of his with Mrs. Sandwich while he goes out for a while, and when he comes back, he croons to it, “Were you good?” One of Crowley’s biggest weaknesses continues to be the way he cares about people and things—Aziraphale knows this about him and uses it to draw him out. Tennant has such a distinctive smitten smile. As I’ve said before, he uses the exact same one for the Tenth Doctor looking at Rose and Crowley looking at  Aziraphale. Crowley is still a little shit when it comes to dealing with both Heaven and Hell. This is a great exchange:

CROWLEY: “I quit, Dagon. Did you get the memo?” 

DAGON: “You didn’t send a memo!” 

CROWLEY: “Well, that’s because I quit.”

Even though I’m still deciding how I feel about the finale, I am glad we got to see these performances one more time.

Accent Watch

Not heavy RP, but a bit posh.

Recommend?

In General – Yes (although if people don’t want to watch a show where Gaiman was involved in the first two seasons, I totally get it.) This was a special series, and it meant a lot to me.

David Tennant – Absolutely! This is the performance that “unlocked” Tennant for me as an actor. He’s so superb in this role!

Warnings

Thematic elements, irreverent humor towards religion, violence, sexual references, language, and drinking.

The Sentence (2021)

I’ve only read one other book by Louise Erdrich, in college. At the time, I think I was so overloaded that I couldn’t fully take in Love Medicine, but The Sentence has me wanting to revisit it. This book was profound, unsettling, funny, and deeply loving.

Tookie works at an Indigenous-owned bookstore in Minneapolis, and when her most irritating customer dies on All Saint’s Day, Tookie is convinced that her ghost is still haunting the shop. Over the course of a tumultuous year, she tries to figure out how to put Flora to rest so her ghost will leave her alone.

I’m coming to this review late, but even though it’s been a while since I read the book, I still have a lot of vivid memories from it. It stretches in a lot of different directions, exploring Tookie’s past and present, chapters from Native history, forays into folklore, the individual idiosyncrasies of book lovers, and the real-world upheaval of 2020—especially in Minneapolis! It might not seem like the story of a white-woman ghost and the legend of the rugaroo would fit alongside police brutality protests and trying to adapt to living through a pandemic, and where do Tookie’s curated book lists fit in? But they do. The story flows down a lot of different paths, and they don’t all make sense together in the moment, but as you turn and look back, you can see how the paths intersect.

It's a beautiful novel exploring Indigenous lives in an urban setting. Each of the Native characters is well-drawn and specific, with certain universal experiences knitting together their personal quirks and preferences. We look at Native solidarity with Black communities, especially where policing is concerned. We identify with nature and get into Indigenous practices and traditions. We examine the appropriation and exoticization that creates a sense of white ownership over Indigenous culture, extending as far as desecrating remains.

As our narrator, we get the best look into Tookie, who’s prickly and inventive and reads like it sustains her (because it often has.) She’s screwed up plenty of times in her life, and she’s been discounted by some people and given gracious opportunities by others. She loves hard, even if she doesn’t always know how to show it, and she’s trying to make sense of a world that feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. I love following her perspective as she takes us down the winding paths of the story.

This is a book that can be hard to describe, because it does so many different things at once, and while they all come together in a really satisfying way, they do so in a manner that’s tricky to predict. If you haven’t read the book, you might look at this review and go, “Huh?” Just know that I highly recommend it. The Sentence really rewards your attention and willingness to go where it takes you. The journey won’t be where you expect, but it’s definitely worth it.

Within These Wicked Walls (2021)

I read this supernatural YA novel last year, and I really loved it. It’s super compelling, both as a reimagining of Jane Eyre and as its own story. So great!

Andromeda is a young unlicensed debtera, trained to cleanse houses of evil spirits. She’s just gotten her first big job working in a house plagued by the Evil Eye. While Andi just wants to buckle down, do her work, and make her living, the mercurial owner of the house, Magnus Rochester, is charmed by her plain-spokenness and lack of flattery. As Andi finds herself oddly charmed by Magnus in turn, she tries to resist her feelings, wary of being toyed with by a wealthy man who could never genuinely care for her.

I really like how Jane Eyre is re-envisioned through an Ethiopian-inspired lens here. The original novel, of course, features horrors that are more psychological than supernatural, but I don’t mind the different direction that this book takes. I really enjoy learning about the nuts and bolts of Andi’s work as a debtera, the different challenges and dangers she faces, and how she goes about combatting the house’s many Manifestations. The mechanics of the curse are interesting as well, and we see how it’s shaped Magnus into the person he’s become.

Speaking of which, Andi and Magnus are both recognizably Jane and Rochester while still being very much their own characters. The way Andi can appear meek but doesn’t back down from speaking her mind, the way she’s become so accustomed to making her way in the world that she doesn’t always know how to accept help when it’s offered. The way Magnus’s curse has largely kept him away from the company of others and he’s grown irascible and blunt, the way he challenges Andi but sees it as enjoyable sparring rather than arguing. The dynamic between them very much scratches that Jane/Rochester itch—author Lauren Blackwood nails the feeling of their slowly growing romance. It’s clearly messed up in ways, even as the lure of it is intoxicating for both of them, and it leads them to palpable danger, but the way they come to understand each other is wonderful to read.

It's a small thing, but I also really like how the book interprets Kelela, the Blanche Ingram counterpart. She takes on a more interesting role and is just allowed to be much more of a person, rather than simply the woman standing in Andi’s way.

I don’t read a lot of horror, YA or otherwise, so I’m not the best person to gauge the level of horror here when it comes to the Manifestations. I certainly found different parts of the story pretty freaky, although there was nothing I personally couldn’t handle. There’s some excellent suspense and action, and Andi needs to call on her faith, her skill, her bravery, and her intelligence to do battle with the Evil Eye.

Warnings

Strong violence, disturbing images, drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements (including child abuse.)