I knew it! I knew Gabriel was in love. And I had a sneaking suspicion it was with Beelzebub, just because they seemed out of sorts while Gabriel was MIA. The mystery, as sparsely as it was addressed, ended in a satisfying way for me. The situation with our boys, less so.
First of all, hats off to the Good Omens team for coming up with something more blasphemous than season one. The people who would get mad about that sort of thing would get really, really mad. If they hadn’t written the show off already for how it treated Revelations before. Also, all the gays, they’d probably dislike all the gays. But an archangel and a Duke of Hell getting amorous, that’s some Anne Rice–level horny nonsense right there. Congrats.
But before the big reveal, there are several little reveals. While Nina, Maggie, and Aziraphale hold off the demonic horde with a preposterous number of fire extinguishers, Crowley and Muriel go sleuthing. Muriel doesn’t have clearance to open the files Crowley needs, but apparently he does. Heaven never changes its passwords. Anyone who’s gone through security training at a large corporation must know that hell invented anti-phishing protocols. Two-factor verification might be heavenly, though.
Crowley learns that Gabriel wasn’t feeling the latest plan for Armageddon. “That’s a nah,†he says. We still don’t know why, but it’s enough to get Gabriel shitcanned. He almost gleefully accepts that he’s going to be cast down as a demon, but he finds out he’s just getting demoted. Rather than go through with the demotion, he hides his memories in the matchbook, then goes down to earth in the nude. Not sure why the nudity was important to the plan, but thanks all the same. Crowley sees Gabriel put something in the big box he came to Aziraphale’s with, so it’s back down to earth to find out what’s in the box. The whole heavenly gang comes along as well.
It’s good heaven is coming down to earth because hell is coming up. In defense of his human pals, Aziraphale did “the thing with the halo,†which maybe, sorta counted as an act of war against hell. The fire extinguishers worked for a while (and it was fun seeing the demons do a Double Dare physical challenge only to get yeeted out of the material plane time and time again), but desperate times called for desperate measures. Thankfully, Crowley solves the Jimriel mystery in such a way that implicates both heaven and hell on a systemic level.
Crowley figures out that Gabriel left a note to himself on the big empty box. “I’m in the fly,†it says. Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, is able to locate the one fly in Aziraphale’s bookshop. And by burrowing into Jim’s pupil (gross), we learn what set Gabriel on this path.
Now, the third romance of this season. Gabriel and Beelzebub agree to their own “arrangement†in Edinburgh: No more attempts to immanentize the eschaton. They also find they both enjoy the song “Everyday†by Buddy Holly. It becomes their song, and that moment is so cute I paused to sort of giddily clap like an idiot.
Gabriel and Beelzebub come to understand their feelings much sooner than Crowley and Aziraphale. But it’s always easier for the second person to climb a mountain, you know? They decide to fuck off to a nebula, and that’s that on that. Beelzebub’s vacancy leaves a ducal vacancy in hell, so Shax is happy. And Gabriel’s vacancy, that’s TBD.
Oh, P.S.: Metatron’s here. Derek Jacobi is a perfect angel, so know-it-all-y and uptight. Also, I think he’s the oldest person to ever order an oat-milk latte. Once heaven and hell depart to their respective sides of the playground, Metatron has a quick huddle with Aziraphale. Meanwhile, Nina and Maggie want to smush Crowley and Aziraphale together much in the same way they were smushed at the ball. Time to say all the things you’re feeling, Crowley! Or is it?
Remember when I said it couldn’t be more penultimate if Aziraphale got a job that sent him to Paris? Well, he’s getting a job that would send him to Paris. Metatron wants him to be the new HAIC in heaven, and he’s willing to re-angelify Crowley as part of the deal. Poor dummy, he’s so excited about this great plan that allows him to have his cake and eat it too. Crowley’s not biting, though. Even if he didn’t fall so much as saunter vaguely downward, he genuinely has beef with heaven. And rightfully so! This season made heaven seem even worse than the last, which in many ways was about the arbitrary nature of good and evil as litigated by organized religion. Crowley wants to stay where there are nightingales, wine, and kissing. Aziraphale wants to Make a Difference. The classic separatist versus changing things from the inside debate that tears many a progressive couple asunder.
We get a Big Damn Kiss between our fellas, but it feels rushed. And rueful. In fact, this whole will-they-won’t-they part of the finale feels very sequel hook and not self-supporting. It feels (and I say this as disparagingly as possible) Marvel Cinematic Universe. Always teeing up the next thing, never letting something stand on its own. Metatron name-drops the second coming (presumably the main plot engine of season three), Crowley walks away despondent, and we’re all left without ever fully reaching an emotional climax. If they want the show to get another season, I get that this is what they have to do. But this industry is so fucked, so why leave even one ball in the air that you don’t have to?
At least Crowley got his apartment back.
Biblical Apocrypha
• Gay-O-Meter briefly went to DEFCON 1: BIG GAY KISS before bumping back down to DEFCON 4: PERPETUAL EDGING.
• Aziraphale using the same discorporation method that got him last season; that was a nice touch.
• Beelzebub’s sash! That should have been the clue Gabriel was consorting with Beelzebub because the bartender said that they were dressed like a Mason. If I’d ever seen a Mason IRL, maybe I would have connected the dots a little sooner.
• The Doctor Who nods were coming thick and fast this episode. We have David Tennant and Derek Jacobi, who both essentially Jimrieled themselves on that show. The Beelzebub said the fly was “bigger on the inside.†Then you had Tennant walking away sad as the love of his life was rendered inaccessible to him during a season-two finale. That guy can’t catch a break.
• When Metatron says that he’s consumed stuff before in his day, that made me giggle. Very “I was gay once, for a while, no big deal.â€