‘Good Omens’ Delivers an Apocalypse Built on a Swoon-Worthy Friendship

Televised apocalypses feel even more, shall we say, harrowing in 2019. We spend hours every day seeing horrifying headlines scroll by and then cap the night off by watching something like Chernobyl, HBO’s mini-series about a very real almost apocalypse. Maybe that’s why the true horror series has struck a chord, because it feels like we live in similarly despondent times. I’ve been fascinated by Chernobyl on a weekly basis, but I can’t say I’ve had fun watching it.

Then there’s Good Omens, another show about an apocalypse and the odd couple tasked with averting it, subverting expectations along the way. Of course there’s not a lot of obvious overlap between a meticulously fact-based drama and a twee jaunt through the Biblical end times, apart from the horrifically high stakes, of course. There’s also a lot that separates Good Omens from all the other apocalypse dramas out there right now (The Umbrella Academy, The Rain, even a major movie like Avengers: Endgame). For one thing, Good Omens is delightful. And it pulls off making the apocalypse, the OG apocalypse, seem enjoyable by focusing on one of the best friendships I’ve seen on TV in a very long time.

I have a lot of feelings about Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Crowley (David Tennant), but not as many as they have for each other.

The gist is that Crowley’s a demon and Aziraphale’s an angel, the demon and angel stationed at the Garden of Eden at the dawn of creation. Good Omens opens with their meet cute after Adam and Eve blow the joint. Their dynamic is set in place instantly: Crowley is fiendishly cool and more indifferent than evil, and Aziraphale is jittery AF and constantly worried he’s not angelic enough. When a storm cloud–the first storm cloud–approaches, the angel protects the demon from the rain.

My heart.

This pattern repeats throughout history, which we see unfold in Episode 3’s epic cold open. They hang out at the crucifixion and in Ancient Rome. Crowley rescues Aziraphale from a beheading during the French Revolution, and Aziraphale stops Crowley from going on a dangerous mission to steal holy water in swingin’ ’60s London. Their paths cross time and time again, always shirking duty to either save or just hang out with the other one (although Crowley takes to shirking way more naturally than Aziraphale). Sheen and Tennant have such a delightful chemistry, each one a natural fit for each role, that you unquestionably buy that their persnickety bickering thinly veils a deep love for each other–a love that is truly tested when the countdown to the apocalypse is triggered.

Good Omens is a delightful show about a terrifying thing, the kind of thing that Buffy the Vampire Slayer wrung a whole lot of tears out of regularly (as well as laughs, but still, a lot of tears). But as much trouble as the Four Horsemen getting together spells for the world, you as a viewer really only care about it because it threatens Crowley and Aziraphale’s friendship. The world’s at stake, sure, but are these two immortal doofballs going to ever go get dinner at the Ritz?!

This hell-on-Earth scenario is such a blast to watch because it centers on the friendship–at times more than friendship?–of two absolutely adorable characters who would do anything for the other one. In fact, the friendship is what saves the Earth in the first place. Crowley’s only able to get Aziraphale to sign on to the plan to derail Heaven and Hell’s impending clash because he knows Aziraphale so well. He knows the way to his angel bud’s heart is through his love of the arts. Crowley points out that everything he knows Aziraphale loves (music, old book shops) will snap out of existence the instance Heaven or Hell wins. They know each other like an old married couple, one that’s been married from day one.

But also… like, they are a married couple, and that’s a big thing for me to say since I don’t actively ship or really do headcanon stuff (it honestly just seems exhausting to me). But Good Omens doesn’t ramp up the drama by increasing the number of plagues or different creepy-crawley-covered hellspawn. It ups the drama by having Aziraphale and Crowley care for each other even harder.

It’s impossible to miss just how much Crowley and Aziraphale are in love, and I type this as someone that got zero gay vibes off of Poe Dameron and Finn (revoke my Gay Nerd Card, go on!). Did you see the barely contained glee when Aziraphale learned that Crowley’s initial plan was for them to essentially raise a child together? Did you see the way they bickered over speeding? The way Crowley zapped a stain off Aziraphale’s coat? The way Aziraphale went to pieces when Crowley asked him for holy water? The look on Aziraphale’s ghostly face when Crowley drunkenly admitted he’d lost his best friend? The way Crowley fell to pieces in the smoldering wreckage of his partner’s bookshop?!

My heart, again, I can’t. I can’t! Except I can, and I think this overwhelming desire I have to rewatch all of Aziraphale and Crowley’s scenes again means I might understand shipping?

Their friendship is the kind of closeness forged by a few millennia of time together, the kind of camaraderie that includes fantastical promises to run away together to Alpha Centauri. It’s a relationship that goes through hell and comes out the other end intact, comfortably content to celebrate with just a clink of a champagne glass and a smile.

In the end, the world gets saved and everything wrong is made right. But you don’t care about that really, not as much as you do the survival of this heavenly/devilishly good couple.

Stream Good Omens on Prime Video