Warning: This article contains spoilers for Good Omens season two.
The very same week that Disney Plus dropped the Secret Invasion finale, the absolute worst-rated offering to come out of Marvel Studios bar none, Prime Video delivered another season finale that was as satisfying and enriching as Secret Invasion was bland and undercooked. After a four year wait, Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens season two finally hit streaming last Friday, and while fans can argue over the overall quality of the new episodes compared to the first, its final episode was nonetheless an utter triumph.
When I first heard talk of an Aziraphale and Crowley kiss happening in Good Omens 2, I genuinely believed it to be mere speculation, just a pipe-dream of fans desperate to see the beloved angel/demon duo winningly played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant get together. After all, how many times over the past few years have we got invested in a male friendship in a TV show, convinced that it’s really a love story, only to have that potential door slammed in our faces? Yes, Sherlock, I’m looking at you.
And yet, although I still can’t quite believe it, Good Omens 2 indeed ends with Crowley and Aziraphale locking lips — it’s a beautifully handled and emotionally loaded moment, which Gaiman milks for all its dramatic worth. We’ve still got to wait for season 3 to see these two get their much-deserved happy ending, but by including this kiss, Good Omens is unequivocally confirming that theirs is a romantic relationship. It shouldn’t feel revolutionary for a TV show to do this, and yet it really does.
Marvel is far from the only culprit, but the MCU’s clear avoidance of any male friendships evolving into romances is certainly a big part of why Good Omens‘ bold development came as such a surprise. From Sam and Bucky’s bond in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to Loki and Mobius’ adorable partnership in Loki, the franchise has teased us numerous times with “bromances” that fans have immediately taken into their hearts, but which we know, deep down, will sadly never rise above the level of subtext.
Even though Loki season one confirmed the trickster was bisexual, it then immediately threw him into a heterosexual relationship with *checks notes* a female variant of himself rather than pursue the fan-favorite Mobius route. Likewise, Thunderbolts is threatening to pair Bucky up with Yelena Belova and Xosha Roquemore is believed to be Sam’s new love interest in Captain America: Brave New World. In other words, the MCU’s first male-friends-to-lovers romance remains far, far away at this point.
Marvel’s been disappointing us on this front since the days of fans “shipping” Steve and Bucky, or Tony and Bruce, but perhaps those dead-end instances were more forgiveable due to those characters already having more overtly defined romantic arcs from the off — Steve and Peggy, Tony and Pepper ETC. However, the likes of Sam and Loki are clearly more flexible characters whose development can go in a number of directions, but it seems Marvel has nevertheless cordoned off one very fruitful potential avenue.
Eventually depicting Aziraphale and Crowley as a romantic couple possibly wasn’t even been a glimmer of an idea in Neil Gaiman’s head back when he co-wrote the Good Omens novel with Terry Pratchett in 1990, but the brilliance of the TV series is that Gaiman has allowed the story to evolve by listening to the fans and rewarding them for their passion and devotion to these characters. Now if only Marvel would do the same.
Although, of course, if Loki season two ends with a similar smooch between Loki and Mobius then I take it all back.