‘Good Omens’ Season 2 Review - Uninspiring and Unnecessary

The first season of Good Omens, with all its amusing world-ending delights, turned out to be sweet and bland. I even forgot about its existence until I saw somewhere its second season will soon release online (Prime Video). The good news is that this time, there are no world-ending threats or demon babies capable of obliterating the universe (at least not yet. The last episode has not been provided to the critics). Given that so many superhero movies have reduced the "saving the world" thingy to a joke and rendered it ubiquitous, it's nice to discover that Good Omens Season 2 sets its sights low. It moves blithely, and the stakes are almost non-existent. There is no sense of urgency, and you welcome the jovial mood at first. However, Good Omens Season 2 becomes tiring very quickly as it lacks a strong sense of humor.

You can almost feel the strain, the pressure the show takes to have you in stitches. If it were a stand-up comedian, it would have begged you to laugh at every joke, every punch line. I felt awkward for the most part as the series bumbled and failed at both visual and verbal humor. Much of the energy dissipates because of the clumsy structure. The show kills momentum when it ungracefully moves from one timeline to another. The scenes lack rhythm, and many of them seem to go on and on to merely fill up the runtime. The camera adopts a hyperactive and ostentatious movement when it's required to go from outdoors to indoors, like when it glides through the windows. It's meant to be stylish or something but comes across as empty showmanship.

In Good Omens Season 2, Gabriel (Jon Hamm) loses his memory and arrives naked at Aziraphale's (Michael Sheen) bookstore. What happened to him? This is a question you soon stop asking and, after a while, don't find important or interesting. The series numbs your senses and sucks the joy out of all the threads. It makes them trivial instead of imbuing them with comic strength. Take local shopkeepers Maggie (Maggie Service) and Nina (Nina Sosanya). The former develops a crush on the latter, but the romance is diminished and transformed into an excuse to keep the show busy. In fact, everything in Good Omens Season 2 feels uninspiring and unnecessary.

The various flashbacks and present-day shenanigans establish that God doesn't care about his creation, and some (or at least one) demons can be kind. These points, along with "Aziraphale and Crowley (David Tennant) are best friends who have each other's back," are made repeatedly. The show just doesn't have anything new to say to its audience. On top of that, there is a deficiency of jokes, which further makes Good Omens Season 2 forgettable and as dry as dust. The chuckle-worthy moments are scanty. A "Very Closed" board appears outside a shop during an emergency. Aziraphale speaks French even when a listener understands English. A demon on stage talks awkwardly in front of her army. And Gabriel looks cute when - wrapped in a towel - he brushes a bookshelf in front of Aziraphale and Crowley.

Sheen, Tennant, and Hamm are fine and funny but fail to save this sinking ship. The text messages from Nina's phone pop up imaginatively, though they feel ineffective. We never even see the image of the person sending her the messages, and her personal troubles seem to exist as an embellishment that creates an illusion of depth in this character. Devoid of remarkable delights, Good Omens Season 2 gives bad signals from the beginning, and apart from slight diverting pleasures here and there, it leaves you bored and dissatisfied.

Final Score- [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times
Note: First 5 episodes are screened for this review.
Premiere Date: July 28, 2023, on Prime Video with all six episodes.