Good Omens Season 2 - What We Know So Far
There was never supposed to be a Season 2 of "Good Omens."
Neil Gaiman, the show's writer and showrunner, not to mention co-author of the novel it's adapted from with the late Terry Pratchett, was originally quite clear on that. "Well, the lovely thing about 'Good Omens' is it has a beginning, a middle and an end. So season one of 'Good Omens' is 'Good Omens.' It's brilliant. It finishes. We have six episodes and then we're done," he told an audience at South by Southwest in 2019, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
But since then, fans of the series, which follows the unlikely pairing of the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and the demon Crowley (David Tennant) as they work together to find the Antichrist and thwart plans for Armageddon, may have gotten some — well, some positive indications — about the possibility of Season 2. "It's in Neil's hands now but we'd love to do it," Amazon's Vernon Sanders was quoted as saying back in 2019 (via Deadline).
More recently, Gaiman seems to be coming around to the possibility. "Right now, the challenges of creating more Good Omens are challenges of time and the world, not of willingness," Gaiman told Radio Times in 2020. "I would love to write more Good Omens. I want Crowley and Aziraphale together doing stuff."
But what kind of stuff? And when?
What will the plot for Good Omens Season 2 be?
In the finale, both Aziraphale and Crowley were charged with treason by their respective supernatural superiors for their actions. Aziraphale was sentenced to destruction by hellfire, while Crowley was meant to vaporize himself via holy water. But the pair survive their sentences no worse for the wear, and Heaven and Hell, for lack of a better option, agree to let them continue living out their lives on Earth, where it's revealed that they had swapped appearances so that their punishments no longer suited.
Plotwise, it's tough to go bigger than the End of the World, but with the two heroes (and their friendship) surviving Season 1, there's a more or less blank slate on which to project the events of Season 2. The trouble is, Gaiman might not know what it is yet. Gaiman has often spoken of his and Pratchett's potential follow-up to the original "Good Omens" novel, tentatively entilted "668: Neighbor of the Beast," but he told Digital Spy that the series actually mined some of that material already, such as the introduction of Gabriel (Jon Hamm) and other angels.
If a Season 2 comes to fruition, Gaiman will have to develop a story that he and everyone else thinks lives up to the original work he developed with Pratchett, who unfortunately died in 2015.
Who is in the cast for Good Omens Season 2?
Despite the face-swapping finale of the first season, it's almost impossible to imagine a second season of "Good Omens" going ahead without the involvement of its lead actors: Sheen and Tennant. Their believable chemistry as bickering frenemies who have known each other since the Creation is the show's major selling point, and attempting to duplicate it with another pair would be foolhardy.
The good news about filling a show with celestial characters is that, whatever the plot may be, there's a good chance they'll still be around somewhere for it. Frances McDormand could return as the voice of God. Likewise, Benedict Cumberbatch could be back as the voice of Satan. If the series does explore more on the origins of angels, then Hamm and Doon Mackichan may well return as Gabriel and Michael.
The medium, Madame Tracy (Miranda Richardson), and the witchfinder, Sergeant Shadwell (Michael McKean), retired together at the end of the first season, but are theoretically still available should they be called to duty.
When is the release date for Good Omens Season 2?
If a Season 2 of "Good Omens" is coming, it will probably be a while yet before we see it.
The main cast is comprised of pretty in-demand actors, and Gaiman, in particular, has spoken about how he's been making new efforts to guard his time. Gaiman told Express U.K. in 2019 that he wanted to take some time to get back to writing novels, though since that point he also took a more active role in production of Showtime's adaptation of his novel "American Gods," which was canceled earlier this year.
But fans of "Good Omens" looking for more of its repartee between Aziraphale and Crowley do have another option to turn to in the meantime. The BBC pandemic comedy "Staged" stars Sheen and Tennant as fictional versions of themselves who have been convinced to continue rehearsing the play they were working on before lockdown over video conferencing. It already has a second season, which follows the pair as their director (Simon Evans) shops an American version of the original series that will replace the two.
Even Gaiman agrees it's the next best thing, "Watching Michael and David in 'Staged' gave me so much joy, and a sort of weird, proud, kind of semi-parental joy, because I was like, 'These are my boys. I put them together. And look at that!'" he told Radio Times. Does that sound like he would pass up the chance to see them together again?