Throughout their 15-season and 2-seasons-and-a-tv-special respective runs, Supernatural and Good Omens have often overlapped heavily in topics, themes, character types, tropes and even direct inspiration (with Eric Kripke, the director of Supernatural‘s first five seasons, citing Good Omens‘ (the novel) demonic character Crowley as the inspiration for a demon of the same name in Supernatural). Both series dealt with ideas of Heaven, Hell, the presence (or lack thereof) of God, free will, and the destructive consequences of allowing apocalyptic beliefs to guide our goals, actions and self-perceptions. More lighthearted themes and motifs were also shared between the two shows, ranging from sleek black classic cars playing classic rock, to reluctant antichrists. After Supernatural‘s final season ended on a note that many fans found unsatisfactory, some turned to Good Omens, with its overall lighter and more comedic tone compared to the monster-hunting series, to provide a more hopeful answer to the shows’ common questions.
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Unfortunately, many of these fans would once again be left disappointed. Good Omens 3— a 90-minute special that served as the show’s final installment after a series of horrific allegations against author and showrunner Neil Gaiman led to the cancellation of Good Omens‘ initially planned third season — turned out to be extremely divisive in its reception, with many fans seeing it as disjointed, needlessly bleak, and overall bizarre. However, a legacy of fandom grief is not the only thing that the final installments of Supernatural and Good Omens share— in fact, they have an astonishing amount in common. Let’s look into it, following each show’s ending from start to finish.
12. The Gamblers
Fairly early in both final installments, we have a genre-clashing, yet plot-essential, detour into gambling. Good Omens 3 opens with Crowley, heartbroken after Aziraphale’s departure to Heaven, spending his days drinking and gambling. Notorious Mobster Brian Cameron, noticing both Crowley’s vulnerable state and his prized mint-condition black 1933 Bentley, tries to coerce Crowley into playing him for the car. While a human like Cameron would normally pose no threat to Crowley, the demon happens to run out of miracles at that very moment. Depowered, Crowley gives in — and loses the car. Thankfully, Aziraphale returns to Earth soon after, winning back both the Bentley and Crowley’s trust, and setting the duo on track for their third and final adventure.
In Supernatural, the gambling arc also comes about due to a loss of divine abilities— of a sort. While Sam and Dean don’t have miraculous powers, as the show progresses, they pull off increasingly superhuman feats with increasing ease. Episodes 10-11 of Supernatural’s 15th and final season make Sam and Dean’s powers clear canon, as Chuck (God’s alias in the Supernatural universe), frustrated with the brothers’ continued refusal to follow his plans, strips them of their hero status and the plot armor that comes with it. Struggling to survive as normal humans, the Winchesters seek out a bar where the Roman goddess Fortuna passes her time letting humans play pool for a chance to increase their luck. While the Winchesters fail to out-play the goddess, she restores their luck out of admiration for their heroic spirit, and Sam and Dean ride out to fight God another day.
11. The Book That Answers It All
One of the central mysteries of Good Omens 3 is the disappearance of the Book of Life. The Book of Life is an all-powerful tome that both contains information on every person, entity, place, object and abstract concept in the entire universe, and has the power to change reality in real time as its pages are damaged or altered. As the book’s new owner goes on a murder spree in Heaven, tearing out the pages of angels and leaving only ghastly echoes of their existence behind, Aziraphale and Crowley race to find the thief before they destroy reality itself.
In Supernatural‘s final season, the all-important book is of an almost exactly opposite nature— after finding out that Death has a reading room of books detailing the deaths of every living thing in history, Sam infiltrates the reading room in S15 episode 17 to steal Chuck’s Death Book, hoping they can use the information inside to destroy the deity once and for all. However, despite the best efforts of the Winchesters and their allies to translate the book, the spell detailed in its pages seemingly fails— only for it to be revealed that, since Chuck had not yet died, the book was blank, and that upon discovering this the Winchesters had used the Death Book as a distraction to keep Chuck from knowing their true plan.
This entry on this list is notable, as the shared plot point takes completely opposite roles in the two shows— the Book of Life does exactly what it is claimed to do and thus becomes Good Omens 3‘s greatest threat, while Chuck’s Death Book turns out to do nothing at all and its uselessness helps the Winchesters achieve their final victory.
10. The Archangel Michael Loses Their Mind And Becomes A Twist Villain
One entity who takes an important role regarding each series’ Book is the Archangel Michael. In Good Omens 3, it is Michael who steals the Book of Life. Experiencing a full mental break due to years of being ignored in Heaven, overlooked in favor of other angels such as Gabriel and Aziraphale, and promised a glorious role in an apocalypse that increasingly seemed as though it would never happen, the archangel decides to bring all of reality to an end by their own hands. When confronted with their actions, Michael destroys the Book of Life entirely, taking their own life in the process.
Supernatural Season 15 establishes the insanity of their own Archangel Michael early on. The Winchesters last saw Michael when falling into Lucifer’s Cage at the end of Season 5, and when The Cage is opened again in Season 15, Sam and Dean are told that Michael’s time there left him too mentally shattered to function. Despite this, the archangel seems fairly stable when he appears later in the season, and in episode 19 he joins forces with Sam and Dean to help them decode Chuck’s Death Book. However, Michael eventually betrays Sam and Dean, telling Chuck of their plans in an attempt to win back his approval— only for Sam and Dean to reveal that they had predicted Michael’s treachery, and worked it into their ruse from the start.
9. The Thanos-Snap Moment
In Good Omens 3, Michael, seeking to speed up their destructive rampage, begins tearing pages out from the Book of Life one by one and casting them into Heaven’s Eternal Flame— a well full of fire that is introduced in Good Omens 3‘s introductory scene as having the power to destroy anything utterly. As the pages burn, people, buildings, and even whole city blocks crumble into dust and scatter as though blown away by wind, while those whose pages have not yet been burnt look on in confusion and fear— a scene familiar to anyone who watched Avengers: Endgame, albeit expanded to include the destruction of the world itself as well.
Supernatural’s iteration of this scene is virtually identical, aside from keeping to the more traditional— if it can be called that— Thanos-Snap rule of only affecting living things. In 15×18, an increasingly frustrated Chuck opts to wipe out the rest of humanity (and possibly all animal life as well) leaving Sam and Dean to exist in an empty world. The scene is identical— people going about their days suddenly fade into scattering dust, their companions reacting in horror before being dissolved themselves.
8. The Goodbye
After the destruction of the universe, God gives Aziraphale and Crowley a choice: She can put everything back exactly how it was, including Heaven, Hell, and the inevitable impending destruction of Revelations, or she can leave it destroyed, sparing humanity their future suffering in favor of immediate and total nonexistence. Given time alone to deliberate, Crowley and Aziraphale weigh their options, and make some stumbling attempts to air their feelings for each other (though Crowley had already revealed the true depths of his love for Aziraphale, indirectly, in an earlier speech to God), before deciding on a third choice— one they know that they will not survive.
In Supernatural‘s final season, this angelic acceptance of death comes when Castiel and Dean are hiding in a storeroom from the vengeful embodiment of Death, Billie, who Dean had recently dealt a mortal wound with her own scythe. In the prior season, Castiel had made a deal with a sentient primordial void known as The Empty, which included the condition that The Empty would claim Castiel during the angel’s purest moment of happiness. Realizing that the void was the only thing able to contain Billie’s wrath, Castiel forces the deal into fruition by living out his greatest wish. Castiel confesses his years-long love to Dean, praising the hunter and thanking him for changing his life, before Billie breaks through the door and The Empty swallows up reaper and angel alike.
While these two moments share little in terms of function or dialogue (with perhaps the exception of Aziraphale’s “Why give me Crowley? Why make me complete, and then take it away?” to God vs Castiel’s “The one thing I want, it’s the one thing I know I can’t have” to Dean), they, like the previous entry, are worth comparison due to the startling similarity of the acting and cinematography involved. Even prior to Good Omens 3‘s airing, the release of a still shot from this scene had fans drawing comparisons to Castiel’s confession.
7. God And The Devil Reconciled
Having retreated to The Bookshop (now the only thing in existence due to (who?) saving its page from the Book of Life), Aziraphale and Crowley, at a loss for what else to do, write in one of the shop’s many books to summon both God and Satan to appear before them. While Aziraphale and Crowley are both fed up and desperate for answers to the seemingly reasonless and bleak nature (and now fate) of reality, both they and the audience are taken aback to see the two ancient beings getting along like old friends. In fact, while Satan is temporarily shocked and grieved by the realization that he too was merely a player in God’s plan, the pair otherwise chat and banter happily while our heroes plead the case for the continued existence of everything.
Supernatural‘s devil, the long-running villain Lucifer, also takes an unexpected turn to the light side in the show’s final season. Appearing at the door of The Bunker out of seemingly nowhere as Sam and Dean sit in shock after Cas’ sacrifice and Chuck’s erasure of humankind from the world, Lucifer initially presents himself as allied with Sam and Dean to destroy Chuck and end his rule over Earth. However, the Devil has never been one to stay on the Winchesters’ good side, and it doesn’t take long for it to be revealed that he has not only been passing information on Sam and Dean’s plan to Chuck, but that, since Chuck has deemed Michael a failure, Lucifer has regained his original title of God’s Favorite Son. Michael fatally stabs Lucifer for this almost immediately, of course.
6. “If We Die, Will God Put Everyone Else Back?”
Having discussed the inherent flaws of the two options presented to them, Aziraphale and Crowley return from their deliberation with the proposal of a third option: that God remake the universe without angels, demons, or any sort of divine intervention, allowing the earth to exist for the millions of years until the planet’s natural death when the sun burns out— all without any biblical apocalypse to cut it short. When God asks if they understand that this choice will mean that they, an angel and a demon, can no longer exist, they confirm that they do.
Sam and Dean also make a variation of this offer to their respective God. Early in 15×19, after Chuck has erased humanity, Sam and Dean offer to kill each other if he puts everyone— including Cas— back. The context for this offer is very different than in Good Omens 3, as Chuck has a long history of attempting to force the Winchester brothers into scenarios where one kills the other— therefore, they aren’t wrong in thinking that an offer to finally fulfill the narrative that he’s consistently tried to write them into would convince Chuck to restore humankind. However, unlike in Good Omens, this offer of mutual sacrifice is not accepted, as Chuck replies that he has changed what kind of story he wants before leaving Sam, Dean and Jack in their abandoned world.
5. Tricking God… Or Did They?
While both Supernatural and Good Omens both seem to end with their respective heroes outsmarting God, there are also factors in both endings that have left some fans skeptical as to whether this victory was genuine. In Good Omens 3, God reacts to Aziraphale and Crowley’s proposed third option with what seems to be a combination of surprise and delight— but is this true surprise at her own creations’ ability to conceive a possibility that she could not, or simply happiness that her ineffable plan, whatever it was, had achieved some desired result? If the latter is the case, then how much agency did Aziraphale and Crowley truly have in the first place if they were always, unknowingly, following Her plan? Ineffability is a tricky concept to put into practical worldbuilding, and God’s whisper to Satan of “Let’s not and say we did” as Aziraphale and Crowley enter with their decision does not make things any less confusing.
In stark contrast, Sam and Dean’s final confrontation with Chuck is a full-on brawl. After killing Michael for working (even traitorously) with the Winchesters and blasting Jack backwards, Chuck attacks Sam and Dean directly, bludgeoning them with feet, fists and overwhelming strength. Unbeknownst to Chuck, Jack had gained the ability to drain energy from his surroundings and use that power himself. Absorbing the energy from his attacks, Jack was able to physically grapple Chuck and drain his power, rendering him human.
After getting a few solid kicks in themselves and revealing the truth of their ruse with the Death Book, the Winchesters leave the former deity alive to reflect on his defeat and his newfound mortality. While this certainly seems like a permanent loss on Chuck’s part, the strange tone and numerous plot holes of the following episode— Supernatural’s series finale— combined with several easter eggs spotted by fans (such as the fact that Jack walks and speaks with Chuck’s mannerisms after absorbing his power), have led many fans to suspect an impermanent victory or a fake-out.
4) A World Without God
In accordance with Aziraphale and Crowley’s proposed solution, the universe restarts, this time without any divine presence. A zoom-in through the Big Bang and the formation of the planets leads the audience back into present-day London, which notably looks more or less identical to the London that was just destroyed (more on that in entry #2). There, Bookshop Employee Asa Fell and Astrophysics Professor Anthony Crowley, two humans who very much resemble Aziraphale and Crowley in both appearance and interests (though the show never makes it clear if any form of reincarnation is at work) have an awkwardly romantic meet-cute in the bookshop where Asa works.
Meanwhile, as episode 15×19 of Supernatural draws to a close, Jack, now the new God, restores humanity (and animals, as the dog Dean had found earlier in the episode comes eagerly bounding back to meet him) before informing Sam and Dean that, instead of continuing Chuck’s violent and controlling rule over humanity, he would be “A hands-off God”, existing passively as part of everything in the world and not interfering with the free will of humans. With that, Jack fades into thin air, leaving Sam, Dean and the dog (Cas notably is not returned alongside the rest of humanity, for reasons that are only partially clarified later) to explore what is, supposedly, a kinder world.
3) Scary Clowns, For Some Reason
In order to discuss this shared theme between the shows, we must jump back a bit in Good Omens 3 ‘s timeline to before the destruction of the universe, when Aziraphale, alongside the angel Muriel, infiltrates Hell in an attempt to gain information about the missing Book of Life. In order to both pass unrecognized as an angel and feign the authority needed to gain access to this sensitive information, Aziraphale disguises himself as the demon Slorch The Vile. He achieves this with the aid of a prosthetic nose, garish club-goth attire, sharpened teeth, and buckets of cakey, ghoulish horrorclown makeup, all presented to Hell’s denizens with an exaggerated performance of the grotesque that many fans compare favorably to Beetlejuice.
The creepy clowns of Supernatural‘s final season are, unfortunately, not remotely as endearingly odd as Slorch. In a development that immediately throws into question the idea that a universe with Jack as God is any kinder, Sam and Dean are (after an unspecified timeskip) back on the hunt, as a group of mysterious figures in horror-clown masks and black bodysuits have been breaking into homes throughout Ohio, killing adults— specifically removing both their hearts and their tongues— and kidnapping children. Dubbed “Vamp-Mimes” by Dean after they turn out to be a group of vampires who all wear clown masks for some unexplained reason, these strange monsters are no laughing matter. Despite the Winchesters having triumphed over God himself in the prior episode, Dean meets his death as the largest of the mimes impales him over an exposed piece of rebar.
2) The Question Of Free Will
The “New Universe” of Good Omens, as mentioned above, is in all respects identical to our own. Despite the influence that religion has had on the course of human history, it appears that a world without these entities progresses identically— raising questions about why, if the presence of nonhuman influence had no measurable effect on the course of human history, Aziraphale and Crowley saw a full reset as the only solution.
Additionally, alongside Anthony and Asa, city-goers can also be seen who are identical in appearance (ie, played by the same actors) to the prior universe’s angels, demons and otherwise magical people. One of Crowley’s stated reasons for wanting a full universe reset was a desire for “True free will”— but, looking at these copies of our old cast of characters existing in the same year in the same city, one can’t help but feel that some form of predestination is still in effect.
In Supernatural, the feeling is similar. While Jack’s approach to godhood seemingly left Sam and Dean free to write their own story, very little seems to change. Horrific monsters still plague humankind, Sam and Dean continue to hunt as a duo, without Cas or any of their other allies. When the Winchesters meet their ends, it seems more in line with their during the show’s first seasons than with the people they had grown into over the years.
Dean, who by the show’s 15th season had softened considerably and even begun to daydream about retirement, dies fairly young on a hunt. Sam, now a pillar of the hunting community and a powerful spellcaster in his own right, leaves hunting altogether, settles down with a wife, has a son named Dean Jr., and dies of old age. The discrepancy between the characters’ evolution and their fates is jarring, and while it is not as brutal as some of the endings that Chuck attempted to steer the brothers into, it still raises questions about whether, even in a world without an active God, one can truly escape the story they were created to tell.
1) Old Age And Questionable Wigs
After their meet-cute at the bookshop and romantic dinner at a local restaurant, the camera follows Asa and Anthony 20 years into the future, where the couple, now elderly, share a cozy evening stargazing outside their cottage. However, while the scene is sweet, many fans could not look past the obvious fakeness of the couple’s old man wigs— nor, for that matter, the wigs worn by younger Asa and Anthony either. Up until this point, Michael Sheen (who played Aziraphale) and David Tennant (who played Crowley) had their natural hair dyed for the roles— leading the choice to utilize rather over-gelled and oddly colored wigs in their portrayals of Asa and Anthony reading as jarring to audiences.
Sheen and Tenant should count themselves lucky that they did not share the fate of Jared Padalecki, who plays Sam Winchester in Supernatural. During the flash-forwards of Sam’s life in Supernatural‘s final episode, the retired hunter’s increasing age is shown via not one, but two, iterations of truly cheap and terrible old man wigs and equally poor-quality old man makeup. Far from only being the subject of fandom complaints, these wigs were later revealed to have been the subject of derision on set, with descriptions like “Roadkill”, “Dead Racoon”, “Party City” and just plain “Bad” circulating around fan and cast conversations alike to this day.
One That’s Different: Moving On Together
Finally, let us close out this list by highlighting one major difference in the endings of these two shows: While Good Omens allowed its heroes to go out together, Supernatural did not. Aziraphale and Crowley share a moment of resolve before holding hands as they dissolve into whirling clouds of dust, gone but united until the end— and as for Asa and Anthony, we leave them comfortable and together.
In Supernatural, by contrast, Cas dies in 15×18, sacrificing himself to stop Billie, Dean dies during the events of 15×20 while hunting, and Sam lives for several decades afterwards in a flash-forward before dying of old age. While Sam and Dean do reunite in Heaven, it is after years of separation, and Cas, despite hints being dropped about his role helping Jack restore Heaven, never joins the brothers in their afterlife. When two shows share so much, two episodes’ difference in Time of Character Death may not seem significant, but this difference in treatment of endings, mourning and persistence does lend at least some variety to these endings otherwise overrun with parallels.
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