I might survive The Sandman Season 2 and it's because Good Omens taught me something valuable

If you're anything like me, you're bracing for The Sandman Season 2 with both reverence and dread. Reverence because Neil Gaiman’s world is unlike anything else on television—a rich, strange tapestry of mythology, morality, and mortality. Dread because this world doesn’t coddle.

The Sandman does not flinch. It transforms your expectations and breaks your heart. But here's the twist: I might actually survive it this time. And that's thanks to Good Omens.

While the two shows differ wildly in tone—one is a sardonic celestial comedy, the other a gothic meditation on dreams and duty—they share more than just a common creator. They prepare you, in tandem, for what it means to care about fictional gods and angels, to find humor in despair, and to hold onto grace when the narrative goes dark.

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Finding humanity in the inhuman: The Sandman and Good Omens

At the core of both series is a remarkable sleight of hand: anthropomorphized concepts that end up feeling more human than many of us do on our best days.

In The Sandman, we meet the Endless—eternal personifications of forces like Death, Desire, and, of course, Dream himself. They're ancient, unknowable… and yet somehow, intimately familiar. Dream is prideful, awkward, and full of longing. Death is kind and grounded. These aren't just cosmic entities; they’re emotional mirrors.

Similarly, in Good Omens, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley are divine bureaucrats wrestling with the most human of dilemmas: moral ambiguity, attachment, and the terror of love. Their celestial mandates become side notes to their shared lunches, inside jokes, and aching loyalty. They’re not just avatars of good and evil; they’re flawed, funny, and tender.

Both shows ask the same question: What if the most powerful beings in existence were just as confused, lonely, and emotionally vulnerable as the rest of us?

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Death in both universes: Two faces of the inevitable

Here’s where things get philosophical.

In The Sandman, Death walks barefoot, smiles gently, and reminds people that their time is up with soft finality. She's not a threat; she’s the moment of clarity at the end of a long journey. It’s one of the most radical portrayals of death in modern storytelling—a presence that is kind, consistent, and full of empathy.

In Good Omens, Death is colder, less personable, and more present. He’s part of the Four Horsemen, and while the show leans into irreverence, he still evokes dread. He is distant. He is inevitable.

Both versions confront us with mortality. But where Good Omens plays it for absurdity and satire, The Sandman turns it into something quiet and strangely comforting. Together, they teach us how to sit with the end—whether we laugh or we weep.

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Apocalypse, but make it personal

Both shows have literal end-of-the-world plots—but that’s not the point. What matters isn’t the apocalypse. It’s how people (and personifications) respond to it.

In Good Omens, Armageddon is derailed not by power, but by preference. Crowley doesn’t want to give up his Bentley. Aziraphale wants to keep his books. The Antichrist just wants a normal life. It’s the mundane that saves the world—a miracle of banality.

In The Sandman, the apocalypse takes many shapes: a crumbling Dreaming, broken timelines, and collapsing identities. It’s not one grand finale—it’s a series of existential implosions. What holds it together is not just Dream’s power, but his slow, painful growth. His willingness to listen. To change. Sometimes, the end of the world is the beginning of maturity.

Both shows ask us to look past spectacle and notice the human moments. A handheld. A memory kept. A choice that bends fate.

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Characters who resist destiny

Another shared thread: defiance.

In Good Omens, Crowley and Aziraphale both break ranks. Their friendship, if not romance, is an act of rebellion. They choose each other over Heaven and Hell. They rewrite the script—and pay for it.

In The Sandman, Dream also begins as an agent of order, shackled by rules. But slowly, through his interactions with mortals, he changes. Not easily. Not always well. But meaningfully. His ultimate mistake (or act of grace, depending on your reading) is choosing mercy for his son Orpheus, knowing the consequences.

Both shows are ultimately about the cost of freedom—and why it’s worth paying.

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What Good Omens really prepared me for

If The Sandman teaches us to dream through destruction, Good Omens teaches us to laugh despite it. They don’t offer easy answers. Instead, they permit us to grieve, to hope, to question cosmic orders, and still find beauty.

Gaiman’s stories remind us that there is strength in softness, revolution in kindness, and power in vulnerability. You’re allowed to cry over a demon who saves a bookstore or an Endless who finally learns to say sorry.

And maybe most importantly, these shows teach us to embrace the grey areas. Not all angels are good. Not all demons are bad. Not all endings are failures. The Sandman will test that understanding even more in Season 2. It will go deeper, darker. But I’m ready, because I’ve already learned the most valuable thing: stories can wound you and still be worth it.

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So as The Sandman Season 2 looms, I carry the absurdity, love, and rebellion of Good Omens with me. One show helped me face the apocalypse with a smirk. The other? With silence and awe. And somewhere in between, I’ve found the resilience to make it through both.