‘God’s Favorite Idiot’ Ending, Explained: Do Amily And Clark Manage To Escape? What Happens To Satan?

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As we go through the eight episodes of “God’s Favorite Idiot” Season 1, we can’t help but wonder if we are the real idiots. Because if that’s the case, we wouldn’t terribly mind, considering we would be God’s favorite. The reason we say this is because of the universal human tendency to keep giving online content repeated chances, despite the established pattern of mediocrity. It has become more important to make content than to make it good. However, we also claim the title of “God’s favorite” because this show was not a complete let-down. Our standards have come to that. Let us take a look at the best and the average of this show.

Spoilers Ahead


What Are Clark’s Powers? What Do They Mean?

Something that struck us quite hard as the show unfolded was that the writers were relying on the public knowledge of similar series in the past. Like their explanation, or rather, the under-explanation of how Clark got his powers; how he came to know about them himself; his on-and-off ability to be able to use them; and just his easy acceptance of the whole situation. We understand how trying to actually explain these things would have made this exactly similar to a whole plethora of series out there. But by not explaining it and relying on previous memory, the audience has connected to other shows while watching this one, which has established a disconnect between “God’s Favorite Idiot” and its viewers.

“God’s Favorite Idiot” Season 1 starts with Clark in his garden looking for his cats, with Harry Styles’s ‘Sign of the times’ playing in the background, when he is struck by lightning. He remains unharmed, but from that day onwards, life is too easy for him. All the signal lights turn green for him, work is easy, and he starts glowing, literally. One of the times when he is glowing like a human tubelight, his colleague Amily, sees him. She tells this to her coworkers the next day, but they don’t believe him as she had done a lot of drugs when she reportedly saw this incident. But she is sure about what she has seen and is intent on proving it. As it turns out, Clark has had a crush on Amily since forever, and that very day, he musters up the courage to ask her out. Amily agrees to go out with him, just to prove herself right. But on the date, she actually ends up enjoying his company and sees him in a new light, which is precisely when he starts glowing again. But this time, since they are in a restaurant, he is captured on camera, and the video is uploaded on YouTube.

The next day, Amily and Clark, with their coworkers Tom, Mohsin, and Wendy, set out to understand the reasons behind his glowing. They come up with a few biblical references that indicate that Clark has been chosen by God for a mission of sorts. What that mission is remains to be seen. Throughout it all, Amily is slowly falling in love with Clark. She has been shown as a generally unhinged person who is borderline commitment-phobic, but that seems to be changing after she meets Clark. We feel her character was done dirty here. Her entire purpose is to be a support system for Clark. I thought we had left that trope behind. But another thing we have to ask is: Is this Hollywood’s idea of a woman with a sense of humor? Someone who makes fun of her substance abuse and her mental health issues? And people are okay with that for the supposed ‘comedy’ it offers. Is that, too, in a show about how God wants everyone to be kind and take care of each other? If irony was the intent, it did not work.

Coming back to Clark, we see that he has started to smell like people’s favorite things. For some, he smells like their grandmother’s quilt; for others, it’s a bunch of roses; and for some, it’s like a cinnamon roll. Not only that, he seems to be able to communicate in multiple languages as well as get to the vulnerable sides of people. He repeatedly questions why he was chosen. The answer is almost always that it is because he is a simple and sweet guy who is a genuinely nice person. Then why did the writers decide that it was the definition of an idiot? Clark also meets God. God is a woman, who specifically looks like his nurse in third grade. She tells him that she wants him to tell everyone that all religions are right about God and that God wants them to love each other and live in harmony. But she doesn’t tell him how to do it. And now Clark has to figure out a way to do that himself.


How Satan Interferes With God’s Plans For Clark?

The problem here is that Satan doesn’t seem very intelligent. She had one job—stop Clark from spreading God’s message, as the success of it could tip things in heaven’s favor in the current war between heaven and hell. Clark decides to follow God’s orders by talking to a reporter. Before the interview can happen, Satan goes on a date with the reporter and leaves it halfway. The whole thing really serves no purpose. The next day, as Clark is in the middle of his interview, he gets a call from his dad, who has been taken hostage by Satan, and he rushes to rescue him. Once there, the reporter sees their powers for herself. While Clark’s dad is rescued, the reporter is convinced of the veracity of Clark’s claims.

On the other hand, Satan, posing as Satalinda, signs up a pastor for a campaign to discredit everything Clark is saying and spread his own agenda of “Only the righteous are right,” meaning orthodox Christians. As it turns out, while this is successful in convincing people against Clark, it is also the cause of significant religious strife due to the harsh words of the pastor. But in the final minutes of the last episode, the pastor is told by Clark that he understands why he is the way he is. He was unloved as a child, and his aunt always criticized him. Therefore, the only solace he found was in this narrow dogmatic definition of religion. God forgives him for choosing this path. We can see the confusion on the pastor’s face, but he seems to realize that Clark is not a complete fraud after all.


‘God’s Favorite Idiot’ Season 1: Ending Explained- Do Amily And Clark Manage To Escape? What Happens To Satan?

To answer the latter question, first, as Satan wreaks havoc in the hospital trying to find and kill Clark and Amily, she comes across Mohsin and Wendy trying to escape with Clark’s dad. Just as she is about to kill them, Wendy tells her that she can see through her heart and knows that all she wants is to be respected by her superiors. Satan should be in the middle of the war with heaven and not on earth, killing off insignificant mortals. Wendy really plays up to Satan’s vanity, following which, Satan seems to make a decision and disappear. Presumably, she has gone to demand her rightful place in the organization of things, and we will come to know more in “God’s Favorite Idiot” Season 2.

Amily and Clark escape from the hospital unharmed. Clark has been told by God where he needs to go and is presumably heading there for the next part of the mission, which also will be seen in Season 2. God has told Clark that she won’t be around for a while to help him, and he must fend for himself. So all Clark has is a tough-as-nails Amily by his side, who admits to him that she loves him. It now remains to be seen where the second season of the story will take us. Considering the first season, we would guess that it wouldn’t be very far.


Final Thoughts- What Went Wrong With ‘God’s Favorite Idiot’ Season 1?

Honestly, our personal feelings aside, we still don’t know who the idiot is. Clark is a basic guy, but he is not an idiot. Everyone else, however, seems to be, especially the character of Tom, who makes constant mistakes, is socially inept, and doesn’t value people’s privacy as he talks to them through toilet stalls. Clark’s dad also seems to have no clue as to the real meaning of ‘pleasuring ourselves in the sauna,’ as he says this repeatedly throughout the show. And all of the dialogue gives us the impression that the first draft of the story must have been approved instead of a polished final draft. It wouldn’t be fair to say that the show completely fails. It’s not smart, but it tries too hard and succeeds only halfway. Described as a comedy, there wasn’t a single moment that made us laugh or even smile. And in some places, where there was a scope for a sweet moment in the romantic storylines, they ruined it with a bad joke. This only seems to happen with Amily and Clark. Wendy and Mohsin were safe from this and delivered the required mush. The show was OK. Watching it was knowing that potential was wasted, a pattern that seems to be repeating for a lot of content. Maybe this is our new reality. Something we will never ever come to terms with.


“God’s Favorite Idiot” is a 2022 Drama Fantasy series created by Ben Falcone.

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Divya Malladi
Divya Malladi
Divya spends way more time on Netflix and regrets most of what she watches. Hence she has too many opinions that she tries to put to productive spin through her writings. Her New Year resolution is to know that her opinions are validated.

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