#also if you somehow end up reading this mr. gaiman: yes i do sneak your books onto the displays at the library whenever i can

[applestorms]

GOOD OMENS.

CLENCH UP BITCHES WE'RE DOING THIS. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS READ WITH CAUTION my hands are still shaking from finishing season 2 approximately 13.420 minutes ago so everybody clam the fuigk up/down. we're getting IN to this one. 10 sections.

okay, before i get into anything specific, i just wanna say: this series has had some of the best writing i've seen in a tv show & it's really fucking gratifying to watch. this season in particular had some really clear, distinct themes that were evolved upon and executed pretty much perfectly imo, to the point that i almost feel like i can guess what a good deal of season 3 is probably gonna look like (see section 12). this is great!! it means the writers are really paying attention to what the story is doing & what the characters are feeling/going through at any given moment in the story, & it just makes the series that much stronger on a rewatch. this season in particular really hits that sweet spot for me of being overt & clear w/ its themes w/o treating its audiences like idiots, it just. works.

i'm not going to touch on season 1 as much here since it's not as fresh as s2 for me rn, but hopefully this post can help bring some additional analysis/reflection to the new season. not sure how much of this will be totally crazy wild & new, but perhaps some interesting points will come outta the process. hope you enjoy the read!! there's 13 sections so feel free to skip around.

1. aziraphale as the beautiful execution of a flawed protagonist (ft. crowley's pining)

one of the best parts of this season by far comes from the character writing, particularly for the main two & especially for aziraphale. aziraphale was my personal favorite to watch for this entire season actually, he & crowley are both such a fucking mess but aziraphale in particular hides it in such a fascinating way to me. it's not just like watching a car crash, it's like sitting on a park bench watching a man drive a bus into a stoplight, like full on crunch the vehicle in half squish, and then just get out & carry on walking like nothing is wrong & he isn't dripping blood & scraping broken bones across the concrete.

on a broader scale, there is something incredibly appealing about how aziraphale & crowley are presented, even at a very base level. even w/o the fantastic acting of michael sheen & david tennant specifically, it's a pretty common thing that fandom will default to shipping Narrative Foils, & these two are the epitome of that. a demon who can't stop being a nice guy & an angel who keeps cutely being an asshole- this is a great base to work off of, & again the execution thus far has been excellent.

what i like about aziraphale in particular is how complex his character ends up being while still fitting into a very particular role. while crowley to some degree fits into an already pretty popular & well-loved character model (that of the grumpy nice guy), aziraphale has to hit a couple of very important & precise traits, being both outwardly very likeable & endearing while simultaneously constantly fucking up & doing increasingly egregious shit. i really can't commend michael sheen enough for his acting in helping to get the balance right- it would be STUPIDLY easy to make aziraphale the most obnoxious character to ever grace the screen if performed or written incorrectly, the kind of outwardly-kind asshole that does horrific shit w/o reflecting since the show runners seem incapable of seeing the character for what they are & it all just ends up driving viewers up the wall (e.g. emily in paris).

what i think makes aziraphale work is the fact that he is just genuine enough in his actions that when he does something legitimately horrible, it's both so subtle you almost don't even pick up on it, too distracted by the emotions you feel in following his perspective, & just motivated enough that it's easy to write him off w/o thinking any deeper. as much as crowley calls aziraphale out for being a bad magician, i think it's spot on that the one thing he is quite skilled at is misdirection. you spend a lot of time in this show following very closely with either aziraphale or crowley's POV, but in s2 especially the contrast between those two views is quite overt. while crowley's perspective is often a lot quieter, more reflective & also overtly anxious as he throws himself into stressful situations purely for the sake of supporting az, aziraphale's POV is always very loud & chaotic as he runs around, finding pubs & fighting demons & doing whatever the fuck else he wants to at any given moment.

the main flaw of aziraphale in this season is, imo, selfishness, a direct contrast to crowley's continual self-sacrifice when it comes to aziraphale. in both cases though, this is (pushed to become) a flaw that i think ultimately leads to their inability to connect at the end of the season. but in order to understand that more, we're going to have to take a closer look into the circumstances that have thus far shaped both aziraphale & crowley's characters.

2. denial as a defense mechanism: heaven & hell as life threatening danger

if there's one thing s2 has not forgotten when it comes to a&c, it's the circumstances of s1 that led them to their current emotional/mental states.

slight tangent to lead back into this point: in my work as a librarian, i end up dealing w/ a very particular set of clientele when it comes to the kinds of people that regularly use a public library. parents w/ young children, older gentlemen & ladies looking to escape the more extreme weather, and (for my city, at least) lots and lots of people who no longer have stable housing. since an often forgotten about goal of a public library (well, to the general population) is social services, as a part of my training i've recently been working through a book on what is essentially trauma-informed customer service, which has led to a lot of insight.

one point in particular that i want to highlight here is the idea that traumatic instances are both common & intensely significant in how they can change a person's behavior. defense mechanisms that may make sense in the context of a traumatic event will often stick w/ people even as the context they're in changes & the instincts are no longer useful, instead making the individuals' life even more difficult.

if there is one trauma that defines a lot of the current problems that a&c are going through, it's the fear that originates from the constant surveillance and, in turn, threat of complete eradication that comes from both heaven & hell.

significantly, crowley & aziraphale both respond to this threat in distinctly different ways: where crowley clings to the idea of escape, of creating a place where it's him and aziraphale against the world (alpha centauri), in part idealizing aziraphale as both his only friend ("friend") & the only person he could ever truly trust (crowley also likely has some trauma from the fall but we'll get to that), aziraphale viciously denies that they even have a relationship, all the while simultaneously relying on crowley heavily to do a lot of his dirty work for him. (see this post for the endgame twist on that idea.) it's significant to me that a good chunk of aziraphale's earliest morally dubious actions involve lying- since he's been doing it for so long, it's probably one of the easiest things for him to write off as not that bad, so it's natural that he would default to it as a defense mechanism here too.

to clarify, crowley does engage in denial too, though it's obvious from the emotional climaxes of both season 1 & 2 that he is much less committed to it, likely doing it for the sake of easing aziraphale's mind and/or giving himself something to fall back on so he doesn't attract too much attention from the people that can really hurt them. overall though, these are both basically just fight/flight responses- crowley ultimately wants to run away from or fight everyone that can hurt them (& betrayed him by letting him down in the past) and aziraphale ultimately just wants to deny that the problem even exists.

if we see aziraphale's later stated goal of, "Let's change heaven for the better," as an evolution off of his earlier mindset, this is also basically what their final argument in ep6 comes down to: crowley wanting to run away and aziraphale wanting to go & fight for change. what's so aggravating about this conversation is that they also want the exact same thing: EACH OTHER. (idiots.) (maggie & nina were spot on, of course. it's not just nightingales missing in that silence.) this is not even to mention the fact that they are utilizing these defense mechanisms not just in an attempt to protect themselves, but ultimately to protect one another. think about that one late at night if you wanna get up the motivation to key mr. gaiman's car.

it's also interesting to note that in s1 crowley basically wins this argument, getting the chance to settle down (albeit, still under pretty questionable circumstances) as he & aziraphale (supposedly) create their own little corner of the world away from everyone else. it still doesn't work though as neither of their solutions really get at the core of the problem, which is 1. the horrific bureaucratic systems of heaven & hell that Don't Give a Shit about People at all, and 2. their own unspoken fears & feelings (romantic & otherwise).

3. good, evil, & narrative foils: crowley edition

since i extrapolated on aziraphale's character in section 1 and a&c's relationship in 2, i think it's only right that i look into crowley more for 3.

for all the pain & agony & tears that it brings, i really do think that ep6 is the best ep of s2. specifically, i think that ep6 is the one that shows the primary issues of a&c that have been plaguing them throughout the season (& even previously in s1) the most overtly, and this is especially true of crowley.

there are two things that aziraphale gets wrong about heaven in their final argument: 1st, the idea that heaven is necessarily better than hell, & 2nd the idea that crowley would ever want anything to do w/ it again.

i've seen some people talking about crowley like he's the voice of reason this season, but i don't necessarily agree, or at least not entirely. he's completely right when he says that heaven & hell is toxic in their final argument, yes, but i don't think his motivation in saying that is purely from observation either. remember that point i mentioned earlier, about crowley also having trauma from his initial fall? where aziraphale naturally trusts people to a fault (see: gabriel, but also picking up shax, the graveyard, etc.), crowley is plagued by a complete inability to trust anyone around him, & it's my opinion that a lot of this comes from the trauma of his initial fall.

the one exception to this is, of course, aziraphale, who we can see attempting to be a friend to crowley both before & long after his fall, but aside from him crowley Does Not trust anyone else around him & honestly for good reason. while we can write off hell as just being Like That, even if crowley didn't initially want to fall (as is heavily implied in a few flashback scenes), he certainly doesn't want to be dragged back into a supposedly great position that he knows he could lose again at any wrong comment. this is also (in part) why i think crowley reacts so strongly to aziraphale's "Nothing lasts forever," comment- after going through the horror of losing his divinity & all the stress of the last few seasons, the one thing crowley probably wants is stability, & he's been relying on aziraphale as the source of that. you're both doing the dance for this one, boys.

to reiterate: don't forget the graveyard scene when it comes to crowley doing absolutely anything for aziraphale to the point that it hurts him, both in terms of the supposed punishment he got from hell (that az skips over real fast in his narration) & how aziraphale continues to deny both the reality of their relationship & how much his denial hurts crowley.

4. beelz & gabe the weirdest couple imaginable. good for them. good for them. also: heaven & hell as two equally controlling/toxic sides of a bureaucracy

the Big Bads of the last few seasons took more of a backseat for this one which makes sense considering the focus on a&c and all of the parallel couples, but i do think the one point that was emphasized for them is very important, and that's the ways in which both heaven & hell parallel each other as shitty bureaucratic pyramids of power.

if we consider this meme to be true, i think crowley really is right when it comes to his analysis of heaven & hell, though we're probably just gonna have to wait until s3 to see the exact route the show decides to take.

a big running thread w/in either of these two groups is the fight for promotions, both in terms of people clawing their way up to get more power & in terms of people being replaceable. crowley & gabriel getting kicked out of their positions is just a vacancy of power to the companies that are Good Omens Heaven & Hell, and there is a very clear parallel between shax & michael & their desire for control. what's notable is how that parallel might also now extend to aziraphale what w/ his new promotion. all very fitting concepts to cover in a post-covid, writers-strike context, which i have seen our resident mr. gaiman posting about.

5. yuri on ice, hannibal, & the beauty of acknowledged romantic tension

if there is ONE thing i am disgustingly grateful for in this show it's the fact that we finally have some concrete follow-through on the romantic tension between a&c that permeated through s1. there's only so many times a man can call his best bud "Angel" completely unironically before it gets fucking stupid (cough cough dean winchester cough). but also, to put it in the words of another text post around here: I love how the kiss was awful.

even if there wasn't a kiss, the fact that this fucking entire season fucking revolved around love & featured all kinds of parallel couples should be enough to clue you in on the romantic tension between a&c, if you somehow were blind enough to miss it before. that being said, i'm really glad that the kiss was executed the way that it was, essentially summarizing all of the tension & anguish that had been built up over the last few seasons in an explosion. the state of aziraphale & crowley's relationship hurts more because they kissed, because the tension finally overflowed & it still wasn't enough to stop him from getting in the stupid elevator & running away again.

sorry had to take a break to aggressively listen to the better call saul theme song again. anyways, while i know there are some other shows that have set precedent for this in acknowledging the romantic development between their leads, i can't stop thinking about two in particular in comparison to good omens: yuri on ice, for the literal cinematic parallels between the kiss, and nbc hannibal, for the creator acknowledgement & slow lead up to the climax.

what i am desperately hoping & praying for w/ good omens is season 3, since it feels like all too often when we finally get a good, Gay:tm: show it's always this big, flashy thing right at the end that everyone freaks out about & adores (around these parts, at least) but is never evolved upon. i think gomens has a good chance since we've got more precedent now, the creators/actors/etc are more open about it, & the season is clearly unfinished w/ a ravenous fanbase, but something something supernatural trauma i'll trust it when i see it. can't always believe these corporate fuckers. at the very least though they probably wouldn't write this kind of ending if they didn't think they had a good case for another season, so.

ok, a couple shorter sections cause i'm undoubtedly gonna run out of space if i keep at this pace:

6. the resurrectionists was a really good arc that i enjoyed a lot

exactly what it says tbh, the writing for this arc in particular really stood out to me.

i mentioned earlier that s2 has some really good character writing & i think that's in part because it's necessary as a kind of transition season, reflecting on the chaos that happened w/ the first go at armageddon & setting up for the next apocalyptic event that is likely planned for s3. it's for this reason that i think the resurrectionists arc is really strong, establishing in particular all the flaws of aziraphale's character that i went over previously in a very interesting way that still manages to weave into the previously established, albeit quite sparse flashback timeline established in s1. the morally dubious nature of grave robbing for the sake of science & medicine is the perfect context to put characters like a&c in, and the more overt look into class w/ a character like elspeth works really well in helping to ground the more abstract social commentary associated w/ heaven & hell.

7. ramblings about sequels & whatnot

it can be really difficult to write a sequel, especially when the first go at the story cleaned up its plot so well by the end, but where s2 is strongest imo is in establishing the ways that crowley & aziraphale still need to grow.

i almost think that this season had to end horrifically tragic, in a similar way that i think book 2 of the simon snow series wayward son had to end on a pretty dour note. in order for 1 & 3 to have decently high notes, 2 just often has to be pretty miserable to balance it all out.

this is also why i think the maggie/nina storyline is so important overall. not only do those two establish the most overt romantic parallel to a&c, helping to transition the story from s1 & set up for ep6, but they also end on a distinctly hopeful note that's in direct contrast to the scene that comes immediately after they leave. the parallel plants at least the tiniest seed of hope that a&c can sort their shit out if given some time & communication, similar to maggie & nina. it also makes a lot more sense in establishing why crowley chooses that moment of all times to bother w/ a love confession- i genuinely don't think the kiss would work if m&n didn't have a little sit-down intervention w/ him beforehand.

8. SPECULATION: aziraphale vs. crowley apocalyptic fight, dissolving of the current organization of heaven & hell, affirmation of the beauty of humanity & morality?

a list of my speculation about what may or may not happen in s3:

apocalypse part 2 only this time aziraphale & crowley are actually gonna be fighting each other & it's going to be fucking agonizing to watch especially in direct contrast to s1

there's probably going to be some sort of attempt to get crowley into an equal/parallel position to aziraphale in hell. whether or not he actually decides to take this position is kinda up in the air, but either way he's going to fight it at first out of a hatred of both sides. if he does eventually agree it'll be under some sort of condition to save aziraphale, and/or a fake out trick that also is to save aziraphale.

i just don't think i can see a happy ending where heaven & hell stay in their same structure. w/ such big characters as gabriel & beelzebub just fucking gone into the middle of nowhere there's gotta be some kind of re-establishment of the two sides & their relations. the only way it might not change is if the Religion Lore gets in the way, but w/ the established politics of this show & mr. gaiman i can't see an ending that just allows the status quo to continue on exactly as horrible as it's been.

crowley back in his apartment? (plsplspls.) also something really heart-wrenching & emotional related to the car & the bookstore after a&c have been separated from them because of course. personally requesting additional exploration of the car as a symbol of crowley himself/able to be influenced by aziraphale e.g. scooting towards az, yellow is so pretty, etc. etc.

more flashbacks, maybe more from crowley's pov this time? like something to do w/ that period where he was supposedly being punished for helping aziraphale, more about his experiences w/ hell & the fall, etc.

something something affirmation of the beauty of humanity & the world, ft. a&c bonding over their mutual love of it again. they were each others only real friend for how many thousands of years, if they're gonna be fighting OR attempting a romantic bond that's going to be significant.

when the actual romantic reconciliation happens is kinda up in the air, but it depends on what the Big Bad ends up being, an external force of heaven & hell or a&c themselves. personally, i think that heaven & hell are just gonna keep getting weaker but w/ aziraphale in charge maybe that'll change (or maybe it'll be the catalyst lolol). if it's external they'll probably get together earlier in the season, if it's more internal probably not til the end, though there might be a momentary reconciliation for the sake of fighting something else.

i'm a bit more up in the air about this one, but maybe something more w/ satan & god as the top of the pyramid when it comes to heaven & hell? good omens is all about that kind of contrast so it might make sense. this also assumes that s3 is the presumed end of the series, which may or may not be the case.

if this does end up being the end of the series: i really, really, really, would not be surprised if crowley & aziraphale end up fully human. it's quite the obvious answer but it just makes so much sense for their characters, w/ their love of the world & whatnot. then again a lot of their relationship has also been related to immortality, but also then again there's a lot of stories out there about immortals hating their long lives & wanting to just settle down like normal people so. ehh. oh speaking of settling down,

9. they're NOT married, that's the PROBLEM: thirteen seconds.

thirteen. full. seconds. of the Most Awful Kiss. known to contemporary tv.

they're not married that's th eentire fuckigngggng proble m.,,..,,..,.

10. "I forgive you."

this is such a nonsensical line it makes me so absurdly angry. what the fuck are you doing aziraphale. well, presumably the exact same thing crowley was trying to do by kissing you, but i digress.

bonus edit, i thought of this literal seconds before falling asleep & now i can’t get it out of my mind: crowley needs aziraphale for stability, aziraphale needs stability to have crowley. mic drop

#i had to keep taking breaks writing this to listen to the better call saul theme so i could calm down #gomens #good omens season 2 spoilers #good omens #gomens 2 meta #also if you somehow end up reading this mr. gaiman: yes i do sneak your books onto the displays at the library whenever i can #as it should be 😌 #astronaut rambles