Good Omens S2E01 – The Arrival
This week we kick off with the first of our 6 episodes about Good Omens season 2.
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25th November 2023 @ 3:49 pm
I want to start of saying I come into this as a huge good omens fan. It’s been my special interest for more than 4 years. It’s my entire brain. There’s very little it can do so I won’t enjoy it. And I had so much fun watching season 2. So yeah, I’m basically just defending the show a bit here. But that’s really just because for me season 2 worked really well. It is all the more fascinating to see that it didn’t work well for you. Maybe the mental gymnastics you mentioned never happened for me because I’m so deep in it that I just arrived at the right points. But to me, the pieces fell into place quite naturally. We’ll see how this continues to go with the next 5 episodes!
What this season is essentially? We have this main plot that is the mystery of Gabriel. But this mystery is really quite insignificant in the scope of things. In this first episode barely any time is spent on it and it will continue that way until the end. It’s fun. And it creates a line through the season. But it isn’t the story we’re telling this season. The heart of season 1 was Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship. We are doubling down on that in this season. Episode 1 has to do a lot of work establishing where we are at this point and what we are continuing from season 1. We introduce all the important characters and start our storylines. Where are Aziraphale and Crowley now? How is Heaven and Hell doing? Who are Maggie and Nina? All that stuff. And in the end everything ends up circling around Aziraphale and Crowley.
Before the Beginning:
This scene makes a lot of sense to me. It makes more sense to me than the notion that Crowley and Aziraphale never knew each other before the garden of Eden. And really, they don’t get to know each other in this before the beginning scene. This scene doesn’t create a relationship. Crowley never introduces himself. Just Aziraphale does. Crowley isn’t even interested in Aziraphale yet at this point because he is so in his head about the creation of the universe. Things become more personal when they meet on earth. And we also see Crowley already knowing Aziraphale’s name while Aziraphale doesn’t know Crowley’s. Which is also why I don’t think they don’t remember each other. They do. But it didn’t matter before they both ended up on earth and their paths aligned. That is when they truly start seeing each other. Which is why them knowing each other beforehand doesn’t change anything. Because them knowing each other didn’t have any meaning yet.
When it comes to Crowley’s fall, this is a difficult one. The show isn’t coherent on this and it feels a little like a puzzle. I think this is why there’s such a fascination around finding out about Crowley as an angel from
the fandom.
What I my interpretation is: Both book and show say the Crowley fell vaguely downwards. To me this always meant that he wasn’t a radical rebel. He didn’t want to overthrow heaven or something like that. What he did was question heaven and god. When he says “I was just hanging around the wrong people” I interpreted this as being surrounded by other people who were also questioning things. And well, then the war happened and Crowley was forced to fight heaven.
There are still gaps that need to be filled. We know very little about it.
This scene was for two things:
1 Fan service. I can’t deny simply seeing Crowley as an angel didn’t make me unbelievably happy.
2 actually showing us Crowley’s beginning. Before we were only told about Crowley questioning god as an angel. We see him introduced to the notion that god’s plan is a bit ludicrous. This creates a more precise timeline. It also gives more emotional impact by showing us this first disappointment. It also shows us how happy Crowley is as an angel. He is so happy to be creating things. To be doing something meaningful. There’s this child like glee in him we don’t see him have as a demon.
Recasting:
I literally didn’t care about the recasting at all. I’m also pretty face blind, so if you put a different costume on a person the will become different people to me. Neil liked the actors’ performance so he wrote them new characters? Honestly, fair enough. I liked their performances too.
Nina and Maggie:
Why are they here? I look at it from the entire season 2 perspective. To me it’s obvious that their purpose in the bigger plot of this season is to get Crowley and Aziraphale closer and progress their relationship. As Crowley and Aziraphale try to get Maggie and Nina closer, so do they. It’s like a little push and pull. Crowley and Aziraphale have known each other for over 6000 years. Something like this was needed to get them into a more explicitly romantic place. This causes them to actively think about romance. I don’t think they ever really discussed romance before. Now they are talking about it with each other. What is romance to them? How do you get together? It is essential for especially Aziraphale to get to a place where he feels like showing his affection to Crowley is okay. He literally grows more and more into a lovestruck teenager the more the season progresses.
Them trying to wingman Maggie and Nina is what gets things in motion this season.
Crowley and Aziraphale’s scenes together:
Why does Crowley get frustrated? I think it has everything to do with Aziraphale. We saw Crowley and Aziraphale do a huge step towards each other at the end of season 1 and I think in the time in between seasons they stayed in that closeness and familiarity. This is also alluded to by Crowley recognising Aziraphale’s different tones of voice for example. There is regular contact. And this has everything to do with Aziraphale finally letting go of heaven. Or so Crowley thought. Crowley thought that Aziraphale was finally on the same side as him but then heaven (aka Gabriel) bursts in and destroys that view. From the moment in the coffee shop Aziraphale is shifty and a little distant. And when Gabriel is revealed it creates an immediate rift that Crowley can’t close. He tries to but he ends up fighting with Aziraphale. This is an old wound opening.
It’s also the start of the theme of this season: Aziraphale and Crowley don’t communicate. They assume things. But they never talk about it. And Aziraphale never truly let go of believing he can do good for heaven.