Good Omens Discussion Post

[soc_puppet]

Welcome to the official Queerly Beloved Good Omens Discussion Post! Here, you can discuss all things Good Omens: The book, the audiobook, the radio play, the in-progress Kickstarter for the graphic novel, and everything related to the TV show, seasons one and two. I imagine that the TV show in particular will be on everyone's mind, as the second season was just released two weeks ago, and people are still watching. As such, please be aware that there will be spoilers for all of it, so if you wish to remain unspoiled, this is probably not the post for you.

Please do your best to keep discussion peaceful! Remember that no representation is going to work for everyone; a form of representation that one person finds healing, another person might find harmful, and vice versa. This is a great opportunity to learn other perspectives on various elements of the various incarnations of Good Omens. While they may not change how you feel about the pieces in question, you may at least understand why someone else finds them helpful or hurtful.

As a last note, Neil Gaiman has confirmed that if Amazon doesn't renew the show for a third season, he is prepared to write it as a novel, so the ending of the story that he and the late Sir Terry Pratchett had planned will be released someday, in one form or another. (He also reports that the closed captions have been fixed for Season 2, so if you've been holding off on watching because you need them, you should be good to go!)

That's all I have to say for now; have at it!

Comments

[mecurtin]

One of the things about this season is that the minisodes weren't written by Neil Gaiman. The Job minisode was written by Finnemore, who co-wrote the rest of the season, so I consider it canon, but the other two are basically ... fanfic. And the Resurrectionists minisode is *bad* fanfic, with a terrible Aziraphale characterization. As far as most of us are concerned, it never happened, nope. The Nazi zombie minisode is mediocre fanfic, only one or two elements in it might be worth keeping, otherwise ... didn't happen.

To me, Aziraphale in the "canon" parts of S2 is clearly unconflicted about being in love with Crowley, and *knows* that Crowley loves him (because he's an angel & can sense love), but something is SERIOUSLY wrong with their communication. From the 1st episode he's saying "we're an us!" but Crowley doesn't hear it -- and the Ball becomes a kind of emotional Rube Goldberg device for Aziraphale, a way to communicate his love that Crowley will be SURE! to understand.

the forefront of opposite sides of the divine war
Wow, do I *not* see that. Aziraphale is going to be struggling against Metatron, trying to reform the institution from within ... and that's not going to work. My prediction about the ending is here, but the most important part is: it will be a *Terry Pratchett* ending, which means we can see the general shape of it. We know what kind of an ending Terry thought was a good one, and it's NOT one with Heaven, Hell, God, angels or demons in charge of the world.

[bedes]

I respectfully, but firmly, disagree with your interpretation of Aziraphale's actions as manipulative, mean, and short-sighted. Neil Gaiman himself states as much, when someone asks why he 'changed' his character. (Quoting from tumblr: "Why did you make Aziraphale more power-hungry? He even controlled people... doesn't seem like him" "I don't think of Aziraphale as power-hungry at all.")

He and Crowley have miscommunicated greatly ("it'd be funny if we both got it wrong"). From Aziraphale's point of view, he is walking back into a system that has harmed him, and taking a massive risk, to help Crowley and to make him happy again. (Think back to the opening scene; how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Crowley was as an angel.) When Crowley says, "I'm a demon, I lie, it's what I do," Aziraphale thinks it's about big stuff. Like being a demon, not wanting to go back to Heaven. He's taken this dangerous step forward for Crowley's sake, and Crowley doesn't understand. And a lot of the audience doesn't understand, either, because a lot of this season was focused on how kind Crowley can be, despite being a demon. So this sort of treatment towards Crowley, when he was so kind, feels unwarranted. But if we're going to see how kind a demon can be, we must also be able to see how cruel an angel can be. Even if with purehearted intentions.

Neil has also liked posts on tumblr in defense of Aziraphale; namely, a post saying that what he did hurt him equally as much as Crowley, and a post saying that we will likely learn more about Aziraphale's motivations in S3.

Regarding the book: this is what Neil and Terry planned for the sequel of the book. More specifically, Neil has confirmed that this season was the 'in between' point of the first book, and what he and Terry planned for the second book. Book Aziraphale was always going to do what Aziraphale in the show is doing, and show Aziraphale, too, gave up his sword out of compassion for the humans.

((I'll spare you the time of me going into how Aziraphale has (allegorical) religious trauma and how trauma can warp how a person acts, and cause cognitive dissonance between motivation and action, because this is already long enough, and I'm sure you get the gist just by me saying that, but just know that I could talk about it for a long time. Has it shown that I've watched S2 3+ times yet.))

[feurioo]

Thank you so much for making this post!

I'm probably an outlier because a) I've never finished the book (tried the audiobook, and will try the cast recording), b) I didn't particularly love the first season, and c) I wasn't very interested in the second season until I heard about a certain spoiler a couple of weeks ago. As such, obviously, I am not particularly invested in the whole thing but I absolutely adore the fandom's overall excitement and creativity.

I thought the season was okay, nothing more and nothing less. Wouldn't include it in my personal list of this year's best shows, simply because it didn't particularly impress me story-wise. To me, the pacing felt way off, the conclusion of the Gabriel mystery was way too rushed (I love a well-done mystery, and this, for me, wasn't it), and I just didn't feel that the overall tone lived up to the wit that made the first season a standout. Maggie/Nina also seemed severely undercooked. In a way, this makes sense because they were only A/C proxies, but their story/characters still should've been a bit more fun and/or fleshed-out in order to make me actually care, IMHO.

That said, I loved the Aziraphale/Crowley bits and the Tennant/Sheen chemistry remains off the charts. I loved the queerness and the trans rep. I even loved the ending because it delivered intriguing stakes for a potential third season. I guess I just wish that, overall, it had been more consistent because now I'm waiting for all that potential, satisfying payoff without *actually* getting the impression that this season offered me a whole, well-prepared meal to enjoy.

I will rewatch the entire show at some point to reassess the opinions above but it probably won't happen in the immediate future. (And definitely not before it gets officially renewed!) That said, I have already read interesting meta-analyses that have softened my view of the second season. I also follow some discussions about the (possibly) revisionist way Neil Gaiman now approaches and advertises the Aziraphale/Crowley ship because, even as somebody who hasn't followed the fandom for long, I do remember that there was a time when he wasn't as open and positive about the idea of A/C in a romantic relationship.

[matsushima]

I loved the book as a teenager [mid-00s] and I enjoyed S1 very much. (I did not enjoy the flame war so I avoided the fandom.) I started S2 but stopped when I heard that it ended on a cliffhanger - I don't enjoy that, so I'll wait until S3 or Neil Gaiman's novel is ready. I was really pleased that they cast disabled actors as angels and the angel who uses a power chair can also stand and walk a few steps - there's always so much "they'll be whole [nondisabled] in heaven!" rhetoric when a famous disabled person dies and seeing that the angels - literally God's perfect creatures - could be disabled was really nice. (Aziraphale does need to get a ramp for his bookstore. I know he's trying to keep people from actually buying the books but everyone should be equally inconvenienced.)

After S1, I went back and [tried to] reread the book and… S1 is definitely better than the book. There's a lot that didn't age well (if anyone remembers Newt's car…) and I thought the modern update worked very well. I think it kept the spirit of the story, and the humor, and got rid of the yucky stuff.

[gwydion]

The power chair thing was so exciting to me for those very reasons. Also, i love that actress generally and it's nice seeing her get a part like that.

[bedes]

I feel like I'm the outlier here, because I am the only one who has 1) read the books and 2) also absolutely loved the latest season. Don't ask me about it, I Will give you a lengthy response. I suppose that's just my taste in media, though; I love seeing queer people (and I have considered Aziraphale and Crowley canonically queer ever since Neil confirmed it) just doing silly little domestic things, because it feels like that kind of media has been out of our reach for so long. It wasn't plot-heavy, I suppose, but I don't mind that. I even like it, because I know that season 3 is going to be another near-apocalypse. It makes sense to have a nice slow-down in the middle.

[gwydion]

I liked it too, but I was also accepting of this being the middle part of the story. I think a lot of people wanted different things from it than it gave.