Episode 119: Good Omens TV Show, Season 2, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Recap and discussion.
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Note: Transcripts are produced with Whisper AI and PyAnnote – we don’t have time to edit them extensively, so both wording and speaker labelling will be inaccurate in parts.
- Intro
- Introducing Good Omens
- Chapter 1: The Arrival
- Chapter 2: The Clue
- Easter Eggs & Favourite Moments
JOANNA 0:00:00
My bookshelves are a source of stress to me right now.
FRANCINE 0:00:02
Oh yeah?
JOANNA 0:00:03
Well I was trying to be harsh and get rid of books that I’m just definitely not going to read again and have no sentimental value and I’ve been good about that, yet somehow there’s still no more space than there was. Is that because you keep buying books? Yeah, I think so. I’ve taken a very large, I took a very large book off the shelf yesterday and you’ll find out why later in the podcast episode. Foreshadowing, love it. But I left it on the desk and then I was organising some stuff today and decided, oh I could put all of my notebooks that I’m keeping because they’ve got like poetry and bits of writing and all my notes on coding in and they’ll fit really nicely on that shelf. And now I’ve realised the large book I took off the shelf will not fit back on the shelf. Yeah, I’ve also got the piles of books which I’d prefer not to have. I think the main problem apart from, you know, the buying of books has been that my ratio of non-fiction to fiction has changed massively and I now have many more non-fiction books than I used to, proportionately.
FRANCINE 0:00:56
But we only put aside one bookcase for reference.
JOANNA 0:01:00
And that’s just not working anymore because it includes like cookbooks, gardening books.
FRANCINE 0:01:05
Oh, I have a separate shelf just for cookbooks.
JOANNA 0:01:07
I have one separate half a shelf for like art and that kind of thing because they’re all big weird sized books. Yeah, all the rest, yeah. Yeah, I have a weird little art and sewing shelf on my like fancy books shelf in my living room because it’s the only shelf that’s deep enough to fit all of these massive art and sewing books. So I briefly mentioned last week that the Secret Invasion show sucked. The finale was somehow worse than the rest of the show. So it’s the Marvel one. Yeah, that was painfully bad.
FRANCINE 0:01:37
Sorry about that.
JOANNA 0:01:38
But I finished watching season two of The Baron. It was amazing and it made me very happy. There was a beautiful Taylor Swift moment in it.
FRANCINE 0:01:44
Oh, good. Yeah, very beautiful Taylor Swift moment.
JOANNA 0:01:47
All things should have beautiful Taylor Swift moments in them. And Apple TV just released a trailer for season three of The Morning Show, which I’m really excited for. I love that show. What’s that show about? It’s Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon working like a morning news program in New York. And like the show, this isn’t a spoiler, it’s literally in the opening minutes of the first episode. It was Jennifer Aniston hosting with this guy played by Steve Carell, but he gets like
FRANCINE 0:02:12
meat toothed.
JOANNA 0:02:12
And so it’s all the fallout from that and Reese Witherspoon coming on board. And it’s got lots of very talented people in it. It’s an amazing show. Or I think it’s amazing. Some people think it’s quite trash. I don’t know how good my taste is, but I like it. No such thing as good taste really. God no. And if you think there is, wait till you hear us talk about Good Omens. No, Jon Hamm’s gonna be in the new series.
FRANCINE 0:02:32
Oh, cool.
JOANNA 0:02:33
I’m very excited about that because this looks like he’ll be playing business suit wearing dickhead Jon Hamm, which is equally delightful.
FRANCINE 0:02:40
It’s a nice contrast.
JOANNA 0:02:41
Yes, I’ll be over two very different flavors of Jon Hamm in one month. Flavors of Hamm, the worst biography title ever. I’m gonna write to Jon Hamm and ask if I can write his biography now. It’s gonna be quite a long podcast, isn’t it? Yeah, I think this is gonna go above our standard length. I think that may be true of a lot of Good Omens episodes.
FRANCINE 0:03:03
I think so.
JOANNA 0:03:04
But that’s okay. That just means we love it. It’s all right. Yes, fine. I’m playing it cool. I’m playing it cool. Do you want to like very chill, cool, whatever, make a podcast?
FRANCINE 0:03:15
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:03:16
Yeah, no, I mean, I guess, yeah, I guess we could.
FRANCINE 0:03:18
Yeah, let’s make a podcast.
JOANNA 0:03:20
Let’s make a podcast, yes.
FRANCINE 0:03:21
Let’s make a podcast.
Intro
JOANNA 0:03:27
Hello, and welcome to The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order.
FRANCINE 0:03:34
But we have taken a break to talk about Good Omens season two.
JOANNA 0:03:37
I’m Joanna Hagen. And I’m Francine Carrel, making excited e-noises. Before it’s time.
FRANCINE 0:03:42
I’m sorry.
JOANNA 0:03:43
It’s always time for excited e-noises, Francine. Today we’re talking about episodes one and two of Good Omens season two.
FRANCINE 0:03:49
We are.
We watched it last night. It came out just last night and we’re already recording. Look at us on the fucking ball.
JOANNA 0:03:54
I watched it twice yesterday.
FRANCINE 0:03:56
We’ve got hot takes. They are piping hot takes. Now, see, this is the thing. Sorry, immediately tangent. Hot take to you. Does that mean like spicy take, like a bit out there? Or does it just mean like your initial thought on it? Because I always thought it was the latter, but I’m starting to realize that people are using it as like, this is my controversial take. Yeah, I always thought a hot take was like either was meant to be some kind of like controversial take or spicy take. Yeah, I think I just misinterpreted it and I’m just now realizing I’ve been. Or like big, like poignant thoughts on it.
FRANCINE 0:04:24
Yeah. All right.
JOANNA 0:04:25
Well, we have takes. You can decide on that. Note on spoilers before we crack on. We will not be spoiling any events in the Discworld books while we talk about Good Omens. So if you are just joining us for Good Omens, but you might try Discworld afterwards, join us. Not a cult.
FRANCINE 0:04:45
Yet.
JOANNA 0:04:46
You are safe to listen. This will, however, contain spoilers for episodes one and two of Good Omens season two, as well as all of Good Omens season one and the book Good Omens.
FRANCINE 0:04:55
Yes.
JOANNA 0:04:56
But we will not be spoiling any future episodes of Good Omens season two,
FRANCINE 0:05:00
especially at the moment as we haven’t watched it yet. This is true.
And that is even the case in our new Discord, which yes, I fucking chewed on the segue in there. We just finally started a Discord, by the way. I’ll put a link in the show notes and you can come and discuss all this with us. And we’re just like making sure there’s no spoilers for any past ones
we’ve already talked about. Yay.
Introducing Good Omens
JOANNA 0:05:19
So we don’t have a previously on as such, but Francine, what happened before Good Omens season two?
FRANCINE 0:05:24
Well, in the beginning.
JOANNA 0:05:27
Actually, no, fuck, that’s the beginning of season two, isn’t it?
FRANCINE 0:05:29
No.
JOANNA 0:05:30
But season two is before the beginning. So in this timeline.
FRANCINE 0:05:34
Yeah. Good Omens was first a book.
JOANNA 0:05:38
It was written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, who corresponded via long phone calls and posted floppy disks to each other and all kinds of wonderful late 80s things like that. It was very sought after even before its release, the rights sold at auction for £150,150. Is that how you say that? I think so. I get really weird reading out numbers sometimes. Anyway, it was released by Corgi in 1990. And the idea of a movie kind of ricocheted around Hollywood for many years. It was kind of largely driven by Terry Gilliam. His dreams, which had sputtered along for about a decade in the kind of mire of Hollywood nonsense.
FRANCINE 0:06:15
Were killed by 9-11 pretty much,
JOANNA 0:06:18
because after that, no studio really felt like financing an apocalypse comedy.
FRANCINE 0:06:22
Pratchett and Gaiman decided though, about another decade on, that Good Omens would become a television program. In 2010, it was adapted and staged at the National Theatre. In 2014, it was adapted for radio.
FRANCINE 0:06:35
But…
JOANNA 0:06:36
It’s a good radio play, by the way. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to it. I think they cameo in it, don’t they? Yeah, they recorded it like sat in the back of a car as well. Their cameo was like police cops, I think. Amazing. I’ll try and find a link to it and then listen to it myself. But Terry, unfortunately, obviously died very young in 2015. And Neil was not willing to continue the television idea. He said, everything that was ever written, bookmarks and tiny little things, we would always collaborate. Everything was a collaboration.
FRANCINE 0:07:03
So obviously, no, he said at the time.
JOANNA 0:07:06
However, at Pratchett’s memorial event in 2016, Gaiman revealed that he had received a letter from Terry intended to be delivered after he died, requesting that his co-author write the adaptation alone. Quoting from Neil Gaiman at the event, at that point, I think I said, You bastard.
FRANCINE 0:07:24
Yes.
JOANNA 0:07:25
He did say that. We were there. So the first season of Good Omens was released on Amazon Prime in full in May 2019. Despite that fact, some 20,000 people signed a petition calling for Netflix to cancel it.
FRANCINE 0:07:40
Good effort.
JOANNA 0:07:41
And apart from the religious objectors, it did receive some mixed reviews, which is hardly a surprise because it kind of invited ire from both the do not touch the sacred text of Good Omens camp and the well, this is a bit silly, isn’t it camp? But a lot of people loved it, including Joanna and I, and it brought a whole new readership to Good Omens and I imagine to other books in the Terry and Neil verse. So we covered both the book and the first season of Good Omens in the very early days of this podcast, back when we still recorded in person for the pandemic made us weird and hermitish. I’ll link to the episodes of all that in the show notes. And one note, a small bit of media that came out between our first coverage of Good Omens and today is the three minutes and 40 seconds, Good Omens lockdown short available on YouTube. Which is a lovely little lesson, isn’t it? And now season two. So we’re in uncharted waters.
FRANCINE 0:08:34
Yep.
JOANNA 0:08:34
However, it’s not untouched by Pratchett, who discussed plot ideas with Gaiman well before his death.
FRANCINE 0:08:40
So we’ll see how it goes. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:08:42
So we’ve only seen episode one and two so far. That’s what we’re talking about today. Overall thoughts. What do you think?
FRANCINE 0:08:48
I liked it. Yep. Cool.
JOANNA 0:08:50
I know it’s different.
FRANCINE 0:08:51
I know it’s not as obviously linear, I guess. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:08:58
It’s hard to say the other one was linear because there was lots of flashbacks. But this one, I feel like we’re, we’re building a very wide foundation before we get into the plot.
FRANCINE 0:09:06
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:09:07
The first one had like such a ticking time bomb on it, because it starts, you know, really a week before the end of the world is the majority of the story.
FRANCINE 0:09:15
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:09:16
And there’s a lot less bouncing around from A plot to B plot to C plot that were all A plots.
FRANCINE 0:09:21
Yeah. And I kind of, I’m enjoying it.
JOANNA 0:09:24
A lot of what I liked about the first one is still here. Just kind of the vibes.
FRANCINE 0:09:28
The vibes are good. I’m very much enjoying the vibes.
JOANNA 0:09:31
It does feel like definitely very, not very, it feels separate from like the original Good Omens and the first season of Good Omens.
FRANCINE 0:09:38
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:09:39
I’m missing like the lack of narration a bit because that brought so much Pratchett-iness into it. And also I just, I liked Frances McDormand as a narrator.
FRANCINE 0:09:47
Yes.
JOANNA 0:09:47
Was she the one speaking Asgard at one point? Yeah, that was her Asgard in that Job scene.
FRANCINE 0:09:53
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:09:54
I, I wasn’t missing it as I was watching it, actually.
FRANCINE 0:09:58
But afterwards, when I was going back on my, what did I expect notes, I did kind of think,
JOANNA 0:10:04
yeah, no, I guess some of it could have been pretty enhanced by that. But it might have been a bit harder as well because there’s not, it’s not as classic a story structure so far. No, it’s definitely not. I think this is fleshing out a lot more and building, like you said, this wider foundation
FRANCINE 0:10:22
for it.
JOANNA 0:10:23
Something Neil Gaiman said on Twitter is, so he and Terry Pratchett had like a sequel book that they planned out, I think, while slightly drunk in a hotel room at Leigh, but they had like planned the whole sequel. This is not that sequel. This is setting up the events for that sequel. And if season three does happen, that will be kind of the story that he and Terry planned together.
FRANCINE 0:10:44
I see.
JOANNA 0:10:45
Yes, because when this season was first announced, it was kind of implied that it was that story.
FRANCINE 0:10:50
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:10:51
So since then, we’ve kind of learned a bit more.
FRANCINE 0:10:54
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:10:54
And Neil Gaiman has been very vocal about really wanting there to be a season three and that if he wasn’t striking, it would be written by now. I’ll try and find a, well, actually, can you send me the Twitter link to that? Sondra Vogel just sent that in our Discord, actually.
FRANCINE 0:11:05
Oh, sweet.
JOANNA 0:11:06
Thank you, Sondra.
FRANCINE 0:11:07
Thank you, Sondra Vogel.
JOANNA 0:11:09
Doing so much of our work for us for over a year now. But yeah, no, I’ve been trying really hard to stay off good omens Twitter. I’ve already seen some spoilers for the rest of the season, but we won’t talk about them here.
FRANCINE 0:11:19
No, no.
JOANNA 0:11:20
And realistically, I’m still, I, being slightly spoiled on something really doesn’t bother me. That’s it. We’re on that end of the spectrum. I’m weird about spoilers. I don’t mind knowing like that something happens. I don’t like knowing how it happens. And I don’t like seeing stuff before it happens. Yes. Yeah. Same. Yeah. If I know something, then I can enjoy the build up.
FRANCINE 0:11:39
Yeah.
Chapter 1: The Arrival
JOANNA 0:11:40
Yeah. Obviously, we realize that most people are less on that side, and we will. We will respect that. Absolutely. As we go along. So let’s dive into talking about the episodes themselves, starting with episode one, The Arrival.
FRANCINE 0:11:52
The Arrival.
JOANNA 0:11:53
It begins before the beginning. And we see Crowley and Aziraphale meet for the first time when Crowley, Angel Crowley, with his hair and his white robes, cranks up the universe with Aziraphale’s help. Yeah. Unwitting help. Even better. It’s so nice to see Aziraphale and Crowley together and to see Angel Crowley. Yeah, that was interesting. I wasn’t expecting that. I can’t, I didn’t think of the fact that they probably met before the, um… The Garden of Eden.
FRANCINE 0:12:18
Yeah, but obviously they would have. Yeah. Cross paths or flights, however you call it.
JOANNA 0:12:25
Flight paths. But yeah, it’s um, Crowley’s definitely still got that manic energy that he’s putting into it. But I think he’s done a good job of altering his character to be pre-Fallen. There’s something I noticed, actually, one of the things he does in altering his character to like the angel version is he sounds a bit like, posher. And I noticed that’s the thing between the angels and demons in general, like the angel, the angels tend to have these like, posher British accents, whereas the demons have a lot more like sort of East London-y accents apart from Shax. And sometimes quite put on East London-y accents. But yeah, that’s just, I’m afraid that is just the reality, isn’t it? I’ve never known someone who sounds like us do a decent job of an East
FRANCINE 0:13:05
End accent.
JOANNA 0:13:06
So I’m not going to try.
FRANCINE 0:13:08
No, no, it’s best we don’t.
JOANNA 0:13:09
So yeah, I wonder how much is some sort of weird and like, Heaven and Hell aren’t strictly good and bad guys. That’s a lot of what Good Omens is diving into. But I do think there’s like a bit of
FRANCINE 0:13:19
a weird class thing there.
JOANNA 0:13:21
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So when I was watching those two, my first thought was this is like two different types of scientists having a conversation. David Tennant being the engineer, and Michael Sheen being the anthropologist or the sociologist. They’re just incredibly interested in very different parts of this budding universe. Yeah, I love how he describes it as basically a star factory. That’s more or less, isn’t it? I thought like before they even cranked up the universe, just the fact it was kind of this like neural networks looking thing, which is obviously very cool. It’s that, you know, the base of the universe, that kind of thing as above, so below. And then, yeah, the very cool aesthetic of like the old looking parchment and the It’s gorgeous. I’m so hyped. So yeah, so Aziraphale tells Crowley that he said this whole thing is getting knocked down in about 6,000 years, which Crowley’s not too happy about. No. And it’s interesting that they know different amounts of what’s going on, I guess. You get the feeling that maybe Crowley’s just not paid attention. Oh, yeah. Like he’s one of those people who’s got so hyper focused on the details of this cool project he’s working on. He’s not listened to much about the bigger picture of why he’s working on this project. Yeah. And it’s like before he’s even got to know any humans, so it’s not like he’s wanting to save the humans for the sake of it. But he’s like, if these guys are going to be the ones appreciating all of this, can we not give them time to see it properly and give them a decent view?
FRANCINE 0:14:40
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:14:41
Why have I done this then? It’s like someone who’s been tasked with making a particular part of the video game, and they’ve worked really intensely on a mechanic to say, pick up certain things in a certain way, and then they find out it’s going to be used in maybe two scenes total.
FRANCINE 0:14:55
Yeah, yeah.
JOANNA 0:14:56
And then it gets cut from the game. Yeah. And then straight away, we’re into the kind of what I assume is going to be the main, one of the main underlying themes of here, which is, how much trouble can I get in for just asking a few questions? I love the idea of a suggestion box as the beginning of his downfall.
FRANCINE 0:15:12
The divine suggestion box. This felt very Pratchetty to me. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:15:18
The whole bit about just asking a few questions, that kind of problem with authority. Yeah. And this is a running theme through both of the episodes. I think it’s a running theme through the season is Crowley and Free Will versus Aziraphale and Free Will and how they just come at it from such completely different angles.
FRANCINE 0:15:36
Yes.
JOANNA 0:15:37
So then we go into London and the present day. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We just have to, we have to mention the wing umbrella,
FRANCINE 0:15:43
don’t we? Oh, the wing umbrella.
JOANNA 0:15:46
Yeah. A little throwback to the last season, being sheltered from stardust. Yeah. And sort of knocking off a little bouncing comet or meteor or whatever it is. Also, the way Aziraphale looks at Crowley in those scenes and this sort of very clear beginning of like
FRANCINE 0:16:03
a burgeoning crush. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:16:05
Oh, and it’s a particularly relatable sort of, wow, this person is, they’ve got no idea because they’re busy with their thing. But wow, this person.
FRANCINE 0:16:14
Yeah. And like massively relate. When somebody’s like so hyper focused on something they’re really
JOANNA 0:16:20
good at and just into it and you’re just like, oh, that’s attractive. It is one of the most attractive things in the world. So sorry, rocketing forwards, 6000 and a bit years, I guess. So in London in the present day, and this is us catching up with Aziraphale and Crowley and where they’ve been since the end of season one, barring the lockdown short. And yeah, so Aziraphale goes to visit Maggie at the record shop across the road and forgives her rent in exchange for some Shostakovich records. I practice saying Shostakovich and I’m still not sure I said it right. Well, it’s entirely my fault for not collecting the rent. He’s so sweet in that scene. He’s like trying to do a nice thing and he’s actually very awkward when he directly tries to do a nice thing. Yeah, absolutely. And at the same time, I think he does because he doesn’t understand the magnitude of the nice thing he’s doing. Yeah, it’s kind of like on the same as I’ve got this round. Don’t worry about it. Yeah, that’s all right. I know I’m just going to get rid of this financial burden that’s been worrying you for weeks. Especially the way he kind of does that and 75 pence.
FRANCINE 0:17:19
And 75 pence.
JOANNA 0:17:20
So this is Maggie played by Maggie Service, who played sister Teresa Garelis in season one of Good Omens. Her and Nina Sassania were both nuns who’ve been brought back to play new parts. But I like she mentions part of the reason she struggled with rent is the lockdowns. And we talked about like, I think back in 2020, when TV gets made post COVID, do we want it to address that COVID happened or not? Yeah. And here’s where the timeline splits again. Yeah. And in Good Omens, it makes sense. They did that lockdown short. So you know, if you consider that like a canon event, then, of course, now here, we’re going to acknowledge it in some way.
FRANCINE 0:17:54
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:17:54
So I like that shows are like allowing it to exist in a way where it doesn’t need to be a plot, but it can be there in the background and a fact of life. I think that that worked well. So we go to Crowley, who is experiencing a misunderstanding at St. James’s Park on the bench. I absolutely love that one. The clarinet makes beautiful music. Do you remember Trigger Happy TV? Vaguely, yeah. There’s a scene in that that Jack reminded me of while we were watching this, where a spy sits next to somebody on the bench and says something similar. And then like, Oh, are you not the grey squirrel? And he goes, No, I was like, sorry, wrong bench. And then the end of the scene is this giant squirrel costume walking in and sitting down on a very silliness. But I like how deep this trope goes into our national consciousness.
FRANCINE 0:18:43
Well, there’s a little bit of it in
JOANNA 0:18:46
Guards, Guards, the Pratchett book as well, where they’re mixing up the secret code phrases. Oh, you want the hallucinated brethren of the Brotherhood of Night.
FRANCINE 0:18:53
Two doors down, mate.
JOANNA 0:18:55
Yeah, and we get a little what’s the point of it all as well on the bench, which is… Crowley gets existential again. I thought about starting a tally, but I think it’ll just run off the end of the notebook
FRANCINE 0:19:03
by the time we finish.
JOANNA 0:19:05
It’ll go about as well as our days since the Existential Crisis Board did.
FRANCINE 0:19:09
It’s somewhere.
JOANNA 0:19:12
The board itself had an existential crisis and had to be sent on holiday.
FRANCINE 0:19:15
Exactly so.
JOANNA 0:19:17
So Crowley’s meeting up with Shaxs, his replacement, Hell’s New Representative in London.
FRANCINE 0:19:22
Which is an interesting system.
JOANNA 0:19:26
Yeah, we’re getting a bit of the bureaucracy here. It was sort of Crowley just hangs around Earth and does the things that, you know, Hell expects, which is tempt people and what have you. Makes you wonder if there’s more representatives. Yeah, do you think like, is it just major cities? Do small towns get like shitty little demon representatives? Or do the ones who operate in cities like also do towns and villages surrounding?
FRANCINE 0:19:50
Maybe we’ll find out.
JOANNA 0:19:52
As we had hoped, we are seeing quite a lot of the bureaucracy.
FRANCINE 0:19:55
Yay!
JOANNA 0:19:56
Shaxs is played by Miranda Richardson, who again was in the first season as Madam Tracy and is doing a very different character here. And I’m very happy she’s here. Yeah, as we mentioned in our last episode, it’s a very British TV thing to bring an actor back for a new season, just in a different role. Yeah, and Miranda Richardson, like she played Queenie in season two of Blackadder. She appeared in one episode as a highwayman in the third season of Blackadder and then appeared in the fourth season as… Actually, was she in the fourth season?
FRANCINE 0:20:24
I don’t remember.
JOANNA 0:20:24
She was definitely in back and forth.
FRANCINE 0:20:26
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:20:27
Anyway, sorry, IMDb page notwithstanding. So next we see Maggie going over to Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, Nina’s coffee place around over the road for her skinny latte.
FRANCINE 0:20:39
Skinny latte.
JOANNA 0:20:41
So this is Nina, it’s Nina Sasanya, who was Sister Mary Garrelus.
FRANCINE 0:20:47
Yes.
JOANNA 0:20:48
Obviously, we immediately start shipping the two of them as soon as we see them interact in the coffee shop. It’s not subtle. No, not even a little bit. But they get interrupted because there’s a naked man with a box wandering down the street. I thought that this naked man with a box wouldn’t attract quite as much attention as he did in the episode there. I feel like something would happen to maybe stop the naked man other than just a huge crowd forming around the naked man. We’re in Soho. That’s it. That’s it in this particular part of London. However, maybe not people like TikTok. We did get to see Jon Hamm’s full arse, which I’m not sure I expected in the first episode. But no, yeah, it was not upset about it. It’s gone straight for it.
FRANCINE 0:21:31
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:21:32
So he’s got this carefully placed box.
FRANCINE 0:21:34
And I have a question here.
JOANNA 0:21:35
So he goes to Aziraphale’s door, asked to be let in, puts the box down. And then when Aziraphale says no, he turns around and everyone’s very shocked.
FRANCINE 0:21:43
So, angelic genital question.
JOANNA 0:21:47
Because it’s established less so in the TV show, but at least in the book, that angels are somewhat sexless. And this is fairly common around stories about angels that they are sexless in some way. Is there a penis or is he smooth down there like a ken doll? Because I feel like the crowd’s reaction would have been very different if he was smooth
FRANCINE 0:22:04
like a Kendall.
JOANNA 0:22:05
Does Gabriel have a visible penis?
FRANCINE 0:22:08
I don’t know.
JOANNA 0:22:09
I would have expected smooth like a Ken doll, but perhaps whatever has cast him down to earth. Because the thing is, they’ve taken on corporeal forms, haven’t they?
FRANCINE 0:22:17
True. So I don’t know.
JOANNA 0:22:20
I mean, my basis for questioning this is entirely Alan Rickman in Dogma, who pulls down his trousers to reveal smooth like a Kendall and announces angels are ill-equipped. Great film.
FRANCINE 0:22:30
More people should watch Dogma.
JOANNA 0:22:32
But nobody can quite do that like Alan Rickman, can they?
FRANCINE 0:22:35
So I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out.
JOANNA 0:22:37
Maybe we’ll find out if Gabriel has a visible penis. But I feel like we all needed to at least have the question on our minds as we go forward.
FRANCINE 0:22:45
Yes.
JOANNA 0:22:46
Listeners, do not doubt for a second that we did wonder about it. I will say, so in the second episode when he sort of has that one memory and then goes, oh no, there’s not room for that in my head anymore. I feel like that implies that maybe he’s been put into some kind of human form as opposed to angel appearing humanoid. Yeah, this is what I’m thinking.
FRANCINE 0:23:04
Yeah. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:23:05
So maybe that. He got the purple flicker in his eyes, but I don’t know.
FRANCINE 0:23:08
I don’t know.
JOANNA 0:23:10
I was thinking of flicker actually. That’s a note I’ve got just here. Did you notice a bunch of old style film flickering every now and then? It’s very subtle if it was like Jack didn’t catch it. But I caught it a few times and it’s either my eyes are going weird or
FRANCINE 0:23:26
there’s like a little effect there.
JOANNA 0:23:29
Or your TV is playing up. I don’t think it’s my TV. I’d be very odd for it to play up in an old film way. Anyway, so then we go, we briefly see Michael in heaven, the Archangel Michael played by
FRANCINE 0:23:43
Duma Kitchen, who I fucking love in the show. Yes.
JOANNA 0:23:47
Who I love in general. She’s very funny and she tends to play these sort of somewhat looking down on you type characters. She was in Plebs, which is a great little comedy show I highly recommend.
FRANCINE 0:23:58
I don’t know if I’ve watched that.
JOANNA 0:24:00
It’s like a very, it’s kind of like the Inbetweeners, but set in ancient Rome and also not as gross as the Inbetweeners.
FRANCINE 0:24:07
Oh, cute. Okay.
JOANNA 0:24:09
It’s a fun little watch. I think it’s on ITV. But yes, she’s threatening extreme sanctions on the phone, which is a fun setup that gets paid off later on.
FRANCINE 0:24:17
Yes. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:24:18
Again, very diplomatic, bureaucratic, whatever.
FRANCINE 0:24:21
But then you learn, of course, that the stakes are much higher for these kind of people. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:24:27
Then we go back to the bookshop. Aziraphale realizes just how empty Gabriel’s brain is right now. He has a lovely time with his hot chocolate though. I know. I like that he’s done the whole, these are my first memories thing. Terrible things have happened to me.
FRANCINE 0:24:42
My arm ached and I put them down and I was cold.
JOANNA 0:24:44
Now I have this neat blanket.
FRANCINE 0:24:46
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:24:46
It’s that whole thing we’ve talked about before, haven’t we? Like the idea of like two toddlers, this happening to them is the worst thing ever because it is the worst thing they’ve ever experienced. And then getting a blanket and a hot chocolate and it’s doing one thing here and one thing here and another thing here.
FRANCINE 0:24:59
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:24:59
Oh, that’s the best thing ever. But he explains he’s come to the bookshop because he just knew if he was there, everything would be all right.
FRANCINE 0:25:07
Yes.
JOANNA 0:25:08
And you get that great line of, do you ever feel like everything would be better if you were just near one particular person? And the look on Aziraphale’s face before he says no. Get the old stutter.
FRANCINE 0:25:18
Bit wistful. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:25:20
A hint of wist. And Gabriel says that something is terrible coming and the thing that he had in the box is the only hope, but the box is now empty.
FRANCINE 0:25:29
Yes.
JOANNA 0:25:30
And was it always? Was it always? Who stole it off the doorstep if not?
FRANCINE 0:25:34
Gosh.
JOANNA 0:25:35
If you’re going to steal it, why would you open the box and take the, well, I suppose if you had nefarious intentions, that’s what you do. If you were just randomly stealing it, you’d just take the box, wouldn’t you? Not that I’d steal boxes off doorsteps. See, I thought maybe that he’d forgotten whatever it was because like, there was the material object thing. But then I thought, no, because his arms were aching.
FRANCINE 0:25:55
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:25:55
So it must have been heavy. Side note, how embarrassed do you think Jon Hamm is? Or do you think he is at all walking through a street like that with everyone looking at
FRANCINE 0:26:05
him?
JOANNA 0:26:06
I feel like not much at all. I imagine he’s quite a confident man. I wonder if we’ll find an interview with him. We should keep an eye out for that. And yeah, then Shaxx visits Crowley’s car, which appears to be where Crowley is also living. Did we look into the name Shaxx, by the way?
FRANCINE 0:26:22
I meant to and I didn’t. Did you?
JOANNA 0:26:24
No, I didn’t look up the name Shaxx.
FRANCINE 0:26:26
Okay. It might just be a cool.
JOANNA 0:26:29
It’s got nex in it. It makes it cool. Powerful upper level demon with wind-based abilities. Might, yeah, might be canon then.
FRANCINE 0:26:35
Cool. And yeah, Shaxx updates Crowley.
JOANNA 0:26:38
Gabriel’s missing. She already mentioned back in the bench scene that something is up. Downstep? No, something is going down upstairs. And it’s up downstairs. I need a chart. I need a visual depiction. I can’t cope with this. I might literally make you on that. Might be fun. So we go back to the bookshop with Aziraphale and Gabriel and the box is empty. And Gabriel takes the name Jim, which is quite nice because there’s the book by someone called Jim, but right next to it is Treasure Island on the shelf.
FRANCINE 0:27:11
Oh.
JOANNA 0:27:12
Whose main character name is also Jim.
FRANCINE 0:27:15
Oh, nice.
JOANNA 0:27:15
There you go. So you get two Jims for your money there.
FRANCINE 0:27:19
Fantastic.
JOANNA 0:27:20
Which is short for James, which is short for Gabriel, as we all know. And as Aziraphale calls Crowley and asks them to go for coffee. Also, we see Gabriel swatting a fly that’s buzzing around the bookshop. And I want to put a pin in that.
FRANCINE 0:27:33
Oh, ooh. Beelzebubby.
JOANNA 0:27:36
I think, because there’s another scene with him swatting a fly with not just a Bible, but it’s the, I can’t remember what it’s called. It was a great little Easter egg. There’s a Bible mentioned in book one of Good Omens that was something like the unholy Bible, because thou shalt commit adultery was in there. And it seems to be that Bible that he’s swatting the fly with. Because he collects them, doesn’t he?
FRANCINE 0:28:00
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:28:00
I do wonder if the flies buzzing around the bookshop are some hint of like Beelzebub spying or something.
FRANCINE 0:28:07
Interesting. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:28:08
Because otherwise, why have that as a detail?
FRANCINE 0:28:11
Exactly.
JOANNA 0:28:11
Hmm.
FRANCINE 0:28:12
Okay. We don’t know.
JOANNA 0:28:15
And then we briefly get the scene in Heaven of the Angel. We later find out her name is Muriel finding the matchbox.
FRANCINE 0:28:21
Yes, the Scrivener. Yes.
JOANNA 0:28:24
So the matchbox itself, obviously, you’ve got that Job quote there.
FRANCINE 0:28:28
And handily. Oh, you have the Bible with you.
JOANNA 0:28:33
Good. Yes. I’ve got a rather large Bible, which I just hit myself in the face with. I was about to say, that’s possibly the least handy Bible I’ve ever seen. That’s huge. And I was resentful about keeping it because it wouldn’t come in handy. But look at me now. This is one of many Bibles I have in the house. I was going to say, why don’t you just Google it?
FRANCINE 0:28:50
But there we go. Yep.
JOANNA 0:28:52
The actual quote is in a slightly different position in my Bible.
FRANCINE 0:28:56
It’s verse 10.
JOANNA 0:28:58
Out of his mouth go forth lamps like torches of lighted fire, according to this Bible. But it’s to do with God describing Lafayette. It’s part of this poetic discourse in the story of Job, which we see a bit of in the next episode.
FRANCINE 0:29:11
Lafayette and the whale in this case. Yes. Okay, right. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:29:14
Some kind of large sea monster-y situation. But did you notice where the matchbox is from?
FRANCINE 0:29:20
Resurrectionist. Yes. Yes.
JOANNA 0:29:22
Okay, so then Aziraphale and Crowley go for coffee and Nina asks about the naked man. And they go back to the shop. But before we get to see them continuing on, we see Maggie popping in and giving Nina the Nina Simone LP and it’s suddenly very weird and tense and awkward between them. I’m finding it difficult to watch.
FRANCINE 0:29:40
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:29:40
Because it’s coming across… they’re not doing the acting badly, but it feels like that because they’re playing awkward people so well.
FRANCINE 0:29:47
Yes.
JOANNA 0:29:48
And I think maybe I just feel personally attacked and that’s my problem.
FRANCINE 0:29:51
Not theirs.
JOANNA 0:29:53
But trying to flirt by giving an awkward gift that the person wouldn’t want, much like a toddler presenting you with a favourite rock. I’ve got absolutely really clear memories of that as well.
FRANCINE 0:30:03
Yeah, same.
JOANNA 0:30:04
I made a lot of people mix CDs. Anyways, we go into the bookshop and Crowley meets Jim and he’s fucking furious. It’s great.
FRANCINE 0:30:16
Yes.
JOANNA 0:30:17
Yeah, you don’t often see him like that angry just directly at Aziraphale, I think. It took like three or four episodes of the first season of Good Omens to get angry Crowley and angry Aziraphale Crowley and here we’re getting it like right in the first episode. And David Tennant does it so well.
FRANCINE 0:30:32
He does.
JOANNA 0:30:33
He’s just got a face born for drama.
FRANCINE 0:30:36
He does. His stature as well.
JOANNA 0:30:37
He’s just, yeah, he always looks like David Tennant, but always in this slightly different character way.
FRANCINE 0:30:44
I love it.
JOANNA 0:30:44
Yeah, actually, when you pause on Prime, you know, you get that magnifying glass, whatever. It shows you pictures of their IMDb.
FRANCINE 0:30:51
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:30:52
And I paused it at some point and I noticed that like Michael Sheen’s headshot was quite different, obviously, from Aziraphale. And there was like a full length picture of David Tennant standing on some fucking
FRANCINE 0:31:02
cliff top with his coat going behind him.
JOANNA 0:31:05
I was like, literally, you look like Aziraphale and Doctor Who and he’s got such a silhouette. He’s got like a really elastic face is the only way I can describe it. He can kind of ping pong between these incredible expressions. But not in a Jim Carrey way. Yeah, like not in a creepy way.
FRANCINE 0:31:21
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:31:21
I also really love the score. I love the score across the whole thing is so great. And it’s really nice to watch something fully scored because not a lot of the stuff I watch is like that these days.
FRANCINE 0:31:31
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:31:32
And I just think the score in this it’s David G Arnold. He does some incredible stuff, but they’re just little moments like when Crowley really furiously shouts, What are you doing here at Gabriel? And he does that I’m dusting and there’s an accompanying little tinkle as he demonstrates
FRANCINE 0:31:47
dusting.
JOANNA 0:31:49
Oh, I’m gonna try and pay more attention to that in the next episode. Yeah, I just know I like the music.
FRANCINE 0:31:54
But I should I should try and listen to the proper stuff.
JOANNA 0:31:56
I like the music. And like I said, I’m just really enjoying listening to something that has such a like cared for score because I don’t think a lot of shows really get that like, it’s not the only show that has a score.
FRANCINE 0:32:06
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:32:08
But a score that’s clearly sort of being made by someone who cares about the content and is doing it in such a really, really specific way. But yes, Crowley wants to get rid of Gabriel, but as as if I wants to help him and says, Crowley, you know, leave if you’re not going to help me. And like actually seeing them fight properly is brilliant. It’s definitely yeah, a it’s seeing them fight properly and it’s kind of heart wrenching. But B it’s like I feel like Aziraphale is a lot more confident in their relationship now that he can be like, okay, fine, go.
FRANCINE 0:32:38
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:32:39
And like, even if he does, he doesn’t think he’ll never see Crowley again, like in the last thing when they argued. Well, the thing is, as well, I think we’ve seen we saw their relationship change from the beginning to the end of Good Omens. Like, obviously, we see their whole relationship through history in Good Omens, but in Good Omens season one, and the book talks about it a bit. But in the show, you really see them kind of become tied together by what they’ve done to prevent the apocalypse.
FRANCINE 0:33:03
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:33:04
And before that, I think they were friends who did favours for each other and hung out a bit because that was fun.
FRANCINE 0:33:09
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:33:10
And now, yeah, and now they’re kind of in this thing where they’re both separated from the sides that they were ostensibly working for up to the end of Good Omens.
FRANCINE 0:33:18
Yeah. There’s a great moment. They’re on their own side together. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:33:22
And there’s a great moment where Crowley says something about the fragile life he’s carved out for himself. And Azaraphile’s like, I thought it was what we had carved out for ourselves.
FRANCINE 0:33:30
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:33:32
This kind of imbalance between them and how they’re looking at whatever their relationship
FRANCINE 0:33:35
is.
JOANNA 0:33:37
Yeah, I think possibly it’s more Crowley not admitting it than not feeling it, though. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think Crowley is, I don’t mean self absorbed in a bad way, but he’s lived as it somewhat independent for longer because he already did the falling from heaven bit.
FRANCINE 0:33:56
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:33:56
And he’s already been hugely betrayed by his side.
FRANCINE 0:34:00
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:34:00
And yeah, there’s going to be more of a fortress up there. And then he was never like super in it with Hel, he just kind of went along and did his own thing.
FRANCINE 0:34:08
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:34:09
Because he could most of the time because humans were doing all the nasty stuff for themselves, which Shaxs points out as well. Got to have a bit of fun with the M25 and then.
FRANCINE 0:34:16
Generally, all doing stuff like tying up the mobile phone lines.
JOANNA 0:34:20
Yeah. Yeah, he was acting more like a mischief god than a agent of Satan.
FRANCINE 0:34:24
Yeah, sort of a Loki-ish-ness to him.
JOANNA 0:34:26
Yeah. Whereas Irofale is kind of readjusting to a different life where now Crowley, he’s not welcome among heaven and Crowley is the one person he’s got on his side. Yeah.
FRANCINE 0:34:36
He’s doing good, but he’s not part of the higher plan. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:34:39
And Crowley kind of early on when you see Maggie like thanking Irofale in front of Crowley, and Crowley sort of teases him for doing good deeds. Mm.
FRANCINE 0:34:48
Yeah. So yeah, I thought the fight between them was really great.
JOANNA 0:34:52
And then Crowley storms off and he’s furious and strikes lightning in the street and that
FRANCINE 0:34:56
leads to the coffee shop lock-in.
JOANNA 0:34:58
Yeah.
FRANCINE 0:34:59
He’s smoking in the street.
JOANNA 0:35:00
It’s fine. It’s not illegal. Yeah, it’s all right.
FRANCINE 0:35:03
Terrible fun moment.
JOANNA 0:35:04
Yeah. Before we get to the coffee shop, though, we get going back to heaven.
FRANCINE 0:35:08
Oh, yeah.
JOANNA 0:35:08
And there’s really great conversation between Michael and Uriel about this sort of power structure thing and this power vacuum because Gabriel’s missing. But yeah, I love this idea of Michael, that infuriating thing that someone does where they’re like, actually, I’m being very reasonable and I don’t see why you need to argue with me. Yeah. And sort of claiming the power that’s happening in this power vacuum, trying to sort of take the top spot while very politely explaining that they’re just doing their duty.
FRANCINE 0:35:36
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:35:37
It’s another bit that felt very Pratchett-y to me, this whole like, yeah, we’re all equal,
FRANCINE 0:35:41
but I’m in charge.
JOANNA 0:35:41
Yeah.
FRANCINE 0:35:42
That felt like a Pratchett-y thing.
JOANNA 0:35:44
And we’ve talked a lot as well about, especially with Michael, but Pratchett using bureaucracy as like, as a villain. Yes. And Neil Gaiman does it a bit too. Like, if you look at stuff like in American Gods, the kind of dirty earthiness of the old gods compared to the really clean and shiny like, gods of media and things. Mm. Yeah, definitely.
FRANCINE 0:36:04
And then how they regress into their kind of true base natures when under stress, yeah,
JOANNA 0:36:10
which is similar here. So we also, yeah, we meet Muriel properly in this scene, who’s played by Cailin Sepulveda.
FRANCINE 0:36:19
Okay. I hope I’ve got that right.
JOANNA 0:36:22
And Sarakel played by Liz Carr. Yeah, new character. Yes, both new. Both new?
FRANCINE 0:36:27
Did we not have…
JOANNA 0:36:28
We had Uriel before, we didn’t have Muriel before. Oh yes, of course, sorry. Muriel is the…
FRANCINE 0:36:32
Muriel and Uriel. Yes.
JOANNA 0:36:34
Great couple of names to have in a group of five. We’ll definitely not fuck those up at any point while talking about good omens. So while they’re discussing the matchbox, you get Beelzebub playing a visit to Crowley, which is why, again, I’ve got my fly-related suspicions, because this very handily reminds everyone that Beelzebub is lord of the flies and likes to appear in a cloud of flies, which was a horrible, gross, that felt very Neil Gaiman scene. Another bit, the resurrectionists, I’m sure you know this, but were body snatchers as well.
FRANCINE 0:37:05
Yes.
JOANNA 0:37:06
So they were like Birkenhair, I think, were known as resurrectionists.
FRANCINE 0:37:09
That’s another little horror game mini moment.
JOANNA 0:37:13
Briefly spent a long time…
FRANCINE 0:37:15
Briefly spent a long time?
JOANNA 0:37:18
At one point, I spent a long time researching Victorian body snatchers for the Mary Shelley fights zombies story I was playing with. Oh yeah, fun. That was disgusting, but a local band that we like has a good song called Resurrection Man.
FRANCINE 0:37:31
Oh yeah. Anyway, so yeah, Beelzebub visiting Crowley.
JOANNA 0:37:34
New Beelzebub.
FRANCINE 0:37:35
New Beelzebub.
JOANNA 0:37:37
Shelley Conn, last season it was Anna Maxwell Martin. And I do like they acknowledged, like, it’s that new face.
FRANCINE 0:37:44
Yeah, that’s right, just don’t worry about it. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:37:47
I think there wasn’t any drama, it was just like Anna Maxwell Martin wasn’t available, but they didn’t want to not have Beelzebub. Yeah, fair.
FRANCINE 0:37:54
Shelley Conn, you might know from Bridgerton.
JOANNA 0:37:55
Oh.
FRANCINE 0:37:57
It’s Lady Mary Sharma.
JOANNA 0:37:58
It’s Lady Mary Sharma. So in the last season of Bridgerton, she was the mother of the two girls.
FRANCINE 0:38:08
Sorry. Oh, didn’t recognise her at all.
JOANNA 0:38:12
No, I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t looked at the IMDB page. Weird how a face full of flies can change a person. Compared to Regency Dress, yeah. Two very different flavours. Ah, the two genders, Regency Dress, flies.
FRANCINE 0:38:24
Yes.
JOANNA 0:38:25
So Beelzebub’s offering all this stuff to Crowley in exchange for him sort of getting a hold of Gabriel, offering him a Duke to let him be a Duke of Hell. They’re really showing their kind of weak hand on it though, aren’t they? Or possibly bluffing, double bluffing with it. But they seem to be like, yeah, we’ll give you whatever you want, which is very not Hell, as we knew it.
FRANCINE 0:38:44
She does, he does get threatened as well.
JOANNA 0:38:47
Because he gets warned of extreme sanctions. And this is where we learn what the extreme sanctions are.
FRANCINE 0:38:52
Which is erasure from the Book of Life.
JOANNA 0:38:54
You are not and never have been.
FRANCINE 0:38:57
Yeah, which is great because it got established at the end of the first season
JOANNA 0:39:02
how Crowley and Aziraphale could get a, you know, outwit their various kryptonites
FRANCINE 0:39:08
by pretending to be each other. Yes. So this sets a, all right, well, you can’t pretend to be each other to get out of the Book of Life
JOANNA 0:39:16
threat. It puts a more tangible threat over you.
FRANCINE 0:39:19
Threat.
JOANNA 0:39:20
It puts a more tangible threat over their head.
FRANCINE 0:39:22
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:39:23
I’m thinking where else have I seen, like, the punishment be you don’t exist and never have. And I’m now thinking, is that a Doctor Who thing? I’m sure it’s been used many times, but it’s just, it’s really a bell of something. No, it’s not Doctor Who. Doctor Who is with the Weeping Angels. They send you back in time and you live yourself to death and they live off the displaced time
FRANCINE 0:39:42
energy. Yeah. So you don’t exist and you never have existed.
JOANNA 0:39:46
I know that’s like a thing in some bit of popular media. Listeners, answers on a postcard before I ceased to have existed. No, oh no, it’s not a Terry Pratchett thing, but it’s, it’s, it’s sort of feels like something
FRANCINE 0:39:59
the auditors.
JOANNA 0:40:00
It feels like it’s got something to do with the auditors.
FRANCINE 0:40:02
Yeah. Um, what happens after that?
JOANNA 0:40:04
Oh yeah, we’ve got the coffee shop lock in and the awkward conversation.
FRANCINE 0:40:09
Yes.
JOANNA 0:40:10
I, the one, but the main note I’ve got from this is I really liked the text display technique. So I always noticed, um, in any modern-ish thing where they have to show a text from somebody on screen, I was making note of how they do it. Some ways it just very obviously age very quickly in some ways are nice and clean.
FRANCINE 0:40:27
I thought this was very interesting and cool, actually just having it up on paper. Yeah. Looking like handwritten notes.
JOANNA 0:40:34
I thought that was a good detail and I like that because it is more ageless. You’re right. Some of them do age very quickly.
FRANCINE 0:40:38
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:40:39
Also, if you’re going to do a thing where you show someone’s phone screen and see them getting a text from someone they clearly talk to all the time, there needs to be previous messages there.
FRANCINE 0:40:47
Yes. Yes. That drives me mad for no real reason.
JOANNA 0:40:52
It’s fine.
FRANCINE 0:40:53
Like, but it really irks me. Yeah. It’s a little detail.
JOANNA 0:40:55
Come on guys, you text. But I think this scene is where I realised like the Maggie and Nina characters aren’t super working for me in this and it’s not just the awkwardness between them. And it’s no shade on the actors. I really like them both and I think they’re both doing a really good job. I think the issue I found, especially in the first episode, is it felt like this is a B plot and it’s not really tying to the A plot. And obviously the second episode brings them in to the main plot, which is, you know, Crowley and Azura Fel need to get them together.
FRANCINE 0:41:26
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:41:27
The thing is in the book Good Omens, in the first season Good Omens, all the B plot characters, so you’re Newton and Athma and you’re Shadwell and you’re Madame Trey, they all had something to do for the end goal. They had to actively participate in getting to the ending, whether they knew it or not.
FRANCINE 0:41:41
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:41:42
I’m wondering if that is going to be the case soon. I am, but even through the second episode, they don’t feel like active participants in the plot.
FRANCINE 0:41:50
No.
JOANNA 0:41:50
They feel like characters that exist for something to happen to and I’m not enjoying them.
FRANCINE 0:41:54
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:41:54
And they don’t, I know the whole point of the kids, the them, was that they had quite normal little lives, but they were living in this fantasy land and that’s quite fun. And these two, especially in comparison to the only other two main characters, have incredibly boring lives. And also I think a little bit this whole setup of Nina’s in clearly an abusive relationship, like Lindsay is clearly a dickhead.
FRANCINE 0:42:18
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:42:19
And that feels so, so obvious that I’m waiting for a big plot twist there.
FRANCINE 0:42:25
Yeah. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:42:26
Or maybe not. It just feels a bit too blatant, especially for it to be in the first episode. I mean, is it, does it need to be anything but this is just showing that she’s in a bad
FRANCINE 0:42:36
relationship?
JOANNA 0:42:37
I just feel like you could be more subtle about she’s in a bad relationship than immediately saying, yeah, my partner is really fucking horrible to me.
FRANCINE 0:42:45
Yeah, I guess.
JOANNA 0:42:47
I don’t know. For me, it was, it was sort of a, it seems like an obvious, ah, look, here we have an obstacle, but also no one will be upset if that relationship ends because clearly she needs to not be with this person.
FRANCINE 0:42:56
Yeah. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:42:58
Could have been a bit more subtle than look at all these abusive texts from this person. That’s true. That was, yeah, plastered all over the screen.
FRANCINE 0:43:06
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:43:06
Yeah. Especially with a character that like, we haven’t spent enough time with to really decide if we like, and I do like her as a character. I love her doing the gestures to herself to remember the coffees and things, but I don’t care about her that much yet because she’s not been on screen very long and she’s not been incredibly compelling. Yes. No, I definitely see what you mean. We’ll have to see how that evolves. Yeah. Anyway, back to the bookshop. Crowley does an apology dance. Yeah. What the fuck was that about? I don’t know, but it made me very happy and I liked it. I want to know how that came up into the script. I want to know whether that was done, especially just to make Crow, to make David Tennant do a little dance. I want it to be that him and Michael Sheen were fucking about and then it became a thing. This is, yeah. Yeah. Not, no shade on the writers. Not everything needs to be improvised. Writers do lovely work, but just for that. Yeah. Because it just the fact it doesn’t seem to tie into anything else at all. No. Although he, there’s a list of times as Aerofell’s done the apology dance. And obviously I think we’re going to get more flashbacks. So I’m wondering if we’ll. Yeah, that’s true. See Michael Sheen do the same dance. I really hope we get to see Michael Sheen do the apology dance. New TikTok trend. So they do the half a miracle each to hide Gabriel from the occult forces and it seems to work. Yes. I like the phrase half a miracle for like a song name or a book name, by the way.
FRANCINE 0:44:34
Oh yeah. That’d be a good book name. Anyway, I’m not going to start writing fiction live
JOANNA 0:44:39
on the podcast.
FRANCINE 0:44:40
Good. Thank you.
JOANNA 0:44:41
Gabriel’s little moment when he’s sort of like, oh, I know things now. I know no outside. And I have two friends. Two friends. He’s got two friends and he’s really excited about his two friends. And he’s very sweet when he’s this Gabriel. So the final scene, alarms start going off in heaven because there’s been a massive miracle on earth. Which I’m speculating Gabriel contributed to the half a miracle each without really intending to, which is why there’s this archangel sized miracle. Well, it’s going to be one of those things, isn’t it? Gabriel has contributed. It takes a lot more than they thought to hide an archangel.
FRANCINE 0:45:17
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:45:18
Or there’s some very sweet and twee thing about when those two work together, it makes amazing miracles. Or like because one’s a devil and one’s an angel, they’re somehow acting on each other exponentially.
FRANCINE 0:45:28
Yeah, that’s what I mean. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:45:29
Yeah. And yeah, then we get the closing credits, which did you… I didn’t and I saw your text about it too late. So what… So you know how in the closing credits for each episode, just like with last episode, last season, David G Arnold has done like a slightly different arrangement of the theme. I didn’t know that because Prime just skips it automatically. Yeah, it was only the, I think the second time I watched that I decided to watch the credits in case there was anything. So David G Arnold does like a slightly different arrangement of the Good Omens theme that kind of fits somehow with the tone of the episode. But what he’s done with this is that theme goes into some bits from Every Day by Buddy Holly.
FRANCINE 0:46:05
Oh, nice.
JOANNA 0:46:06
It’s a little detail. It’s not like a huge plot thing. But listen, if you haven’t actually listened to the full credits yet, go and do so.
FRANCINE 0:46:14
Okay, I will.
Chapter 2: The Clue
JOANNA 0:46:16
So on to episode two, The Clue featuring the Minisoad, a companion to Owls. Yes, these are titled episodes, are they? Yeah, this is a weird thing. So they… I saw Neil Gaiman on like Twitter and Tumblr talking a little bit about these Minisoads and how they’re sort of episodes within episodes and written by different people. So this was Jon Finamore. He’s also a co executive producer
FRANCINE 0:46:42
this season and been working on it. But I don’t know. I didn’t… if it hadn’t been
JOANNA 0:46:49
referred to as a Minisoad, a companion of Owls, even after I watched the episode, I was a bit sort of, I’m going to check on Google which bit was meant to be the Minisoad.
FRANCINE 0:46:58
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:46:59
And I realised it was, you know, going into the story and coming out the story. And that makes sense. But it feels like if Neil Gaiman wasn’t on strike, this would have been like more of the marketing and how the season was talked about.
FRANCINE 0:47:12
Yeah. Yeah, maybe so. Yeah, it hadn’t crossed my awareness at all.
JOANNA 0:47:17
Yeah. So it felt, I don’t know, it sat a little bit weirdly for me. Still, I didn’t know about it. So it didn’t bother me. Okay, so we open in 2500 BC. And Crowley’s sacrificing goats, as you do. Yes. Oh, poor little goat.
FRANCINE 0:47:36
Poor little goats. I love baby goats so much. Land of Us.
JOANNA 0:47:40
Yes, we’re in the land of Us. And Aziraphale interrupts, but Crowley has a permit. He does. And he’s also got incredible glasses. He does have incredible glasses. Loving Crowley’s sunglasses throughout this as always. But these ones are my favourite so far. So this is the first time they’ve seen each other since Noah, which was one of the flashbacks we saw in that half hour cold open.
FRANCINE 0:48:01
Yes.
JOANNA 0:48:01
In season one of Good Omens, episode three. And I feel like the Noah bit’s relevant, because one of the things Crowley says in that Noah scene, when Aziraphale’s explaining that there’s going to be a flood, is even the little kids, not the kids. Not the kids. That’s going to come back as they debate the ethics of killing children in this episode. Yeah. And like, yes, it’s Michael Sheen, isn’t it? He goes, the children. But yeah, but it was Crowley in the Noah bit. Yes. So that was one of Crowley’s moments of, right, so God’s a dick then. I did also love the Michael Sheen shouting Avant repeatedly at Crowley, which is, that’s a Pratchett thing. It’s an Eric thing. That’s an Eric thing. Of all the Terry Pratchett books to reference. Well, I believe when we talked about Eric, I was wondering if Avant was actually a thing or not. And I don’t think we ever bothered finding out.
FRANCINE 0:49:00
Let’s say yes.
JOANNA 0:49:01
We didn’t chase up on a lot from Eric. And yeah, then still in this 2500 BC timeline, we go to heaven and Muriel sort of goes over the contract, the Job contract. Yeah. And explains the bet that Satan and God have got going about Job.
FRANCINE 0:49:18
Yeah. It’s another bit of bureaucracy evil. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:49:21
On top of just straight up evil. Yeah. And Gabriel does this whole explanation that Job’s going to get everything back double, including the seven new children. And it’s nice as much as I was talking about, you know, really looking forward to dumb Jon Hamm this season. It’s also nice to see him playing dickhead Gabriel. Yeah, but definitely still with the naivety around the edges though.
FRANCINE 0:49:44
Yes. Yeah, they can.
JOANNA 0:49:46
They can run at any size. Ribs, ribs are. Yeah, ribs are a normal part of this. Don’t worry about it. That I’m not going to admit I might not know everything.
FRANCINE 0:49:54
Yeah, yeah.
JOANNA 0:49:56
Just one of my favourite methods of dickishness. I enjoyed the fact the scroll back on earth, they unwound itself all around the mountains and everything like that. So it was a nice little. Yeah, that was a really fun little detail. So, yeah, so back to present day and Gabriel explains his new filing system of filing every book by the first letter of the first sentence, which makes perfect sense. Yeah, Jack and I were trying to work out like where everything would be like how things would be proportionalised. So you got A, T and I obviously, I think would be the main ones. Yeah, that’s sort of the running joke through is that the it shelf has gotten. Yeah, that’s spread around half the bookshop. Yeah, just trying to work out apart from those I wonder what are the most common words book
FRANCINE 0:50:39
starts with.
JOANNA 0:50:40
I expect somebody’s done something about that.
FRANCINE 0:50:42
Maybe I’ll look it up.
JOANNA 0:50:44
Listeners, send us graphs, send us spreadsheets. Francine, don’t make a spreadsheet.
FRANCINE 0:50:49
Okay, putting my pen down there.
JOANNA 0:50:53
Can we do it just the Terry Pratchett?
FRANCINE 0:50:54
No, no. Maybe at the end.
JOANNA 0:50:57
We’ll go back and just discuss the first word of each book. We put all the first words together of each Pratchett book in order. See what kind of horrific sentence we get. It’s at this point that Gabriel singing every day, right? Yeah, this is, as if I’ll ask him to make some kind of noise because he’s being too creepy and quiet and after making some wonderful creaking and groaning noises, he starts singing every day.
FRANCINE 0:51:20
Things get better.
JOANNA 0:51:22
That’s yeah, that’s that’s in my head now. Forever. It’s been on and off in my head since the trailers. It’s a lovely song. I love that they’re using it in the series, but they couldn’t have picked something more fucking earwormy could they?
FRANCINE 0:51:37
No.
JOANNA 0:51:37
Fun fact, by the way, the song has a Celeste or something, a Celestine, something like
FRANCINE 0:51:45
that in it, which is like a glockenspiel x-ray type x-ray xylophone type thing.
JOANNA 0:51:52
Wow, my brain is just fucking playing crossword with itself today. One of the things in that is a heavenly instrument. Excellent. I’m going to start a band called glockenspiel x-ray.
FRANCINE 0:52:04
Love that.
JOANNA 0:52:06
So we get a brief Shaxs popping in to threaten, attempt to threaten Crowley and asking about this big miracle because everyone’s clocked it. And then we get Aziraphale going to see Maggie, who is not crying over Nina. Not happening. So she explains that it’s Every Day by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty, and she gives him a copy of the single and explains that there’s a pub in Edinburgh with a jukebox that turns every record into every day.
FRANCINE 0:52:31
Yes.
JOANNA 0:52:32
Little Queen moment. Yeah, so for people who’ve watched the show and not read the book, there’s a joke in the book that every tape, because it’s tapes in 1992, but obviously become CDs, left in a car for more than two weeks turns into Queen’s greatest hits. And that’s why in the first season you have Queen playing as Crowley drives. Well, same in this season, actually, I did notice that. We’ve only had one so far.
FRANCINE 0:52:55
Yeah, but it was Queen. Old fashioned lover boy.
JOANNA 0:52:58
A couple of scenes from now. So yeah, that’s extent. I’m wondering if we’re going to get more in the car or not, whether they’re going to move the concept up to the jukebox in Edinburgh, all the records turning into Every Day by
FRANCINE 0:53:10
Buddy Holly.
JOANNA 0:53:11
I do also like in the background of that scene, playing in the record shop is You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield. Oh, because it’s a song I really love. And the history of the song is quite weird.
FRANCINE 0:53:24
She heard it in Italian and couldn’t sing in Italian.
JOANNA 0:53:28
I didn’t really speak Italian. And so this song got written, which isn’t really a direct translation of the Italian version at all.
FRANCINE 0:53:34
Oh, nice. I like that.
JOANNA 0:53:36
It has been used in a Richard Curtis film.
FRANCINE 0:53:39
Has it now?
JOANNA 0:53:40
But not in a romantic scene. It was used in The Boat That Rocked, which is a fun movie.
FRANCINE 0:53:45
I highly recommend it.
JOANNA 0:53:46
It’s a good watch. Really good cast in it. Lots of the Richard Curtis standards. I think Bill Nighy’s in it. But yeah, so I was wondering if that was meant to be like a reference to a particular Richard Curtis film, because I could have sworn it was in Four Weddings and a Funeral somewhere.
FRANCINE 0:54:01
But Boat That Rocked.
JOANNA 0:54:03
Is it around here that we get, this is where it is in my notes. Sorry, as I say, I lost track of the scenes eventually. But I’ve got Lazarus being one unit of Miracle. Yeah, that’s the next scene. The angels show up to visit Aziraphale. And somehow completely oblivious to Gabriel being there and talking to them. And yeah, they use Lazarus as a measurement for Miracles, which is one of my favourite
FRANCINE 0:54:26
little bits in this.
JOANNA 0:54:28
I would say in that scene, actually, and one of the scenes before, it’s quite nice how they’ve done a disabled angel and how they’ve, I was, because I was saying to Jack, what’s her name?
FRANCINE 0:54:37
Sorry.
JOANNA 0:54:38
Liz Carr. Sarah Kell’s the character.
FRANCINE 0:54:40
Sarah Kell. Sarah Kell. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:54:42
I was like, oh man, imagine going from having your cool hovering chair in heaven to go to London where all these buildings like grandfathered in with no ramps. And then she just like magic. And I was like, oh, there we go. I did like the detail of her just miracleing herself an excess ramp. I like the character as well. It wasn’t specifically written for a disabled actor or anything. They just love what Liz Carr did and incorporated into the character. It’s really nicely done. And it is always nice to see a disabled actor and not have their character focused on their disability.
FRANCINE 0:55:11
Yeah, no, exactly. Anyway.
JOANNA 0:55:13
Oh, yeah, this is also where we get the flyswat with the big heavy Bible. And then Aziraphale and Crowley go to the pub. The Dirty Donkey. The Dirty Donkey.
FRANCINE 0:55:22
What is that a real pub name? I don’t know.
JOANNA 0:55:24
I didn’t think to check.
FRANCINE 0:55:26
Okay.
JOANNA 0:55:27
The Resurrectionist is not. It was because that was one of the tweets or something from months and months ago when somebody realized the whatever pub it was had been renamed The Resurrectionist for the sake
FRANCINE 0:55:39
of a shoot. Let’s have a look. Dirty Donkey Pub. There’s one in Hereford.
JOANNA 0:55:46
Probably not that one. Not that one.
FRANCINE 0:55:47
No. I think I think we can assume this is a fictional pub. Yes, I know.
JOANNA 0:55:52
But it’s Neil Gaiman.
FRANCINE 0:55:53
So it might be a cool reference. Yeah, we’ll keep an eye out.
JOANNA 0:55:56
Dirty Donkey may come back. No, that sounds ominous.
FRANCINE 0:55:59
Anyway, they go to the pub.
JOANNA 0:56:00
We meet Mr. Brown, chairman of the Wickham Street Shopkeepers and Street Traders Association. God, that was uncomfortable. This is Tim Downey, who is a, is a funny actor. He’s in lots of British comedy things. He’s in Toast of London and he’s also in Plebs at one point. And he’s done lots of bits like that. And he is very funny. And I, it’s incredibly uncomfortable and unpleasant. And I also love this sort of character.
FRANCINE 0:56:26
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:56:27
This is like Bill Patterson.
FRANCINE 0:56:29
I can’t remember.
JOANNA 0:56:30
R.A. something. His character in the first season, the one that is in the Neighbourhood Watch. Yeah, just like the low stakes force of nature.
FRANCINE 0:56:39
Yes. Yeah.
JOANNA 0:56:40
Everyone in the community, like, knows him and doesn’t like him type guy.
FRANCINE 0:56:44
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:56:46
The tailored do-si for our Gilmore Girls fans. And we live in a town that has a few of these sorts as well.
FRANCINE 0:56:54
We do.
JOANNA 0:56:54
So it’s, it’s relatable. So yeah, he wants Aziraphale to host this get together of the association to talk about bins. Which is the sort of thing that a Mr. Brown would enjoy. So Aziraphale explains to Crowley that they’ve got to get Maggie and Nina together because he’s used them as the excuse for this miracle that happened.
FRANCINE 0:57:13
Yes.
JOANNA 0:57:15
So they’re debating their ideas of romance.
FRANCINE 0:57:18
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:57:19
Rainstorm, canopy, wet staring into each other’s eyes. That’s how relationships start, right?
FRANCINE 0:57:24
Yeah, 100%.
JOANNA 0:57:26
So Crowley’s got it entirely from Richard Curtis films. Which I wanted.
FRANCINE 0:57:31
No, yes, that way around. Sorry, no, yes.
JOANNA 0:57:33
Cotillion is Michael Sheen, is it?
FRANCINE 0:57:34
Yes.
JOANNA 0:57:35
Yeah, Michael Sheen’s doing Jane Austen, Crowley’s doing Richard Curtis. Oh, that’s right. Because Crowley’s like, what, Jane Austen?
FRANCINE 0:57:40
With the brandy smuggler.
JOANNA 0:57:42
Yeah, the brandy smuggler, diamond thief, super spy.
FRANCINE 0:57:44
I love that bit.
JOANNA 0:57:46
I was slightly tempted. I had a little Google just in case. And it does look like she was associated with some smugglers, certainly.
FRANCINE 0:57:52
Of course she was.
JOANNA 0:57:54
Good old Jane Austen. She danced with a couple of times and wrote some letters about Captain Corvée James Dauvigny, who was a Jersey born, which is why I like him. Smuggler extraordinaire.
FRANCINE 0:58:06
Marvellous.
JOANNA 0:58:06
But I think did not probably smuggle brandy herself. I would like to take a moment as well, with Crowley, having mentioned Richard Curtis using rainstorms to create love in films. The ridiculous moment from the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral, where she says, is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed while standing in a torrential downpour, having just confessed her love to Hugh Grant. Because this is one of the saddest, cringiest, most wonderful moments in any romantic comedy. So you get humans wet and have a staring at each other’s eyes. That’s just how it goes.
FRANCINE 0:58:41
Yep.
JOANNA 0:58:43
I want to rewatch that now.
FRANCINE 0:58:45
God, I love it.
JOANNA 0:58:46
I cry so much in Four Weddings and a Funeral, because I am incredibly original. Also, Aziraphale saying that Maggie has a pash for Nina. Oh my God, yeah, I read it as well. I was like, wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use that outside of Ms Magazine in 2003. I mean, I’ve heard it, it’s like Irish saying, pashing means snooking.
FRANCINE 0:59:08
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:59:08
So I’ve heard it in that context.
FRANCINE 0:59:10
Yeah.
JOANNA 0:59:11
But not in having a pash on someone. I might bring it back.
FRANCINE 0:59:17
Yeah, I like it.
JOANNA 0:59:21
But do it anyway, it’ll be funny. So anyway, so they go back to the bookshop because Aziraphale wants to show Crowley a clue.
FRANCINE 0:59:27
The clue.
JOANNA 0:59:28
The clue, the Buddy Holly song. But Crowley starts getting aggressive, and this is where he pushes Gabriel into remembering. He says, I remember when the morning stars sang together, and you get this flash of purple eyes before he struggles.
FRANCINE 0:59:41
Aziraphale’s…
JOANNA 0:59:41
We’ve just seen earlier in the episode, Gabriel with the butterflies. It’s kind of a… Nice reminder. Remember, this is what the angel looks like.
FRANCINE 0:59:48
Yeah, so that’s him.
JOANNA 0:59:49
So you mentioned the x-ray thing you can do on Amazon Prime. There’s also in the x-ray thing, a bunch of trivia for all the episodes.
FRANCINE 0:59:55
Okay.
JOANNA 0:59:55
So I’m not listing off everything that was in there because that would get really boring. But one detail is that the sort of purple eye color for Gabriel is partly inspired by Liz Taylor.
FRANCINE 1:00:05
Okay.
JOANNA 1:00:06
Because she had these incredible, almost violet eyes.
FRANCINE 1:00:10
Okay.
JOANNA 1:00:11
So I like that.
FRANCINE 1:00:12
Cool.
JOANNA 1:00:12
Yeah.
FRANCINE 1:00:13
Why don’t… How do I get to that trivia bit? That’s a few…
JOANNA 1:00:16
I can’t… I was using the Prime app on my smart TV was very temperamental, but on my computer, you can just click on it and yeah.
FRANCINE 1:00:23
Okay.
JOANNA 1:00:23
I was doing that as I went through. So yes, Jim remembers when the Morningstar sang together. And yeah, Aziraphale’s so gentle with him after he struggles with this remembering moment and says, you know, you’ve done awfully well and go and take a rest.
FRANCINE 1:00:36
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:00:39
And this is where you get Crowley and Aziraphale then remembering Job. And we go into the mini episode, the Minisoad.
FRANCINE 1:00:45
Minisoad.
JOANNA 1:00:45
I don’t know how much the Minisoad concept just doesn’t work for me because the portmanteau word Minisoad makes me want to set fire to things. It’s horrible to say. I feel like if nobody had told you it was a Minisoad, you’d be absolutely fine as I am. So it’s a flashback. It’s fine. I don’t like Minisoad. But yeah, so the Morningstar sang together bit. That is, again, that’s a biblical thing and I’ll go into it a little bit.
FRANCINE 1:01:06
But Lucifer is also referred to in a lot of biblical things as Lucifer Morningstar because
JOANNA 1:01:15
he was the brightest of the angels. So I think there’s a… That’s an interesting bit.
FRANCINE 1:01:19
Very good. I like that.
JOANNA 1:01:21
Anyway, so yeah, so we get Crowley visiting Job and Cytus with his excuses. I’m sorry, I think you mean Buildad the Shuite. Sorry, Buildad the Shuite. A hero to us all. Someone I’ve got a bit of a passion for. Cobbler and obstetrician. I gave up halfway through that word. Cobbler and midwife extraordinaire. Absolutely. So Job is played by Peter Davison, who you may know of as the fifth doctor. His daughter is Georgia Moffat, who happens to be married to David Tennant. So that would be David Tennant’s father. David Tennant, the doctor, with his father-in-law, the doctor.
FRANCINE 1:02:07
Playing.
JOANNA 1:02:08
Georgia Moffat, who also played the doctor’s daughter. That’s kind of weird when you say it like that. Let’s not get into that family tree. It goes across far too many dimensions we don’t have access to. And we should not have access to. And Cytus is played by Andy Osho, who was also in The Sandman. Which, if you’ve seen yet, you should watch that.
FRANCINE 1:02:27
Sorry. Francine.
JOANNA 1:02:29
I watched the first episode, it’s good. Of course, just watch the rest now. It’s long and depressing. All right, yeah, it is quite long and depressing. Anyway, so Crowley goes to the mansion, and they’re outside, and Iserfell’s trying to intercede and stop Crowley from killing Job’s children. Tell you what, it says that Crowley didn’t kill the goats, he just turned them into crows.
FRANCINE 1:02:48
Crotes. Crotes!
JOANNA 1:02:51
But like in a crow way. I can’t do a crow-goat noise. I’m not gonna try.
FRANCINE 1:02:55
Okay, that’s for the best.
JOANNA 1:02:57
You wrote crotes, spelt crow-T-S in the plan, and I was staring at it for a while trying to work out, did I try and write Crowley and get distracted? I was just trying to make a portmanteau. And yeah, we start getting this whole Minnesota thing kind of centers on this argument about free will, or this idea of free will between Iserfell and Crowley, and this tension between them. Because for Crowley, you know, he chose to fall, or sort of vaguely downwards, and in doing so, embraced this idea of having free will and choosing for himself. And Iserfell, like, especially at this point, still feels like he doesn’t need it. He just needs to do what God wants.
FRANCINE 1:03:36
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:03:37
And it’s never really resolved between them, like, up to the present day stuff. Even as he’s intimidated by Gabriel, and, you know, heaven tried to kill him, Iserfell can’t help but think of, like, heaven slash God slash upstairs as the good guys. He never really resolved the whole thing where he didn’t get to speak to God, he only got to speak to the Metatron. And so I think in his head, somehow he’s just like, it’s ineffable. It’s ineffable. She’s got a good reason, we just don’t know it. He still thinks she’s all right. And then, yeah, we go into the mansion itself and meet Job’s dickhead children. That was good. I liked that. So along with David Tennant’s father-in-law, Peter Davison, we have Enon, played by Ty Tennant, David Tennant’s son.
FRANCINE 1:04:17
Oh, Jesus.
JOANNA 1:04:19
This was sort of known already. They’d, like, shared not full pictures of them in costume. They didn’t want people to know which episode it was, but, like, some little pictures and said, like, the three of them are in an episode together. And it was some really fun moments of them, all three working together. I think it’s very sweet. And also, like, Ty Tennant is good. Yeah, I know who he was. Neffe baby extraordinaire.
FRANCINE 1:04:39
Love it.
JOANNA 1:04:40
He plays, like, little shit really well here. He’s also great. He’s in House of the Dragon, and he was really great in that as well, playing a little shit.
FRANCINE 1:04:47
Nice.
JOANNA 1:04:49
I haven’t seen Ty Tennant- Maybe when he grows up, he’ll be less tight-cast. Yeah, I haven’t seen him in anything where he’s not playing an entitled little shit. And the other two kids, we have Kezia, played by Sienna Arif Knights, who, one of the only other things she’s done is a Mallory Towers TV series. I didn’t know there was a Mallory Towers TV series. Absolutely gonna go and watch that. I fucking loved those books.
FRANCINE 1:05:09
Excellent. And don’t want to reread them,
JOANNA 1:05:11
because I’m sure I’ll discover that they were horribly racist in some ways. Yeah, probably. Happy to leave reading in a blight in my past, but I’ll watch an adaptation. And the youngest one, Jemima, is Cherry Mitra, and this is her first major acting role. She made a pot. She made a pot. I loved her. I thought she was great.
FRANCINE 1:05:28
I made a pot.
JOANNA 1:05:29
Also daughter of Jove. And yeah, Crowley threatens them with all sorts of burning hellfire, and then takes them down into the cellar and turns them into lizards. I like the revelation that the way that God favours Jove is like proper, proper weird favouritism stuff. Not just like it’s granted in prosperity or whatever, but it’s like the angels will go and fetch them wine for the party and things like that. How much do you think that the angels have kind of goaded God into this, because they resent being used as errant beings.
FRANCINE 1:06:01
Absolutely.
JOANNA 1:06:02
And they got really sick of the kids demanding wine. I quite like the detail that they made these kids little shits and they still like got saved. Like, it’s been sweet little innocent babies. Like, they might have been a bit more heartstring-pully at that moment, but it wouldn’t have been as like, obviously you can save the cute little innocent baby goats and nice children, but the horrible spoiled children. Yeah. You can, there’s the sense of, you sure you want me to save these? Yeah. Although Jemima seems sweet. She didn’t even annoy Crowley enough to be turned into a lizard until she asked. Yeah. But you start also getting Crowley saying over and again,
FRANCINE 1:06:35
I’m a demon, I lie.
JOANNA 1:06:38
Which is a good detail. And yeah, then we go into the cellar.
FRANCINE 1:06:43
Yes.
JOANNA 1:06:44
And while the kids are busy lizarding, Crowley tempts Aziraphale into trying human food for the first time.
FRANCINE 1:06:51
Yep. Love that. I love this. He gets, yeah, just the moment of corruption,
JOANNA 1:06:58
very visceral, tearing meat off the bone type stuff. That’s extremely…
FRANCINE 1:07:03
Yeah, it’s not delicate.
JOANNA 1:07:04
And normally Aziraphale is so delicate and fastidious. Like, there’s the scene of him like eating sushi in season one. Yeah. You could have made it like him having a sip of wine for the first time or like, yeah, just this delicate little like a grape off the plate thing. But no, it was like tearing into ox ribs. Yeah. Like it was, it was uncomfortable to watch. Yeah, exactly. I love that.
FRANCINE 1:07:23
Because it really showed that corruption.
JOANNA 1:07:25
Yeah, absolutely. In a way that like a delicate sip or a bite of something wouldn’t in quite the same way.
FRANCINE 1:07:31
Yeah, exactly.
JOANNA 1:07:31
And you get this kind of continuation of this like free will and side discussion.
FRANCINE 1:07:37
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:07:38
With the two of them and Crowley saying, you know, it’s not lonely doing what he does. I think that’s in the scene. And Aziraphale still insisting, even as he’s being tempted for the first time, that no, the heavenly way is the right way.
FRANCINE 1:07:48
Yeah, of course. And yet. And yet.
JOANNA 1:07:52
And so we go into the next scene, as the hellish storm was abated. We see Job talking to God, who mentions Wales a lot, which I think is, is, is like, again, if you read the story of Job and the stuff in the Bible,
FRANCINE 1:08:06
there’s all this stuff about the Leviathan.
JOANNA 1:08:08
And it’s part of this poetic discourse. And it’s also Job’s friends arguing with God of why are you doing this to him? And then it is this thing of, who are you to ask me what I’m doing? Did you make the Morningstar sing?
FRANCINE 1:08:18
Yeah. And then we finally tie the flashback into the where we’d left.
JOANNA 1:08:22
Yeah, this coming. But I like the whales as well as a callback from season one, when they’re having this sort of drunk conversation about why the earth should be saved. And Crowley uses the argument of, you know, whales, full of brains, whole ocean full of brains.
FRANCINE 1:08:35
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:08:36
And then the whale is getting. And then the whale is getting fucked. Crackened is a better verb than fucked. It’s more specific, certainly. So yeah, so the angels appear on to Job and Citus, who are obviously not happy, especially when they realise that even as this is over, and they’re getting everything back to full, their children are still dead. Yeah. And that’s such a, I love that as a demonstration of how inhuman the angels are.
FRANCINE 1:09:03
And that the, what’s the matter?
JOANNA 1:09:05
We’re giving you children back, we’re giving you seven children instead of three. And they can’t understand that the fact they’re not the same children is important. They don’t understand the human concept of love. And I feel like that’s going to come back throughout the season. But Aziraphale gets it without it being explained to him, I think, which shows that he’s on this different level already.
FRANCINE 1:09:25
Because, like, before we get to, like, when they’re discussing it, Aziraphale gets it. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:09:32
Like, he knows it’s not the same. Aziraphale is the one of the representatives on earth. He’s spent a lot more time around humans. So he’s learned the empathy that the higher up angels never have.
FRANCINE 1:09:42
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:09:43
They’re too busy looking at the big picture to remember the individuals. Whereas Aziraphale is all about the individuals. Yeah. He’s primed at this point for the moment of corruption, I think.
FRANCINE 1:09:52
And then…
JOANNA 1:09:52
Yeah. And it’s a very unique form of corruption. Not so much the, you know, chowing down on an ox, but corruption by being too empathetic.
FRANCINE 1:10:02
Yeah. By caring too much. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:10:05
So yes, you have Crowley as Bildad, the Shuwait, coming in to help out with childbirth. And this… I didn’t clock until my second watch, the ribs were the ox ribs.
FRANCINE 1:10:16
Oh! Yeah. Okay. They’ve not just done a miracle.
JOANNA 1:10:19
I thought they’d done some weird little miracle there.
FRANCINE 1:10:21
Yeah, right. That’s what I thought the first time I watched it.
JOANNA 1:10:23
And then I realized the second time that he’s kept the ribs from the ox. And they were huge ribs. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, and they bring the original three children back. Yeah. Yes. And Job is not a smart man. No, but he gets there. We get there eventually. I think we’re underlining Michael as the cleverest of the archangels as well.
FRANCINE 1:10:43
They seem like his old children. But yeah, that was good. So yeah.
JOANNA 1:10:50
Aziraphale lying. He lies. That’s the point.
FRANCINE 1:10:53
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:10:53
That’s his moment of now I’ve been… now he’s been corrupted and he steps out of the black and white into the grey.
FRANCINE 1:10:59
Yes. We love a grey area. We do love a grey area.
JOANNA 1:11:02
Little white line making him grey. So that’s sort of the end of the minisode and we go back into… back to the present day in the bookshop. And I love the moment where Aziraphale says to Gabriel, you really used to be quite awful. Especially because we’ve… if you think about how much time has actually passed, obviously we’ve just watched this whole Job thing. Not much time has actually passed in the bookshop. So we’ve just had Aziraphale being really caring towards Gabriel and you’ve done enough. And then he’s remembered this and he’s like, you’re a prick.
FRANCINE 1:11:32
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a little… yeah.
JOANNA 1:11:35
As long as this moment of, again, sort of corruption of
FRANCINE 1:11:39
why am I helping this guy and caring for him?
JOANNA 1:11:43
And yeah, realising you don’t… you don’t have a reason, you just do. You’re doing it because it’s the right thing, not because you want to do it.
FRANCINE 1:11:49
Yeah. And the right thing by your own personal morality, not by a preset morality.
JOANNA 1:11:54
And also because something horrible is apparently going to happen. Yeah. Well, something horrible. True. Yeah. So Aziraphale tells Gabriel that he used to be a dick and then Crowley has wandered off and gone to chat to Nina about awnings. Just to check. So Aziraphale finishes telling Crowley about the record and then asks for the use of the Bentley to pop up to Edinburgh and investigate this. Which is, yeah, it’s interesting. That was an interesting scene. I wasn’t really sure what I was being shown. Well, it’s this, again, slightly uneven way they view their relationship.
FRANCINE 1:12:33
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:12:34
It’s going back to that thing from the first episode of I’ve carved out versus we’ve carved out. Aziraphale, I think, genuinely does think of the bookshop as Crowley’s as much as his.
FRANCINE 1:12:46
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:12:46
And, you know, assumes Crowley’s not staying there because he’s got something better. Yeah. If you look back at the first season, I feel like that was almost reversed at one point during the bit where David Tennant was trying to persuade Aziraphale to run away with him.
FRANCINE 1:13:01
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:13:01
And Aziraphale kept underlining, we are separate. Yeah. And even before that as well, when, you know, David Tennant wants the holy water and eventually Crowley gives it to him and he won’t accept a lift in the car. You go too fast for me.
FRANCINE 1:13:15
Oh, yeah.
JOANNA 1:13:17
So I think stepping out from under Heaven’s yoke has kind of made Aziraphale more confident and in that just has assumed that this is more shared than Crowley sees it.
FRANCINE 1:13:27
Although he still doesn’t want Crowley driving.
JOANNA 1:13:30
Well, someone needs to keep an eye on Gabriel.
FRANCINE 1:13:31
Yes.
JOANNA 1:13:32
Yeah. It’s interesting. Yeah. Aziraphale being the one to go up rather than sending Crowley. I think he’s more trust Crowley with Gabriel than trust Crowley trying to solve the Gabriel problem. Yeah, there are fewer ways he can go off on a weird tangent.
FRANCINE 1:13:49
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:13:49
If he’s given this task, which I’m sure there are plenty of ways he will go off on a weird tangent. But in theory. We’ll find out in the next episode. But it might just be Aziraphale wants to go and do something
FRANCINE 1:14:01
for himself.
JOANNA 1:14:02
Yeah, he does seem like he has a very cloistered life still. Yeah, he’s still very in his bookshop. And obviously, they’ve both traveled around a fair bit as we’ve seen.
FRANCINE 1:14:13
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:14:14
But yeah, I think having the opportunity to just go off and do something and having a bit of purpose is obviously really important to Aziraphale.
FRANCINE 1:14:20
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:14:21
And it feels like he doesn’t- It’s his clue. He found it. He’s not stupid. I think he knows that Crowley does not think of the Bentley as shared.
FRANCINE 1:14:29
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:14:30
He’s just pretty sure if he establishes, I think of it as shared, and I think you should think of it as shared, that Crowley will probably go along with it.
FRANCINE 1:14:38
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:14:39
And he’s almost like testing his newfound independence and how far he can push that sort of thing.
FRANCINE 1:14:44
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:14:45
I find it really fascinating, like the relationship between the two of them.
FRANCINE 1:14:48
That’s an interesting dynamic.
JOANNA 1:14:51
Something I want to talk about having like watched the Job bit specifically. So we like the opening title sequence in the first season was slightly different in each episode and had different stuff in it. This season, it’s the same for both episodes. And we’d seen the opening title sequence already. It got released on Twitter and stuff like I think at least a month ago, possibly longer. So after watching the second episode and then looking at the title sequence again, I realized that there’s a big chunk of the title sequence that is the Job thing. You see that the goat’s being burned and yeah. So then watching the title sequence in mind that like, hey, this might be like
FRANCINE 1:15:25
episodes of the show.
JOANNA 1:15:27
Some fucked up shit’s gonna happen. I feel like things are gonna get a bit weird. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So anyways, we go to the final season of the episode before I wildly take us off on tangents. And we’re back in 2500 BC and Aziraphale meets Crowley on a beach and Aziraphale thinks he’s got to go to hell and become a demon. Now he thinks he’s fallen because he’s lied and he didn’t follow God’s will. But Crowley’s like, well, I’m not going to tell anyone.
FRANCINE 1:15:51
Yeah, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.
JOANNA 1:15:53
He has to keep this secret forever, which is a huge punishment for him. I think he knows it’s going to be a huge burden.
FRANCINE 1:15:59
But yeah, you know, he thinks it’s so bad that he’s automatically damned forever.
JOANNA 1:16:05
But this is his first taste of not just blindly following God’s will. And it’s huge and it’s really scary for him. Although he did give his sword away. He did give his sword away. But he wasn’t explicitly told not to. There’s no loophole here. You straight up lied.
FRANCINE 1:16:21
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:16:22
And he knows he lied. And this is where Crowley admits to actually being quite lonely and again, brings back that motif. I’m a demon.
FRANCINE 1:16:31
I lie. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:16:33
And in that, there’s Aziraphale learning. I’m always going to feel a little bit lonely because I’m not going to feel like one of them anymore.
FRANCINE 1:16:39
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:16:40
And it’s a few, you know, it’s a good millennia or millennia and a bit until they reach the deal where they become in regular contact.
FRANCINE 1:16:47
And it’s more than a millennia, like three or four. Oh, yeah.
JOANNA 1:16:53
Sorry, we’re in BC, aren’t we?
FRANCINE 1:16:54
Yeah. So it’s Shakespeare, isn’t it? Shakespeare Day. If they make the first deal. Yes. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:17:01
I think it was like the sort of medieval one where they realized that they’re cancelling each other out and could go home and do nothing.
FRANCINE 1:17:07
That’s it.
JOANNA 1:17:07
Yes.
FRANCINE 1:17:08
The knights thing. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:17:09
And then the Shakespeare thing is where they, I think, make slightly more of a deal.
FRANCINE 1:17:13
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:17:14
And that final shot before I go to the credits, the two of them on the rock and one in black, one in white and a space between them. That was gorgeously shot.
FRANCINE 1:17:25
That’s really, really beautiful.
JOANNA 1:17:28
I think we’ve seen so many images of them, like interlocked with each other. And I’m not talking about like the fan art. There’s plenty of fan art of them interlocked with each other. Yeah, my Twitter algorithm went down that far for a little while. Like, no, stop it. I’m not that kind of fan. No shade on those who are. It’s just I’m not a teenager anymore. But imagery like within the show, we see them, you know, we see wings folding over each other and we see them clinking glasses. There’s a sense of togetherness. So seeing them in black and white with that space between them.
FRANCINE 1:18:07
Yes.
JOANNA 1:18:08
Especially in an episode where Aziraphale is literally about to go drive to the other end
FRANCINE 1:18:12
of the landmass. And it’s this black and white against that hugely saturated background as well.
JOANNA 1:18:19
Yeah, the blue sea and the blue sky and the yellow rocks in there.
FRANCINE 1:18:22
Yeah. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:18:24
They’re black and white and in a world of colour.
FRANCINE 1:18:26
And yeah.
Easter Eggs and Favourite Moments
JOANNA 1:18:30
What nice episodes. So we have some bestos. Some little awards for the episode. So favourite quote slash line delivery. When Aziraphale’s on about, come on, you have to come and see the clue. And David Tennant says, don’t pronounce the capital letter.
FRANCINE 1:18:49
That was very Pratchett, I thought. That was a very Pratchetty moment.
JOANNA 1:18:53
I’m going with I long to kill the blameless children of blameless Job and I’m not going to try and do it. But the way David Tennant delivers that line.
FRANCINE 1:19:02
The kind of furious sarcasm. Yeah, definitely.
JOANNA 1:19:07
Really like stop thinking well of me.
FRANCINE 1:19:09
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:19:10
And then immediately undone by the. And highlighting within the sentence how unfair it would be to kill these kids because they’re blameless and Job’s blameless.
FRANCINE 1:19:20
And yeah. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:19:22
I’m an evil demon. Easter eggs. So go with yours. And I’ve got a little list because there’s a ton.
FRANCINE 1:19:30
And yeah, sure. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:19:33
So I went, it was a nice day. It’s one of the first lines of books that Jon Hamm read out. And obviously that is the first one from Good Omens. The other two, we’ve got Jane Austen and Ian Banks. And yeah, obviously just a nice little one there. Rule of three, the last one at the end there. Kind of also giving it the nice overly poetic to thudding. You have the day my grandmother exploded. Little thuddy there. Is a truth universally acknowledged. Oh, lovely and floral. And then it was a nice day.
FRANCINE 1:20:03
Very Pratchett. It was beautiful.
JOANNA 1:20:06
And yeah, it was nice because you see the front page of Good Omens. So it’s very like, if you know, you know, and you can see all the days have been nice so far.
FRANCINE 1:20:12
And yeah.
JOANNA 1:20:13
And the score does a really beautiful little moment. Sort of like Gabriel sort of looks at it and says, oh, that’s better. And shelves it. And the score just does a very nice soft strings moment. That’s almost like the score going, oh, this nice thing we care about.
FRANCINE 1:20:26
Yeah. Yeah.
JOANNA 1:20:29
The day my grandmother exploded is Crow Road by Iain Banks, who is a friend of Neil Gaiman’s, I believe.
FRANCINE 1:20:32
Oh, cool.
JOANNA 1:20:33
And then obviously we get the nice Pride and Prejudice reference from Brandy smuggler extraordinaire Jane Austen.
FRANCINE 1:20:39
Absolutely.
JOANNA 1:20:40
My new favourite criminal. A couple of other Easter eggs I noticed that I really liked in the coffee shop during the scene where Crowley’s ordering the six espressos. There’s a classic version, strings version of Bohemian Rhapsody playing. Oh, cute. Love that. The newspaper that Crowley is reading in St James’s Park has the headline, Is Tadfield the best village in Britain?
FRANCINE 1:21:00
Well, there you go.
JOANNA 1:21:01
As I was saying, I love the little looks at rather than cuts to, do you know what I mean? I want it referenced in Easter eggs, not in how are they now?
FRANCINE 1:21:11
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:21:12
And my favourite moment in the bookshop scene where the angels are visiting Aziraphale and Gabriel is demonstrating the wonderful things you can do with books, such as using them as a fly
FRANCINE 1:21:22
swat.
JOANNA 1:21:23
The book he uses to demonstrate using them as a fan is The Colour of Magic.
FRANCINE 1:21:27
Oh, super. Well done.
JOANNA 1:21:29
So that and the Bible. The two important books. The two most important books. The old Easter egg is still in there. The Pratchett’s hat is still in the bookshop.
FRANCINE 1:21:38
It is.
JOANNA 1:21:40
And new award for this visual medium we are discussing, the Character Does a Little Face Award.
FRANCINE 1:21:46
Oh, yes.
JOANNA 1:21:46
Yours is right at the beginning. So I’m sneaking in an extra award here, but both go to David Tennant as Crowley, first for his look of wonder as the universe starts and then his crestfallen face when Aziraphale tells him it’s getting shut down in 6,000 years.
FRANCINE 1:22:02
David Tennant’s little face. Oh, yes.
JOANNA 1:22:05
For me, I’ve got the when the coffee shop lady mentions the naked man in your bookshop and Crowley’s eyebrow, just one of them, shoots all the way up into his hairline. Kudoman’s giving us what we truly want, which is gayer and with more eyebrows. Exactly. That is the gayest with most eyebrow award of the… Also, surely we’ve got a special mention because you said you were looking forward specifically to Michael Sheen’s poor little face when he’s sad, when he goes, not the children. Yeah, no, he does get a special bonus award for that. I feel like Michael Sheen’s little face doing something sad always gets this award. We just can also give it to some other characters.
FRANCINE 1:22:45
Yeah, yeah.
JOANNA 1:22:46
Or Michael Sheen for other facial expressions.
FRANCINE 1:22:48
Yes.
JOANNA 1:22:49
I better announce Michael Sheen and his little face. Lifetime achievement award to Michael Sheen’s little face. It wouldn’t be an episode of the true show make you fret without helicopter and loincloth watch.
FRANCINE 1:23:03
Go on.
JOANNA 1:23:04
So for helicopters, I am awarding to geese, big angry ducks.
FRANCINE 1:23:08
Oh, sure. That’s good.
JOANNA 1:23:10
And of course, loincloth goes to Gabriel’s fabulous blanket toga. Yes, eventually upgraded to a suit, but I think we’re all sad. I’m not a suit sweater vest type thing. Yeah, we all miss Gabriel’s blanket toga. Yeah, costume wise. I was enjoying the evolving robes of the angelic hordes, by the way. Oh, yeah, the different and the evolving Gabriel hairstyles. Yeah. That was a fun detail.
FRANCINE 1:23:34
I love that they eventually upgraded the suits. Yeah. Did you just say Hevel? I did.
JOANNA 1:23:38
And I was wondering whether to correct myself. Just brought it up for you.
FRANCINE 1:23:43
No, no, it’s good. It’s fine. I’m a good friend. And they’ve got fashion in heaven.
JOANNA 1:23:46
I mean, that is probably not everything we could say about episode one and two of Good Omens. Definitely not. It’s only so many hours in the day that you dear listeners get to listen, have to listen to this.
FRANCINE 1:23:58
Yeah.
JOANNA 1:23:59
And we’ve still got four episodes of the show to talk about. So we are going to be back next week. So on the 7th, to talk about episodes three and four of Good Omens season two. All the wrong windows open. So we won’t be spoiling anything past three and four in case you are watching along with us. Until next week, dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram at the true sham make he fret. Join us on Twitter. I’m not calling it X at make he fret pod. We’re also on blue sky now at make he fret pod. We’re on Facebook at the true sham make he fret. You can join our subreddit community r slash TTSNYF. Join our new discord link will be in the show notes for that as well. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, angels, demons and big angry ducks. The true sham make he fret pod at gmail.com. And if you want to support any of this financially slash help us get therapy, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the true sham make he fret and exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. So much nonsense. Until next time, dear listener. To the world.
FRANCINE 1:25:09
Please feel free to use the video clip of me hitting myself in the head with a giant bible
JOANNA 1:25:13
as the promotional clip for this episode.