123: Good Omens Season 2 Wrap-Up (The Horbs)

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, are taking a break from reading and recapping every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order, and talking about Good Omens season 2! 

This week, A final wrap-up before we head back to the Disc.

Chairs! Delights! Wigs! 

Transcript

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Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi 

Things we blathered on about:

Staged (TV Series 2020–2023) - IMDb 

Michael Sheen and David Tennant acting like each other's characters IRL - YouTube 

The Saga of Dottie and Sadie (compiled in a Twitter thread) 

Good Omens interviews on Terry Pratchett’s legacy and devils on their shoulders - YouTube

That Google Doc - Google Docs

Good Omens Season 2 Easter Egg Guide - Den of Geek  

Good Omens 2 Easter Eggs - YouTube

Mark Twain’s Mind Waves - The Paris Review 

Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Transcript

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.

JOANNA 0:00:00
and they can be wild gesticulating.

FRANCINE 0:00:04
I’ll be watching Staged. I only ever watched the first season of it, and that was during lockdown. And then I got through my I want to watch lockdown content phase and into my I never want to see anything about lockdown again phase. Yeah. And so I missed season two and season three, which I didn’t realize came out really recently. And so I’ve now watched season two. Well, I rewatched season one, watched season two, now watching season three. I forgot what assholes they are, like the characters they’re playing. It caught me off guard because I’ve been watching loads of interviews with them.

JOANNA 0:00:33
And they’re so sweet.

FRANCINE 0:00:34
Yeah, they’re lovely. And absolutely adore each other. Like Michael Sheen staring at David Tennant in adoration as he speaks is very funny because it is very good omen. Except now Michael Sheen is heavily bearded and speaks in a heavy Welsh accent with a deep voice. But yeah, on stage, obviously, the the shtick is that they’re both incredibly cantankerous. And I haven’t watched season three yet.

JOANNA 0:00:57
I think I watched season two when it came out. Yeah, the lockdown content thing is weird, though. Like I was showing my partner Mythic Quest and I hadn’t rewatched it for ages. And we got to the lockdown episode and I just started crying.

FRANCINE 0:01:08
Oh, yeah.

JOANNA 0:01:10
It’s not even one of the good crying episodes in Mythic Quest.

FRANCINE 0:01:14
Oh, it is. Some of it is.

JOANNA 0:01:16
It is a little bit. It’s the bit where Poppy starts crying.

FRANCINE 0:01:18
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that probably did make me cry as well, actually, because I remember it. That’s that’s how I remember things.

JOANNA 0:01:25
I mean, as lockdown content goes, that was a very clever, well-done episode of television.

FRANCINE 0:01:30
Yeah, it was. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:01:32
It just also gave me emotions.

FRANCINE 0:01:35
That’s probably meant to, innit? Yeah, probably what they were going for. Fucking people giving me emotions.

JOANNA 0:01:41
Coming in here, I finally am watching. And just like that, the Sex and the City reboot.

FRANCINE 0:01:47
Oh, how’s that?

JOANNA 0:01:50
Well, I’ve seen so many clips from it on TikTok and people bitching about it that I thought I should watch it for myself. So I know it’s coming to the end of the second season.

FRANCINE 0:01:56
I’m still on the first.

JOANNA 0:01:57
It is the criticisms are valid, I would say.

FRANCINE 0:02:01
Yeah, it is.

JOANNA 0:02:02
In trying to be progressive, it comes off as very

FRANCINE 0:02:06
how you doing, fellow kids? Eee. Also, my favourite one isn’t in it.

JOANNA 0:02:12
Yeah, same.

FRANCINE 0:02:14
Do you remember when? Samantha, the first woman I saw topless on the television.

JOANNA 0:02:18
Oh, that’s nice.

FRANCINE 0:02:20
I remember very clearly being far too young to be watching her riding a man in fairly explicit detail. Yeah, she’s topless. If she’s not, I’ve imagined she was.

JOANNA 0:02:30
I’m pretty sure that’s probably the first topless woman I saw on television as well.

FRANCINE 0:02:33
Yeah, I mean, it’s a good start. Yeah, it’s fine. But yeah, I did really like Sex and the City when I was a child, I guess, and young teenager. But it’s in the same way that Friends is difficult to revisit. I feel like that’s going to be times ten. So I just never have.

JOANNA 0:02:50
I actually didn’t watch like all of it when I was sort of child slash young teenager and it was on because my mother eventually realised it was inappropriate and to maybe not leave me alone with the DVDs. But I watched all of it as like an adult, like, I don’t know, five or six years ago, I was like, oh, this is a huge cultural phenomenon.

FRANCINE 0:03:08
I should get around to it.

JOANNA 0:03:10
And it does hold up like it’s of its time. It’s very of its time. Some of the politics are really weird, especially around things like bisexuality. But for all that, like it is an entertaining watch. It doesn’t suck as a show.

FRANCINE 0:03:24
That’s cool.

JOANNA 0:03:25
Do you remember the whole thing of like everyone had to sort of everyone would say if they were a Samantha or a Carrie or a Charlotte or a Miranda?

FRANCINE 0:03:33
Yeah. Yeah, that was a thing. I remember where I came down on that. Probably nowhere because I didn’t really have that kind of friend group at the time. But I certainly remember it being in Miz and Cosmo or whatever.

JOANNA 0:03:44
Yeah, I think I’d probably say I’m a Samantha based on now.

FRANCINE 0:03:48
Yeah. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:03:49
Yeah, I probably wasn’t saying that when I was 12 years old.

FRANCINE 0:03:53
I don’t think I can remember the difference between Charlotte and Miranda.

JOANNA 0:03:57
Miranda was the ginger one who’s a lawyer and who’s played by Cynthia Nixon,

FRANCINE 0:04:01
who’s a very well known out queer actress.

JOANNA 0:04:05
And Charlotte’s the like longer haired brunette one who’s a bit prissy.

FRANCINE 0:04:09
Yeah. But like personalities. Oh, I think that was it. Lawyer and prissy.

JOANNA 0:04:14
Wow. The two genders.

FRANCINE 0:04:15
You fucking feminist.

JOANNA 0:04:18
I’m trying to think if there’s any other news. Yeah. Board game tablecloth magnets don’t work. So I’ve decided to disavow all magnets ever.

FRANCINE 0:04:27
Fridge? Devoid of magnets?

JOANNA 0:04:30
No, I have like a big magnetic weekly schedule thing on my fridge.

FRANCINE 0:04:34
I never write on it. That’s issuing it. It’s fine. Yeah. In fact, that’s worse because you’re letting it know it should have a purpose and it doesn’t. That’s fine.

JOANNA 0:04:41
We’re talking absolute bollocks.

FRANCINE 0:04:42
So we absolutely are.

JOANNA 0:04:44
Do you want to make a podcast?

FRANCINE 0:04:45
Yeah, let’s make a podcast.

Intro and Big Thoughts

JOANNA 0:04:51
Hello and welcome to The True Shall Make You Fret, a podcast in which we’re usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. But we’ve taken a break from that to talk about Good Omens Season Two. I’m Joanna Hagan.

FRANCINE 0:05:01
And I’m Francine Carrel. And what a break it has been. What a break. An emotional break as well as a physical one. Quite literally emotionally broken.

JOANNA 0:05:09
Now, this is our last episode for now on Good Omens Season Two. It’s our big wrap up episode before we go back to the disc. So notes on spoilers before we crack on. This episode will contain spoilers for all of Good Omens Season Two, as well as the book Good Omens and Season One of Good Omens. However, while we are usually a Discworld podcast, we will avoid spoiling any major events in the Discworld series. And of course, we’re saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd’s Crown, until we get there. So if you’re new to the Discworld, you can safely come on the journey with us.

FRANCINE 0:05:42
Driving carefully in a yellow Bentley belonging to your beloved. Oh, I’m sorry.

JOANNA 0:05:48
So I start with the big thoughts.

FRANCINE 0:05:51
All right.

JOANNA 0:05:51
What do you think of Season Two of Good Omens?

FRANCINE 0:05:54
Well, Joanna, what do I think of Season Two of Good Omens? I enjoyed it, I think. I think I overall enjoyed it very much. I don’t know what to say overall. That’s that’s quite a big one to start with, isn’t it?

JOANNA 0:06:07
That is a big one to start with.

FRANCINE 0:06:09
I thought we’d go big and then shimmy down.

JOANNA 0:06:11
How do you feel it kind of compares to Season One of Good Omens?

FRANCINE 0:06:15
Very different. Yeah, just a very, very different way of telling the story. I think I still think Season One was better paced. Yeah, I agree. That is that was just the side effect of having, you know, a very tight, well-written book as the framework, as opposed to this where Neil Gaiman had all the time he needed to take to get us to, you know, it’s a bridge. And it was an enjoyable bridge to meander across.

JOANNA 0:06:45
I feel like this is a very distinct beast from the first series,

FRANCINE 0:06:50
and I think, like, fingers crossed we get a Season Three.

JOANNA 0:06:53
Looking back on it, it’ll be like Season One and then Season Two and Three, and they’ll be in a box, in two boxes, but very close to each other.

FRANCINE 0:07:01
I should think. And I’m imagining, and I know we’ll go over this later, I’m imagining Season Three to be a bit more like Season One. And it’s… In its pacing and build up.

JOANNA 0:07:12
I think it’s going to have a big thing it’s building towards,

FRANCINE 0:07:15
which I think will affect the pacing thing.

JOANNA 0:07:18
I think the pacing for this, like just thinking about this as a unique series of television, although it’s weirdly paced, I think that’s because it relies on having a very deep investment in the central couple

FRANCINE 0:07:30
to build towards the outcome. Yeah. And again, the only thing that bothered me about the pacing really was as I was watching it the first time going, well, we’re nowhere.

JOANNA 0:07:42
Yeah, I want to get to somewhere. I feel like a lot of the pacing issues would have been fixed if it had been a weekly drop rather than a binge drop. I think spacing it out into those six weekly chunks would have actually helped it.

FRANCINE 0:07:54
I mean, maybe, but we didn’t watch it all in one go.

JOANNA 0:07:57
No, but we did what we did, like blocks of one and two and three and four, and we were watching it kind of weird. I don’t know about how you watch it for doing the podcast, but I was like watching two episodes and then watching them again. And taking notes on them. And then pretty much since we were done recording, I was watching two episodes and then waiting for a few days. So I was sitting a lot with individual episodes. I think if it was more evenly paced out across six weeks, I would have felt differently about it.

FRANCINE 0:08:24
Yeah. I also think it’s possibly unfair for us to judge the pacing on that particular pattern of watching, though. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As a unique series of television, I think I agree. If you weren’t invested already, it would be a very odd thing to watch. Oh, yeah. But the fact is that Crowley and Aziraphale, or honestly, more specifically, Sheen and Tenant, are such engaging, incredible characters to watch that I would have watched them in fucking anything. It was fantastic. I love the detail and the aesthetic and the weird little… I loved all the flashbacks and that shit. And any shortcomings I saw elsewhere was mainly just because it was put next to Sheen and Tenant, who I do think are absolutely stupendous actors.

JOANNA 0:09:12
Yeah, that’s absolutely fair. I mean, it did feel immediately like we were back in the world of Good Omens season one. It didn’t feel that distinctly different. You know, the music was there, they were there. The beautiful look of the whole thing was there.

FRANCINE 0:09:23
Which is interesting because it was very different the way they filmed it, wasn’t it? Because they built this whole bit of Soho in Edinburgh, whereas beforehand they’d been freezing their tits off somewhere. I can’t remember where, but certainly not…

JOANNA 0:09:33
They filmed a lot in South Africa for the first season.

FRANCINE 0:09:37
Yeah, obviously not the location I meant. They were freezing their tits off in… But no, I know what you mean.

JOANNA 0:09:42
There were some more locations that shoot. There was things like issues with getting into the Globe to do a location shoot was a big thing. They had burned down a whole bookshop that they then had to rebuild, I guess.

FRANCINE 0:09:53
Yeah, yeah. If you are going to burn your bookshops, as they say.

JOANNA 0:09:57
Don’t burn your bookshops before they’re hatched.

FRANCINE 0:09:59
Yep. Don’t put all your sets in one bonfire. Right, this analogy is going to destroy us. And the bookshop we’re in.

JOANNA 0:10:10
So we got a bit unhinged as we were talking through the series.

FRANCINE 0:10:16
We did, but I think that’s fine. I think on the scale of stuff I’ve read on the internet, we weren’t too bad. No, I think we were doing okay.

Predictions and Payoffs

JOANNA 0:10:27
So let’s start with stuff that we kind of got right and things that, you know, did come together in the end. So the fly.

FRANCINE 0:10:35
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:10:36
We spotted the fly. We thought it was an important fly. According to Neil Gaiman, all flies were CGI, even Rodney the stunt fly.

FRANCINE 0:10:43
Good to know. No flies eaten or drilled into an angel’s eye in the making of this series.

JOANNA 0:10:49
But good effort from Rodney anyway.

FRANCINE 0:10:51
Well done, Rodney.

JOANNA 0:10:52
So it was relevant.

FRANCINE 0:10:54
It was relevant.

JOANNA 0:10:56
Possibly not quite in the way I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a Beelzebub spying on things situation.

FRANCINE 0:11:02
Well, I think one of my wild tangents was that there was going to be memory in the flies. So I’m feeling pretty fucking happy about that.

JOANNA 0:11:10
Yeah, you should be proud of that.

FRANCINE 0:11:11
However, I didn’t notice the fly until you pointed it out. So.

JOANNA 0:11:15
I’m a 50-50 win. Also, if you’d asked me to predict which heavenly person Beelzebub was having a secret affair with, I would have gone with Michael.

FRANCINE 0:11:25
You reckon? Well, I mean. Michael’s so uptight. Oh, I get it. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:11:30
Yeah, we saw Michael going through back channels in season one. So it’s not like Michael hadn’t interacted with hell before.

FRANCINE 0:11:39
What’s Michael’s motivation all about, actually? This is not the tangent we need to be on right now. But Michael is power hungry. Yeah, that’s it.

JOANNA 0:11:47
If you look at the very upstart, well, I’m looking after things for the Archangel. Well, the acting Archangel.

FRANCINE 0:11:54
Yeah, Michael’s middle management, well, upper middle management that found themselves in charge. And then a bit fucking weird with it.

JOANNA 0:12:01
Yeah, there’s a hint of Dwight Schrute about it.

FRANCINE 0:12:04
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s it.

JOANNA 0:12:08
But God, imagine the Michael Beelzebub power couple vibes. I’m sure there’s a fanfic.

FRANCINE 0:12:14
I’m sure there is. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Wow, that’s something I haven’t even looked at yet. Looking at the fanfics.

JOANNA 0:12:21
I haven’t because there’s just there’s a rabbit hole that I don’t have time for. And as I’ll get to later, I read a 36-page Google Doc today. Sorry, spoilers for the letter of the episode. And I guess Beelzebub’s existential crisis kind of paid off as well.

FRANCINE 0:12:37
Tell me. Oh, yes, yes.

JOANNA 0:12:38
Episode three.

FRANCINE 0:12:39
Yes.

JOANNA 0:12:40
I want to be told I’m doing a good job. I feel like that was a hint of Beelzebub softening after their time with Gabriel.

FRANCINE 0:12:46
Yeah, because we were a bit conflicted about what that meant, weren’t we? Yeah. So I felt like… If they were still committed. I think you were saying that you weren’t sure if they were committed or whatever to the cause anymore. So yeah, I guess not.

JOANNA 0:12:58
There we go. So institutional problems.

FRANCINE 0:13:02
Institutional problems. I think we were not sure what the fuck Gabriel was on about with his very quick snippet. And turns out that the yes, it was. If it happened again, it would be seen as an institutional problem because they keep fucking losing and wiping the memories of high angels. Yep. Because that does seem like an institutional problem for me, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, they’ve gone straight from like the head archangel to, yeah, we’re going to put him on earth and wipe his memory after one bickering incident.

JOANNA 0:13:35
I wasn’t even on earth. He was just going to be a really low level clerk. That reminds me, someone on our Patreon, I think it was Steve, but I can’t remember off the top of my head, or Steven, pointed out that Muriel is a clerk angel.

FRANCINE 0:13:48
She sounds like archangel. Ah, fuck. Yeah. All right. Love that.

JOANNA 0:13:55
So Aziraphale and Crowley, and what we were sort of thinking about them and that paying off.

FRANCINE 0:13:59
I have a couple thoughts. Please.

JOANNA 0:14:01
So right in the first episode, and when we were talking about it, I pointed out that you have this little interaction where Crowley talks about the life I’ve carved out for myself and Aziraphale says the life we’ve carved out for ourselves. And I feel like that’s a bit of an inciting incident.

FRANCINE 0:14:16
Okay, tell me.

JOANNA 0:14:18
Just in the, you know, Aziraphale’s the one that’s been thinking they’re an us already, and they don’t need to say it, and then realizes Crowley might not be thinking that way. And that might contribute to the poor communication that runs through the series

FRANCINE 0:14:31
and inevitably leads to sort of them walking out on each other. Yeah, I had some more thoughts about that kind of mismatch of commitment, actually. And I think it makes more sense the more I think about it, because, well, the more I think about the fact that Aziraphale still had that connection to heaven in his head. Because Aziraphale could maybe more afford to put his eggs in that basket with Crowley, because he had a couple eggs in the heaven basket still. Yeah. Whereas Crowley, if he put everything into this relationship, was, I mean, that was everything. Yeah, he didn’t have- If he didn’t maintain his independence, then once he lost to Aziraphale, that would have been absolutely fucked. And, you know, it kind of looks like it is.

JOANNA 0:15:18
Yeah, I mean, he does not really- I know Beelzebub offers a return to hell, but I don’t think it was a sincere offer.

FRANCINE 0:15:25
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:15:25
Especially it comes along with the threat.

FRANCINE 0:15:27
He killed another demon.

JOANNA 0:15:29
Like, I don’t think he’s- Even if after he got away with the holy water thing, I don’t think he’s encouraged to go back. He doesn’t have any eggs in the hell basket.

FRANCINE 0:15:36
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:15:36
And I don’t think he would want to have any eggs in the hell basket.

FRANCINE 0:15:39
Eggs in the hell basket.

JOANNA 0:15:40
Hell in a hand basket.

FRANCINE 0:15:41
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:15:43
I also thought it was interesting that a big part of the Job story is Crowley’s I’m a demon, I lie, considering the culmination of the whole series is Crowley’s, like, naked honesty.

FRANCINE 0:15:54
Yes.

JOANNA 0:15:56
Which I guess shows how far he’s come from just demon.

FRANCINE 0:16:01
Yeah. It’s- There’s character growth. I’m not sure if he ever really was just demon is the thing. That, honestly, the more I think about all of the things- The more I think back on it and come up with new headcanons and theories or whatever, the more I kind of focus on them as individuals rather than as a couple. Yeah. Like, Crowley’s- Like, fucking the trauma he must have gone through- Yeah. To go through that, from that sweet, the sweet being you see right at the beginning, to asking a question and being cast into hell. If you think about how those first few centuries must have been.

JOANNA 0:16:40
Yeah, absolutely.

FRANCINE 0:16:42
And that’s such, such trauma and Aziraphale never really quite seems to grasp that.

JOANNA 0:16:47
No, Aziraphale’s equivalent trauma is what happens with Job and all that really happens is he has to be sat on a beach for a minute.

FRANCINE 0:16:54
Yeah. Which, you know, none of us like to be sat on a beach for a minute, but he was sitting right next to David Tennant, so. Yeah, and it’s- I’ve never been traumatized by being sat on a beach. Yet. Give me time. Rose Tyler, sat on a beach next to David Tennant. Right? Never be on a beach with David Tennant. Well, that ruins my bank holiday plans.

JOANNA 0:17:15
Had a lovely little trip to the sea- I didn’t.

FRANCINE 0:17:17
Oh, sorry.

JOANNA 0:17:19
Oh, one last thing on Crowley and Aziraphale as well. This is directly from my notes on episode five, specifically talking about the Crowley and Jim conversation.

FRANCINE 0:17:27
Oh, yeah.

JOANNA 0:17:28
For Aziraphale, the side he’s on is right. They just go about things the wrong way. To Crowley, they’re all as bad as each other and he wants no part in it. The whole system is flawed. Aziraphale refuses to see that, applying his version of nice slash good to Crowley. And I’m not saying I’m really good at seeing where this was going to go. I just think the show set up incredibly well what that problem was between Aziraphale and Crowley before we got to episode six.

FRANCINE 0:17:51
I absolutely.

JOANNA 0:17:52
I thought that was a- looking back at my notes, the writing is now- this seems absolutely stunning to me in places.

FRANCINE 0:17:59
I mean, just the fact that Aziraphale was willing to shelter Gabriel like that. Yeah. I feel, yeah. Like, why didn’t- And Crowley was so fucking like, what the fuck are you doing? Right away.

JOANNA 0:18:10
It didn’t occur to Aziraphale to worry about Crowley’s feelings in that.

FRANCINE 0:18:14
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like, it’s funny when he found out, like, Crowley go, what? Gabriel? kind of thing. And then, but you’re like, yeah, I mean, fuck. You just got- Your nightmares just appeared in Natoga. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:18:28
I’m just a giant tarantula in Natoga. Still terrifying to me.

FRANCINE 0:18:32
How does- now, I’m not going to make you think about that. Thank you.

JOANNA 0:18:36
Are you trying to work out whether it wrapped, like, a little bit around each leg? Yeah, no, me too. I’m trying not to picture it.

FRANCINE 0:18:42
How does the horse wear trousers? Why is it wrapped in, like, a writing desk? How do you put a tarantula in a zygote?

JOANNA 0:18:49
Anyway, so Nina and Maggie-

FRANCINE 0:18:51
Yeah, them. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:18:53
Obviously, I said, especially in the early episodes, it wasn’t working for me. I think it proved really well done and relevant at the end, though.

FRANCINE 0:19:03
I think so. I stick by- they did not seem as believable, but that is genuinely possibly because they were put next to the couple we most believe in.

JOANNA 0:19:15
And I think because the idea of them was so much that they seemed so story-like for the thunk at the end to be, hey, we’re not a story. Yeah. I think that really worked for me because the audience starts buying into them as a story before it buys into them as people as well. I felt that was part of why they were written so-

FRANCINE 0:19:32
Yeah, and why they were put as the focus of that weird- Yeah. Red herring, almost. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:19:41
Especially after Nina’s line in episode five of other people’s love lives are more interesting than our own, like the show was telling us.

FRANCINE 0:19:48
Very much, yes.

JOANNA 0:19:49
That their love life was a red herring.

FRANCINE 0:19:51
My love life is a red herring. That sounds like an exit. A sad memoir.

JOANNA 0:19:55
That sounds like the opening to like a very wanky spoken word piece that I want to write now. Doesn’t it? Yeah. Not related to Nina and Maggie, but something I forgot to put in the notes is that we didn’t get any more car queen.

FRANCINE 0:20:06
No, we didn’t. No, I was expecting to. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:20:10
We didn’t get any more Crowley driving until right at the end, which is when we get the sad angels thing playing instead.

FRANCINE 0:20:18
Yeah, I think I would have stuck with queen, but I understand why not, I guess. It was poignant in the moment.

JOANNA 0:20:23
It was poignant in the moment.

FRANCINE 0:20:25
Oh, right at the end. Right at the end. Absolutely. But I would have liked to see which queen songs Aziraphale provoke the car into.

JOANNA 0:20:32
Right. So things that we were completely off the wall about.

FRANCINE 0:20:36
Yeah. Many. Yeah, a lot.

JOANNA 0:20:39
I’m not going to list all of them. So Nina and Maggie secretly being angels or demons, we considered.

FRANCINE 0:20:46
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:20:48
I think in a particularly fevered moment.

FRANCINE 0:20:51
But I think. Well, we were very much in the mood that Aziraphale was doing some kind of fairy glamour and it wasn’t working on them. Yeah. And therefore. No, I get that. I still believe that they showed unrealistic resistance to his angelic charms, but fine.

JOANNA 0:21:13
It was a valid theory that was completely wrong.

FRANCINE 0:21:18
That’s very generous of us to ourselves.

JOANNA 0:21:21
Unless proved otherwise in season three.

FRANCINE 0:21:25
No, yeah, no. I think we were just hoping for a cool extra twist there, weren’t we? Yeah.

JOANNA 0:21:31
Gabriel lying.

FRANCINE 0:21:32
Yeah. I convinced myself that Gabriel could not be that fucking I’m about to walk out the window weird. Turns out, yeah, Gabriel heads empty no thoughts is just fully pliable.

JOANNA 0:21:45
And probably one of my favourite bits of the season.

FRANCINE 0:21:48
No one got hell fired or holy watered.

JOANNA 0:21:51
Yeah, that was just a random thought I had somewhere near the end of an episode,

FRANCINE 0:21:54
which I thought would be quite cool if one of them, if it looked like the end of the last season, except this time it really was Aziraphale getting hell fired or Crowley getting holy watered. But it didn’t hurt because it turns out there’s so much not like they were something, something, something which did not happen. And there’s no more. There’s no way I can spin that. There’s no way I can spin that.

JOANNA 0:22:19
Could happen in the next season.

FRANCINE 0:22:21
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:22:22
Crowley’s whole accent going posher towards the end of episode five, again, didn’t really,

FRANCINE 0:22:28
didn’t really pay off.

JOANNA 0:22:29
He does go to heaven, but he kind of goes back to not super posh once he’s in heaven.

FRANCINE 0:22:34
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:22:35
I think Aziraphale’s head being so buried in the sand about Gabriel I was theorising because he had some innate belief that Gabriel must be right. And I don’t think that really paid off. I think Aziraphale’s head was in the sand because Aziraphale’s head was in the sand.

FRANCINE 0:22:50
Yeah. Aziraphale’s just super good at burying his own head. Yeah. Turns out. Real good at that. Lovely hair this season though. Oh yes. Very tufty as I think someone in the Discord just put it. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:23:01
They said it was like little bits of feathers.

FRANCINE 0:23:04
It is, yes.

JOANNA 0:23:05
I thought this idea of kind of fairy food rules and being tied to humanity by eating was, maybe had more weight to it after I figured out that it related to fairy food rules than it did.

FRANCINE 0:23:18
No, disagree. I still think it was very relevant the whole time. Okay, cool. Maybe not exactly the fairy food rules, but let’s not pretend Neil Gaiman isn’t constantly aware of and vigilant about being tricked by the Fey folk. Even if it wasn’t deliberate, there’s no way that kind of constant thinking about the realm behind the veil does not seep into his work. Yeah, absolutely. I know. I think there was absolutely that kind of people or otherworldly beings being tied to various realms by the things they consume, even if it wasn’t as explicitly stated at the end.

JOANNA 0:23:55
And yeah, so Chekhov’s accoutrements, we had a few. I referred to the miracle blocker as…

FRANCINE 0:24:01
Sorry, for some reason my head immediately started trying to scan that into the I did it my way. Chekhov’s accoutrements, we had a few, but then again…

JOANNA 0:24:10
The miracle blocker, I think I called Chekhov’s stamp card during that episode,

FRANCINE 0:24:15
and it didn’t come back. It didn’t, no.

JOANNA 0:24:17
The zombies I thought would possibly come back.

FRANCINE 0:24:20
They didn’t.

JOANNA 0:24:20
Chekhov’s zombies.

FRANCINE 0:24:21
Oh yeah, we didn’t see them again at all. I agreed with you on that one.

JOANNA 0:24:24
The literal gun, the derringer in a hollowed out book kept in the bookshop.

FRANCINE 0:24:28
Fucking hell, yeah. Chekhov’s gun remains in the book.

JOANNA 0:24:31
And yeah, I spent ages getting really corkboard and string about the very mild anachronisms in the magician flashback and fucking nothing.

FRANCINE 0:24:42
I know. When I was editing it, I felt a little bad about how dismissive I’d been, but I stuck by it. No, you were totally fair. I had nothing there.

JOANNA 0:24:54
Because again, I’d read some episode descriptions, and I think I was aware that there was a magic shop in the next episode. So I was like, oh, I wonder if the magician’s going to pop up again, and he’s still working at the magic shop all these years later, and Aziraphale’s just not clocked it because he doesn’t care enough. And yeah, no.

FRANCINE 0:25:11
I can’t remember if you mentioned it on the podcast or whether you sent me a thing, but the fact that the amazing Mr. Fell wood of a poster had carried on to the…

JOANNA 0:25:20
Had ended up in the magic shop.

FRANCINE 0:25:21
To the modern day magic shop. I don’t think I said that on the podcast. Yeah, that was cool. That was gorgeous. But yeah, I mean, I think I had a similar attachment to the idea that they were focusing on the wrong things for some reason, other than just purely trying to self divert. Yeah. I was going full, no, surely, surely not. This is fucking mental. They are clever enough not to be focusing on the fucking dance when there’s a literal horde of demon, well, smallish horde, a hordette in the country, but in Soho, outside the window. I’m going back down that path again. I can see it. Right. Let’s go.

JOANNA 0:25:58
Quick listener thoughts as well. And we’ll talk about some listener theories and things a bit later on as well. Tanya sent us a really long message and then in the discord, apologized for sending it to us, which never, never apologized for that.

FRANCINE 0:26:10
We love a long unhinged message. It depends on the content, actually. Well, yeah. As of yet, our listeners have all been fine.

JOANNA 0:26:17
Anyway, I won’t read the whole point out, but there are a lot of nice thoughts in it. Terry Pratchett specifically writes comfortable, much married couples really well. Sam and Sybil, especially in The Fifth Elephant is a really good example. They’re not demonstrative, just really solid.

FRANCINE 0:26:32
Yes.

JOANNA 0:26:32
And there’s lots of bits of that in Get Home in Season Two. I think the one she pointed out that I love is Aziraphale and Crowley kind of sharing the chair while they’re talking to Muriel.

FRANCINE 0:26:40
Oh, that was fucking fantastic. I loved that scene.

JOANNA 0:26:44
Yeah, especially when you throw in the whole, why is it bisexuals can’t sit in chairs properly when Crowley’s sort of half leaning across the whole thing.

FRANCINE 0:26:52
Yeah. And yet he’s the only person who is sitting in a chair properly, if you think about it. Who else uses a chair to that potential? True. We’re all wasting chairs. Having seen that, I now realize, and I try and sprawl my limbs in as many directions as possible. I do it now. And I think I’m better for it.

JOANNA 0:27:12
As a bisexual, I do it naturally, unless I’ve become a pretzel, which sometimes also happens.

FRANCINE 0:27:19
Sorry, I’ve immediately taken a self-fire again. This is going well.

JOANNA 0:27:22
No, that’s fine. 10 years ago, I found out there’s this ongoing theme, especially looking back at the book and Good Omens Season One as well, of humans being like messed around by the celestial beings until

FRANCINE 0:27:31
they’re not happy about it.

JOANNA 0:27:32
So you have Aziraphale’s ball and how he’s tweaking how everyone’s thinking, and he’s doing it very blatantly. But if you look at Adam and Tadfield, it’s just a much less thattle version of it. And it’s Adam who eventually says, you know, let’s all stop mucking about.

FRANCINE 0:27:47
Yes. And I mean, Adam’s eventual rant at the end of something like that, isn’t it? Yeah.

JOANNA 0:27:53
Stop mucking about and let us get on with things. You’re all being silly. Stop trying to prove.

FRANCINE 0:27:59
I haven’t really thought about the parallel between what Aziraphale’s doing in the bookshop and what Helen and Hale are both doing. Yes, what Adam’s doing in Tadfield and then what they’re trying to do to his version of the book. Gosh, yes. It all gets a bit meta, doesn’t it?

JOANNA 0:28:11
It does a little bit. Thoughts on the kiss as well. The way Aziraphale’s hand kind of comes in like he almost wants to reciprocate, but he’s

FRANCINE 0:28:18
unable to. Yeah, I’m adding an asterisk to my previous he’s furious rant, which is he’s furious and he’s just fucking swallowing the yearning. Yeah, absolutely. Which does make one furious having to swallow yearning. It gives you terrible heartburn. It does.

JOANNA 0:28:39
I’ve heard that. And Tony pointed out that some of the desperation in those final moments comes from this complacency because they’ve had 6,000 years and they kind of assume they could just keep tooling on like that forever and suddenly they really fucking can’t and they’re faced

FRANCINE 0:28:51
with it. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:28:52
So I love that as an idea. Also, quickly, Molly on Twitter pointed out that Maggy standing up to the demons felt very Magrat versus the Queen of the Elves.

FRANCINE 0:29:00
Oh, it did a bit, didn’t it?

JOANNA 0:29:02
And I like Maggy a lot more thinking of her as just a little bit Magrat flavoured.

FRANCINE 0:29:06
She is a bit Magrat flavoured. Yeah. Her hair’s too nice, but apart from that, spot on.

JOANNA 0:29:12
I can imagine her trying to put flowers in and not quite working though.

FRANCINE 0:29:16
Yes, definitely. And I can imagine Magrat trying to run a record shop and somehow failing in Soho. Yeah. There we go. This would be the perfect place for it.

Series Awards

JOANNA 0:29:29
Before we start looking ahead and looking at some fun theories about what might be to come, let’s do some series awards.

FRANCINE 0:29:39
Series awards, series superlatives.

JOANNA 0:29:42
Series, whatever you want to call it.

FRANCINE 0:29:44
But what kind of award are we giving out? What does our golden statue look like?

JOANNA 0:29:48
A mysterious orb. I like a mysterious orb.

FRANCINE 0:29:51
Yeah, okay, cool. So it’s hovering.

JOANNA 0:29:53
Yeah, a hovering orb.

FRANCINE 0:29:54
Perfect. Love that.

JOANNA 0:29:55
So the hovering orb awards. First award is…

FRANCINE 0:30:01
Horb.

JOANNA 0:30:04
Horb. Sorry, the Horbs.

FRANCINE 0:30:06
I’m very sorry. The first one is for…

JOANNA 0:30:09
Best line read of the series.

FRANCINE 0:30:11
That fucking wasn’t mine. You go first. I’m going with episode six, obviously. And specifically the bit where Crowley’s voice cracks during the us conversation.

JOANNA 0:30:26
And he says, I would like to spend… Throat noise.

FRANCINE 0:30:29
Sorry, I just thought I’d bring the mood down. Yeah. Right there. How about you? I’ve got two because I’m cheating. I didn’t have time to write you a shorter letter type thing. First of all, a very short one is when Furfur is refusing or failing to pronounce Aziraphale’s name properly. And Aziraphale looks actually stern for the first time ever and has a little moustache drawn on. It’s good. Aziraphale. Perfect. And that has appeared in episode seven. Perfect. And that has appeared in all of the Aziraphale thirst trap TikTok edits, which I found so funny because of the little moustache. I’m like, guys, take a step back. And then a more serious one is that episode three, I think the Job one with David Tennant. But just to be able to ask the question. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:31:22
Yeah.

FRANCINE 0:31:22
Again with the trauma. That was good.

JOANNA 0:31:25
But that was episode two.

FRANCINE 0:31:26
That was episode two. You’re quite right. Yes. Three was resurrectionist. Yes. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:31:31
The award, the Horb for best little face. Are you giving yours to?

FRANCINE 0:31:36
Mine goes to Aziraphale as he does a journalism. Hat tip, knowing head wiggle. I am following clues. Perfect.

JOANNA 0:31:46
Absolutely perfect.

FRANCINE 0:31:47
And yours? Mine.

JOANNA 0:31:49
I’ve already said this in an episode, but it is Crowley watching the universe start up.

FRANCINE 0:31:53
Oh, such a gleeful little being. I thought as I was rewatching that bit, it occurred to me that David Tennant has very similar talent to Hugh Laurie and what he does with his face. Which is that when they’re looking harmless, cheerful, whatever, they tuck their chin in a way that they definitely do not when they’re going edgy, sexy character, where they’re very jutting. And I think that’s what makes quite a lot of the difference between how he just completely changes his face between Angel Crowley and Demon Crowley. Interesting. But he doesn’t do that when he’s Doctor Who or anything, but just the real, that look of absolute wonder as he does that. And I think he’s very innocent and very cool. And also a tiny bit trivia there. One of the interviews I was watching, they were talking about as they were doing that floaty up and down bit, they were strapped onto these gurneys going up and down, which made it very awkward and weird.

JOANNA 0:32:47
This is The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, the only Good Omens podcast where you will hear

FRANCINE 0:32:49
deep analysis.

JOANNA 0:32:51
Deep analysis of David Tennant’s chin.

FRANCINE 0:32:53
And gurneys. And gurneys. Okay. But you know what I mean? With the Hugh Laurie thing specifically. Yeah, I know. I 100% am not mocking your point at all.

JOANNA 0:33:02
Mocking both of us.

FRANCINE 0:33:04
You watch him as Bertie Wooster and you can’t believe he is quite as attractive as he is in other things.

JOANNA 0:33:10
Look at him in Blackadder playing the Prince Regent.

FRANCINE 0:33:13
That’s a better example, actually, because he is sometimes a bit attractive as Bertie Wooster.

JOANNA 0:33:17
I was going to say, I have fancied Bertie Wooster before.

FRANCINE 0:33:21
Right.

JOANNA 0:33:21
Favourite Easter egg in the series?

FRANCINE 0:33:24
I couldn’t really think of one that we hadn’t already done, but as like my absolute favourite. But I found one that somebody else had put that I didn’t notice. When Gabriel and Beelzebub are in the pub, The Resurrectionists, the TV is playing the film The Spirit of St. Louis, which is about Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic. In the movie, he was saved when he was woken up by a fly. Oh.

JOANNA 0:33:49
That’s a fucking detail.

FRANCINE 0:33:51
I found that in a fucking Radio Times article, something like that. I’ll link to it.

JOANNA 0:33:54
Excellent.

FRANCINE 0:33:55
How about you?

JOANNA 0:33:56
As a snooker snooker coupling, the seamstress conversation wins for me because I’m a big

FRANCINE 0:34:02
fan of Rosie Palm and the Seamstress’s Guild. And her five lovely daughters.

JOANNA 0:34:06
And her five lovely daughters. She’s a successful businesswoman and knows how to slogan a revolution.

FRANCINE 0:34:12
What was that fucking thing you sent me? Remind me again.

JOANNA 0:34:15
Oh, Dottie and Sadie.

FRANCINE 0:34:16
Yes, yes, yes.

JOANNA 0:34:17
Sorry. Totally not relevant to the to the horbs. Neil Gaiman has been getting around answering questions about what’s going to happen in Good Omens on Tumblr by just making up absolute bollocks involving Aziraphale and Crowley being married to Dottie and Sadie. And they all have jobs in a variety of factories. When he’s doing bollocks, he loves a factory. I’ll link in the show notes to someone on Twitter’s like very handily put all these Tumblr posts into a thread.

FRANCINE 0:34:42
But Dottie and Sadie are the agony aunts in… Yes. Yes. Yeah, that is. So that’s a related Easter egg. Excellent. Ish.

JOANNA 0:34:52
There’s also an Easter egg we kind of missed because they didn’t get a good shot of it, which is that there is a painting of Terry Bratchett, like a historical looking one in the Dirty Donkey pub.

FRANCINE 0:35:02
Is that so?

JOANNA 0:35:03
And if you look for it, you can see it in the background. Very blurry.

FRANCINE 0:35:07
You can see that the hat that is part of the painting. He’s in the hat, obviously.

JOANNA 0:35:13
And if you look in the behind the scenes stuff somewhere, they’ve got a proper image of it. But yeah, Douglas MacKinnon kind of forgot to get a proper shot.

FRANCINE 0:35:19
Oops.

JOANNA 0:35:21
Best outfit Horb, goes to…

FRANCINE 0:35:24
I think you’d better start us with that one.

JOANNA 0:35:26
Oh, it’s Jim’s suit and coat in episode five.

FRANCINE 0:35:29
Nice.

JOANNA 0:35:31
You can’t beat it.

FRANCINE 0:35:32
That is a coat. Gosh. I’ve gone a little, possibly completely the other end of the spectrum, which is Crowley in World War Two. That’s fair. That fucking hat. And the fact that I hadn’t noticed, Aziraphale had a matching beige one. Oh, did he? As they were walking down the street. Yeah, just those proper trilbies. Very, very cool.

JOANNA 0:35:57
They are. They are good trilbies. The best cameo slash small role of Horb. I’m going Paul Kaye coming back to do the Bratchett voice over the Speakers in Hell. But also, I don’t know if it even counts as a cameo slash small role, but Ritchie Smith

FRANCINE 0:36:14
is Furfur. Oh, yes.

JOANNA 0:36:16
Everything he’s doing in that.

FRANCINE 0:36:17
Big applause.

JOANNA 0:36:18
Fucking excellent. Big Furfur fans here at The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret.

FRANCINE 0:36:22
How about you? Yeah, fuck it. I thought Ty Tenant was just very funny. He was fucking tastic. And I worry that when I called him a Nepo baby in the episode we talked about, I was calling him a Nepo baby. What I meant was he plays Nepo baby spectacularly.

JOANNA 0:36:39
Yeah, he’s genuinely very fucking talented.

FRANCINE 0:36:42
Yes, and he appears in Staged Series 3, which is what reminded me. Yeah, that was fantastic. And it does. And also that bit reminded me that David Tennant in one of the interviews said that his favourite line in the whole series was, I’m Jemima, I made this pot.

JOANNA 0:36:59
I saw someone do a TikTok about it earlier saying it doesn’t matter who you are, Aziraphale, Crowley, heaven or hell. Aziraphale made the correct face that you make when a child shows you a thing they’ve

FRANCINE 0:37:07
made.

JOANNA 0:37:09
But yeah, Ty Tenant, fantastic. He plays a little shit so well. I’m sure he’s lovely.

FRANCINE 0:37:14
I’m sure he is. It’s just very funny.

JOANNA 0:37:16
He’s just really good at doing that. The Horb for best moment where we wanted to smash two characters heads together. Francine, what you got?

FRANCINE 0:37:24
I’ve got before the dance and I guess just during the dance, communicate the fucking danger properly, Crowley. Listen to Crowley, Aziraphale.

JOANNA 0:37:34
There’s a fucking horde of demons on the front lawn.

FRANCINE 0:37:37
My complete ranting and raving about how there must be some kind of fucking magic going on for them not to be paying attention to the point. I stand by because why the fuck weren’t you paying attention to the point? And I know why, whatever, whatever. That’s when I wanted to bang their heads together on a rewatch. Yeah, that’s fair.

JOANNA 0:37:54
I’m also giving it to Aziraphale and Crowley when they have a lovely little stroll through Edinburgh debating ethics while Elspeth is lugging a whole fucking corpse.

FRANCINE 0:38:06
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:38:07
Like guys, if you’re going to follow the body snatcher, help the body snatcher carry the corpse.

FRANCINE 0:38:15
It’s very them. It is very them.

JOANNA 0:38:20
Poor Elspeth.

FRANCINE 0:38:21
Of course we moan about that and then we moan when they do meddle in the affairs. Oh yeah, there’s no pleasing us. That’s what they say. And I would say there is a middle ground between helping someone with their admittedly criminal and disgusting luggage and trying to kind of cram two people together like Barbie dolls.

JOANNA 0:38:42
But they haven’t found it. The Horb for best retrospectively heartbreaking moment.

FRANCINE 0:38:49
Mine’s reasonably trivial, so I’ll go first. It’s rather easy to communicate. It’s just Crowley talking about the breezy breakfast just before it all kicked off. Just him being just so sure that that was what’s going to happen. And we’re just going to go for a boozy breakfast and just sinking back into the routine before he decides to break the routine and then it gets broken in a whole new way. Yeah. How about you?

JOANNA 0:39:14
Crowley and Aziraphale having their glass of wine together after the magic show. Partly because that shades of grey conversation was the closest we got to them coming to the understanding that they should have fucking come to by now. And partly because Crowley has already sat down with a drink before Aziraphale explains that he switched the evidence out. So Crowley was like expecting a whole fucking legion to come for him the next day and thought, well, yeah, obviously I’m going to go for a drink with my angel. What else would I do while I’m waiting for a legion to come?

FRANCINE 0:39:42
Oh. Yep.

JOANNA 0:39:46
Who’s your season MVP, Francine?

FRANCINE 0:39:49
Crowley. Specifically Crowley looking in through windows and smiling as Aziraphale does things. I feel like that’s a specific Crowley.

JOANNA 0:40:00
I feel like you could also add to that Crowley looking out of the window grinning as he’s trying to make the rain happen and the awnings happen.

FRANCINE 0:40:06
Oh yeah. I keep seeing screenshots of that because yeah, as people point out, that’s his one as a demon, his one big smile. Yeah. Then he does look like Doctor Who. Yeah. Yeah, he does. I’d say.

JOANNA 0:40:22
My season MVP is Build Out the Shoe Wipe.

FRANCINE 0:40:25
Yeah. Legend. Just the idea of being an expert cobbler and midwife in that time. It’s just incredible. Fantastic.

JOANNA 0:40:34
And by extension, the fucking wig department looking after David Tennant for the Medisites.

FRANCINE 0:40:41
Oh, I’m still not.

JOANNA 0:40:42
They were doing the Lord’s work.

FRANCINE 0:40:44
If it wasn’t for the mutton chops, I might have picked one of those outfits.

JOANNA 0:40:50
I mean, I do feel like an honourable mention to Crowley’s Victorian outfit.

FRANCINE 0:40:54
Yeah. And Aziraphale’s, they were just incredibly fancy coats. They were good. Goodness me, those two got into fancy coats for that century.

JOANNA 0:41:02
They absolutely did.

FRANCINE 0:41:04
Right.

Looking to the Future

JOANNA 0:41:04
Should we look forward to the future?

FRANCINE 0:41:06
I guess.

JOANNA 0:41:08
Hopes and predictions for season two, season three.

FRANCINE 0:41:11
Season three. Fucking hell. What do you mean by Gabriel’s moment?

JOANNA 0:41:18
Uh, specifically in episode three, it’s while Crowley’s doing the awning and makes the rain happen. And it’s the, there will come a tempest and darkness and great storms and the dead will leave their grave and walk the earth and there will be great lamentations every day. It’s getting

FRANCINE 0:41:32
closer. And that didn’t get a payoff within the season. So I’m assuming that’s there for the next

JOANNA 0:41:39
season.

FRANCINE 0:41:40
Yes.

JOANNA 0:41:41
Because the second coming is coming.

FRANCINE 0:41:46
Well, that’s unfortunate. So the second coming is my, my, my previously Catholic friend is, um.

JOANNA 0:41:56
So I got the Bible out.

FRANCINE 0:41:59
It’s not just Jesus turning up to go like, Oh, I’ve got some more fishes.

JOANNA 0:42:04
No, no, it is not.

FRANCINE 0:42:05
Okay. All right. Well, please elaborate.

JOANNA 0:42:10
First, I want to clarify that the second coming is not necessarily Jesus being born again, because Jesus did not die a second time. He died on the cross. He came back and then he ascended unto heaven. I remember doing feast of ascension at school. You know, we have like a really specific like mental image memory thing. Yeah, mine was reception doing Jesus ascending to heaven

FRANCINE 0:42:32
coloring page. Oh, cute.

JOANNA 0:42:34
Catholic skill guys.

FRANCINE 0:42:35
My big churchy one is putting the clothes into the orange for the thing. Yeah. What’s that called? Fuck knows something to do with that. The orange thing. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:42:45
Yeah. Anyway, so the second coming the book of Revelation, also sometimes known as the book of apocalypse as told to John does not specified which John who John is.

FRANCINE 0:42:54
Ham. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:42:55
Yeah. As told to Jon Hamm.

FRANCINE 0:42:57
Which is why he got the pot.

JOANNA 0:42:59
Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense, actually.

FRANCINE 0:43:01
Nepo, baby.

JOANNA 0:43:02
So I’m going to try and summarize the end of the world as quickly as possible. You’ve got the lamb and the lamb is obviously fucking Jesus. He’s the Lamb of God break seven seals, which sends forth the horsemen and all sorts of lamentations and people dying. Basically, everyone dies. This bit is very extensive. I’m trying to do this as quickly as possible. The lamb is doing a lot in chapter nine in Revelation, chapter 19. The beast and the false prophet are cast into the fiery lake of burning brimstone.

FRANCINE 0:43:27
Oh, no. Do we know who the false prophet is?

JOANNA 0:43:31
It’s just a false prophet.

FRANCINE 0:43:33
Just a false prophet.

JOANNA 0:43:34
It’s like a test for a lot of people.

FRANCINE 0:43:36
Cool.

JOANNA 0:43:37
Who does the casting of the beast and the false prophet into the fiery lake of burning brimstone? And I didn’t have time to go further down.

FRANCINE 0:43:43
I ask myself that every day.

JOANNA 0:43:44
Yeah. And I’m going to quote directly. He hath a name, a name written which no one knoweth save himself. He is clothed in a cloak dipped in blood and the name whereby he is called is the word of God.

FRANCINE 0:43:57
So that’s a bit Metatron around the ears. Uh, tell me if I was cast into a lake of brimstone, would I be breaking the act of strike? Uh, fuck, I tried to answer you seriously for a second there. I love that you tried to answer me seriously. That shows real commitment to our friendship. Thank you.

JOANNA 0:44:18
But no, because you’re English, so you’re not covered by SAG-AFTRA.

FRANCINE 0:44:21
Ah, okay. But I’d be in morally grey area. Yeah. Quite a popular fact, obviously. I’ve just been condemned to hell.

JOANNA 0:44:26
Yeah. I feel like I’ve been cast into a lake of brimstone. You’re past morally grey areas there.

FRANCINE 0:44:31
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:44:33
Anyway, Revelations chapter 20, Satan gets imprisoned in the bottomless pit for a thousand years and the souls of those…

FRANCINE 0:44:37
I love how you’re doing this like a fucking serious recap. Sorry.

JOANNA 0:44:42
How else would you want me to do this?

FRANCINE 0:44:43
A rag tag bunch of out of the worldly misfits.

JOANNA 0:44:47
Anyway, the rag tag bunch of souls who died for Jesus, uh, reign with him for a thousand years. This is the first resurrection. After a thousand years, Satan comes back to lead astray the nations in all four corners of the earth, including Gog and Magog. And fire comes down from heaven and devours them. And the devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.

FRANCINE 0:45:04
I see. And then, uh, Is that not a bit of Br’er Rabbit, don’t throw me into that briar patch. Yeah, a little bit.

JOANNA 0:45:11
Chapter 20, verse 11. And I beheld a great white throne and him who sitteth upon it. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things written in the book, according to their works. And this is the second resurrection. Everyone who died in that big first apocalypse after the thousand years all gets brought back. And if they’re good enough, if they’ve been good enough to go to heaven, their names are written in the book of life. And so, you know, the book of life, I’m assuming we’re going to come back to that next season.

FRANCINE 0:45:41
I seem so too. Goodness.

JOANNA 0:45:43
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. Whoever was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire. Which is a different nature of the book of life to what we had in Good Omens season two.

FRANCINE 0:45:56
True. Although so far, the only people in the, the only beings in the book of life being angels, perhaps it just works differently for them. Maybe. We don’t know. They’re in the preface.

JOANNA 0:46:07
Maybe it’s a red herring.

FRANCINE 0:46:09
Maybe my love life is a red herring, Joanna. God. Anyway.

JOANNA 0:46:14
So yeah, according to the Bible, the book of life is the names of those who shall be saved

FRANCINE 0:46:22
during the second coming. Right. Good to know.

JOANNA 0:46:25
Yeah. So just some context for that as we go towards a season that I’m assuming is going to be focused on the second coming. Also tiny batch at sidebar. So the end of Revelations ends with Christ’s promise to John that he is going to come back.

FRANCINE 0:46:40
Okay. Big. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like we want it at this point.

JOANNA 0:46:44
Yeah. The Bible has a fantastic cliffhanger ending. So I don’t think they’re actually going to probably depict Jesus as doing some second coming shit in season three.

FRANCINE 0:46:55
Yeah, that’d be.

JOANNA 0:46:56
If they do, it has kind of already been cast. They did cast Jesus in the crucifixion bit during the season one, episode three, long cold open. You see the crucifixion. I can’t remember the name of the actor off the top of my head.

FRANCINE 0:47:08
However, just for a second, it has been confirmed that Pedro Pascal has liked

JOANNA 0:47:13
some Good Omens fan art on Instagram.

FRANCINE 0:47:15
Fucking hell.

JOANNA 0:47:17
Can we just picture good Pedro Pascal as Jesus for like a fucking second? I know he’s the wrong nationality. I know it’s technically already cast and I’m probably not going to see him, but.

FRANCINE 0:47:27
I’m afraid, Joanna, that I did miss the Pedro Pascal train on account of I didn’t watch any of the stuff he was in. However, I’m quite amused that this has now come back again because it was like a tsunami. Yeah. Of Pedro Pascal thirst kind of crashed over the internet and the waters receded. Now we’re getting just a little aftershock there. Yeah, a little aftershock. Well, for everyone, for my sake, mainly, I hope that’s not going to happen.

JOANNA 0:47:56
Oh, I hope it’s not going to happen again. Wrong nationality.

FRANCINE 0:47:58
And you don’t say the sake of the people who, yeah, who actually care.

JOANNA 0:48:03
But just for a second, I just wanted to picture that.

FRANCINE 0:48:05
No, sure, absolutely. And the loincloth that it would entail. The loincloth you rode in on.

JOANNA 0:48:12
So quickly, before we go on to Aziraphale and Crowley as well, the jokes about hell being understaffed. Just a quick joke or set up? Especially if we think that heaven might be in the same state and there’s meant to be quite a big event coming and, you know, doing big events when you’re understaffed is a fucking nightmare.

FRANCINE 0:48:27
I’m not sure if I’m corkboarding and stringing a little bit here, but I think the fact that they flashback specifically to Beelzebub saying, do you know how hard it is to get tens of millions of demons to put down their weapons and go home? Yeah. While also in like the same episode, Shaxx had 60 of them following her. Yeah. Right. I feel like, yeah, probably a bit of a setup. Cool. My, my, my, my kind of speculation about the Cirque in the coming very much overlaps with Aziraphale and Crowley in that I am, I think, I think they’re gonna bring Aziraphale head to head with Crowley in this second coming thing. I’m not sure yet if he’s going to be fully committed and change his mind or fully committed. Crowley thinks he’s fully committed. We think he’s fully committed, but it turns out he’s got a plan capitalized in the same way as a clue. Ah, yeah. That’s my current speculation on that bit. Cool. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:49:26
So, so Aziraphale and Crowley in the future of them, I feel like it’s fair to say we all want their fight resolved and then back together eventually.

FRANCINE 0:49:33
I would like that very much immediately. Yes.

JOANNA 0:49:36
Um, I really want to see Aziraphale do the apology dance now, obviously.

FRANCINE 0:49:43
Yeah, I guess. I just want more gavotte. Well, we’d all like more gavotte flouncing, but I’m making my hopes realistic. Oh, yeah, that’s fair. All right. Yeah, I suppose I’ll settle for that. If we could have a gavotte share.

JOANNA 0:49:56
Well, if we could get a full apology gavotte, obviously that would be the ideal state of affairs. How do you imagine them back together, though? Like, do you imagine them back in their existing, they are sort of celestial, an angel and a demon and they’re dining at the Ritz? Some people have talked about what if they became human?

FRANCINE 0:50:15
I don’t like that idea. I like them going back to being angel and the demon at the Ritz, possibly with some changes. But I like the idea of them just being the guardian angels of humanity.

JOANNA 0:50:27
I do love that. I like the idea that they are the two that care about humanity above everything

FRANCINE 0:50:32
else. Yeah. And they are these like, you know, what we think of as like a mortal faith folk type things, you know?

JOANNA 0:50:40
Yeah, I do also. I don’t hate the idea of them as human.

FRANCINE 0:50:44
I just don’t like the idea of mortality as a whole. So I think that just puts me off.

JOANNA 0:50:48
Yeah, no, you are very like not pro mortality. And I respect that about you. You know, that’s what I appreciate about you.

FRANCINE 0:50:56
That’s what you appreciate about me.

JOANNA 0:50:59
But that’s, I don’t know, I think they’ve spent so long being involved in these grand celestial affairs and also interacting with humanity and influencing humanity, whether they like it or not, that I would kind of love to see a world where they are just totally free of that. They are two humans living out the rest of their lives in a little cottage with their wives, Dossie and Sadie. Working at the biscuit factory. All right. Not that bit, obviously.

FRANCINE 0:51:24
Yeah, I don’t know. I can see it. I can see it happening. I think I would be a little put out because of how I would imagine how traumatic that would be. True. You think of, as you were pointing out, the kind of, there was one of our listeners was this hysteria suddenly almost of the, oh, fuck, I’ve only got five minutes to talk to you about this 6000 year old conversation. Yeah. Going from being very long lived to very short lived all of a sudden, I think would be very tricky.

JOANNA 0:51:58
I think they just, they care so much about humanity that to become a part of it, I don’t think would be an unsatisfying ending for them.

FRANCINE 0:52:08
I don’t think it’d be unsatisfying. I wouldn’t like it. Yeah. I think, yeah, it’d be odd for them to become a part of something they’d shepherded for so long. You know? It would seem more to me like, yeah, like a shepherd becoming a sheep. Yeah. But yeah, I can see it being done well, I suppose. But yeah, I think as always, my perception on that is clouded by the fact that I want them to live forever.

JOANNA 0:52:37
Yeah, that’s fair. I respect that. So a couple of listener thoughts. We had two listeners in the Discord present fairly specific visions for season three. Tansey’s was roughly mirrors the book with a baby triggering end times and an angel and a demon trying to prevent it.

FRANCINE 0:52:54
Oh, oh.

JOANNA 0:52:55
Maybe. I don’t think I’d enjoy that. I have a lot of feelings about stories echoing and kind of being retold across seasons. And I think it can be done well and it can not. And I think Pratchett does it really well.

FRANCINE 0:53:06
I’d say that’s your favourite thing to talk about on this podcast, Joelle.

JOANNA 0:53:09
Yeah, because Pratchett does it really well. And every time he does it, he builds on it. But that doesn’t mean that’s what I want from a TV show.

FRANCINE 0:53:16
It’s a different beast. Absolutely fair.

JOANNA 0:53:18
My favourite part of Tansey’s theory, and I really hope that something is dived into about this, this small gods ish idea that God’s been reduced by people believing in institutions rather than the deity. And that’s why the Mestron’s power is so outsized. And I love that.

FRANCINE 0:53:34
Because it’s so bureaucracy.

JOANNA 0:53:37
Exactly. And we saw what happened in small gods when that happened. It was Pratchett’s big thing was talking about power of belief stuff. And Neil Gaiman does it so well. Fucking American gods.

FRANCINE 0:53:46
That is American gods, isn’t it? That would not be a bad joint theory to bring into this equation. Yeah, that would make it even more Pratchettian. And even more Gaiman-ian. Gaimian. Yep. Sorry. There are problems with Damian, it works. Oh, I’ve got to start thinking about my suffixes before I let them out.

JOANNA 0:54:06
It’s a common problem. And the last bit of Tansey’s sort of prediction slash hope was Aziraphale and Crowley back on the same page very early on. Brackett, probably wishful thinking.

FRANCINE 0:54:16
I would love that as well. I like it very much when a series or a book defies my expectations by sorting out miscommunications immediately. I think I’ve said it on the podcast about how that’s what I like so much about Rivers of London right from the beginning. There wasn’t this whole fucking half a book of magic, I don’t believe magic exists. The magic happens. And the main character like, oh, magic. Cool. Can I be a wizard? Let’s go along believing my eyes over this.

JOANNA 0:54:41
Yeah. One thought I have on that as well, I mean, obviously, I want it to I want to see them back together early, is thinking about this season as a bridge between book one and book two

FRANCINE 0:54:52
as book two was kind of roughly planned out. Which goes into another quick batch of prediction I have

JOANNA 0:54:59
is I can imagine this is set up because book wise book two would just be like, Aziraphale and Crowley aren’t talking. So the book opens with them fixing whatever they weren’t

FRANCINE 0:55:09
talking about. Yes. And like, it’s a lot easier when you have the narrator’s voice in a not even like the Francis McDormand thing. But when you have the omniscient third person, you can slot in a paragraph here and there to explain things.

JOANNA 0:55:25
Exactly. And you know, Aziraphale turning up on Crowley’s doorstep, presuming he’s got his flat back and saying, hey, I fucked up. Can you give me a hand?

FRANCINE 0:55:33
Yeah, absolutely.

JOANNA 0:55:34
It’s going to be some some legs of fire.

FRANCINE 0:55:38
Could we shift these yucca plants a little?

JOANNA 0:55:42
Which answer to my extra little bat shit theory that I may have, I’ve kept meaning to mention this in the podcast and I didn’t. Because there was some speculation in our discord over what the like, then the book was going to be called. And I double checked Mark Burrows’ book, which had it, which is 668, The Number of the Beast.

FRANCINE 0:55:58
Neighbour of the Beast. Neighbour of the Beast. Yeah, sorry. So the first two seasons are each six episodes. And it would

JOANNA 0:56:05
make sense for three seasons for six episodes, 666. But what if 668, we get an eight episode

FRANCINE 0:56:10
third season? Ooh, that’d be nice. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. I was about to say if it’s 666, that would be nice, but also not that much of a coincidence because British shows traditionally have six, but if we had 668…

JOANNA 0:56:22
Yeah, exactly. There’s a fine line as well between theorising and just wishful thinking. And I think

FRANCINE 0:56:27
that is… I think we kick that line into oblivion every day, Joanna. I think that line in the sand has

JOANNA 0:56:34
been thoroughly stomped upon on purpose by this podcast. Jed’s slightly opposing prediction to Tansey’s is Aziraphale’s…

FRANCINE 0:56:43
Controversy in the discord. Controversy in the discord.

JOANNA 0:56:46
Well-natured controversy in the discord. Aziraphale being naive, thinking he can make the second coming something positive and he’s corrupted by power while thinking he’s doing good. And then Crowley directly opposing heaven while struggling with his feelings for Aziraphale and not wanting to bring harm on him. I like both of those.

FRANCINE 0:57:01
I like both of those. Yes. I think that’s kind of how I was thinking that if they actually come head to head, it would play out. They’re very much like a… Your loved one is in a cult thing.

JOANNA 0:57:17
But I also like the idea of Aziraphale figuring it out for himself. And like I said, just showing

FRANCINE 0:57:21
up on Crowley’s doorstep, say at the end of episode one and going, I fucked up. Or maybe he does that and we don’t even find out until the end of episode three. And it turns out they’ve both been working together. And then we get the flashback showing that. Like, you know, similarly to when they switch bodies. Yeah. Yeah. Neil Gaiman, hire us. No. I’m sure whatever his plan is. We would not be able to just talk in sentences at all. I’m sorry.

JOANNA 0:57:46
So do we want to talk about some batshit fan theories?

FRANCINE 0:57:50
Yes.

JOANNA 0:57:51
I’ve got to stop saying batshit. I think that’s unfair. But some fan theories…

FRANCINE 0:57:54
I think batshit can be a compliment, to be honest. It is batshit brackets affectionate. I’ve been listening to a lot of the We Can Be Weirdos podcast and the batshit list is a complimentary part of that podcast. So excellent.

JOANNA 0:58:07
So Luxa on Discord provided a couple. The drugged coffee slash Metatron mind control theory. I don’t love that because as I said in the last episode, I don’t get it wrong. I think the Metatron is manipulating Aziraphale. But I want the decision to have been Aziraphale and not be hypnotized Aziraphale because I think that’s more emotionally satisfying.

FRANCINE 0:58:30
I think the coffee is very suspicious. But I think it might be a herring coffee.

JOANNA 0:58:35
I think it’s a lulling into a false sense of security coffee.

FRANCINE 0:58:38
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:58:38
See, I’m just like you. I know how to buy a coffee.

FRANCINE 0:58:41
Yes. Yes. You can trust me. Yeah. Agreed. It is weird. But. I do. I, as I said before, I just think it’s a ballsy piece of writing. Yeah. This really is Aziraphale’s continued. It makes perfect sense for this character for this to be happening. It’s a horrible shock because we as Crowley deluded ourselves and think it wasn’t for a bit there. Yeah. But it makes it is very much him. So.

JOANNA 0:59:07
I do think there’s more to the conversation than we know because of the way it’s edited and

FRANCINE 0:59:11
cut and written. And I think that’s clever. Yeah. I didn’t notice that until you told me. But now I went back and watched and yeah, you’re quite right. There are definite. Uh. Potential. Reality TV cuts. Yeah. Yeah.

JOANNA 0:59:23
Another theory that also came from Luxor on Discord. Crowley had some of his memories of being an angel erased, which is why I didn’t remember Sarakel and also didn’t recognize Furfur. I kind of like that.

FRANCINE 0:59:35
I do. Because there was. Yeah, I think that was.

JOANNA 0:59:39
Because they talk about erasing Gabriel’s memories as a kindness.

FRANCINE 0:59:43
Yeah.

JOANNA 0:59:44
And so I wonder if maybe they tried erasing his memories a couple of times before he fell.

FRANCINE 0:59:49
And if we’ll get some more context for that in the next season of Crowley’s fall of,

JOANNA 0:59:54
you know, he asked questions and they take that away and then he asked more questions.

FRANCINE 0:59:58
And eventually. That’s a big thing. Actually, I would love to see in season three is it’s Crowley’s fall. Yeah.

JOANNA 1:00:04
Sort of vaguely downwards.

FRANCINE 1:00:06
Yeah. But the thing is, yeah, he makes like that was a song vaguely downwards, but I can’t see it being anything but really, really, really awful.

JOANNA 1:00:13
Yeah. Something else that I’ve seen talked about is what the Great War was referring to. And I always assumed that was war between heaven and hell when all the demons became demons. Like that was the Lucifer’s fall and the like aftermath of it. Like to the point where I just I assumed not like as a theory, I assumed like that’s exactly what they were getting at. But I’ve seen other people say like, does the Great War mean the First World War? Because that’s how that’s often referred to. And I don’t think it’s that. Now, if we’re going to talk about fan theories, there is something we need to talk about. And that is the Google Doc.

FRANCINE 1:00:48
The Google Doc, which was introduced to us very late in the game by by

JOANNA 1:00:53
it was someone in our discord.

FRANCINE 1:00:56
It was Nerys. Thank you, Nerys.

JOANNA 1:00:58
Thank you, Nerys for this. I had seen it floating around Twitter, but before we’d got to episode six, so I obviously hadn’t clicked through and I hadn’t realized that this is a 36 page Google Doc. So the title, The Magic Trick You Didn’t See, Being an Analysis of Good Omens Season Two. This doc is written by Alexandra Rowland. They are a fairly successful fantasy writer. They have about nine books published. They also teach writing. Also, I think they coined the term Hope Punk, which I think is pretty cool.

FRANCINE 1:01:27
What?

JOANNA 1:01:28
Hope Punk, which is sort of a genre name.

FRANCINE 1:01:31
Oh, is that like Solar Punk? Like optimistic fantasy books. Yeah, OK. This is 36 pages of Google Doc.

JOANNA 1:01:40
This is a very long, this is what I think was being done in season two. And this is what I think it means for season three Google Doc. This did not speak 36 pages long. There’s a joke in it about how editing is really important. This could have done with some fucking editing. Now, like I do get this isn’t like a professional piece of writing. This isn’t officially published. This is a fan having fun.

FRANCINE 1:02:02
Yeah.

JOANNA 1:02:02
But a lot of the doc very much centers on I am a writer. I know how writing works. I’m very clever about that. And that’s why I’m able to figure all this out. And I just think if that’s the case, that you should demonstrate that you’re a really good writer and edit your work a little bit because this could have been five to six pages.

FRANCINE 1:02:22
This could have been an email.

JOANNA 1:02:24
This could have been an email. The central thesis is basically that season two feels odd, which I don’t disagree with

FRANCINE 1:02:36
and badly written, which I do disagree with.

JOANNA 1:02:39
I don’t think season two is badly written. But Neil Gaiman is a very good writer and he knows how stories work very well. So the bad writing must be on purpose. So I did try and go in this with a very open mindedly. But I do disagree with that as a central thesis because I don’t think it’s particularly badly

FRANCINE 1:02:56
written.

JOANNA 1:02:57
And I don’t think Neil Gaiman is so clever that he would write a bad series of television so he can make a really good one.

FRANCINE 1:03:03
I was about to say, I think that’s a terrible idea. Yeah. I think Neil Gaiman knows enough about how everything works to not do that. Yeah.

JOANNA 1:03:11
This thesis uses the idea that a lot of setup was flatly paid off or not paid off at all. It uses the metaphor from The Prestige, this magic trick thing throughout the whole thing. So the idea of a magic trick is that you have the pledge, the turn and the prestige. And the idea is that season two, season one was the pledge, season two is the turn and season three is going to be the prestige.

FRANCINE 1:03:31
And again, I don’t really agree with that. It’s a turn.

JOANNA 1:03:33
When you make something disappear.

FRANCINE 1:03:35
Okay. And the prestige is? You come back.

JOANNA 1:03:38
It’s a turnip or whatever.

FRANCINE 1:03:40
Yes. Got it.

JOANNA 1:03:40
But you can stick with the idea of setup and payoff mostly. Now it runs through lots of… One of the ideas of setup being flatly paid off was Maggie and Nina getting an unsatisfying ending, which again, I don’t think that’s right. I think that was the point of Maggie and Nina. I think they were a good story and their ending being, hey, we’re not a fucking story.

FRANCINE 1:04:00
Hmm. I think that worked for me anyway.

JOANNA 1:04:03
Although obviously they weren’t working for me throughout the show, but I think that…

FRANCINE 1:04:08
You think the payoff kind of put them in a new light.

JOANNA 1:04:12
There’s also another example of disappearing Eccles cakes. You know, Aziraphale gets the Eccles cakes in episode one and he takes them to the shop and he puts them down and then they’re not there in the next shot and there’s no evidence

FRANCINE 1:04:24
of a plate or crumbs or anything on.

JOANNA 1:04:26
And the only reference to Eccles cakes again is seeing Nina erase Eccles cakes off the

FRANCINE 1:04:30
board. Imagine if you worked in continuity and that mistake got you a 36 page document. Right.

JOANNA 1:04:37
And it’s like, but they’re all too good to make continuity errors. It’s like, no one’s too good.

FRANCINE 1:04:40
Have you seen that fucking show? It’s full of fucking details. Yeah. There’s no way in hell that show escaped without some continuity errors. No way. No.

JOANNA 1:04:49
And there is a amusing section called Chekhov’s heavy artillery warehouse.

FRANCINE 1:04:52
Yeah.

JOANNA 1:04:53
So I’ve listed some of the Chekhov’s gun examples. So we have the ones that I do agree with the zombies, the literal gun, all the book of life stuff, the Gabriel prophecy. I think you could call those Chekhov’s guns.

FRANCINE 1:05:04
I don’t know. I mean, the gun. Yeah. The gun. Yeah. But stuff like the prophecy in the book of life stuff, that’s just foreshadowing. Yeah. Right. It’s not. Yeah.

JOANNA 1:05:16
I feel like, yeah, I feel like the term Chekhov’s gun is being used really fucking loosely here.

FRANCINE 1:05:21
And I mean, I’m saying that knowing that we do that all the time for fun. Yeah. But.

JOANNA 1:05:26
I think there’s a difference between.

FRANCINE 1:05:27
It’s fine.

JOANNA 1:05:29
We’re not professional writers. Oh, well, fuck I am.

FRANCINE 1:05:32
Fuck off. So we do. That’s literally been my job for many years. Yeah. I can’t say that. Anyway, the kind of maybe. I’m not a playwright. You are. Fuck.

JOANNA 1:05:46
The kind of, yeah, I never actually studied Chekhov though. I dropped out of A-level drama because they kept making me pretend to be a dung beetle.

FRANCINE 1:05:52
Fucking metamorphosis. Anyway. Yeah, no, same.

JOANNA 1:05:58
The kind of maybes like these are Chekhov’s guns or at least foreshadowing is the Crow road, the Ian Banks story more relevant.

FRANCINE 1:06:04
There is a whole sort of murder history plot detective thing. Oh, a mild note on that, by the way, I kept saying Ian Banks is friends with Neil Gaiman and then found out as I was editing the episode that Ian Banks very sadly died in 2013. And I’d somehow missed that. I’m sorry. Terrible at knowing these things.

JOANNA 1:06:26
Friends from beyond the grave.

FRANCINE 1:06:27
Friends from beyond the grave.

JOANNA 1:06:29
The Metatron coffee thing, the fact that we don’t see all of that.

FRANCINE 1:06:32
We’ve talked about that. When I tried to analyse the coffee thing myself after I read the thing, the only thing I can think of is almond is like the cyanide thing, isn’t it? That’s what cyanide smells like.

JOANNA 1:06:43
I don’t think the coffee was doctored.

FRANCINE 1:06:46
No.

JOANNA 1:06:47
Nor do I think Aziraphale was hypnotized.

FRANCINE 1:06:49
No, agreed.

JOANNA 1:06:50
No, these are not things that aren’t paid off that have been left dangling section. Why did we need to see all of that bullet catch stuff? And don’t get me wrong, that was not my favourite episode of the season, but it set up this relationship of trust between the two and how far they’re willing to go. It set up Hell’s interest in the two of them.

FRANCINE 1:07:08
Do you know what? It wasn’t my favourite episode, but going back and watching bits of it again, now I’m not constantly focused on the fact that I’m about to watch a disaster show.

JOANNA 1:07:18
Yeah.

FRANCINE 1:07:18
In my general just aversion to that kind of like, oh my God, I’m going to go wrong in front of an audience. It’s enjoyable.

JOANNA 1:07:24
It serves the purpose all three miniseries do, which is to explore the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley compared to their relationships to Heaven and Hell.

FRANCINE 1:07:32
Yes.

JOANNA 1:07:32
The statue apparently is Jacob’s gun, but that joke was paid off. Aziraphale can draw. I don’t think that was a setting up for anything. I just think, of course, Aziraphale can draw. He draws Jim rather than taking a photo of him and then takes that drawing. I think that’s just Aziraphale’s old fashioned.

FRANCINE 1:07:49
He’s old fashioned and they’re both very good at stuff.

JOANNA 1:07:53
Crowley wearing sunglasses in the Job scenes where he’s not wearing sunglasses in some of the other scenes set BCE, but also…

FRANCINE 1:08:01
He’s directly in front of humans trying not to scare them. Thank you.

JOANNA 1:08:05
The quote on the matchbox being so important. It was a Job quote and then we had the whole Job story and it directly tied. It was the quote about the Leviathan, which ties into the Go Make a Whale and We’ll Talk.

FRANCINE 1:08:14
I loved the fact that Neil Gaiman replied to some criticism or question with Go Make a Whale and We’ll Talk. Yep. Way to have a God complex. 10 out of 10. Love that for you. Respect it. That sounded sarcastic, but you know me. I admire a God complex.

JOANNA 1:08:31
Oh yeah, 100%.

FRANCINE 1:08:32
I’m into it.

JOANNA 1:08:33
Anyway, so this in this Google Doc leads to the Metatron must be the bad guy and he is manipulating everything in the show, just as Neil is manipulating us. I don’t think anyone thinks that the Metatron isn’t a bad guy. This is the point where, and again, I do mean this is like constructive criticism. I don’t think this is all bad ideas.

FRANCINE 1:08:54
I just think it’s badly expressed. Seems that, yeah, it’s just there was… That’s such a long document. I feel a bit bad that we’re focusing on it for so long, considering the amount of unhinged fan theory and I suppose the differences.

JOANNA 1:09:10
It was all in one place. But this was the bit where it really lost me and we’re about page 11 or so.

FRANCINE 1:09:15
Oh my God.

JOANNA 1:09:17
Quick note before I do that. When you’re done with this essay, reread it. I’ve been doing the same trick Neil is doing, except I’m not a glorious flash bastard, brackets honorific, who’s going to make you wait a couple of years for the prestige. I’ll just tell you so you know what sort of thing to look for the second time through. If you’re doing something fucking clever in your writing, then you shouldn’t need to tell me you’re doing something fucking clever in your writing.

FRANCINE 1:09:37
Yeah.

JOANNA 1:09:38
Anyway, so the big theory is that the Metatron has access to the Book of Life and he’s using it to edit things the whole time. It’s not just people. You can tweak memories and shit. The clues, there’s a whole thing, which, yeah, that I don’t hate as an idea.

FRANCINE 1:09:50
Puppet master Metatron.

JOANNA 1:09:52
I don’t love it because I would hate to think that the flashbacks we’ve seen and not all of it and they’re tweaked memories, which is what this is implying. So the Metatron is apparently set up as a storyteller. He’s tweaking these flashback memories to drive a wedge between Aziraphale and Crowley. One of the examples is that because there are multiple moments where characters decline alcohol, Metatron disapproves and he’s editing Aziraphale’s memory to make it less appealing.

FRANCINE 1:10:15
I don’t really. I thought that was just the gradual Aziraphale becoming corruptible.

JOANNA 1:10:20
There’s a whole thing, a theory about Maggie isn’t real. The Metatron made her up and wrote her in and she’s unrealistic because he’s a bad writer, which is a cool idea that makes up for some of the weird writing around Maggie and Nina. I prefer my idea, but I wouldn’t totally discredit it. But also like the examples of things like she misspells something, she doesn’t drink, she has mood shifts, the whole locked in the coffee shop bit feels contrived. Again, I feel like that’s just the point. They’re meant to look like a cute coffee shop AU story until they turn around and say, hey, we’re not a fucking story.

FRANCINE 1:10:53
Yeah, that’s it. We are seeing it through. We are seeing it to an extent through their eyes. Yeah. And their eyes are very, look at the simple humans doing the dance.

JOANNA 1:11:03
Generally, the idea of Maggie not being real is behaves too much like a character rather than a fictional real person. And I think that’s because she’s written to be more of a character.

FRANCINE 1:11:11
I’m going to have an existential crisis, Joanna. Yeah.

JOANNA 1:11:14
And there’s lots of theories about how the Metatron’s manipulating things. And the theory of how to fix this in season three is this idea of restoring corrupted files from backups, the backups being Aziraphale’s journals. Now, I don’t think there’s a ton of… Ah, you found the existential crisis book.

FRANCINE 1:11:29
I did. It’s just got a smiley face on it now. And I think that’s how it’s going to live.

JOANNA 1:11:33
I don’t think there’s a ton of legs to this. But I do like the idea that Aziraphale’s journals might be relevant, especially with Muriel looking after the bookshop.

FRANCINE 1:11:41
Yeah, definitely.

JOANNA 1:11:42
Just because they’re all there and it would be fun if Muriel reads them and

FRANCINE 1:11:46
learns more of humanity. Oh, and we get some flashbacks through that. Yes. Yeah. That I like. And we get to hear Muriel… Oh, I don’t know. We maybe get to see Muriel not understanding bits of it because they’re very naive. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, that would be cute. I like that.

JOANNA 1:12:02
But yeah, so that’s the basic theory. The Metatron is manipulating stuff through the Book of Life. But it’s stretched in 36 pages.

FRANCINE 1:12:08
And the conclusion, the conclusion…

JOANNA 1:12:12
And I am going to read this word for word.

FRANCINE 1:12:13
And this frustrated me, this red smug to me. I know what you’re wondering now.

JOANNA 1:12:19
Do I have predictions for season three? Yes, and they’re extremely good. However, I feel vaguely unethical about saying them out loud in public for thousands of people to read, because after writing 15,000 words of this essay and laying out my evidence and arguments logically, I am more convinced than ever that I am onto something here. While I’m okay with pointing out textual clues lying out in the open in season two for anyone to see, or at least what I think are clues, and showing you how they fit together and what story structure suggests about them, I hesitate about going further than that and using my pretty good magician brain to speculate about season three, because it feels like stealing the sparkle off of Neil’s prestige, stealing his thunder.

FRANCINE 1:12:58
Well, I’m glad you’re so confident. Yeah.

JOANNA 1:13:02
And the thing is, like, they might have absolutely 100% perfectly predicted season three. They might not have done, just as they might be a very good writer. I haven’t read any of their proper writing. But that read is a very arrogant way to fan theorize about it.

FRANCINE 1:13:20
Yeah, I’m not.

JOANNA 1:13:22
And to the point, it made me kind of uncomfortable. So I like the theory. I do not like how the theory was delivered.

FRANCINE 1:13:29
And maybe I’ve been overly harsh about it.

JOANNA 1:13:30
But I gave up a lot of my life to sit and read through those 36 pages. I think I’ve earned the right to be a little bit harsh about it. If I was to come to a conclusion about using this 36 page Google Doc as one example, I do think there can sometimes be a sense of over-entitlement to a story within fandoms. And I don’t just mean in the Good Omens fandom, I mean in all fandoms. There’s a sense of, I think it’s exactly like this, and I’ve thought about it a lot.

FRANCINE 1:13:57
So I know best. What I thought was interesting, you pointed out that luckily I haven’t come across, was that there are already teenage superfans of this being told to calm the fuck down by much older superfans, i.e. from 2019.

JOANNA 1:14:11
And it’s a weird thing because for us we’ve loved this book for eight, and I’m not claiming we have fandom superiority.

FRANCINE 1:14:17
I am.

JOANNA 1:14:18
What I loved when the first season came out is that no one was like, oh, you’re not a proper fan, you haven’t read the book, you haven’t read any other Neil Gaiman, you haven’t read any Terry Prash. It’s just like, oh cool, you’re here.

FRANCINE 1:14:27
Why are you here?

JOANNA 1:14:28
I have these 41 books.

FRANCINE 1:14:31
Have you seen the flowcharts? It was encouraging.

JOANNA 1:14:35
It was, oh cool, new friends. Whereas with season two, there’s the people who have got into it, season two, that weren’t in it in season one, and also haven’t read any of the books. And I feel like some of those, now it feels in places gatekeeping, and it’s not everyone.

FRANCINE 1:14:49
I might be rose-tinted glassing a bit though, because there was quite a lot of criticism of the Good Omens TV series, specifically just by people, like the first series, just by people who did not want to see it done. Yeah. And I think, whereas within the Good Omens Enjoyers fan camp, there wasn’t much gatekeeping, I think there was definitely a lot of mainly, let’s be honest, practical rather than gaming fans, who were just cross that it had been made at all. Yeah. Yeah, I do think there were.

JOANNA 1:15:20
I think there are some fans, and again, I don’t think this is just this fandom, I think this is true across all fandom. There are some fans that any adaptation that isn’t literally exactly how they imagine their book put onto a screen will not be good enough for them, and they’d rather not have one.

FRANCINE 1:15:35
Yeah, I think we’ve talked about this at various junctures, with me probably being petulant about adaptations, but that’s life. By the way, before I completely forget, the thing about this writer accidentally stealing the sparkle of Neil Gaiman’s prestige and feeling like their magic tricks should preclude them from saying such things, I found out recently, I can’t remember where I read or heard it, this might be the We Can Be Weirdos podcast, but that Mark Twain believed in telepathy so surely that he thought George Bernard Shaw had just straight up stolen an idea from his brain. Incredible.

JOANNA 1:16:12
And on that note, so the last thing is, before we leave Good Omens 5 Forever, as we’ve mentioned a couple of times in this podcast, season three is not guaranteed yet. It has not been given a promise of renewal by Amazon. Now, season two was announced way after season one came out, so I don’t think we can hope for a renewal next week.

FRANCINE 1:16:31
Yeah.

JOANNA 1:16:32
We can hope for a renewal, sadly, especially because this was binge dropped and just the model of things, and I’m working on a piece about this that at some point will be out on my currently non-existent sub stack. The best way to guarantee a season three, as well as tweeting about it, is just to watch the show and keep watching it and also keep talking about it past this initial buzz around the release.

FRANCINE 1:16:54
Yeah.

JOANNA 1:16:55
And it sucks. I hate that as fans, we have to feel responsible for getting a show renewed.

FRANCINE 1:17:00
And frankly, I don’t. I’m afraid.

JOANNA 1:17:03
I feel like I don’t feel that responsibility. I do feel like this is an unfortunate side effect of how the television industry works at the moment.

FRANCINE 1:17:10
Yeah. I think each fan who hears this message is such a small part of the whole that it really makes no difference. I understand the compulsion from Neil Gaiman and from us, indeed, to say such things, but it’ll happen or it won’t, to be honest. Either people will keep watching it and talking about it or they won’t. I have never felt guilty enough about anything to watch six hours of TV over it.

JOANNA 1:17:33
I immediately feel guilty about everything all the time.

FRANCINE 1:17:36
Yeah. But do you do anything about it?

JOANNA 1:17:39
No, God no. I’m just adapted to the constant low level feeling of guilt. Anyway.

FRANCINE 1:17:44
Catholic. I don’t want to leave good omens on that note. That’s shit. Let’s talk about something nice.

JOANNA 1:17:49
If you watch one thing from the bonus content, there is an outtake. They kept making David do the apology dance over and over again, and they made it do it one last time,

FRANCINE 1:18:02
just so that Michael Sheen could hold up a score. I would also like to say that although I am extremely angry with Aziraphale in certain ways, obviously, I’ve also tried my best to come to terms with the fact that he’s obviously been in this incredibly abusive celestial relationship. I want to spare a thought for how much he must have suffered with his own weird internal rewrites if he’s been in love with a demon for quite a long time now. I’ve never been able to admit it. Although I was focusing more on how Crowley was trying to keep his independence for much the same reason, I think it was probably easier for him to come to terms with the fact that he rather liked someone he wasn’t meant to because that’s the point of him. He’s not meant to do what he does. I like that.

JOANNA 1:18:49
The thing is, we could keep talking about Good Omens season two for a really long time.

FRANCINE 1:18:52
Yeah, I’m clinging on by my fingernails, aren’t I? I just didn’t want to end on a sour note with the…

JOANNA 1:18:59
No, I’m sorry. I should have planned a better note for us to end on, but we’ve got some nice notes now, and I think we should pry your fingertips away from Good Omens season two for now. We can come back again if you want. And turn back towards the disc, which is after all what we normally podcast.

FRANCINE 1:19:13
Yay! Now we’re doing Going Postal! Finally, we reached this next cool arc in Discworld.

JOANNA 1:19:22
We like this. We do. So, just what’s coming up on the True Showman Key thread. We need a week off,

FRANCINE 1:19:28
and we’re going to have one because we can. So our first episode on Going Postal, and I haven’t

JOANNA 1:19:35
picked it up yet. I cannot tell you where that begins and ends.

FRANCINE 1:19:39
I know exactly where it begins, because I’ve read this book so many fucking times, I could almost almost recite the first scene.

JOANNA 1:19:47
Okay, I know where it begins. I don’t know how I’m splitting the sections up yet. On all of our socials, you’ll know when we know, but the first episode on Going Postal is going to come out on the 11th of September. Then in October, we will be talking about the book Thud. November, we will be bringing you a full three episodes on the Thud spin-off book, Where’s My Cow? No, we’re not doing that.

FRANCINE 1:20:10
We’ve rewritten it in iambic pentameter.

JOANNA 1:20:13
November is still to be announced. We’re planning some fun bonus stuff for you, because then in December, we really want to end the year on Wintersmith.

FRANCINE 1:20:22
Yes, and the spreadsheet needed for finagling.

JOANNA 1:20:25
As it always does. Heads up with Going Postal, I know we normally talk about an adaptation when we’re talking about the book, but we have decided we’re going to wait and talk about

FRANCINE 1:20:33
Going Postal at Christmas because that’d be a nice treat. Yeah, it’s nice. We usually do some kind of screen adaptation at Christmas and it’ll be a nice one.

JOANNA 1:20:40
I could not finagle the spreadsheet enough to make us land on Going Postal at Christmas. No, no, no.

FRANCINE 1:20:45
Yeah, no. I tried. I like Wintersmith at Christmas anyway, even though it’s not a Christmas book, it’s got snow in it. So whatever.

JOANNA 1:20:53
It’s a solstice book.

FRANCINE 1:20:54
Yeah.

JOANNA 1:20:56
So until we come back to your lovely years in September and go back to the Discworld.

FRANCINE 1:21:01
Your lovely years, listeners.

JOANNA 1:21:03
Dear little listeners with your dear little ears.

FRANCINE 1:21:05
We value each one.

JOANNA 1:21:08
You can follow us on Instagram at thetrueshowmakeythreat, on Twitter at makeythreatpod, same on Blue Sky, Facebook at thetrueshowmakeythreat, join our subreddit community r slash ttsnyf, join our Discord, there’s an invite link at the top of our show notes link section. Email us your thoughts, queries, castles and snacks to thetrueshowmakeythreatpod at gmail.com. Support this nonsense financially, go to patreon.com forward slash thetrueshowmakeythreat, where you can exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of bonus bollocks.

FRANCINE 1:21:33
Wow, you went full terms and conditions apply.

JOANNA 1:21:37
I was trying to get us out of the episode.

FRANCINE 1:21:39
Side effects may include.

JOANNA 1:21:41
And until next time, dear listener.

FRANCINE 1:21:44
To the world.

JOANNA 1:21:45
To the world.

FRANCINE 1:21:52
Sorry, I made you say horb. Are you kidding? I love it.