Guess what lies ahead!

from the anime staff’s official art booklet

Anyway they are married

something based on a seinfeld scene

Because I never liked the idea of Aziraphale and Crowley meeting as Angels, meeting before Eden and Humanity, of Crowley being more ‘important’ than Aziraphale, of his identity as an Angel being more important than the Being he became after his Fall and after spending 6000 years on Earth, of attributing or implying Aziraphale’s traits as being ‘because of Crowley’. And my Mortal Enemy, the S02E01 Cold Open, had all of that in spades…

(I hate this)

But if I had to contend with the S02E01 Cold Open existing, there were a few threads that could’ve… reduced some of the negative effects of this Cold Open on the narrative, or were just interesting in their own right. Like, it would be always hard for me to ever get to a point where the S02E01 Cold Open feels ‘worth it’, narratively speaking, but maybe I could have some begrudging salty respect for these plot seeds.

And GO3 wasted every single one, and just made the S02E01 Cold Open worse in my opinion.

Like, okay, I am fully aware that I’m not the first fan to point it out but… the S02E01 Cold Open actually seems to subtly invert the common TV Ineffable Husbands dynamic of Cynical Crowley, Optimistic Aziraphale. Angel Crowley is the bright and cheerful one that believes Heaven can be fair and God will listen to what he has to say, and Aziraphale… doesn’t say anything critical out loud, but I think his nervousness and his behavior does indicate that he had already started to develop his doubts about Heaven, even if he felt too afraid or ashamed to voice them like Crowley does.

So, y’know, if you really must recontextualize Aziraphale’s Eden Wing Rain Cover Thingy to being ‘because of Crowley’, then maybe you can balance it out by recontextualizing Crowley’s disillusionment with Heaven as being ‘because of Aziraphale’? That Aziraphale was his 'Fruit of Knowledge' that got him out of blissful ignorance? That he only started asking questions because Aziraphale asked one first?

Well, not only does TV Omens not really dwell on that point any further, GO3 specifically seems to go out of it's way to try to cancel that interpretation completely. Aziraphale talks of himself like he was some sort of a Mindless Drone NPC back in Heaven, and like asking questions was just inherent to Crowley’s being from the very start, and neither Crowley nor anyone else tries to argue. Aziraphale’s own doubts and disillusionment don’t matter unless the narrative can attribute them to Crowley in some way, I GUESS….

And the other kinda-interesting-character moment in the S02E01 Cold Open, the one that I was previously, like, ‘Oh that is a cool way to reframe Crowley’s character! Wish we could’ve gotten this via an Angel Crowley flashback that didn’t retcon Eden being Crowley and Aziraphale’s first meeting, though…….” about. Is that despite ending up as the one to come up with the scheme to save the Earth, despite caring about Humanity now… Angel Crowley had no interest in the existence of Earth or People and seemed rather dismissive towards it all.

And that seemed like it could be an interesting plot seed from a few different angles. Angel Crowley might’ve been excitable and innocent, but maybe he was also kinda prideful or conceited? Like, his original main issue with the Great Plan was just that his creations won’t get enough time to shine. It’s an understandable reaction, especially since he probably didn’t have time to process the whole ‘the ‘oodles’ of sapient beings that nice other Angel told me about are also going to die’ thing, but it might also be worthwhile to explore that Crowley did have legitimate character flaws that led to him being swayed by Lucifer and eventually to his Fall and that he wasn’t just ‘Too Good and Kind for Heaven’.

And Aziraphale sometimes attributes Crowley’s caring and positive traits to him being not-so-different from the Angel he once was, but, like, isn’t the whole point supposed to be that Heaven and Hell are equally bad? That a lot of Angels are just as big of assholes as a lot of Demons are? Like, maybe the main influence of Crowley’s Angelic past is actually his constant selfish dream to abandon the Earth (the one that he barely cared about back then) and leave for the stars (that he created, his first Angelic passion).

His care for the Earth and the people (and goats) in it are something that he developed on Earth, as the Demon Crowley, from living on this planet amongst the Humans. Because the thing that has always mattered the most was not the fact that he used to be an Angel or that he was now a Demon, but the fact that he was fundamentally of Earth.

And maybe he was also inspired by a certain Angel, who cared about Humanity so much he was willing to defy Heaven and lie to God?

And once again, GO3 did NOTHING with this idea! Not only did the story gave very little time to actually critique Crowley’s Alpha Centauri fantasy as the selfish idea it really is (despite building up to an ending where Crowley basically changes his mind to do something extremely selflessly self-sacrificial instead), that same stupid-ass speech they made Aziraphale give insists that because Angel Crowley was an ‘artist’ that made him ‘care so much about everything’.

Aziraphale also has an earlier speech about how Crowley inspired him to be ‘Brave’… wouldn’t it make narrative sense to give Crowley a mirror-speech about something Aziraphale inspired in him? Like, oh, I dunno, maybe the love of Humanity that the climax of this stupid-ass Finale is supposed to REVOLVE AROUND?

But why have that, why have Crowley be a dynamic and evolving character, someone who chose to be the person he is now after 6000 years of growth? Why have Crowley and Aziraphale have a mutual relationship where they both inspired change in each other? Why defy the expectations that Angels are ‘Good’ or that a Demon’s good qualities are always related to their Angel-ness? Why show us an EXAMPLE to how True Goodness, just like True Evil comes from Earth and Humanity? Why have Crowley (and Aziraphale) change and evolve via their connection with Earth and Humanity? It’s not like these were the ORIGINAL THEMES OF THE STORY OR SOMETHING!!!

Clearly it’s just so much of a better narrative if Crowley was always the Universe’s Specialest Little Boy and he was a uniquely caring and free-thinking soul because he was an ‘artist' and his personal frustrations of his art being devalued are a symbol for his inherently strong moral fiber (very useful framing for a certain scumbag who has always drawn comparisons between himself and Crowley) and he just bursted out of God’s Brow fully formed to teach Aziraphale everything he knows……. Clearly THIS is what ‘Good Omens’ is all about………..

vlad is mainly driven by emotion. he's petty and jealous and lashes out at people and its so interesting because you're presented with this character who appears to be very formal and uptight but he's just so childish at times.

you typically see the young hero being driven by their anger or passion or whatever but danny doesnt even seem to want to be a hero. he's not doing this out of a strong desire to help people or anything. he has no dramatic backstory motivating him to act the way he does. he's a hero because its the right thing to do no matter what he feels about it.

I'd be perfectly willing to just chalk this up to dumb animation.

For one, Kinger “making something up” and it actually working to affect the rules, giving Ragatha a life through the butterfly, that’s the most obvious example.

But for me, the one that stood out was Jax teaching Pomni to shoot.

The first time, she shoots and hits the can, but it doesn’t move. Then, Jax talks about being a cartoon character and leaning into the philosophy of nothing mattering, and he shoots the can off without even looking at it, just like a cartoon character. Then when he tells Pomni to “stop being so realistic” with how she holds the gun, she does some cool twirls and hits a pose, effortlessly shooting the can off just like Jax, just like a cartoon character.

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.