「ザー」サザーンパンジー🐳

Well @havemyheartaziraphale did. Say hello to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's heroine: Truly Scrumptious.

What Does the only children's story penned by (Crowley's favourite) James Bond author Ian Fleming have to do with our beloved season 3? Well for starters, Truly is a blonde haired blue eyed angelically sweet high status woman often dressed in white who drives a yellow vintage car. She's also the only heiress to a huge candy empire controlled by her father, Lord Scrumptious.

S2 original 2 door Bentley turned yellow & Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Truly Scrumptious' yellow car. Her partner in crime, Caratacus Potts, rebuilds Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (the car) and uses it to sail across the sky to find a kidnapped grandfather Potts.

Good omens s3, Bentley flying through space & Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, (Gen 11) flying through space

Seriously, go read the wikipedia entry, the movie is nuts.

I watched the movie trying to comb for clues, and came up with a few nuggets 1. A story within a story Good Omens is full of movie references, but season 2 took it to a whole new level. Two of the movies I've written about before, as well as three I haven't, fit the same basic premise as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang:

Brazil

Tales of Hoffmann

The prisoner (TV series)

Wizard of Oz

League of Gentlemen’s apocalypse

They're all stories that present a real world, and then take you one layer deeper into an imaginary world that reuses facsimiles of the real world characters to play different parts. At this point it would be a little silly to think that they're not trying to tell us something about the structure of the story of Good Omens. Operas especially seem to hold most of the main plot elements between Crowley & Aziraphale in the Good Omens Tv series, with S1 closely mirroring Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Season 2 closely mirroring Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. As Chitty is a musical, could it be the template for Season 3?* 2. We might get a return to Tadfield?

Thanks to @theastrophysicistnextdoor who noticed that while singing the eponymous song, Caratacus & children actually drive through the same village used to film Tadfield in season 1 of Good Omens. That coupled with the Tadfield newspaper in the season 3 promo photo could mean a return to the most perfect village in England this time around?

Good Omens S1 & Chitty Chitty Bang Bang driving the family through Tadfield

3. The Child Catcher goes rogue and kidnaps Caratacus’ children with the help of and lolly and ices truck.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Child Catcher reveals his prison truck & Good Omens S3

This wild contraption used by the Child Catcher seems like the same kind of disguise the Bentley is adopting in the teaser photo. Gaudy, yellow, over the top, and hiding a suspicious amount of caboose room for.... kidnapping? He even promises "delicious ices, lollies and treacle tarts" to the children in order to lure them in. If I had to guess, I would say someone is going Jesus-napping in S3. Could it be Michael or Dagon’s role?

4. The final fifteen might have been a ruse after all?

One thing that I think is fascinating is that the final fifteen is in CCBB, and it’s clearly real emotions inside of a planned ruse. Let me explain. So Caratacus has taken Truly and the children on a seaside picnic in Chitty, and the children ask for a story about pirates. Caratacus imagines an elaborate tale about a Bavarian pirate army come to steal Chitty for it's flying powers. While telling the children this story, we sink seamlessly into his narrative as it takes over the movie. We are now watching the movie on two levels: As his story time inside the car on the seaside with Truly and children listening, but also as they act out the fantasy he's spinning on-screen. This is important, because when we get to the crux of the great plan to fool the king in the story, Caratacus and Truly's characters pretend to be automatons to entertain the king long enough to let a child army come and attack. But watch the clip of their song and dance and see if you don't notice anything weird happening.

The Caratacus (Crowley) confesses his love to Truly (Aziraphale), but she has to refuse him as part of the ruse. But that's not all.

There's this moment where Caratacus looks in the mirror and realizes that he's inserted himself into the story, and he's basically confessing his real love to real Truly sitting with him in the car listening. And Truly's character buffets him in the head because they’re trying desperately to act like dolls to fool the king of the land (aka The Metatron) and overthrow him as he watches them dance. She gives him this look of "what are you DOING!? This is not what we planned."

And it's the same look we get here when Aziraphale looks just so confused about the way Crowley is talking during his confession. Inside of Caratacus' story the whole confession is part of the ruse, but not his and Truly's very real realizations about their feelings that happen in that moment outside the fake dance. We don't have the answers yet. I suspect, as most of you do, that we'll get the keys to understanding this interaction in S3. But this gives me interesting evidence even though the emotions were all real in the FF, maybe the interaction was part of some other plan.

5. Could a demon/human incursion into heaven be in store?

The climax of Caratacus' story comes after this dance, when the plan goes off and the banned children of the land escape the dungeon and absolutely smash the kings birthday reception with all the lords and ladies in attendance getting absolutely wrecked. Could a similar wrecking of heaven be in store, either by demon hordes, or human ones? Or is this just a rehash of the ball invasion from S2. Who knows.

6. A happily ever after is waiting?

As it is a comedy and a children's movie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang does end in the most saccharine of ways, with all obstacles being removed, Caratacus announcing that he can finally be with Truly, and the long awaited kiss. But hey, I'm not complaining.

At least they kiss ankle deep in a duck pond. What remains to be revealed is whether we get the same kind of magical reality we do here, where Chitty flies off into the sky, this time without wings. Only time will tell... Thanks again to @havemyheartaziraphale, @theastrophysicistnextdoor, @dunkthebiscuit, @embracing-the-ineffable and all the @ineffable-detective-agency members who helped out. We're all excited to see if this theory pans out or not!