Izi🪽

And this actually seemed quite sweet contextually?

Not too obvious that the kid has shot up overnight, they got season 2 filmed fast enough.

Jeanette Kilburn & Sophia Craven in THE CROW GIRL

Take your time to read the options before you click.

Take your time to read the options before you click.

Somebody posed an interesting question on twitter so I am asking you too. Pick the husband you like/identify with/admire/etc just a bit more and tell me if you liked or disliked the finale.

I understand both these things are complicated but work with me here.

Explain in the comments if you feel like it.

The Book of Life is not secret (at least not after s2 when it was retconned in); it's not particularly well-guarded; it's targeted; the cost associated with using it is low (you might go crazy but not before you have time to do a lot of damage); there's no danger of mutually assured destruction as long as you hang onto it. It's the kind of unlimited power that automatically makes things less interesting.

One thing that was really intriguing at the end of s1 was the suggestion that other angels and demons were kind of afraid of Aziraphale and Crowley because they didn't know what they were anymore. (And I was really hoping for a payoff moment that revealed that, bodyswap ruse aside, they actually had becomes immune to hellfire and holy water because they'd been on Earth so long they really had "gone native" and become a little bit human, in the way that Adam Young was human and also a little bit something else.)

And then when they did the accidental 25 lazari miracle I thought what was being set up was the revelation that angels and demons are super powerful when they're able to team up and do joint miracles together, but no one's ever figured it out before because sides, etc. And that this was going to be used in the story either to protect the entire Earth from the meddling of angels and demons, and/or to somehow break down the division between Heaven and Hell.

Even, after everything, Aziraphale at the end of s2 still believes there is a good side and a bad side. If Heaven doesn't look like the good guys it's because it's being run by the wrong people, by "bad angels"; it's not being run in the way God intended. Aziraphale still separates the bureaucracy of Heaven from the will of God; that's why he's able to come up with "are you sure this is God's ineffable plan?" in s1. I think Crowley sees them as one and the same. Crowley believes the system is working exactly as intended, the whole thing is rotten and will never change, and the only difference between the sides is who got the nice offices. He just doesn't have an alternative other than fleeing.

And, whether he's conscious of it or not, at the end of s2 I think Aziraphale still loves Crowley as the angel he was, not the demon he is. He sees Crowley as good because he was an angel once, not because he's a person with his own moral compass independent of both Heaven and Hell.

They've had these differences in worldview the whole time. The tension has been the source of all the serious fights we see. And it finally breaks them.

And hey that is a fine and good and actually very juicy place to leave a second-act breakup! And then in s3 they were supposed to find their way back to each other, realize the ways they'd hurt each other and reconcile.

And it kept almost happening. I could tolerate Aziraphale being kind of an unrepentant asshole in the beginning of the episode, because he was hurt and he still didn't fully understand why Crowley had been so upset. And he did get to defend himself a little, saying what we all knew to be true, that Crowley wouldn't have been happy just bouncing and leaving the world to whatever fate Heaven had in store for it. There were a lot of false starts and little moments and them talking about the right thing but not to each other and it all could have built into a really satisfying payoff scene and then it just...didn't.

Partially the problem was that the stuff with Heaven as a sociopolitical metaphor that I find so juicy was pretty much absent in s3. GO Heaven has elements of an abusive family, a cult, and an oppressive state, and in the show in particular, the mixture of these metaphors was a central pillar of the queer allegory that resonated with a lot of people. Heaven was the family who kicked you out and the church who said God doesn't love you if you're like that and the state that takes pictures of you sitting on a bench with the wrong person and presents them as damning evidence.

And if you're writing a story that deals with what happens when you try to reform such an institution, well, you have to have something to say about that. Is it possible? Does the reformer get swallowed by the system or forced out? What is the alternative if change from within is not possible? How you resolve the political metaphor of Heaven-and-Hell-as-states has a lot to do with whether you can leave the characters feeling safe at the end, and how you resolve the metaphor of God as an abusive parent has a lot to do with whether Crowley and Aziraphale end the show really understanding each other.

First; I admire the writing in Our Flag Means Death SO MUCH. I think that it stands up really well to endless different analyses and has a lot of nuance!  So I’m not trying to say like, “all XYZ meta is wrong.” But I’m REALLY starting to balk at the popular fandom notion that Izzy is a devious manipulator and that Ed is just “performing” depending on who he’s with in order to have love and acceptance— in a way that I feel needlessly victimizes Ed and discounts his agency and power as a character.   First of all, Izzy isn’t manipulative; he’s a blunt fucking instrument.

Take his duels, for example. Izzy isn’t just skilled with a sword, he’s very particular about how he conducts himself while using one. He could have easily killed Stede the moment they met, but instead he slashes up his shirt first to demonstrate how good he is and then announces, “This is how you die.” It’s more the setup for a duel, with Izzy allowing his opponent time to see what he’s up against and realize that the real duel starts from here on out. Izzy certainly doesn’t expect Stede to manage anything with the reprieve, but that’s not the point. Real pirates don’t just run a guy through, even if he is after your captives. (Which, interestingly, he bought from the elders rather than taking them by force: “Yeah, we sold ‘em to some guys.”) There are rules that real pirates follow and a certain respectability with which they conduct themselves, the irony of that aside.

This is seen even more clearly in his duel with Stede later in the season. He didn’t need to formally challenge Stede and then wait for him to accept before starting. He didn’t need to start with a couple of easy (for him) attacks and a pointed, “That was your warning.” When Izzy has his eyes full of gunpowder Olu is screaming for Stede to stab him while he’s temporarily blind because yeah, why wouldn’t you take any advantage you could get? Yet in contrast, right before this, Izzy corners Stede and instead of finishing him off, offers him surrender: “Yield or die.” Even Izzy’s loss feels odd to me when pit against all the other lengths he’s willing to go to, like working with the British Navy. He knocked Stede’s weapon out of his hand, stabbed him and pinned him to the mast… Stede has, by any measure involving a fight to the death, 100% lost. It’s just so, so obvious he’s lost. Yet because Izzy broke the handle of his sword while the duel was still technically underway, he looses instead, the logic of that be damned. Why can’t he just pick up Stede’s dropped sword to finish the job? Because that’s not how this works. There are rules and Izzy will not break them. He’s pissed as hell leaving the ship, but he’ll do it because that’s what was agreed upon. For Izzy, it’s one thing to completely betray Ed in an effort to “help” him by joining with their enemy and recruiting an old friend to play distraction, but it’s something else entirely to go against “dueling tradition.” It’s just not done. The fact that Izzy doesn’t kill Stede anyway to provide that same “help” speaks volumes about what a pirate’s honor means to him.

First and foremost, in command Izzy functions as part of the Edward-and-Izzy unit (aka Blackbeard). He’s not equipped to function on his own, but neither is Edward. The difference is that Edward can hide that fact for longer because he’s the one with the instant charisma whose issues trip him up later, while Izzy cannot take control of a situation for the life of him but probably doesn’t suck once he has it and a clear goal. This is, I think, the root of why Izzy struggles so much on the Revenge. Edward effectively abdicates his role as unquestioned top of the hierarchy, which cuts Izzy off from the source of his authority.

And while Edward can keep riding charisma / the Blackbeard mythos / his relationship with Stede to stay on top anyway, Izzy is left to fend for himself in his personal hell.

Edward knows full well that his crew thinks Izzy is a dick they tolerate and that Izzy’s leadership skills are lacking. It doesn’t bother him, and he wouldn’t change it. It’s partially why he picked Izzy.

We have to get into some toxic codependency here.

Edward cannot lead on his own. Whatever you define his neurodivergence as, the end result is that he needs someone to lean on. Hard. His First Mate above all has to be someone who can manage him. Follow his whims, inject practicality into his plans, lift his moods, conceal his struggles, etc. Otherwise his crew is going to lose all respect and probably kill him the first time he spirals. And that’s dangerous.

Izzy gets a front row seat to all of Edward’s ugliest and softest parts, and he gets it in a way that Edward cannot control by nature. Izzy can’t be sold the myth of Blackbeard. He knows it’s fake. He can’t even be sold the myth of perfectly functional Edward Teach. Promoting Izzy requires showing Izzy exactly how to gut him and then handing him the knife.

I’m sure Edward could find someone “better” than Izzy who could also learn to work with his issues. Someone who the crew would happily follow, and who could smoothly step in to lead when Edward couldn’t. Someone with a little charisma of his own.

But why would that guy need Edward?

How long before that guy weighs Edward’s moments of brilliance against the difficulties of his low points and decides it’s not worth it? How long before he convinces the crew they can be perfectly capable pirates under him instead? How long before he uses Edward’s trust to slit his throat?