Oh...bebop.

Now, good lady, simply turn to your husband. Reach into his robes. No. Higher.

God says, "I will destroy Job's children," and Aziraphale says, "How did he wrong you?"

God says, "I will destroy Job's children," and Aziraphale says, "How will you make it right?"

God says, "I will destroy Job's children," and Aziraphale says, "Gosh, I don't doubt you know what you are doing and all, but maybe we could slow things down a little and talk about this? And it's essential to the divine plan? Are we sure?"

Aziraphale's values and goals are good in the real sense of the word and not merely Good in the visible and performative way that most of heaven operates, but he still believes that heaven can and should epitomise that goodness. Conversely, Crowley (the one being Aziraphale has ever met who actually understands and shares Aziraphale's values) has given up on institutional salvation. He's seen both heaven and hell up close and knows they're functionally identical, except that heaven has nicer views. They want the same things, but they can't agree on how to get them.

I feel like a bunch of things just clicked into place for me and why I get so frustrated with people in real life and why they do the things they do and why it seems so incongruent.

No, I mean, it's not like I didn't know that people did things performatively all the time, it's just... I didn't realize that Gabriel's desire for power was separate from his desire to have power over Heaven specifically.

I mean I have learned that people don't really say what they mean or they don't mean it quite the way I mean it when I say things, I guess I just... I'm continually surprised by how much I miss.

It didn't occur to me that Gabriel literally didn't give a shit what Heaven stood for, I just thought he and Aziraphale thought it stood for different things, and Gabriel's version was simply a lot crueller than Aziraphale's.

moving the discussion to the show, i don't remember if crowley's theory made it into the final episode in s1 with all the body swapping shenanigans that went down, but I'd argue that it's not even necessary. aziraphale's relapse by choosing to reform heaven and his proposal to "make crowley an angel again" are NOT something that can be just walked back from. simply abandoning his new role as archangel won't cut it narratively to justify a reconciliation, he's gonna have to work for it, actively go against his new position in heaven, refuse it, sacrifice something etc.

here's the thing tho. it's easy to take crowley's side in this. after all, the man confesses his love and gets his heart broken before god and amazon prime. but this doesn't change the fact that: crowley is also wrong!! just as he was wrong about alpha centauri in season 1. "running away together" is to crowley what "i could make a difference" is to aziraphale. crowley's been trying to run away ever since s1 and that's BAD!!! "just the two of us" isn't the option to take here, not after millennia of screwing humans around, not after millennia of essentially going earth native. not while humans are being caught in the crossfire of the great chess match between heaven and hell. he can't run away every time, he has to CHOOSE earth, the way he's already done since the beginning. they owe it at least that.

I am so proud that Crowley did not follow Aziraphale to Heaven because we see him folding for Aziraphale constantly out of love which is sweet but Crowley knows when to say stop and going to a toxic place that hurt him is simply not possible for him even if it’s Aziraphale that’s asking.

Proud of him for standing his ground and thinking of himself too. He’s tried his best. He’s tried to save Aziraphale too. He’s shielded him for so long so he could keep his innocence that was taken away from Crowley.

But you can’t throw yourself into a toxic horrible place that hurt you because you love someone and they ask you to.

Spoilers. Spoilers everywhere. S p o i l e r s.

Alright let's dive in. So, it's even clearer in s2 that Crowley is the Jewish Representative in the Christian World ->

remember that Good Omens is essentially a world where Christianity is, with some modification, True. Classic Christianity. With the 7 days of creation and the hierarchy of angels and everything. (the exceptions are that its not patriarchal or queerphobic, but I digress)

in christianity, Jews are one of two things: - misguided fools (bc they don't realize Jesus is the messiah) - evil liars (bc they keep saying Jesus isn't the messiah)

-> making it obvious why the Jewish Rep, Crowley, is a demon. In Christianity, Jews and Judaism are at best treated like ignorant children, at worse treated like the agents of Satan.

All Crowley ever did was ask questions. Question the internal lack of logic within Christianity. Why make everything for it to end in 6k years? Why make people just to have them die in an apocalyptic battle? Etc. That is Crowley's Jewishness in action. Not only because he's asking questions, the Big Thing Jews Love Doing ->

-> but also Because Judaism is, essentially, a religion of celebrating life and humanity. Our books start with the creation of everything, not just Jewish people (which, at the time of writing, was extremely novel). We are a "nation of priests" in order to show the world a lifestyle of goodness we can all strive for. Not everyone has to be Jewish to have a good life or afterlife, we do not proselytize.

And, as such, Crowley - the token Jew - celebrates the world and humanity for what it is. His temptations are usually just encouraging humans to be human. He sees the beauty in the world they all created and he wants that beauty to continue.

Now, because Jews don't proselytize, he never really tries to get Aziraphale to join him in the questioning everything thing. He knows that asking questions would give Aziraphale the anxiety sweats. He doesn't really push him into do that.

All he does - throughout both seasons - is gently nudge Aziraphale into seeing how beautiful this world is. From the food and drink to appreciating humans, and then their art, and nature around them. Gentle nudges into realizing that this is a wonderful world worth preserving.

Which makes Aziraphale reject the Death Cult that is the Christian World (I'm reminded of the statement by Beezlebub "All my demons live for armageddon... if you can call that living") but not the hierarchy and fucked up toxic power structure that inevitably leads to that death cult

so Crowley thinks he's managed to persuade his Christian Friend to see the error of his ways, the error of Christianity. Aziraphale doesn't believe in the death cult anymore! perfect! now crowley and aziraphale can coexist and be a couple. Now they can be an "us".

That's where we leave off at the end of s1.

In s2, we see how still believing in that hierarchy (constantly referring to heaven as the "good guys" is a big key) holds Aziraphale back. Crowley, however, is blind to that, because he's singularly focused on making sure that his fragile peace with Aziraphale is protected.

He thinks that convincing Aziraphale that the death cult was bad would be enough for Aziraphale to realize that the Toxic Hierarchy is *also* bad.

But the Toxic Hierarchy keeps its hold on people the same way Christianity does in our world - by convincing people it has a monopoly on holiness, goodness, and right action. And Aziraphale is still convinced of that.

To those of us outside that system, its obvious that a Death Cult could not *possibly* have a monopoly on goodness/holiness/whatever. But inside of it, it's impossible to tell, because they've convinced you that they have that monopoly, and if you reject them you'll be doomed forever, and no one wants to risk being doomed.

This is where the Jewish Grief of Crowley comes in. Because Crowley, like many of us, is in a friendship with a Christian, who - because they are Christian, and you are Jewish - still thinks of you as a "demon", or a "foolish misguided". They're just polite about it.

(note, not all demons are Jewish in Good Omens - in fact, I'd argue that most of them are just as Christian as the angels, because they believe in the hierarchy and the death cult. I digress.)

When Jewish People are friends with Christians, we know that there is a potential bomb on the friendship. At any point, the Christian could reveal that the whole time, they were just trying to convert us to Christianity, because they see us as the "foolish misguided" Jew instead of the "demon" Jew. Yes, there are the isolated Christians in the real world who are able to see Jewish folks as something separate and worth preserving, but they are the minority; and in the world of Good Omens, they just can't exist, because the physical proof shows the Christian world as Real. At the very least, Aziraphale could never be that person.

Crowley was hoping he had managed to convince Aziraphale that Christianity is bogus, so they could remain friends without Aziraphale trying to turn him into something he's not. Aziraphale thinks that he's doomed, because he rejected the Hierarchy, and is constantly doubting himself and his own worth without his codependent relationship with the hierarchy

This brings us to the end of the season. When Crowley sees that Aziraphale never really left Christianity at all, that he was just waiting to come back to it, that is a grief that many Jewish people have felt in their life when a friendship with a Christian comes to a head. Aziraphale offering Crowley a second chance at angel-hood, and to be his "second in command", is essentially Aziraphale trying to convert Crowley to Christianity.

Trying to Erase Crowley the Jew.

In real life, when this happens, Jewish people become heartbroken regardless of the nature of the friendship. The person they thought was their friend was, this whole time, someone who saw them as foolish and misguided, someone who saw them as damned and thus lesser. It was never a friendship. It was a trap.

And for this to happen between Crowley and Aziraphale, not only leads to the deep grief of losing a friend, but the deep grief off realizing that friendship - and the love that Crowley so desperately wished to finally access - was all a lie. A trick. A trap.

It's not just that Aziraphale didn't understand, or that he went back to the toxic relationship. It's that all of Crowley's memories - all of his time with Aziraphale - is poisoned now. Because he can't see it as anything other than Aziraphale trying to turn Crowley into someone he's not.

They talk so much about temptation, but in the end, Aziraphale was the one trying to tempt Crowley into self-destruction, and not the other way around. And realizing that broke Crowley's heart more than anything else could.

The kiss? A last ditch attempt to try to get Aziraphale to realize what he was doing. What he was giving up by buying into the toxicity and the hierarchy. But toxic relationships brainwash you. It was never going to work.

The only way they can come back together now is for Aziraphale to realize that Crowley was right all along. He has a lot of growth to do. And Crowley has a lot of pain that is definitely going to get in the way. He spent 6k years thinking that Aziraphale saw him as an equal, when he never once did.

aziraphale is correct that heaven needs fixing! we can quibble over whether accepting a job as the boss is the right way to do that, but ultimately leaving michael or whoever in charge is going to lead to armageddon 2 armageddon harder. it simply will not work. the problem is that he's fumbling the relationship with crowley because he still needs to get over the idea of there being an inherently good and bad side and he needs to stop thinking that it's crowley being a demon that's keeping them apart. it's his own black and white logic that's doing that.

the historical flashbacks are some of my favorite scenes in season 1 and season 2 of good omens, so i was wondering if there were any time periods you’d really like to portray aziraphale and crowley in that you haven’t already???

GOOD OMENS 2