Mow

the prison scene is the only scene where crowley suggests aziraphale change something about himself - his appearance, his clothes, his presentation - and it’s for his own safety. it’s so that he can exist safely out in the world, where it might be punishable to be who aziraphale is - not an aristo, but flamboyant, in his way. this is essentially about staying closeted for personal safety. it’s okay!! you don’t owe anyone your coming out, for any reason but especially where personal safety is concerned. this relates back to aziraphale’s relationship with the homophobic-coded heaven, and aziraphale’s struggle to come to terms with his own thoughts and feelings as they are contrary to heaven’s “the way you should think and feel” codes. crowley understands what it is that aziraphale has to lose - he’s shown repeatedly regretting and struggling with his own fall, and only comes to terms with it in the last few moments of the apocalypse. crowley’s patience for aziraphale throughout the show is based in this: he gets it. he understands what it is to be cast out. he understands what aziraphale is going through whenever aziraphale goes against heaven.

this leads us exactly into the church scene. although this is happening in a church, there’s nothing holy or sacred or divine going on. it’s just a bunch of nazis sitting on an altar plotting to rob and murder a queer person. there were certainly nazis up to that kind of business in the 1940s, and there are certainly nazis up to that same kind of business now today. this isn’t subtle!! this is right-wing religious fanatic fascism in a nutshell!! so then crowley shows up and importantly, crowley doesn’t actually save aziraphale. crowley gives aziraphale the opportunity to save them both. aziraphale has to save himself. aziraphale is the only one with the power to save himself, and in doing so, he saves them both. 

this is the core of the whole show’s arc: aziraphale (the queer person), struggling to be what heaven (the traditional, homophobic family) wants him to be, even though he can see and feel that heaven is wrong. crowley (the out & cast out queer person), patiently standing by and helping aziraphale where he needs it, but ultimately leaving the decisions to aziraphale as to how or when to move forward, right up until crowley thinks they’ve run out of time and have to either run or be destroyed or separated; when he tries to force a decision on aziraphale, their relationship falls apart. it’s only restored when aziraphale finally, on his own, comes to terms with the idea that heaven’s way isn’t the way he wants to live. he doesn’t want to fight. he doesn’t believe in it. he believes in something else now, and he’s finally ready to make that choice. he ultimately turns heaven’s own logic in on itself to stop armageddon and uses love to help adam defeat the devil (aziraphale and crowley offering their love, their support, and their hands to adam, who in turn defeats the devil by denying him power where he has not done the same). 

then at the bus stop, crowley offers aziraphale to stay at his place. aziraphale’s gut reaction is to fall back in heaven’s line, and crowley say, we have to choose our faces wisely. this isn’t about body swapping to save themselves!! this is about rewriting paris 1793! this is about choosing, finally, now that they are on their own side, now that they have chosen their own rules, to be who they really are. aziraphale has rejected heaven, but he needs that last little boost to reject heaven’s rules. rejecting heaven and rejecting a lifetime of ingrained habit and expectation are two different things. rejecting heaven and rejecting shame and fear are two different things. when crowley says, we have to choose our faces wisely, he is saying, we have to choose whether to hide, or whether to be who we are. and aziraphale gets on the bus with him, and sits next to him, and goes home with him. that’s aziraphale’s coming out. that’s aziraphale, quite quietly and quite bravely, finding the strength to be who he is - who heaven didn’t want him to be. to choose crowley over everything he has held onto that made him hesitate to choose crowley. to choose himself over everything other people told him to be. 

and then aziraphale goes to hell for crowley and faces the fear he held onto for so long: what would happen if i fell? and here they are: weak, cowardly, pathetic. aziraphale is stronger than hell in every sense of the word. and at the same time, crowley goes back and faces the family who cast him out, the family he has wondered about for so long - did he really deserve it? and he finds after all this time that they are cruel, cold, unloving. he doesn’t want them. he has freedom: he has love. 

Illustrator Yaoyao Ma Van As