Oh, Joy Unbounded
It’s not only the start of Aziraphale’s quote on his page shared earlier today by Good Omens Prime, but also the title of the final piece from the operetta “Trial by Jury” by Gilbert and Sullivan. One that ends with the Judge resolving the entire case by offering to marry the Plaintiff.
Of course, we already had a good inkling that some type of a courtroom drama might make an appearance in the Good Omens Finale due to the general influence of the classic Powell and Pressburger film, A Matter of Life and Death (1946), over the entire adaptation, from literal production posters to character design (Not-Crowley’s curls before the beginning, you will always be famous), to literal sets like the Good Omens Heaven. It also happens to be a favourite of a certain Michael Sheen:
“My favourite film of all time is A Matter of Life and Death, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring David Niven. In the U.S. it was called Stairway to Heaven.”
“For me, it is beautifully shot. It is fantastically acted. It has a quality of strangeness that I always love in the best works of art. It is about two forms of reality, the real world that David Niven inhabits and this fantastical world of Heaven with angels and all that stuff. And you never get asked to choose which one is the real one or not.”
The Heavenly trial happens inside a nebula, with a counsel consisting of souls of those who had died in the British wars across centuries and a RAF pilot as the defendant who had accidentally cheated Death in order to stay longer on Earth and fall in love with the person he met over the radio during his fall from the sky. Just for context.
At the same time, the mention of the Second Coming invites another trial to the discourse, that is the Last Judgment — during which Jesus is supposed to use the Book of Life to separate the righteous from the wicked. If you haven’t yet, you should catch up with the speculation on Aziraphale’s roots and possible role in the upcoming Last Judgment in this meta on angelic names.
“We’ve come to a decision” indeed…
