I’m back, baby! I forgot my password, and I also don’t use the email that I had used to set this blog up anymore, so I was sort of screwed and only had access through the WordPress app on my phone. I tried about ten times to change the email address or password through the app, but it kept telling me I couldn’t unless I verified the new email address through the old email address, which I obviously couldn’t do because I no longer had access to that email, and all of my password guesses were wrong even though I’m pretty sure I entered the right one at least once. Then I got pretty sad for awhile, because seriously even if I haven’t used this blog very often I’ve had it for years and years, and we’ve had some good times, right? I mean, that Theremon, what a lady- (and man-) killer! Oh, and what about the time that Laura burned down Almanzo’s house??? And my Blacklist and Supernatural reviews, which I have never finished even though I promised I would, because I am garbage in human form?? So yeah, I hated that I wouldn’t be able to use it anymore, but then…but THEN! I don’t know how, maybe the stars were aligned or my magic powers started working, I was able to change the password on the app, and I thought “oh that’s not going to work, it never worked before” but it somehow DID and I was able to LOG IN from my computer, and I changed the email and it worked too and suffice to say I’m using all these run on sentences to convey, in literary form, my abject happiness that I’VE GOT MY BLOG BACK!
So what’s been going on? Good Omens is what’s going on! Remember way back years ago when I reviewed Nightfall and said that I wouldn’t be reviewing Good Omens even though it’s my favorite book EVER? Well, Neil Gaiman did an Amazon original series, six episodes, and I’ve watched them all numerous times. It was amazing! So I will be reviewing the episodes.
What’s funny is I follow Neil Gaiman on Twitter, and he started tweeting about this awhile ago, and I was all worried because usually when things I love get translated into new forms it means they’re terrible, or I wait a decade to watch some MAGA-inspired bullshit about how white dudes are really BETTER AT EVERYTHING, it’s just THE TRUTH, and fuck you Game of Thrones. But Neil Gaiman wrote each episode and acted as showrunner, so the show is faithful to the book, and he’s given some really lovely interviews about how Terry Pratchett asked him to do this before he died, so he was doing it for Terry.
So! Episode 1. Frances McDormand is God, and acts as the narrator. (I read one less than positive review that said the narration made it feel like an audiobook being acted out, which is probably another reason I love it so much.) God does the opening narration from the book about the Earth’s creation, and then we’re in the Garden. We see Crawly whisper to Eve, and Eve and Adam (who are black, and let me tell you, Nazi Twitter fucking EXPLODED because clearly Adam and Eve are white, and I rolled my eyes so hard that they will never sit right in my eye sockets ever again) eat the apples and are kicked out of the Garden.
Aziraphale watches them leave the Garden and Crawly…uh, slithers up and turns into his regular David Tennant form, except with snake eyes. He has the first of many terrible hairstyles, but he’s a ginger! Only took about twelve years, right? That made me smile. He and Aziraphale chat about the basic nature of good and evil while Adam hacks a lion apart offscreen.
What’s funny is that Crawly claims he was just told to get up “there,” meaning the Garden, and cause trouble, but it’s pretty clear that he did it to get Aziraphale’s attention. I mean, why else would he immediately mosey on over to chat with his favorite angel? I mean, other than the plot.
Crawly asks about Aziraphale’s flaming sword, and Aziraphale reveals he gave it to Adam and Eve, and worries whether he did the wrong thing by doing that. Crawly sarcastically says he doesn’t think angels can do the wrong thing, but Aziraphale thinks he’s being sincere and thanks him. He makes eyes at Crawly while they talk about God’s intentions regarding the apple tree, and then it starts to rain. We see Aziraphale hold up one of his wings to shield Crawly. Aw!
I really want an apple now.
The credits are fun, and I’m just going to get this out of the way: the CGI is not that great, but again, this isn’t HBO so I’m not complaining. Also, I have apparently been pronouncing “Crowley” and “Aziraphale” wrong for literally half my life.
We open in a dark…churchyard? I don’t think it’s a churchyard, but it feels like one. Hastur and Ligur rise from the ground, and that is an effect I liked. They bitch about waiting, and then Crowley’s vintage Bentley rounds the bend, complete with Bohemian Rhapsody. Apparently they weren’t sure they’d be able to use it? Because the movie was coming out? I don’t get that. “We didn’t want people to be confused” I mean about what? That a song can be played in more than one context? I mean, this context isn’t even shitting all over Freddie Mercury’s legacy like some other contexts it’s been used in recently, but whatever.
Crowley hops out of the car and debuts his second awful hairstyle of the evening. They solemnly recount their Deeds, and then Hastur gives Crowley the Antichrist. Crowley is quite unhappy about this, and doesn’t even try to hide it, but I can’t even tell if the demons know he’s upset or if they’re basking in his discomfort. He dejectedly gets back into his car and dumps the Antichrist in the backseat. I feel it’s important to note that the Antichrist is literally in a picnic basket. Like, in the book I thought “basket” was just the way they said car carrier or something, but no, it’s literal. Crowley bitches and curses, and Freddie Mercury stops singing long enough to tell Crowley what a good soldier he’s been, with the M25 and all (I have never driven in England, so I will just assume this is like malfunction junction and yeah, that is pretty demonic). Freddie gives Crowley his instructions and Crowley almost runs into a semi.
We cut to Aziraphale, who is about to enjoy a beautiful plate of sushi, and I’m so envious because I haven’t had sushi in AGES. Gabriel appears, startling him, and looks down on the sushi because he sucks. But Jon Hamm is fucking DELIGHTFUL, he’s perfect as a smarmy middle management type. I never watched Mad Men so I don’t know if this is like his thing, but he’s very good at it. Gabriel lets Aziraphale know about the Antichrist, and warns him to keep an eye on Crowley but not to let Crowley find out he’s around.
See, it’s incredibly exciting to watch this, because the actors are clearly having just as much fun as the viewers are, and it just makes me so happy.
Then we speed off to meet the Youngs and the Dowlings, both headed to the same hospital for the ladies to give birth. They got Ron Swanson to play Thaddeus Dowling! I saw his name in the credits and was like, who the hell did he play, but this is fantastic. Also, one of the Bushes appears to be the president, because we see him briefly on the monitor when Harriet curses out Thad for not being with her.
I wonder when this is supposed to take place? The book was published in 1990, when Bush I was president, but they have cell phones and more modern technology.
Cut to the hospital, where our favorite Satanic nuns are preparing for the Dowlings’ arrival, because the plan is to give the Antichrist to Harriet. Mary Loquacious wants to know where the Antichrist came from, which…yeah. Did Satan just will him into being, or does he have a birth mom? The nuns are super bitchy about this, because they are mean girls. And I’ve already used the mean girls on the prairie, so I need a different metaphor because I don’t want to copy myself. Maybe Heathers? That would allow me to turn Hastur into JD, which is probably appropriate.
(Please note: I have never seen Heathers.)
Moving on. The nuns are super excited when they hear the sirens, and we see Harriet’s escort and the Youngs’ car pull up. Poor Mary Loquacious doesn’t really get a job, so Mother Superior Heather Duke tasks her with getting some cookies. Mary makes a face like she knows this is bullshit, but goes off to comply.
Harriet is wheeled in past the smiling, serene nuns, and then Arthur and Deidre come in, much to one nun’s horror. It seems that Deidre wasn’t scheduled to give birth till a week later, but, y’know…birth, and all. The nuns don’t turn her away for being early, because they’re Satanic, not evil, though that might’ve been a fun “no room at the inn” callback.
The nun refuses to let Arthur in, though, and I assume it’s because they don’t want any other random people wandering around and maybe seeing what they shouldn’t see. One of the nuns tells Arthur they’ll be in Room 3, and Arthur goes out for a smoke.
God interjects about the shell game we’re about to see, except she uses playing cards to explain it. The narration slows down and we see Deidre Young with her newborn baby, then Harriet Dowling still giving birth, and then Crowley shows up. Arthur’s still outside, and Crowley assumes he’s with the nuns or something. Arthur thinks he’s the doctor (ha!) so he tells him that Deidre’s in Room 3, because he doesn’t know any better. Crowley heads inside, and, clearly wanting this task over with as soon as possible, flags down the first person he sees, who happens to be Mary Loquacious Veronica Sawyer. He tells her to take the baby to Room 3. Mary has a great little bit where she’s babytalking at the Antichrist, and Crowley makes the funniest, fakest excited face ever.
How could anyone besides David Tennent play this role?
Mary hops over to Room 3, and gets waylaid by Sister Heather McNamara, who bitches that Mary was supposed to get the cookies. Mary haughtily tells Sister Heather that Crowley told her to deliver the baby, and Sister Heather takes a peek at the Antichrist, then snappily tells Mary to get on with it. In the room, Deidre is conveniently asleep. Mary wheels the Antichrist in (red blanket, further from the bed), and Arthur comes in. She thinks he’s the ambassador, so she tells him the Antichrist is his and his real son is an extra baby. Arthur doesn’t ask about this weirdness, because he’s enchanted by his supposed son. Meanwhile, Harriet has given birth and Thad is all bro-excited and he’s shockingly likeable for a dude who missed out on his baby’s birth for work. But that’s probably the Ron Swanson thing. Sister Heather Chandler says she needs to take the baby to be weighed, so they attempt the switch but no one can find the Antichrist. Sister Chandler runs into Sister McNamara, who tells her where the baby is in Room 3.
Sister Heather Chandler takes the wrong baby after a miscommunication, and takes that baby back to Harriet. So the Youngs have the Antichrist, the Dowlings have the Young baby, and the Dowlings’ baby is wheeled away while God talks about the good things that might’ve happened to the extra baby.
We’re supposed to infer from this that the nuns did something terrible to the baby, but we find out later in the book that they didn’t. This is a minor quibble of mine, I know it did nothing to really move the story forward but it would’ve been nice to briefly see Greasy Johnson and get that acknowledgement. Oh well.
Oh yeah: the name thing. Both Mary and Heather Duke push “Damien” pretty hard, and I think it would’ve been funny if they were both named Damien. Harriet doesn’t like it because it’s too alliterative, and she’s right. Arthur just thinks it sounds too out there. Harriet ends up naming the baby Warlock. Mary ends up suggesting Adam, and Arthur and Deidre like it, so Adam it is.
Now Crowley’s at a pay phone, because he messed up all the cellular lines in London so couldn’t get through. We see Aziraphale in his bookshop, hanging up his coat and singing along to some classical music (yes, this is a thing you can do). He politely tells his caller that they’re closed, but it’s Crowley and they agree they need to talk about Armageddon.
We’re at a park, and our two nerds are chilling and watching the ducks, chatting about the Antichrist and how it sucks that the world is going to end. Aziraphale toes the company line until Crowley reminds him of everything he’s going to lose regardless of which side wins. Crowley, of course, was the original tempter, so he’s very good at this. Aziraphale looks interested (or tempted, heh), but then says he wants to have lunch first. Because Crowley will clearly give Aziraphale whatever he wants, they head over to the Ritz and Crowley watches Aziraphale eat. Then Crowley demands they get drunk, so they head back to Aziraphale’s shop and dig into some rare stash of wine.
Harriet and Deidre take their babies to their respective homes, and then Hastur shows up to disband the Order by blowing up the building, but not before he murders Sister Heather Chandler. I told you he was JD.
Anyway. Aziraphale and Crowley are drunk and Crowley is directing Aziraphale’s attention to everything that’s going to suffer because of Armageddon, which makes Aziraphale sad, so they both decide to sober up and it’s weirdly uncomfortable to watch.
Crowley uses logic on Aziraphale: he’s a demon, and angels are supposed to thwart demons, so if he stops the Antichrist he’s actually doing his job. They decide they’ll try to influence the Antichrist, and we get a delightful montage of Crowley as Warlock Dowling’s nanny complete with Mary Poppins-style hat, and Aziraphale as the Dowlings’ gardener. My favorite part of this is where Warlock complains the gardener told him to “never ever destroy the Earth.” I feel you, kid. If I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me!
Aziraphale and Crowley head to their respective head offices to report. This is a great little scene, where they enter the same big office building and we see Aziraphale take the escalators up, and Crowley takes the reflected escalator down. I read an interview with I think the set designer who said he got the idea when he walked into the building’s lobby and saw the escalators reflected in the shiny floor. They report; the demons seem pleased, and the angels clap happily, but Michael and Gabriel promise Aziraphale they won’t be mad when he fails.
Aziraphale is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that the angels also want Armageddon to occur. Didn’t he see Season 4 of Supernatural? Gabriel insists it’s the Great Plan, and that they’ll win anyway, and give everyone paradise.
Next we see the boys chilling on a bus, discussing that Warlock is too normal. Aziraphale is happy because he thinks the heavenly influence is winning out. In the book, Crowley explains it more, that the Antichrist should be warping reality without even trying because it’s what he’s meant to do, but they don’t really cover that here. Then we see Warlock and his mom looking at dinosaur statutes. Warlock is unimpressed; he wants to talk about his birthday party, which he wants in an escape room. Harriet says no, but we pan out before we can find out what, specifically, she objects to about escape rooms.
Our boys are watching, and Crowley FINALLY has a good hairstyle. It’s sort of similar to the one he had as Ten, but a little longer in the front and spikier. I like it. Oh wait, they’re talking. Crowley drops the hellhound bomb: on the Antichrist’s eleventh birthday, a hellhound is going to be delivered to him at exactly three pm, and by naming it, he’ll kickstart Armageddon. Then Crowley slides right into tempter mode, and basically tells Aziraphale that he could kill Warlock and stop everything. Aziraphale is pretty damn tempted, I must report, although the jury’s out on whether it’s killing Warlock or Crowley in general he finds tempting. He shakes himself out of it and says they should be at the birthday party to watch for the hound, and then gets excited about dusting off his old magic routine. Crowley is SO MUCH like an exasperated, disgusted wife in this sequence, I laugh every time I watch it. And I’m so happy they kept the whole “Aziraphale is bad at fake magic” thing from the book, it was a tiny part but I liked it.
Cut to Warlock’s party, which looks pretty typical of a kid’s birthday party to be honest. They have a tent in their backyard and handmade signs. I expected I guess more from a rich diplomat’s kid’s party? My sister’s kids go to a relatively well to do school, and while they’re not super wealthy, some of their kids’ friends are, and I’ve heard stories about whole villages of bouncy houses, concerts, lavishly catered food, and so on.
Well, they do have staff at the back of the tent, and I assume they’re catering, security, and clean up. Crowley is among them. And don’t get me wrong, it’s sort of charming that they went the homemade route, I can picture Harriet stenciling those letters and it makes me smile. She hasn’t been on screen that much, but I like her a lot.
Aziraphale is, of course, super into his magic performance, down to the silly outfit and penciled on moustache. The exceedingly British (one of them is called Tarquin) kids hate it, of course, and tell him he’s rubbish (that’s British for trash) while Crowley watches his watch count down the seconds.
There’s a short cut in here somewhere of Arthur and Deidre. Deidre has a single layer cake that she’s lining with candles and little candies (they look like M&Ms). She tells Arthur that she told Adam to be home by teatime, which I looked up and I think is meant to be about four in the afternoon. Arthur steals one of the candies and leaves the room.
Cut back to Warlock’s party, where they’ve started an epic food fight. Aziraphale is covered in cake, and Crowley managed to get out of there relatively unscathed. Warlock tells the camera that it was the best birthday ever, so at least he enjoyed himself.
Our boys head back out to Crowley’s car, and I’m surprised he let Aziraphale sit in it while he’s covered in food. Dean Winchester would never! It must be love! Crowley turns on the radio and asks about the hellhound, and is answered by Dagon, Lord of the Files (that’s not a typo BTW) and Master of Torment. Before Dagon can catch on that there’s a problem, Crowley lies and says he sees the dog, calling it a “lovely helly-hellhound” which sounded so very Ten to me. He shuts off the radio as he and Aziraphale realize they’ve been concentrating all their energy on the wrong boy.
God tells us that the “right boy” was playing in the woods with his friends, as it was his birthday. Except…he does this every day as far as we know. Anyway, we’re introduced to the Them, and God said they named themselves that, except that’s not entirely true. They picked it up from their disapproving neighbors. But I guess that’s not super important. What is important is that they’ve got Adam reclining on a throne, which I really loved. In fact, the child actor is great, even if he’s not blond and also has the haircut of a middle-aged woman named Carol.
Pepper bitches about getting a girls’ bike for her birthday because it’s sexist (never stop fighting the patriarchy, Pepper!), and Adam says very firmly that he wants a dog. In the background, our hellhound stalks up, and…does not look at all like I expected. Again, this isn’t HBO, it’s fine. So Adam starts to describe the kind of dog he wants, small and clever, and says he’s going to name him…Dog.
There’s a sort of popping noise, and then instead of a big bad CGI nightmare we get an adorable black and white mutt with glowy red eyes. Dog barks and wags his tail and runs to unite with his master. Adam is ecstatic, and Dog learns what cuddles are.
Aziraphale and Crowley are commiserating in Az’s shop (yeah it’s a long name, sue me) with whiskey. Then Crowley sort of exhales and says something’s different. Az is pleased that Crowley FINALLY noticed his new cologne, this stuff isn’t cheap you know, but Crowley’s talking about the Antichrist. He tells Az that the dog is with him, wherever they are, and so Armageddon has begun. Az raises his glass and morosely toasts the End Times.
What Jenny's Reading 