Good Omens: Every Day

 "You know as well as I do how badly understaffed Hell is right now."

Crikey, that was a busy final episode. And, in the end, it was very good indeed. I still maintain that this season started well, ended well but had a fair bit of filler in the middle, and perhaps one could criticise the pacing in that this last episode had an awful lot of work to do. But there’s no denying that it’s very good indeed.

It’s an episode about Armageddon and the desirability or not thereof, yes. But it’s also an episode about love and choice. We finally get to see what happened with Gabriel and… he stopped being such an arse and started to parallel Aziraphale. He lost his enthusiasm for Armageddon, started to plot with the other side to avoid it… and fell in love with Beelzebub. With whom he concocted a plan. 

All this, though, is riffing on the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale, and their unspoken love, with heartbreaking results. The intervention of Maggie and Nina towards Crowley is mature and beautiful. They’re not rushing into their inevitable relationship, because this is reality, but it’s strongly hinted that happiness awaits them. Their own intervention, urging Crowley to tell Aziraphale how he feels, is far more grown-up than a Jane Austen ball full of shopkeepers.

But, despite Crowley pouring his heart out, and that kiss, happiness is not to be for Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley is a realist, not cynical for the sake of it, and he is right to be equally wary of Heaven and Hell. After all, in the flashback, Metatron strongly hinted at “institutional problems”. But, alas, Aziraphale succumbs to temptation, not from a demon but from Metatron. A fancy title, a fancy office, a swanky job running a project known as “the Second Coming”… he’s learned nothing, in the end. Poor Crowley has no choice. In a sense, Aziraphale has become Gabriel, while Gabriel has become Aziraphale.

An extraordinary, courageous finale. Despite the high concepts, in the end, the point is that love needs principles. We can’t just give our hearts to those who turn out to be lacking in integrity. Crowley, in the end, is more moral.

Good Omens: The Ball

 "Well, it wouldn't be a Shopkeeper's Association without dancing, would it?"

This is another very good episode, with a delightful conceit, a witty script and typically superlative acting. It's still dragging out a rather thin amount of plot though. Only now do we discover that Gabriel, apparently, emptied his memories into a matchbox for some reason. What's going on? Next episode is the finale and there really doesn't appear to be all that much to finalise.

The central conceit really is brilliant, though: a Shopkeepers' Association made to be a ball from right out of Jane Austen, all for the purpose of bringing Nina and Maggie together. It's milked for all its worth, with a splendid collection of shopkeepers, especially the, er, seamstress. And the Doctor Who fan. Who dies, naturally. There are a number of characters here, though, whom I hope we shall be seeing again.

Muriel's clueless credulous is amusing too, as are the spelling deficiences of the hordes of Hell. Yet we also have several hints that Aziraphale and Crowley may well have... those sorts of feelings for each other. I suppose it says a lot that this can somehow manage to entertain so much with such a thin plot. Good stuff, but the further throiugh the season we get, the thinner the gruel.

Good Omens: I Know Where I'm Going

 "So Elspeth here has all the opportunities because she's so poor."

"That's lunacy."

"No, that's ineffable."

The above quote says it all. Like last week's "minisode" (I've finally worked out what's going on with those: they're the historical flashbacks inserted into the episodes), Aziraphale learns a damn good lesson on moral ambiguity, and on the fact that seeing morality s something literally dictated from on high may not be the best idea. Here, he learns that lesson in 1820s Edinbugh, complete with bodysnatchers, laudanum, David Tennant getting to use his real accent and the anachronistic use of "Flower of Scotland".

It must be sais, fun though the episode is. Yes, Muriel's attempts and pretending to be a human police officer are hilartious, but the effect of her being there is to prevent the Maggie/Nina romance plot from having to move forward too quickly so other stuff can happen. Aziraphale discovers a few clues in Edinburgh, but it isn't much.

Whatever has been going on with Gabriel gets curiouser and curiouser, though. Plus Shax, and Beelxebub, have worked out where Gabriel is, and this means war. Still, fun though this episode genuinely is, with another sparkling script, I'll be glad if some more actual stuff can happen next time.

Good Omens: The Clue

 "Shoemaking and obstetrics. Those have always been the twin passions of Bildad the Shuhite."

This is, of course, wonderful stuff. The stuff about Job (took me a while to recognise Peter Davison under all that make-up) is a delight, the perfect way to show us how Crowley first got Aziraphale to doubt that God was truly all-wise and all-benevolent, while Crowley subtly shows himself not actually to be as bad as he pretends to be. All of the flashback stuff is a delight- and shows Gabriel to be an amoral git, the sort of bad manager we've all had, a proper contrast with the innocent Jim of today.

The plot is fun, too. Aziraphale simply has to get Maggie and Nina to fall in love to stop last episode's miracle looking suspiciois to the senior management of Heaven. There's the mystery of a jukebox in an Edinburgh pub which eventually turns all records into the one Buddy Holly b-side. And the fact that of course the children of God's favourite goody-goody are going to be insufferably entitled. This is the best comedy in yonks, yet it has real subtext too. We must never take our morals from authority, but from our hearts.

Oh, and Jane Austen, that well-known bank robber, smuggler and spy, also wrote novels on the side. Who'd have thunk it?

Good Omens: The Arrival

 “I don’t believe the Almighty has actually created a suggestion box.”

This isn’t just wonderful television. It’s pure bliss.

Take the pre-credits flashback scene, a two-hander between Crowley and Aziraphale set at the moment of creation. Isn’t it a sketch right up there with the very best of Monty Python, the perfect hook for potential new viewers, deliberately rigging off Life of Brian while being every bit as good? Yet with the added joyful depths of David Tennant and Michael Sheen as actors utterly on top of their roles, the perfect double act? It’s exquisite.

That’s before we even start with the superlative comedy genius of Jon Hamm. This is first class comedy. Yet it’s simultaneously deeper than that. The conceit- that reality is as Christian fundamentalists see it, but that God therefore works in very mysterious ways indeed- is nicely distilled for the benefit of new viewers. This first scene at once encapsulates who the characters are and what the series is about.

So where is this seriess headed? It appears to be mysterious political skulduggery between Heaven and Hell, with the Almighty as a deeply cynical player of ten dimensional chess: a valid theological viewpoint, I feel. No witchfinders, antichrist children or witch descendents this time, although we do have what seems to be the beginning of a rather sweet romance between Maggie and Nina, two of Aziraphale's fellow street retailers of quirky goods. 

We also have lots of splendid interaction between our favourite two celestial beings, lots of office politics in Heaven- Doon Mackichan is already promising as the ambitious Archangel Michael. But it seems Gabriel is persona non grata, exiled to Earth with neither wings not memories- or, indeed, clothing- and only a seemingly empty box. And no sooner do Crowley and Aziraphale resolve to shelter him than we find that anyone found doing so will be subjected to "extreme sanctions". And this means... oh dear.

This is exquisite. Far more than mere superb telly.