It’s hard to pinpoint any time in recent history during which we all had the privilege to collectively enjoy a six-hour act of creative, all-encompassing, multifaceted love on TV. There are a lot of reasons Amazon Prime’s new miniseries Good Omens is just that — an act of love — and it comes from the very genesis (because we like a good pun) of the story. When Neil Gaiman and the late great Terry Pratchett released their book Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch onto the unsuspecting world, love was there — as it must be — when two people come together to create one beautiful thing and gift it to the rest of humanity. And love was there, doubtlessly, when Gaiman later adapted their work with Pratchett in mind every step of the way.
David Tennant and Michael Sheen (who play the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale) have both been public about how much they admire each other’s work and their affection for the source material, but during New York Comic Con 2018 the actors gave the waiting fans a sneak peek at the thought and intentionality both actors were putting into the relationship between their two characters. Sheen revealed that he “decided that early on that Aziraphale just loves Crowley. And that’s difficult for him because they’re on opposite sides and he doesn’t agree with him on stuff. But it does really help as an actor to go, ‘My objective in this scene is to not show you how much I love you. And just gaze longingly at you all the time.’” Tennant seems to feel the same way, adding that “Crowley absolutely loves Aziraphale. He hates that he loves him. That’s really annoying for him.”
While there has always been, and will always be, a delightful barrage of both explicitly romantic and decidedly platonic interpretations of Crowley and Aziraphale — the recent show-inspired wave of fiction and art has been incredible — love on Good Omens is most definitely a many-splendored thing.
If one had to describe Good Omens very quickly — because the battle for the next binge-watch is on and maybe the rest of the family is already iffy on the whole concept of fantasy shows and there is only this one shot to convince them — one might say something like, “An angel and a demon fall in love with Earth (and each other), so they decide to stop the Apocalypse.”
Aziraphale and Crowley toast to the world (and each other).
By the time we met Aziraphale and Crowley in Eden, they were already both terribly fond of the two humans there — Crowley openly questioning the fairness of their banishment, and Aziraphale giving away his God-given flaming sword so they could defend themselves. Six thousand years did not exactly cool their proverbial crush on humanity any as they proceeded to enthusiastically collect attachments to food, music, hobbies, dancing, cars, taking strolls in the park, specific tables at specific hotel restaurants, and each other. Neither Heaven nor Hell seem to be the kind of place to encourage interpersonal relationships of any kind, and so the love that grows between Crowley and Aziraphale is itself a beautifully Earthly thing.
Both angels and demons seem to pop up or down to Earth with all the enthusiasm of someone going out to get milk at five in the morning, getting in and out with as little interaction as possible. The angels and demons of their respective head offices find humans to be, at best, dismissible and have a single-minded focus on who is going to Win (without much discussion or consideration as to what exactly that means). Angels, despite being heralded as creatures of love, don’t seem to care much about Earth and its people. Meanwhile, Crowley and Aziraphale have spent considerable time living day-to-day among regular old humans; their habits, their virtues and vices, and their boundless imagination — all of which has made them quite attached to the whole enterprise.
“You’re not my dad. Dads don’t wait until you’re eleven to say hello, and then turn up to tell you off. If I’m in trouble with my dad, then it won’t be you; it’s going to be the dad who was there.”
– Adam Young to Satan
The climax of Good Omens has Adam the Unsuspecting Antichrist telling off Satan for showing up 11 years late and trying to tell him what to do. Adam also happened to love Earth and all it encompassed for him: his parents, his friends, his Dog, and the little village where he’d grown up. While Aziraphale and Crowley spent a solid decade trying to raise a random American boy in absolute balance on a mission to dissuade him from ending the world, in the end all it took for Adam to be “human incarnate” was the love of his friends reminding him that although imperfect, the world and all those in it were worth saving.
“Whatever happens, for good or for evil, we’re beside you.” Aziraphale and Crowley take a stand with Adam Young.
“Angel, what if the Almighty planned it like this all along? From the very beginning?”
– Crowley to Aziraphale
That theme even calls back to the very presence of Jesus on Earth, the last direct Act of God that Good Omens shows us. Theologians may come beat us with their well-written treaties on the matter of reconciling the judgemental ‘drown them (kids and all)’ God of the Old Testament with the ‘be kind to each other’ message of the New Testament, but the long and short of it might be that God sent Jesus to walk amongst humans and then they loved Earth all the more for it.
Living in times that very often feel like The End Times, it can be easy to forget that for all of the terrible things people can do to each other we can also do some remarkably beautiful things. Watching Good Omens is almost like watching a very attentively put together play. Love is evident in the story, but it also comes through in every step of the storytelling; the writing, the acting, the set details, the caring hand-crafted effort of it all. There are a lot of odd couples on TV, endless shows about the end of the world, and even a few on the inner workings of Heaven and Hell. But being able to tell a story that radiates love? Well, that’s as miraculous as a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square.
“It’s everywhere, all over here. Love, flashes of love.” We know the feeling, Aziraphale.
Good Omens is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
