It’s been a full four years this May since Good Omens season one first arrived on Prime Video, finally bringing the best-selling comic fantasy novel to the screen in a way that was better than fans could’ve imagined. Showrunner Neil Gaiman has been busy working on a second season for the past couple of years, then, and at long last, Prime has now announced that Aziraphale and Crowley’s next attempt to avert the apocalypse will be with us this July.
To borrow a phrase from Amazon’s announcement post, this is “ineffably good” news, but this card-carrying Good Omens fan has to get something off their chest. As much as I’m excited for more of what the internet effectively calls “the ineffable husbands,” I must also admit to being terrified that the new episodes won’t live up to what came before. Or, even worse, trample over what was previously established.
For starters, it’s worth remembering that Gaiman was initially dead-set on labeling Good Omens as a miniseries not a first season, as the original six episodes fully adapted the 1990 novel he penned with the much-missed Sir Terry Pratchett. So it was a surprise when another season was ordered, as based on concepts the duo had once cooked up for a sequel novel that never got written. Gaiman did a wonderful job adapting his own work with both GO and The Sandman, but HBO’s fellow Gaiman adaptation American Gods sadly floundered once it diverged from the source material.
What’s more, the most beloved element of the first season was obviously Michael Sheen and David Tennant’s flawless chemistry as the unlikely angel/demon besties… Or maybe something more, depending on who you ask. Gaiman nimbly depicted the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley in such a way that it could be interpreted through any number of lenses by different viewers, with some championing them as a gay couple, for instance, or praising them as a rare example of a central asexual relationship in a genre TV show.
Giving us more of these two characters, and showing exactly where they go next after the last season, risks undoing this effective and powerful ambiguity, and Gaiman may be forced to continue walking this dangerous tightrope or else definitively put a label on the nature of Aziraphale and Crowley’s bond — which could alienate those whose view doesn’t fit with the canon interpretation.
Alternatively, given how well he handled everything in season one — and knowing how important it is to Gaiman to do justice to what he and Pratchett created — maybe we should just have faith that the god of the Good Omens universe knows what he’s doing. Season two descends from on high/rises up from the underworld on July 28.
Published: May 10, 2023 12:13 pm