Everyone's favourite demon and angel duo are back in Good Omens 2, the second season of the series based on a Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel. It premiered on Friday with one episode. It's aggressively cute and occasionally funny.
Although it's new material, written by Gaiman and John Finnemore (Pratchett passed away years before the show was made), it hearkens back to the 1990s in many ways. I don't know if this was intentional or if Gaiman and Finnemore just need to get out more. There's a subplot about two women falling in love and one of them is considered odd because she has a store selling vinyl records. Do Gaiman and Finnemore really not know how popular vinyl records have become in the past ten years?
I suppose that could just be part of the deliberately unchallenging nature of the material. Crowley's supposed to be a demon but he doesn't exhibit any truly bad behaviour, for example. The worse he does is drive fast while listening to Queen. People who want to feel like rebels without actually stepping out of line can watch the show and feel like martyrs for owning vinyl Queen records.
I kind of wish Aziraphale would act more like an angel, too. When the amnesiac Gabriel calls Aziraphale and Crowley his "friends", it made sense when Crowley denied being his friend but I felt like Aziraphale would've said, "Of course we're your friends." I did really like the scene where Aziraphale, as her landlord, forgave the record shop owner for not paying her rent. If even a softball show like this is willing to lampoon the ridiculous rent prices in the western world now, maybe we're a little closer to real action.
The costumes and sets are all really adorable. The street and buildings constructed around Aziraphale's shop make even the show's "real" world feel like a fantasy, underlining the impression that all of this is set in some softer, sweeter plane of existence where angels and demons alike spend most of their time having adorably awkward dialogue. Even Crowley's choice of beverage at the coffee shop, just six shots of espresso in a cup, is like a child from the 1990s' impression of an unreasonably strong drink.
David Tennant and Michael Sheen as the two leads are both really good, particularly Tennant. John Hamm returns as the archangel Gabriel and his guileless innocence is very cute. He's introduced, this season, walking naked down the street to Aziraphale's shop and, in this adorable reality, a naked man in the street causes absolutely everyone to stop and watch him. I don't think I could binge this show, at least not without a drink stronger than six shots of espresso, but the show's being released one episode a week. And maybe one little drop of this super sweet confection, like a miniature cupcake buried in frosting and sprinkles, is enjoyable on a weekly basis.
If you like twee, this show is tweer than Lamb Chop copulating with a Care Bear on a bed of cotton candy.
Good Omens is available on Amazon Prime.
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