Good Omens season 2 review: a lovey-dovey shipper’s delight

The primary season of Amazon and the BBC’s Good Omens adaptation was stuffed with intelligent new particulars that weren’t current in Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s authentic novel, and the present was higher for them due to how they helped flesh out its world of angels, demons, and curiously worded prophecies. With Good Omens solely being a singular e book somewhat than a collection, it was clear that Amazon was going to have to begin telling wholly authentic tales when it introduced its plans to provide a second season of adventures for Aziraphale and Crowley. The apparent query was whether or not they’d be any good given Pratchett’s passing in 2015.

Usually, Good Omens’ second season feels very conscious of the way it exists in narrative territory that’s going to be thought-about uncharted by a contemporary fandom that’s come to like these characters with an depth that wasn’t fairly as pronounced again once they had been simply concepts in a e book. However Good Omens steps into this new chapter gracefully and with sufficient confidence to make it really feel just like the logical reply to “How do you proceed an apocalyptic love story after Armageddon’s been averted?”

Relatively than digging deeper into any of the Antichrist-forward threads that formed season one, Good Omens’ second season simply picks up and will get proper again to detailing the millennia-long story of how the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and the demon Crowley (David Tennant) turned acquaintances, then friends, after which one thing barely… extra than “simply associates.”

The brand new season doubles down on the outdated concept that — greater than any satisfaction they ever felt from doing their respective jobs in heaven and in hell — their mutual fondness for each other has all the time been what’s given them the energy to place up with their immortal colleagues and numerous people over the ages. However with the preplanned finish of days now formally behind them and humanity nonetheless very a lot intact, the blessed / cursed odd couple now has nothing however time to indulge themselves in earthly pleasures like working cozy little document retailers or mainlining a number of cups stuffed with espresso.

Aziraphale and Crowley’s softly flirtatious, playful relationship has all the time been an vital a part of the appeal of Good Omens as each a e book and a streaming collection. However it takes on a really completely different sort of prominence in season two that looks like a mirrored image of Gaiman and new collection co-writer John Finnemore paying very shut consideration to the way in which many viewers instantly latched onto the concept of an angel and a demon sharing an ineffable sort of romantic love.

Neither Tennant’s Crowley nor Sheen’s Aziraphale really feel all that completely different from their typical ornery and timorous selves as Good Omens first catches up with them. However from particulars just like the notable uptick of situations by which Crowley calls Aziraphale “angel” and the way in which this season focuses on them each interacting with lovestruck people, it’s very simple to get the sense that this season’s scripts are (not less than to some extent) taking part in to the present’s shippers.

A considerably comparable motivation to work followers up right into a managed frenzy usually feels prefer it’s at work in the way in which this season brings the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) again into the image together with his underlings Michael (Doon Mackichan), Uriel (Gloria Obianyo), and Saraqael (Liz Carr) in tow. However for all of the house Good Omens affords Sheen, Tennant, and Hamm to have enjoyable in, the present’s additionally conscious of retaining sufficient give attention to the story unfolding between document retailer proprietor Maggie (Maggie Service) and barista Nina (Nina Sosanya) to make their human drama really feel simply as vital as the brand new mess that places heaven and hell on excessive alert.

There are such a lot of transferring elements to that celestial / infernal mess that it’s a real surprise to see how effectively Good Omens is ready to lay it out whereas additionally taking periodic breaks to poke enjoyable at a few of the bible’s extra alarming and ideologically perplexing parables just like the E book of Job. A few of that may be attributed to this season constructing on concepts Gaiman and Pratchett by no means obtained an opportunity to work right into a full-fledged sequel.

However in moments when the present’s leaping backwards and forwards between its core gamers and checking in with supporting characters like exasperated demon Shax (Miranda Richardson) and guileless angel Muriel (Quelin Sepulveda), Good Omens virtually begins to really feel just like the kind of British radio comedy that made John Finnemore well-known.

Although the season’s six episodes transfer fairly briskly, they’re dense in a (good) manner that makes the present really feel prefer it’s attempting to be a devoted adaptation of an much more intricately detailed piece of supply materials. That’d be a formidable trick for any Amazon present to drag off, not to mention the follow-up to a surprisingly stable manufacturing of a narrative that didn’t all the time appear to be it could work for tv. It’s one Good Omens’ second season pulls off with ease, although, and it’ll seemingly preserve you watching when the brand new episodes drop on July twenty eighth.