Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About The Crow Road, But Couldn't Get Through it To Find Out
Co-written by dbacklot and cheeseplants
WARNING: SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!!
Overall Premise: Books are clearly important to Good Omens and the team have left us Clues. In S2E2, the xray trivia highlights a list of books they would like the audience to read. But even more specifically, there are names of certain books on the back of the chairs in the theater in the opening credits. Those books are: The Tale of Two Cities, Pride & Prejudice, and The Crow Road - twice!
What might this mean? One theory is that the chairs represent the seasons. The body swap in S1 is similar to how Carton, in Tale of Two Cities, takes his doppleganger's place in jail, sacrificing his life so Darnay could go free and be with his family. Pride & Prejudice is clearly referenced in S2, with Crowley's proposal as a sort of mirror to Darcy's first proposal. (There's probably a whole lot more to unpack there - and if you like Austen, here are some thoughts about Aziraphale's favorite book, Persuasion, and how it may relate to the characters.)
BACK to The Crow Road. The title is shown on two chairs in the opening sequence, suggesting that it is related to both S2 and S3. Furthermore, we see the book multiple times in the show and it's the book Muriel reads at the end. As an aside, one of the original writers and Iain Banks were very good friends. Iain Banks died over a decade ago, so it is also likely a bit of a tribute to his friend.
So let's dig in and see why perhaps they kerp holding this book up and shouting Clue!
Side note: The book is long and most of the action happens in the final third, which can make it a hard read for folks. There's also a lot of characters and it can be tricky to remember how they are all related. There is a family tree BUT it has spoilers.
The Name: The Crow Road is a phrase used by the grandmother to indicate someone has died, ie - he's gone the crow road.
The Plot: This is the story of Prentice growing up with his immediate and extended family in Scotland. His Uncle Rory disappears in his early childhood. Some family members choose to believe Rory is still alive. After a hook-up with his Uncle Rory's former girlfriend as a young adult, Prentice starts gathering journals and writings from his missing Uncle Rory, who was (for a few years) a successful writer and traveler. Prentice eventually learns that 1) another Uncle, Fergus, had murdered his own wife and covered it up as a car accident and 2) Rory had figured this out and confronted him. Fergus then murdered Rory, hid all the evidence, and hired an acquaintance (who also traveled) to send matchboxes from bars across the world to Prentice's father, Kenneth. Kenneth, believed - as Fergus intended - that these were messages from Rory, indicating he was still alive.
Stylistically, Prentice's childhood memories and fragments from Rory's journals are interspersed throughout the book, much like the minisodes are in S2. It can take the reader a while to figure out who is telling the story or where this information is coming from. It is also unclear how reliable Rory is as narrator - perhaps this also plays into S2.
What it Might Mean:
Fergus could represent the Metatron. He is very powerful, rich, and conservative; he lives in a castle (Heaven?) and wants authority. Fergus also murders two relatives and hides those murders; the murder of his wife may have been inspired by jealousy over her sleeping with another man, an event which may or may not have happened.
Fergus also sets up fake messages!! The matchbooks are red herrings to make it look like Rory is still alive. As the Metatron relays messages from God, I can't get over the possibilities here. We have seen God speaking directly as recently as Job, but are the other messages real?
I can't help but wonder if the matchbooks and their use as messages inspired Neil to use the matchbook in S2. The matchbook in S2, incidentally, connects to all three minisodes - the quote from Job, 41:19 (reversed 1941), and the matchbox is from the Resurrectionists pub. So the matchbook contains not only Gabriel’s memories but refers to Azi’s as well?
Much of the book is about this missing uncle. Is a character (or their memory) missing in S3? I have theories, but its too soon to tell.
There's also an interesting theme of Prentice collecting his Uncle Rory's writings and records, including sending some corrupted computer discs to an expert in America to try to restore them. Given the emphasis on records ("It contains information in a tuneful way") and journals in S2, not to mention this trivia nugget - my brain is itching that there's a connection there.
Faith & Beliefs: The book talks about Faith a lot. Prentice believes in God and his father Kenneth doesn’t. And Kenneth doesn’t just reject religion, he wants his children to reject religion too. Prentice on the other hand desperately wants something to believe in - especially after a friend's death in an accident. This leads to a huge fall out - they end up not talking over it.
"'I mean, what's the big argument? Can't you just agree to disagree?' 'No; we disagree about that,' I shook my head. 'Seriously; it doesnt' work that way; neither of us can leave it alone. There's almost nothing either of us can say that can't be taken the wrong way, with a bit of imagination. It's like being married.'" (Ch 7)
Kennth seemingly taunts God - he climbs a church during a lightning storm and is struck dead. His uncle Hamish (one of Kenneth’s brothers) also represents the extreme version of Faith and ends up running a sort of cult, at least until Kenneth’s death.
What it Might Mean: The thread they pull through a lot is about meaning, and whether you can have meaning in life without God. Prentice gains Faith because his friend died senselessly; he wonders how can you have a world be so cruel. There must be a reason for it (this is sort of Az coded), and he turns to God to create the meaning for him.
BUT Kenneth’s argument is that you don’t need Faith for the world to have meaning (or at least that is my reading). It is wonderful because it is inherently meaningless (this is very existentialist, but I do think that’s the point). That Faith doesn’t do that, and just means you are looking outwards without looking at what is right in front of you. Which again, could be a Crowley way of looking at it, or at least where he is headed. Life is good as life, and doesn’t need God to make it so.
Hamish represents someone putting so much meaning into Faith that they lose all sense of Joy, he becomes distant. (One of my favorite scenes is Hamish doing a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces upside down - and cutting the pieces with scissors if they don’t fit right!)
The Romantic Relationships: Prentice is infatuated with a cousin (second cousin?), Verity. She is described as beautiful, in white/light colors, pure, lives with Uncle Fergus in the castle. There are legends around her birth - she was conceived under a tree during a storm. She is unattainable and eventually ends up with Prentice's older brother.
Ash, on the other hand, is almost literally the girl next door and Prentice’s long-term best friend. Her family is poorer and maybe has some domestic violence issues. She's always there for Prentice - literally a shoulder to cry on, sharing a bottle of whiskey, helping him sober up after said whiskey. There's obvious romantic tension from Ash’s side but she never pushes him and instead guides him along. And the book ends with a romantic resolution that feels very much like the final fifteen - except with a happier ending.
“- and I still didn’t feel I could tell her how I felt about her because she was going away now, and how could I suddenly say I love you when I’d never said it to anybody in my life before? How could I say it now especially, the night before she was due to leave? It would look like I was trying to make her stay, or just get her into bed. It would probably wreck this one precious evening that we did have, and upset her, confuse her, even hurt her, and I didn’t want to do any of that.” (Ch 13)
They finally kiss and spend the night together, both confessing their love. Ash has to leave the next morning to pursue a career opportunity in New York; Prentice is sad that she goes but re-dedicating himself to his studies and working towards a relationship together.
What it Might Mean: To me, Verity is very Heaven-coded and Ash is very Hell-coded. A big part of Prentice's arc (Prentice may represent Azi here) is getting over his blind infatuation with Verity and realizing the value and love he has with Ash. However, they also need to be apart and grow a bit before they can be together.
Other thoughts? Connections? Would love to hear your theories!!
@cheeseplants
