S2E1 - The Arrival Write Up P7 - the Present Day from Crowley’s departure from the bookshop to his return to it
Let’s see if we can plough through this next section to take us up to the Apology Dance, shall we? Because that seems like a pretty decent place to place a marker and hopefully finish up the episode from there.
There are some minor points I want to pick up on in the scene depicting Crowley’s departure from Soho, largely around this line of script:
CROWLEY: Just breathe, that’s what humans do. Then they count to ten before they do anything stupid.
Perhaps he just says this because it’s something that he’s learned about humans during his time on Earth, but I find this one interesting because it surfaces the possibility that he consciously engages in actions that would make him more humanlike. We saw quite a bit of symbolism in the first season to suggest that his non-physical assets (morals, ethics, emotions, etc.) were more closely aligned with human values, but I don’t think that was a conscious decision on his behalf. The soundtrack gives us some extra layering here in the reflexive growls emanating from the demon, which are distinctly not humanlike, but clearly not something he’s really able to control. And talking of doing things that are not in his control, his anger is having quite the effect on the area around him – check out the sky in the background here:
The whole sky (which, prior to his entry into the bookshop, was clear and bright blue) is filled with rolling, red-tinted clouds. The light in the whole street has darkened and developed that same red tinge. This is quite the tantrum! I do love the fact that he’s so furious he can’t even perform the act that’s supposed to be calming him down (counting) but seems to feel the need to include a token element of his attempted actions by simply screaming the goal number as he reigns unholy fire into the street. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry after an argument with a friend that I feel like I could have invoked this atmospheric change. My husband on the other hand…
Possible Easter egg in this scene – the music playing in the coffee shop as Maggie and Nina watch Crowley smoking outside has reverted to Bohemian Rhapsody. Here are the lyrics that would be playing (in the non-instrumental version) as Crowley summons his fury storm:
I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me
Sorry, did I say possible Easter egg? Who am I kidding?!
One last musing on this scene: is it really possible that Aziraphale missed everything that was going on outside here? Yes, he was in the back room as Crowley stormed out, but I can’t help but think that he would have felt something was amiss.
I don’t think I have much to say subtext- or hidden meaning-wise about the scene in Heaven, but here are a couple of little titbits of information that are dropped into the dialogue that are perhaps worth noting:
There are no plans to replace the Supreme Archangel as far as Michael is concerned at this point in time.
The position of Supreme Archangel is always supposed to be filled.
The formal stance at this point is that Gabriel is “absent” from Heaven.
Muriel’s position is a 37th order scrivener (or no-one as they term it, which is a little bit heartbreaking).
Muriel appears to be incapable or unable to say the word “Earth”, choosing instead to say “down”. It is not clear whether this is because they don’t want to say the word, is afraid to use it, or if their understanding is that it shouldn’t be used around higher-order angels.
Returning to something I touched on in an earlier write up, we’re introduced to another tartan-wearing angel in Saraqael. Her tartan touches are subtler (and of a different pattern) than Muriel’s, but evident nonetheless.
The matchbox has been identified as a “material object”, which apparently is impossible in Heaven, and the angels are all clearly uncomfortable with its presence.
I had pondered about how we distinguish between the matchbox being a material object and the other apparent material objects in this scene (Muriel’s files or Saraqael’s chair for instance. Or all of their clothes…), but Uriel later refers to it as an “earthly object”, which might explain that one (the matchbox being the only one of those items that originated on Earth).
There is one question that screams out in my mind when we see Crowley returning to his car, and it’s this: where has he been since storming out of the bookshop? It’s full dark in this supposed back street of Edinburgh London (it must be London, you can see The Shard and The Gherkin all lit up in the background 😉), but when he left Soho, it was full daylight. And when I think about it, he left Soho walking down the road away from the Bentley, which you can see was still parked outside the coffee shop here:
All of which means he must have returned to Soho at some point, if for no other reason than to pick up the Bentley (which would have been in full view of the bookshop for Aziraphale to see that he was or wasn’t still in the area). And yet, when we see him enter this scene, he hasn’t just arrived at his little parking spot because at the beginning of the shot we see him approaching the car. It’s probably nothing, just convenience of stage directions to get him from one place to another, but it just makes me wonder. Wherever he’s been, it’s clear he’s not angry anymore:
He just looks exhausted and sad, bless his little cotton socks. What we can also see here is that there is a fly already on the car windshield as he gets into the Bentley. Not only that, the plants in the rear seat appear to be trembling ever so slightly. It says a lot to me that he doesn’t pick up on either of these things, because if he had, he might have known that Beelzebub was already waiting for him to return. And she makes an interesting observation almost immediately in this next scene – Crowley can try to invoke their so-called “generalised understanding” as much as he wants, but it’s in her power to renege on it at any time she chooses. It makes me wonder why it is that she hasn’t done so already, or why Heaven haven’t done something similar to Aziraphale, but ultimately I’m of a mind that they just thought their existences were better off without a wayward angel and/or demon in them.
We had some subtextual reminders of the winged forms of both Aziraphale and Crowley in the bookshop scene previously, but this scene has a similar subtle reminder of how Crowley is perceived in Hell – as a demon.
Just like with the coffee shop music earlier in the episode, I can’t believe that this prop and this camera angle are coincidental. Nor do I believe that Crowley’s repositioning of himself is anything short of a deliberate attempt to disassociate himself from that image.
I just want to make a quick note about an odd little facial expression we see from Crowley immediately after Beelzebub says Gabriel has gone missing.
It happens pretty quickly, so the gif has been slowed down. I’ve seen some theories arguing that this is potentially Crowley catching a fly and storing it in his cheek, which in fairness has a lovely symmetry with the bullet catch trick. I don’t think I buy that theory for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I can’t see or hear a fly/the cessation of a buzzing fly that would tie in with one being secreted somewhere. Given that every time a fly has been a Clue in this episode up to now, its presence has been marked by a buzzing in the soundtrack, so that wouldn’t be in keeping. Secondly, for Crowley to do this would require him to know that one of Beelzebub’s flies can be used to keep memories in, something which I don’t think we get any hint of. For my money, I think this is just a tic – he’s reacting to something that’s been said that makes him nervous, anxious even (that woman screaming in the background probably doesn’t help). I know, I know - my interpretation is a lot more mundane and less interesting, sorry! I just didn’t want that little moment to go by unmentioned. With all of that said, there are a couple of other interesting facial expressions we see whilst Beelzebub is making her pleas:
I’m still of the mind that these are nervous tics, but please feel free to try and convince me otherwise 😊
I have just a couple more things to say about this scene, but they’re all fairly minor:
Crowley looks away when Beelzebub tells him he can name his price. It feels odd to me that he does this – perhaps this is just a subconscious way of saying that what he wants more than anything at this point is to get out of Hell?
The sound of the woman screaming in the background seems very deliberate in its timing to me. It usually kicks in just after Beelzebub has delivered some sort of blow about how terrible the situation is with Gabriel’s disappearance, so it makes me feel like this might be an aural representation of Crowley emotional state of mind at those points.
Beelzebub initially asks Crowley to help “us” (i.e. Hell) to find Gabriel, but changes to the first person singular when she doesn’t get what she wants – it’s a pretty obvious Freudian slip out of desperation.
The situation with Gabriel is referred to by Beelzebub as “this affair”. Lovely little word trick at play there.
Beelzebub finishes their discussion with an insistence that Crowley go to her specifically (not Hell, or another demonic officer of Hell) before anybody else if he hears anything.
Here is where we have our first reference to the Book of Life, and how it features into the storyline. On my scant Googling, I learnt that this is an actual tenet of Christianity. Interestingly (again, SCANT research – apologies if this is incorrect and/of causes offence to anyone) it contains the names of people who have put their faith in Jesus, so I think we could put a tick against Aziraphale’s name on that count. More interesting than that though is that, according to the scripture, Jesus himself made a promise that names already in the Book of Life would never be able to be fully removed from it. Blotted out, yes, but not fully erased. And so, we have a couple of options to consider here: either the GO Book of Life performs a different function than that written in Christian scripture, or somebody in Heaven is trying to undo Jesus’s promise (and the fact that Beelzebub uses this as a threat to Crowley suggests that she, and Heaven, know a lot more about what’s going on than they’re making out). I think it’s probably the former – it certainly won’t be the first time in the show that the finer details of the plot take a slightly different path to the real-life templates that they’re based on. Insofar as how this new development relates to our plot, I think it’s interesting to see that Crowley, who clearly has heard of the Book of Life before, believes this be a big bluff, and I actually don’t think Beelzebub is convinced of her own reply that it’s a real thing. What I don’t think we can argue with is the panic on Crowley’s face when he realises the consequences that could be in store for Aziraphale (and the demon himself) if they continue to help Gabriel.
I don’t know what’s going on with the character setup for Nina and Maggie – does anybody else feel like we’re really not given a lot of opportunity to like them? I’ve been pretty vocal about my initial feelings about Nina, which is definitely not helped by this scene, where she clearly judges Maggie for her life choice not to drink, disses her record store (again) and criticises her partner for what seems like a very sensible attitude towards someone they care about (asking for an update when she’s going to be late). OK, I know this last one turns out to be a bit more complicated, but at this point in the storyline, that’s not something we, the audience, have knowledge of. So yeah, I found plenty more opportunity to culture my dislike Nina in this scene. I also found a couple of odd little things that start to skew my assessment of Maggie though, and I’m not OK with that. For instance, what’s with that sickly sweet condescending tone when she tells Nina there’s “no judgement” for her having a tiny cup of wine? It’s almost holier-than-thou. And did she leave the door to her record shop not only unlocked, but also wide open? I mean, WTAF? I know Whickber Street is portrayed as a little sanctuary for its residents, but this is still central London. Nobody would do that. So all of that to say (once again) that I find the character set up for these guys… what’s the word… disappointing? Frustrating? They do turn out to be fairly major characters after all. I just feel like they deserve better, perhaps something more consistent. I could go off into a rant about what this suggests about the creator’s ability to create strong female characters, but I think I’ve already covered that ground.
Little personal note about me – the choice of music used for Bentley’s 110+mph drive across London was the very first hidden meaning thing I picked up on. That’s not to say I didn’t love all of season one, or anything about this episode before this scene, it was just the first time I had a little light bulb go off in my head. And look where that got me. 150K+ words and counting. And for all the credit I give this little moment, it’s actually a pretty obvious piece of subtext – I feel like using Queen’s “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” as a background track for Crowley racing across London to get back to Aziraphale is somewhat akin to using a massive billboard to state that the lover boy in question is Crowley himself. I think my brain melted a bit when I realised that at the time. What I really love about this though is that this thing has layers. The lyrics themselves have references to a saloon car, dancing together, and loving phone calls, as well as dining at the Ritz. The last of those is suspiciously missing from this playing; I’ve seen some speculation that is in itself a bit of foreshadowing, because that scenario is absent from this season, and I have to say I’m not averse to that interpretation because the music actually cuts out very suddenly in the scene right before those lyrics should begin, leaving Crowley in the car in silence.
Very quick Easter egg (only spotted whilst taking the screen grab for this write up): both speedometers in the Bentley have numbers made entirely of 6s.
And a quick point of note from the next bit of conversation between Nina and Maggie (who finally seems to soften about the beloved record store): the record shop used to be actually inside the book shop. Seems like a strange thing for Aziraphale to allow – surely that would have occupied valuable space where there should have been books? I’d actually quite like to know a bit more about Maggie’s grandmother, not for any particular reason, just because I think there’s probably a sweet little story there somewhere (not least because that would have been during a time when our hero couple weren’t talking).
That song just keeps giving, doesn’t it? Check out the specific lyrics playing as Crowley arrives at the bookshop:
Driving back in style in my saloon will do quite nicely.
So literal. Absolutely nothing coincidental about this song choice or these particular lyrics at all as far as I’m concerned. I do love that Crowley parks in the same spot that he always parks in, despite then having to walk down the street to get to the bookshop. Given the insane speeds he’s been driving at to get here in the first place, you’d think he’d park as close to the door as possible, but no, he parks in the same place he always does. That’s his space. He also stays on that side of the street instead of crossing directly to the door. That’s probably a convenience of filming thing, seeing as he needs to be able to see Maggie and Nina locked in the coffee shop, but I think it also speaks to the ingrained muscle memory he has being in this location. As a final point of interest for this section, we’re treated to a miracle noise as Crowley turns on the power in Maggie’s shop. This one has that brushed cymbal effect, and what sounds like a choir on an ascending note – that’s another one for the memory bank to be called on later.
And here we are, arrived at a very obvious place to wrap this section up. I have to say I really enjoyed doing this chunk, despite it being less detailed than previous parts. We’ve seen so much relationship establishment for Crowley and Aziraphale in the episode up to this part, it was almost refreshing to visit other character interactions. I am looking forward to taking a look at that Apology Dance though – I am under no illusions that there will be a lot of gifs and screenshots! For now though, and as always: questions, comments, discussion are always welcome. See you for the next one!
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