Neil Gaiman on why he cast Michael Sheen as Aziraphale:
"Michael had said he wanted to be in it from the very start. Around 2014ish. We both assumed he'd be Crowley.
Except as I wrote it, I kept thinking of the Michael I know: an incredibly sweet, sensitive, funny man determined to do good and to do the right thing, and I kept thinking of him as my Aziraphale."
I went dumpster diving into the posters for Good Omens Season 2 and found a few pearls.
I found it odd that this season had SO MANY official posters. Hours and hours of work and real dollars from Amazon went into the production of these things. This one won a freakin Clio award. I know Neil confirmed he didn't have a lot of control of what went into these 21 (Or 22 depending on whether or not you count the umbrella piece that was made before season 2 shooting began. Personally I don't!) pieces, but I will leave no stone unturned, so here we go. I combed through every single season 2 poster I could find so you don't have to. Here's everything I've found so far:
1. The allegiances poster
After having watched season 2, knowing what we know now, this poster seems very much to me like a Game of Thrones style family at war image. We have a perfect mirror down the center, with Aziraphale/Angels/Nina&Maggie on Aziraphale's traditional left side, and Crowley with Beelzebub & Jim as reflections of Maggie/Nina, and Shax and Michael(?) as reflections of the three angels on the other side of the mirror. It seems unbalanced, unless you count the floating white head (conveniently watching in the background) as The Metatron...
Which means Michael is... not on the same side as Uriel and Saraqael? She's also grouped in with the Metatron and Shax, on the side of the demons. How very odd.
Gabriel & Nina also have a mirror in that they've both turned their backs to the crowd. Gabriel is willing to go live with Beelzebub in hell, and shut down Michael's plan and the Metatron's scheming for a second Armageddon, so that literal turn towards Beez and away from everyone else makes sense to me. The Nina one however? Not so much from what we've seen. Why is she turning her back on the angels & demons?
2. The individual posters
Interestingly, the individual posters all line up pretty much exactly with the all the allegiances this season. You just have to look at the way the characters are slanted vs. how the backgrounds behind them are slanted. All 3 bookshop posters and all 3 street posters are slanting left, with their characters also slanting left. They are who they say they are, and they're on the same side.
Michael and Uriel have right slanting backgrounds, so odds are heaven is supposed to slant right. Uriel is following the rules and slanting right, but of all the characters on the posters, Michael is the only one really betraying the background slant, and is slanting left against her background. Something's up with Micahel. They're not on the same side as they claim to be. Saraqael is more mysterious, as the only one sitting straight, and the only angel to have a left slanting background.
Shax seems to be slanting left with a left slanting background, which puts her in the same pose as Uriel, but mirrored. While Beelzebub is weirdly slanting right with a right slanting background, making them a bit of a traitor, like Michael. Shax, Saraqael and Michael have some explaining to do.
Lastly, and I think mostly obviously, there's clearly a missing poster in the set. Why doesn't hell have a third green poster? Is it supposed to be the Metatron, and they didn't want to spoil the surprise? Furfur maybe? Why wouldn't poor old Furfur get a poster when he has more screen time than Uriel?
I don't think this is very important other than it's funny : everyone single person is holding something in their right hand, except for Shax and Crowley, who are holding things in their left hands, and Muriel, who's holding fucking NOTHING. Poor baby Muriel lolsob.
One thing I do think might be important is that there are 21 posters in total + 1 missing one. So maybe 22 posters for season 2? How appropriate.
3. The triple phone box
In both the Nina street poster and the group street poster, there's are a set of 3 red phone boxes down the street. We never see phone boxes in series 2. Seriously, not once. Every other detail in these ones is from Whickeber street footage: gumball machine, post box, newspapers, coffee sign, puddle, walking extras... The only thing out of place is those blasted phone boxes. As far as I can tell it's literally the only thing in all 21 posters that never appears in the show in some form, and this background plate is used for all the street posters, so the phone boxes are in quite a few of them.
4. Crowley is showing his good side, Aziraphale is always facing away from Crowley.
Crowley is always shown with his head tilted to his right this season, body tilted towards Aziraphale and always with long sideburns. Even in the illustrated poster his default is head to the right, sideburns long.
EXCEPT for this poster. This is the only time he's looking away from Aziraphale, and his snake tattoo is visible. And his sideburns are short. Either nobody noticed this or they refused to fix it.
There's also the matter of Aziraphale facing his body away from Crowley in every single image except the allegiances poster, where they face each other. So cute.
5. The sneaky details posters
This one has:
1. Pride & Prejudice 2. Treasure Island 3. A tale of two cities 4. The Crow Road 5. Catch-22 9.
AND whatever the hell this photoshop artifact/invisible thing coming out of the scroll on Aziraphale's desk. I checked every version I could find of this poster and it's always there. It looks like someone tried to edit out something that was there and sort of got it mostly right. Which is completely ludicrous given the amazing amount of flawless photoshopping and collaging going on in this image. These are the magicians linking rings from the 1941 magic shop. Mystery solved!
This one has the yellow book on the bookstand, the record, and :
1. Only one clock hand on the grandfather clock, facing 6.
2. A feather duster on the floor (but weirdly it's grey not yellow).
3. The dark horse statue with Crowley's old sunglasses on it.
4. Aziraphale's bowtie ON THE FLOOR. What. Why.
I can only conclude that in this poster either
A) Aziraphale and Crowley have left these things behind (meaning no more bowtie for Aziraphale in season 3)
B) They are currently not wearing these items somewhere else in the bookshop....
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I ran out of images. So the dome poster will have to be it's own post!
this strike won them a 5% pay increase and the right to talk during lunch, in case you needed a reminder that if capital had its way your worklife would be entirely dystopian
So many crack theories for the end of S2 and not one of you has put forth the obvious Bentley-Aziraphale body swap option. The car is now the Supreme Archangel of Heaven and Aziraphale is getting ridden low and slow through the closing credits. And here I thought this was a smart fandom... *shakes head*
I ran an Aliens rpg years back. But the players didn't KNOW it was an Aliens game until halfway through the first session.
They thought it was a sci-fi game but they also thought the monsters were going to be zombies.
Over a period of 2 hours they then proceeded to make EVERY Aliens movie cliche "mistake" known to man. Because at the time they all made sense.
The characters in a story don't know they're in a story or what kind of story it is.
They might think their in a romcom instead of a slasher movie. And if you're not in a slasher movie, why the fuck would you search through every closet in your house just because a cup mysteriously fell off a table in the dining room?
Can we go back to this for a sec? To Aziraphale having to explain the concept of being in love to the other angels? Because I cannot imagine what a trip it has to be, falling in love with someone when that is literally not something you are supposed to be able to do. When it is something you barely understand. When the object of whatever this is isn't supposed to be able to feel this way either, except as time goes on you start to realize it's happening to him too. And neither of you can actually talk to each other about it.
This line does not get nearly enough attention, it explains SO fucking much. Cause then it’s not just that he’s in love with a demon, it’s that he’s in love at all. Does he just write off his feelings without a second thought because it doesn’t even occur to him he could be in love? Does Aziraphale have literally any idea, any frame of reference to internally understand the difference between divine love for all God’s creatures, and intimate, human love for another? And what about Crowley for that matter? Crowley isn’t supposed to know human, or divine love. He does not have the ability to physically feel it like angels can. Has he forgotten the sensation? How absolutely terrifying and somehow also wonderful it must’ve been to be told so casually, “you are in love, that feeling is love.”
I agree with the whole point and may I add, if angels are beings of love, that most of them upstairs are unable to feel love (they're ready to nuke the Earth and humanity ! - which is against God's will as they told them to care for humans) and Aziraphale can feel it (even though on a whole other level), who's really broken ?
Also, we know demons used to be angels, all of them, so they had the ability to feel love too, except that after the fall it turned into something different.
The scene where Aziraphale and Crowley arrive at the paintball/Adam's birthplace is the perfect example of this.
Aziraphale feels love more than usually -> Is it due to the vibe of the place, Tadfield area and Adam's influence or just going on a date with Crowley ? What matters is that he does feel love in the air in that moment and makes a show of it in front of Crowley.
Crowley feels yucky -> His brain has been rewired to perceive love as something disgusting - until the day when in certain conditions and with a certain being, it's not anymore.
I don't know how it goes, but probably ends somehow like this:
Michael and Uriel are fighting, because Michael tried to replace their sugar with salt as an act of sabotage.
Muriel just holds up a cookbook: "It's a book. You can just look at it"
Sandalphon just put salt on a plate.
Gabriel: I came here because you said said I could be the judge.
Aziraphale: Yes, but you have to taste it first. And then say who wins.
Gabriel: Not gonna happen. And I win.
Gabriel takes the trophy and leaves again immediately.
The Metatron in the audience leaning to an angel sitting next to him "I ingested things in my time, you know". The angel moves to another seat. The Metatron leans in the other direction "I ingest.....
Can't decide which kind of reunion kiss I would prefer for them: either sweet and slow, with lots of talking OR Aziraphale just explodes like a pressure cooker releasing all his pent up emotions and unfulfilled desires/needs at once. Anyway I just want them to smooch and hug
