Hark back to your bible study classes if you had them, because the second episode of Good Omens 2 is taking on the Book of Job! The ethical case study has inspired many types of creators, from George Frideric Handel to Dostoevsky to Terrence Malick and the Coen brothers. This week it’s Aziraphale and Crowley’s turn to noodle on the question: Why does God let good people suffer?
Note: Each episode recap will include spoilers for that episode and the previous ones only. I have seen the entire season, but I will try to keep these reviews contained to the episodes as they proceed. If you want to watch Good Omens season two, I highly recommend avoiding spoilers if you can. Make your own judgments, people!
1. It’s a tough Job but somebody’s gotta do it
On a mountaintop, the angel Aziraphale appears to protect the livestock owned by Job, one of God’s personal favs. But the demon sent by Satan to destroy Job’s cute baby goats is none other than Crowley, who has a permit from God. (And quite the fluffy beard.) Turns out, God and Satan made a bet to see if Job would renounce his faith if everything was taken from him—including his three children.
Distressed, Aziraphale tries to convince Crowley not to kill Job’s children. But since Crowley is Crowley, he never planned to in the first place. The duo hide the children and make it look like they’ve died. Then when Gabriel and company arrive with the good news that Job has passed God’s test, they make the oblivious angels believe that Job and Sitis (both past the age where having kids is fun) get new kids in place of the old ones. In the process, Aziraphale is tempted to eat meat for the first time and lies to his boss to cover their trick. He thinks he’s been so evil he’ll be cast down to Hell. But Crowley acknowledges what the audience has known since we first saw them in biblical times in season one—they’re not quite the same as their colleagues, making them alone on earth, together.
The sequence where Crowley unrolls the scroll and it bounces from ridge to ridge is such fun, along with Aziraphale’s dramatic firework entrance, and Crowley’s gleeful (not-quite lethal) destruction. Our favorite angel and demon essentially improv their way out of a moral dilemma in front of the oblivious Jon Hamm and it’s just … fun. This “minisode” is both a reminder of the playful skipping-through-history fun of the first season and heartbreaking in its character implications. (Aziraphale, babe, you already lied to God? So why is this so hard? Oh, I don’t care, Michael Sheen gets me with his sad face every time.)
2. Two celestial beings and a (man) baby
Back in the present, Aziraphale is babysitting a hapless Gabriel, now going by Jim. Gabriel (or “Jimbriel” as fans have started calling him) is like a toddler, totally clueless about the world but eager to help. He rearranges Aziraphale’s books by the first letter of the first sentence, and swats flies with precious volumes. But somehow, even though we know how capricious and cruel Gabriel can be, seeing him as Jim is charming.
There are a few hints that he remembers his former life as Gabriel though, as he sings mysterious songs (“Every day” by Buddy Holly) and recites passages from the Book of Job.
3. Matchmaking by Aziraphale and Crowley
To hide the fact that he and Crowley together performed a huge miracle, Aziraphale lies to the angels looking for Gabriel. He tells him he was actually doing a matchmaking miracle to get Maggie and Nina together. Aziraphale channels the protagonist of Emma by meddling in their affairs while ignoring the state of his own relationship with Crowley. Aziraphale’s idea of peak romance is to organize a ball full of dancing and hors d’oeuvres, whereas Crowley decides that people fall in love while sheltering under something in the rain. (Not an ounce of self-awareness between the two of them.)
This “get the lesbians together” subplot runs through the rest of the show, and while I enjoy it as a parallel to Aziraphale and Crowley’s own relationship, it sometimes gets lost in the overarching plot. Maggie and Nina themselves don’t get much screentime, so while the actresses are fun to watch, we don’t get much of an idea why they might be interested in each other or their history other than Nina’s emotionally manipulative partner/ex.
Continued below4. The first temptation of detective Aziraphale
In this episode, we see more of Aziraphale’s struggle to accept Heaven’s actions while becoming sure of the fact that Crowley isn’t inherently bad. He notably says “May God forgive you,” to Crowley, which repeats the theme of forgiveness—but Crowley has no interest in being forgiven, having forsaken the Good/Evil dichotomy altogether. We also see Aziraphale being tempted by food for the first time. Crowley watching as Aziraphale enjoys the earthly pleasures of food and drink is a running joke(?) in Good Omens and the scene where Michael Sheen devours a set of ribs is so flirty it’s almost downright lewd. In episode one, Aziraphale introduced Gabriel to hot chocolate. The way the angels approach food and its consumption is an important signal of their connection to earth.
We end the episode with present-day Aziraphale deciding to pursue his clue by taking Crowley’s car to Scotland. He gleefully insists that the Bentley, which is central to the iconography of Good Omens and a very good car indeed, is “theirs.” As someone in a long-term relationship, I recognized the flavor of many of Aziraphale’s lines in this episode. He says “our car,” assuming that what’s Crowley’s is his. It’s yet another “clue” that these two are married and don’t seem to know it.
5. Bits and Bobs
- It’s a family affair in this episode, as Job and his son are played by real-life family members of our favorite demon, David Tennant. (Peter Davison, who plays Job, was also the Fifth Doctor.)
- “Shoemaking and obstetrics … have always been the twin passions of Bildad the Shuhite” is quite possibly the funniest line in all of Good Omens.
- Job’s youngest daughter, who longs to be a blue lizard, is my new hero. Jemimah knows what she wants, and I for one, respect the heck out of it.
- Crowley’s biblical look is … well, it wouldn’t be Good Omens without a ridiculous red wig and glasses. Or two. Or five?
- Jane Austen, master spy.
- The Dirty Donkey, the pub from season one (and several of Neil Gaiman’s other works) is back!
- This show is so full of easter eggs for devoted fans. It’s a joy to hunt for them, and it really makes you feel how dedicated the creators were. Everything from the newspapers people read to the posters behind the actors are clues meant to reward multiple viewings. And there are plenty of callbacks to fans of the original novel as well.
Next up on Good Omens 2, we take a journey to Scotland to dig up some graves!
