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humbledragon669 · 21 days ago

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S2E2 - The Clue Write Up P5 -Land of Uz: from a little alone time in the cellar to the return to present day

I’m hoping to get to the end of this Land of Uz segment in this part so let’s get stuck straight in from the beginning of the scene after the kids have been transformed into lizards. There’s a bit of Aziracrow backstory confirmed here, which is that Crawley is already drinking alcohol at this point in the chronology. We don’t see Aziraphale drinking alcohol until 42AD, some 2500 years later. I’d love to know when and what changed his stance on this one, seeing as he’s very clearly anti-alcohol at this point in the history.

Crawley on the other hand is very comfortable not only with the consumption, but also with the possibility of the side effects of human wine. His ability to assess the quality of the wine on offer would also suggest that he’s been doing this for a while, and even though it would seem Aziraphale has never seen him do it before, the demon doesn’t think twice about pouring and offering a cup to him - there’s just an assumption that it’s a perfectly normal thing for them to do. I do wonder if Crawley’s decision to drink alcohol evolved from whatever fall-out there was following the flood, seeing as we don’t have any indication that this is behaviour he engaged in prior to that. Whatever his reasoning, he can clearly see he’s not going to win this battle, deciding to try his luck instead with getting the angel to eat.

Now, we all know that what follows in this scene is probably one of the fandom’s favourite scenes across both seasons, so true to fashion I am not going to delve deep into it. What I do want to make a little comment on is how Crawley manages to persuade Aziraphale to give the food a try, because it’s pretty clever. First off, he anticipates the protests and uses the angel’s own justification about alcohol by positing that food should be considered differently because it doesn’t cause drunkenness. After all, that was the only argument that Aziraphale really gave for not trying the wine just seconds before. Ergo, no drunken consequences theoretically means no argument for not imbibing. What really tips the scales is that he presents Aziraphale with the ability to partake of the food of his own free will. He literally presents the gift of “choice” to the angel on a silver platter. He even makes the situation explicitly clear to him as he does so:

CRAWLEY: You’re free to try the food.

Given we identified Aziraphale’s desire for the ability to exercise personal choice in the scene in the courtyard a short time ago, this is a really smart card for Crawley to play. So smart in fact that Aziraphale doesn’t really put up much of a fight about it, even if he tries to make a big song and dance about how repulsive the whole thing supposedly is.

And there really is no mistaking how pleased Crawley is with this turn of events, is there?

The only thing I wonder about here is whether the demon had any idea about what feelings he was about to set fire to in getting to see Aziraphale eat. He is a demon after all, so I have no doubt that there is a part of him that talked the angel into consuming human food because it would be a lovely little victory to add to his collection, at least in the lead up to the event. I don’t think that motivation is what keeps him staring whilst Aziraphale gorges himself though, most definitely not, despite the fact that this is some of the sloppiest eating I’ve ever seen somebody do (and I’ve watched every episode of Adam Richman’s Man vs. Food). When did he know that the enjoyment he got out of watching Aziraphale eat wasn’t actually driven by a desire to turn another being away from their standards? I’m pretty sure he knows by the time we see them at the Ritz after Adam was born, but there are 3000 years between these two events. He may know as early as Rome, given his not-so-subtle hints about never having eaten an oyster before paves the way for he and Aziraphale to go for dinner together. Whenever he comes to the realisation, I don’t think there’s a person on Earth that could argue that watching the angel eat in the cellar has Crawley thirsting for something other than wine.

Well despite Crawley’s assurances about not being able to get drunk on food, Aziraphale has more than a little hint of intoxication about him going on here. And where exactly is he putting all of that food?! There’s barely more than bones left. IT WAS AN ENTIRE OX. In fairness, he must have been at it a while, because even Crawley looks bored by the gluttonous display going on in front of him.

There’s something about this little exchange that really tugs at my heart strings, and I think it’s because Aziraphale’s words suggest that this is him making an effort to understand Crawley. Not just knowing him, or liking him, or whatever else, but actually understanding the demon. Not only that, it’s pretty clear that he feels that a lonely state of mind isn’t something he wants for this being, despite the fact that they’re supposed to be mortal enemies, and he doesn’t look particularly convinced at Crawley’s insistence that he’s misread the situation either.

I don’t think I’d be breaking any ground in saying Crawley’s challenge to Aziraphale’s oath of allegiance to God, and the response to it, remind us that the angel has been teetering on the edge of being able to rationalise said allegiance for quite some time. It’s an interesting thought process to witness though - the staunch assertion of loyalty so quickly cast into doubt with Crawley’s reminder of the cruelty in the side Aziraphale is aligned with. It’s no wonder he looks so devastated when he considers the reality that his side could in fact be responsible for an act that he has been so painfully trying to stop Crawley from doing because it’s so inherently awful.

I find it interesting at this point to see Aziraphale effectively admitting defeat by returning to the food. He has no response to Crawley’s gleeful acknowledgement of the doubt he’s planted. Nothing. Not even an “I forgive you”. It got me to thinking whether we see Aziraphale accepting that he’s lost an argument anywhere else. And I don’t mean acceptance that they’ve reached an impasse or losing control of his emotions and saying something he’ll regret later, but actually realising that his point of view has fatal flaws that cannot be reconciled in the face of reason. In previous discussions of this nature, he’s usually been successful in justifying the terrible acts done in Heaven’s name with some sort of meaningless reasoning (God is going to make a rainbow afterwards for example, or the ever-faithful “ineffable plan” motif), but here, challenged with the notion that his side has seen fit to endorse the killing of innocents for no other reason than to win a bet, he’s lost for words. Uncomfortable as he might have been with casting Adam and Eve out of the garden, or the Great Flood, this particular cruelty looks to be something causing something of a revelation for him.

Quick note on Crawley’s challenge to Aziraphale’s apparent blasphemy.

CRAWLEY: Blasphemy, angel? That’s not like you.

It wasn’t 24 hours prior that Crawley was making it very clear to Aziraphale that they didn’t know each other at all. Yet this line is delivered with such familiarity, it’s impossible to think that the relationship between the pair is anything other than convivial. Leading on from that, I do find myself wondering how the rest of that night in the cellar panned out. What did they talk about? Did Aziraphale eat the rest of the ox? Did he perhaps try some alcohol? The use of the banner declaring that we’re now looking at “the next day” just feels like there’s a real emphasis on the amount of time that’s passed between these two scenes; the possibilities feel quite vast.

There’s that line: the one that started this whole flashback process off in the first place. And as previously noted, as far as we can see the only beings present for it were God, Job, Crawley and Aziraphale. It’s possible Gabriel was with God in Heaven whilst she spoke to Job I suppose, but I like the possibilities that open up if we consider that the line Jim utters that turns his eyes briefly purple is a line that he shouldn’t have any knowledge of even if he had his Gabriel memories.

I love the return of the whale motif in Job’s recanting to Sitis, even though we don’t actually hear God saying anything about them in her speech. I did some light research about the reasoning for the whale appearances and couldn’t find anything concrete, but there’s a fair amount of speculation that it might be in homage to Douglas Adams, whales featuring heavily in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books There is this though:

A quick note on pronouns here (something which I seem to finding more and more of note about as the show goes on). Sitis refers to God here using they/them pronouns. We heard Aziraphale using the she/her pronouns that we’ve become accustomed to hearing as recently as in the cellar, and the voice we hear in the previous scene remains feminine. I think the use of they/them might just be a scriptual loophole - I think both Job and Sitis would have been harbouring under the concept that God was a male figure, and that the knowledge that God is in fact feminine appears to be something that only agents of Heaven and Hell are privy to. Perhaps it’s just a quirk of the script - was it considered too confusing for Sitis to use he/him pronouns at this point? Settling instead for they/them as a compromise? That’s the only reason I can really come up with, because it feels slightly awkward to me.

There’s that devastated angel look again, and this time it comes with a little gulp as Aziraphale bears witness to the overwhelming grief that Heaven has inflicted so nonchalantly onto God’s most faithful servant. The juxtapositioning of his devastation against Gabriel’s cheery obliviousness, not to mention the music and the sounds of Job weeping in the background, makes it all the more painful for us to watch.

Whilst there’s no mistaking the relief on Aziraphale’s features (quickly followed by a look of guilt), I think it notable that none of the other angels from Heaven recognise Crawley, either as a demon or a former angel. Considering he has already been referred to (in the present day, which is in the future from where we are in this episode. Confusing much?) as part of a group of demons that were cast out, and that he is the one carrying out the orders from Satan that would see the bet with God settled, it seems likely that they might recognise him. I suspect this is simply one of those times when storyline convenience won out over the need to ensure that the script was plothole-free. I also think it worth noting that the moment Crawley enters the scene is the very moment he knows things are about to turn very ugly for Job and Sitis, choosing to step in and try to rescue to situation. He’s just a natural rescuer, isn’t he? Could this be the moment Aziraphale’s love of being rescued by him started to form? It certainly speaks to the demon’s true character if nothing else, which is that deep down, he really is quite a nice person…

Well, if we weren’t aware of Aziraphale’s frustrations with Heaven and its agents, he makes it painfully obvious when Michael decides to give an explanation of the origin of Crawley’s fake name. How he gets away with this eye roll in the presence of so many other beings, I have no idea: not even Crawley seems aware of it, concentrating on Michael’s irritatingly accurate debunking of his cover story as he is. There are two things about this scene at this point that I think are worth noting. For the first, let’s take a high-level overview of everything that’s going on here - a renegade demon and angel are trying to bluff their way out of trouble with some high-ranking angels having low-key thwarted the will of God. The soundtrack has some delicate pizzicato (that’s plucked, for those who aren’t musically minded) strings in the background, providing a comic feel to the scene, whilst in the background we can hear Job sobbing uncontrollably. The dialogue content feels perilous, but the delivery and subtext make it feel mischievous, seeing as Aziraphale is using his knowledge of the ignorance of the rest of the Heavenly host against them. All of those things brought together in one place makes the whole thing feel so… I think the word is uncomfortable. I think this is really clever - bringing tension into a scene using the juxtaposition of opposing elements means that we as an audience feel uncomfortable but can’t necessarily identify why.

The second of those two things I want to comment on here is that this scene is a good example of what happens when Aziraphale and Crawley have gotten their unspoken communication on point. They’re working together so effortlessly here - both taking cues from the other’s improvisations and instinctively knowing what the next play is supposed to be. They even manage to come up with some coded verbal communication for each other on the fly, and for it to be successful. If only they had been this switched on for the final 15, I suspect season two would have ended very differently.

See now, wouldya just look at that? Aziraphale knows exactly what to do with little more than a look and hand gesture from Crawley. Something else of note here is the appearance of the “trust me” theme we see running through season two, this time with the prompt coming from Crawley. Granted, Sitis does look rather perplexed about what exactly is going on, but didn’t she figure out the “Bildad the Shuhite” was the one responsible for all of Job’s misery earlier on the episode? I find it a bit of a stretch to think that she would just go along with the façade, rather than identifying Crawley as the troublemaker to the others in the room at the time. I do love that the demon sounds so earnest in his plea to be trusted - he would know very well that he’s not supposed to be trustworthy (he even tells Aziraphale that’s the case twice in this episode), so his desperation for Sitis to go along with him should tell us (not that we needed telling) that this is his true character.

The contact between Aziraphale and Job looks to be the first (chronologically speaking) sleight of hand trick that the angel has done, just a couple of millennia before he repeatedly demonstrates that he’s actually very bad at it. Except when it really counts, as this instance (and one later on in the season) shows. And those bones that appear from Job’s robes are the proof that Aziraphale has well and truly given in to gluttony - they are PICKED CLEAN:

Quick note on the noise used for Aziraphale’s miracle as he turns the lizards back into children - it’s very close to the ones we’ve heard in this season from his already, the ones which are driven by need rather than intent, so I’m still not ruling that possibility out.

Alright last note about this section of the minisode, and then I’m calling it for this part. There’s something that goes unspoken, but is definitely implied, in Aziraphale’s choice to lie to Gabriel about the children. He actually gives his word “as an angel” that he’s telling the truth. I mean, does that not speak volumes about his mindset here? He verbally surrenders the very nature of his being in order to save a couple of children and maintain Crawley’s cover, the former of which supposedly goes directly against God’s wishes, despite the fact that he is so adamantly on her side. He’s earned Crawley’s respect though, so maybe it was all worth it in the end.

Alright, that’s the lot for this part. I think I should be able to get this episode wrapped up in the next one, which puts me one episode closer to being able to finish my WIP fic! For now though, and as always, questions, comments, discussion, always welcome. See you for the next one!

#good omens #episode analysis #good omens season 2 #aziracrow #ineffable idiots #aziraphale #crowley #good omens soundtrack #aziraphale loves food #crowley loves watching aziraphale eat

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