#for context Aziraphale shows Crowley that CD

[viceandmature]

Showing off their CDs

[sonkitty]

The Sideburns Scheme Post #99

(For reference: The Sideburns Scheme)

Crowley, Good Omens 2, Episode 6, Every Day, tidying

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Sideburns Check

The sideburns are a medium length. They shortened after Muriel left but are not as short as what tends to happen after driving and being in human spaces. This length is likely due to the context of Crowley being a demon alone in a place that is like a second home to him.

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Brighter Red Streak Check

The more saturated red streak of hair can be found.

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Hairstyle Changes

Some of the top hair collects together into a defined curl going up to Crowley's right. The sideburns shortened a little though are still not human-space short.

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Earthly Objects

(For reference: Earthly Objects)

My guess is two sets.

Putting the rug back over the magic circle is point #1.

Miracle touch on the bookcases is point #2.

Touching the chair with hands to shift it where he wants it to be is point #3.

The bookcases still moving while he's still moving the chair around with his hands is a clue these touches are part of the same set.

Crowley checking his watch for the time is point #1 of the next set.

Stepping forward on the rug is point #2.

Sitting down on the chair is point #3.

That's the second set.

...

Time to pay attention to the pockets.

In my looking to see if the Tied Hands retie, the earliest cut of Crowley has his back to the camera.

When he is shown from the front, tie clasp doesn't so much swing and strike a lapel edge so much as shifts slightly in his movement and touches a lapel edge.

Both index fingers are extended as part of the miracle touch.

The watch's face is visible but rather blurry with the movement. The bookshop clock is visible during the scene so might be the "time-teller" for this potential retying, especially since the strands push off Crowley's chest to show the clasps and tassels twist together..

The right thumb MCP joint looks like it does align with a jacket edge near the end of the cut with the extended index fingers for the miracle touch on the bookcases. Crowley has a self-made pocket with the right arm and his chest.

Crowley's left thumb CMC joint lines up closely with a jacket edge when he moves to touch the chair. Then it lines up all the more closely after he moves the chair a bit more and walks on the rug.

Crowley has various self-made pockets, and the most interesting one that I haven't seen yet is he creates a pocket with his left hand when he checks his watch for the time. The edges of this pocket are his actual left thumb, middle finger, and ring finger. Inside this pocket. This pocket does include parts of the tassels during some of it while it exists.

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Crowley might get one left-side Overhead Light for his actual head.

His Belt Head doesn't seem to get any though the Belt Head itself is visible during the miracle touch on the bookcases and before Crowley sits down in the chair.

One of those little oddities I pick up on only because of checking something frame-by-frame is that his mouth is partly open and subtly closes just before Maggie and Nina enter.

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His overall play suggests he wants the sunlight to beam down on him the way it does when he sits down. He was rather particular about choosing the position of the chair.

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Story Commentary

Crowley finally has some time to himself in the bookshop. Episode 3 showed him alone after Aziraphale and Muriel left, but Gabriel was assumed to still be upstairs. This scene is then the one and only time Crowley is alone in the bookshop overall.

There is no dialogue.

The tidying is possibly a way of his coping with the stress of waiting for Aziraphale to come back. In the Good Omens book, Crowley's flat has rooms that are forever clean and perfect. The book says he spent an uncomfortable amount of time in these rooms waiting for the End of the world. He tries to sort his CDs into alphabetical order, but that was already done, same as as his bookcase and collection of "Soul Music". Of note, the Soul Music in question does not have James Brown in it.

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Is Crowley expecting Maggie and Nina? He checks the time, sits down, and then they just happen to show up?

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That's it for this post. Sometimes I edit my posts, FYI.

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Main post:

The Sideburns Scheme

[egyptologist-that-never-was]

Bentley, the starter crank and the curtain. Series 2 spoilers.

I've been thinking some more on my previous post about something timey-wimey going on, mostly in work as it's not been a particularly interesting week typing letters up. The joys of secretarial work. Something crossed my mind earlier. The Bentley. I've always assumed that it's some sort of sentient but I always thought that it's just me being me. I get overly attached to cars, hell, ours has a name and I talk to it. Yes, other people have noticed me doing this.

But she creeps along behind Aziraphale on her own accord, and then rolls back like she's been caught being naughty. All the CDs/tapes turning into Queen doesn't sound like Crowley's doing it, it seems to me that the car just likes Queen. She also starts playing 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square' as if she's saying 'Don't worry, there will be Nightingales'.

When she is destroyed in series one, Crowley uses the starter crank handle when they pause time at the airbase. I just assumed that it was just a convenient device as it would have been part of the Bentley so was there and designed to, well, start things.

Then Crowley uses a near identical one in the beginning of S2 Ep1 to start the universe going. If it's the same one... how's Crowley still got it after the fall?

Also, it doesn't look entirely right, all the ones I've seen are much longer, and a bit of a lunch-break google shows Rolls Royce/Bentley ones look different. But if it is some sort of macguffin hiding it an Bentley from 1933 (or 1926) would be a good plan as it would likely come with one anyway.

Also in the context of the numberplate, I know it's a reference to a Monty Python sketch, but it could also have a double meaning, that it is the curtain that is hiding something, like the starter-crank of time. If it can start time, can it rewind it?

The line from the Wizard of Oz comes to mind - 'Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain'. The big, floating head of Metatron kind of links into this as well, if he is the floating head, and the Bentley is the curtain, who is behind the curtain?

[halemerry]

you know how the instrumental version of the show must go on plays in the background while the metatron orders his coffee right? the first thing it made me think of is the moulin rouge movie where during that song satine prepares herself to go and break christian's heart to protect him from the duke. it fits nicely with the interpretation that azi isn't completely sincere and is doing what he's doing to protect crowley. but I don't know if moulin rouge is something that would inspire neil and co?? do you think it's at all possible or am I just reaching?

Ohh this is a very fun question for so many reasons, but it’s a bit hard to answer directly. I can’t speak for where any of the folks involved in the making of Good Omen’s is coming from beyond what they’ve answered themselves, but If I had to gamble on it, I’d lean toward the assumption that it’s not a direct inspiration like that.

That being said, I’m not sure how much that actually matters because whether or not people on the team making this movie sat down and said ‘oh we can do this like Moulin Rouge does’ or not there is value in looking at commonality.

And in this context especially I actually think it says more about the lexicon of culture the two pieces of media are pulling from than anything else. Because in a lot of ways they're pulling from the same one.

Both the Red Curtain Trilogy and Good Omens had their first installments release at around the same time. Good Omen's was published in 1990 and Strictly Ballroom released in 1992. They're pulling from similar palettes and touchstones which is why you get the Queen overlap. Baz Luhrmann's films, including Moulin Rouge, all lean very heavily on camp aesthetics. (It's worth noting this is partially thanks to Catherine Martin who is his go to production designer who has a heavy hand in the way his films look and is also Luhrmann's wife.) Queen is a natural choice in Moulin Rouge because the band also operates in camp spaces and is arguably the most famous example of camp from the era (which frankly have stuck around and continued to define what camp looks like to this day) and because the movie is wanting to pull big recognizable songs into it's soundtrack. Queen is camp and yet insanely popular and well received.

The joke with Queen in Good Omens also operates as a nod to the popularity of the band. I know a lot of folks that think of Queen in the context of Crowley liking the band but originally anything being left in the Bentley turning into Queen was a joke poking fun at how everyone who has any kind of physical music likely has a Queen's Greatest Hits CD.

I won't go off on a whole tangent trying to define camp here as much as part of me wants to but camp has always been tied to queer culture and queer history. Its campiness is why films like the ones in the Red Curtain trilogy (especially Romeo + Juliet imo) have had the impact they have on queer media. And Good Omens even in its original state was always something queer people looked at and thought that's me. They're both queer adjacent at minimum, they're both pulling from similar cultural touchstones which also happen to be queer and camp.

They also both operate in spaces - as camp often does - more concerned with emotional impact more than realism. And the Show Must Go on is a very emotional song. Even outside the context of the lyrics itself. The album it is on was recorded during the last year of Freddie's life and was a struggle to record both physically and mentally. It's an intense song. It's over the top and unapologetic.

It's a song about soldiering through the tough times with a smile. Of carrying on the performance under pressure even if it's hard on you to do so because it's worth it. Which is basically Aziraphale in a nutshell. It's also what Satine does in the scene you're referencing. And I quite like the idea of it as evidence that Aziraphale is putting on some kind of a performance here, even if I suspect it's less taking inspiration from Moulin Rouge and more the song being well suited to these two stories operating in similar spaces.

[hakureiryuu]

part 1

episode 2, and I just noticed the episode titles that call the flashback b plots minisodes. what's that about?

not-quite-a-liveblog ahoy!

crowley looks so effing weird in this outfit?? maybe it's the glasses, they're so anachronistic, almost steampunk.

I actually thought he was talking about isaac or something here lol

birds flying away after crowley firebombs the goats lmao

saying that eve was the first human birth implies that she is adam's daughter???? which I guess makes about as much sense as a single breeding pair populating the planet, we all know how much inbreeding that would take.

(side note: I remember this Flood adaptation movie that had emma watson in it. noah wanted to kill off all the humans and just let the animals survive. he said while watson was pregnant that if her twin kids were boys, they could live and humans would just die out. but if they were girls who could grow up to be mothers, he would kill them. and I'm like, implying that their father/grandfather/uncles would be the ones impregnating them? nevermind the incest, what about the age gap??? but anyway)

ofc when gabriel claimed to be an expert in human birth I immediately thought of mary, but that hasn't happened yet. I mean it makes sense that this idiot would think eve counts, but couldn't he at least make it to cain??

there's something to be said about this story and elspeth's story connecting virtue with economic status. aziraphale appears to think about that when it's pointed out, but takes entirely the wrong lesson from it, as we see with elspeth later.

"but no one would ever find them- actually that's a great idea" it reads as aziraphale not wanting to deal with gabe's bullshit rather than agreeing with it, as though he hasn't done variations of the same thing for years. I still laughed tho XD

oh hey, "every day" was gonna be the original opening song for the first season! what a cute reference that will likely have little to no further relevance!

this was the point where I was like "why the hell is crowley just hanging out in that same alleyway all the time? wait a goddamn minute, did shax take his apartment?!"

it's so cute how maggie takes aziraphale's social cluelessness in stride.

the jukebox at the resurrectionist is just like the bently turning cds into queen, what a cute reference that will likely have little to no further relevance!

trumpets sound, archangels approach.

saraquel miraclling a ramp lmao

gabriel's attempts at flyswatting never work!!!!!!

I'm assuming all those newspaper clipping say "every day" etc? for some reason? someone correct me if I'm wrong, I would really love to know.

also why is he DRAWING gabriel? later he just needed it to show someone, but why not take a picture? I'm sure you have an ancient camera where you have to hide under a blanket lying around somewhere.

shooing motion miracle at the pub, hahaha

I was a good deal sus of this plan to ship nina and maggie when nina already has a partner, but that was before I realized lindsay is a piece of shit. still, it's not like they know that either! ineffable homewreckers, they are.

everyone's talked about how crowley's first thought re: romance is taking shelter from the rain 😊

but my asexual brain is somehow always teetering over the gutter, so when he said "get them wet" I blinked a bit XDD

JANE AUSTIN WHO???!?

"you think you know someone..." "she had balls!" "what?"

actually it wasn't a what, it was a well. as in "well that's not relevant to my point" like, sir, did you know this already? in what context??

meanwhile back in job's era they're having a bit of a tense discussion. this is explicitly after the flood so it makes sense that aziraphale absolutely does not believe that crowley wants to kill some kids. I wonder why lying is such a big theme in this episode? I haven't been able to really boil it down yet.

aziraphale's smug grin really breaks the tension though XDD

jemimah is adorable. the others are the product of rich parents.

these two are playing chicken with children's lives, but hey, it's about the trust 😌

"can I be a blue one?" I love her

aziraphale discovering food is so deliberately gross, why this?

so many complicated feelings from both of them about god actually talking to someone.

god's pronouns are she/they, approved.

crowley says see you in hell but the next day when sitis is about to flip god off he says actually let's walk this all back pfffft

"reach into his robes... no, higher."

when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they share a very special hug...

aziraphale stating flat out with no equivocation that gabriel was awful is such a huge step forward for him 😊

(while pausing to write this I noticed that john hamm is credited simply as jim, love that for him)

this is the 2nd time aziraphale has insisted "our" in the face of crowley's "my" I'm sobbing

good omens inside good omens, gomensception

aziraphale really took that "see you in hell" seriously though huh.

the gentle, simple way he says "I don't think you'd like it" hurts me and heals me.

"you're not like me because you're a demon, you're like me because you don't want to toe the party line." y'know lining up their meetings - the wall of eden, the ark, and now this - must paint a very interesting picture of aziraphale for crowley. we always thought that crowley fell for this angel nigh immediately and spent the rest of time orbiting him. now I think aziraphale fell into crowley's orbit, and crowley gradually learned more and more contradictory (and therefore interesting) things about him. like the shelter of the wing, it's all reversed in this season.