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humbledragon669 · 5 months ago

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S1E3 – Hard Times Write Up P5 - Friday (One day to the end of the World) up to "the break up"

So, here we are, more than halfway through the episode yet only just getting to the credits. That really threw me the first time I watched this episode! I do think it’s a very clever way to handle the format of this episode though – you couldn’t exactly break the flow of the historical scenes to make way for the credits, and those scenes definitely don’t belong nestled in amongst the main storyline, particularly as all of those scenes were additional material written specifically for the show (as described by Neil in the introduction to the Script Book – this was do with ensuring consistency for seeing Crowley and Aziraphale in every episode of the season). Despite the fact that the storyline covered in these scenes is newly created, the information we learn from them is crucial to understanding the motives, emotions, and thought processes that the angel and demon show throughout the show, and I genuinely don’t think the rest of the episodes, or our relationship with the two main characters, would have been the same without them.

I also think the crazy-fast montage of scenes that we see immediately following the credits is a great way of bringing us back to the main storyline of the show, picking up right where we left off at the end of episode 2, which in fairness does seem like an awfully long time ago – after all, we’ve just been through a whistle-stop tour of 6000 years of history.

The entire sequence takes 5 seconds and appears to use a different image for every frame of film, which means it consists of approximately 130 different tableaus, in chronological order of their appearance in the season. Some editor had fun doing that I’m sure.

Knowing that I should be looking at any instances of writing whenever it’s used, I paused my rewatch of this episode at the point where we’re shown Aziraphale’s little planning board. Whilst most of it makes perfect sense (a map, notes about Adam’s name, relevant prophecy numbers), there is also a sheet of paper covered in writing that, to me at least is completely ineligible:

If anybody knows what this writing is, or even if it’s just made-up scribblings to look cool, I’d love to know the answer.

The conversation between Adam and Anathema has always struck me as slightly odd. I mean, it’s nice that Adam stops to ask if she’s OK (when she clearly is not), but there doesn’t appear to be any recognition from either party that they actually met just the day before. And forgive me for imposing modern-day suppositions on to work that was written a few decades previously, but a fully grown adult inviting a kid into their house for something to drink just feels creepy to me. We know she’s perfectly fine to be around though so we’ll let it go. What I do like about the conversation is that there’s an echoing of the exchange that Crowley and Aziraphale shared as they were leaving Tadfield Manor (about angels not being occult but ethereal) but this time the labels in contention are “witch” and “occultist”.

ADAM: Are you a witch? ANATHEMA: No, I’m an occultist.

It’s a nice nod to the notion that words have power. Both parties are describing the same idea but choosing what connotations they want to associate with it. And what’s really important to note on that matter is that changing Anathema’s label completely changes Adam’s opinion of her immediately.

Side note: anybody else find the juxtaposition of some manky old thumbscrews right next to a colourful birthday candle to be a beautifully accurate summation for what an oblivious shitshow the Witchfinder’s Army really is?

I find the choice of location for Crowley’s meeting with Shadwell to be an interesting one. The café they meet in proudly declares itself to be the “Best Café in Wandsworth”. Wandsworth is a long way from Crouch End, where we know Shadwell lives, and Mayfair, which is where the book states Crowley’s flat is located. And just so we’re covering some of the other possibilities, it’s nowhere near Soho and Aziraphale hasn’t set up the meeting at the 3rd rendezvous point yet for it to be a precursor location for the meeting on the bandstand. Why Wandsworth?

There are a couple of Easter Eggs in Crowley’s newspaper here, and perhaps one on the TV playing in the background. Let’s start with the newspaper. It’s no surprise that Crowley would be reading the Infernal Times, but who knew that demons would consider a bit of hiking for their holidays:

It’s a bit hard to make out, but I’m pretty sure that the headline reads something about walking trails. And it’s a pretty pathetic sounding front page headline:

In case you can’t read it (again, it difficult to make out), it says “SOUL MUSIC: Catalogue your collection of Souls?”. As a headline it doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but I think this is probably a reference to Crowley’s soul music collection mentioned in the book.

He was very proud of his collection. It had taken him ages to put together. This was real Soul Music. James Brown wasn’t in it.

The last of the headlines I can actually make out is the following:

Again, if you can’t quite make it out, this one describes some latest research that suggests exorcisms are on the rise in Wales. Just who has done the research, and why specifically concentrating on Wales, remains a mystery. Now let’s have a look at that TV in the corner of the room:

This was really tricky to get a clipping of something that made sense but the footage on the screen looks like it’s set in Puritan times. The guy on the right in this image is even wearing a costume reminiscent of Adultery Pulsifer’s clothes in the previous episode, so perhaps this a witchfinder? I couldn’t get anything concrete, but I think it’s probably a little Easter Egg nonetheless.

It’s nice that we have an acknowledgement of Shadwell’s involvement with Crowley going back decades during the conversation where we discover the demon is sponsoring the Witchfinder’s Army. We know, from the 1967 historical scene, that Crowley has been dealing with this dense oaf for 50 years by this point. I suppose in a show where character recognition, or rather the lack of it (see previous scene with Adam and Anathema, or even the use of the same actors to play different characters as we see in season 2) happens regularly, it was probably necessary to script something that explicitly states that these two characters are aware of the “resemblance” that Crowley bears to someone Shadwell knew many years previously.

Moving back to Anathema and Adam now (this episode does fair rattle through the sub-plot development doesn’t it?!). What’s with the whale obsession please? This isn’t the first time we hear about how whales have big brains (Crowley already raised this point when he was very drunk in episode 1), and it won’t be the last. I mean, I’m not denying that they do have huge brains, I just didn’t realise it was a thing that so many people thought about. I wonder if it’s one of those questions you supposedly can ask men about to get an unexpected response, like how often they think about ancient Rome? Regardless, the whale comment is just one of a bunch of foreshadowing Clues in this scene for later on.

They’ve got it all covered – ley lines, nuclear power stations, the Kraken, Atlantis, and Tibet, all mentioned or seen in a very short space of time. There’s even mention of the destruction of the Brazilian rainforests, something Adam tries to resolve in the book.

Up in Heaven, which looks like an incredibly boring place in my opinion, Aziraphale is busy telling his superiors things they’re either not interested in or already know. I don’t know whether Uriel’s line “what’s happening” is a little reference to Jesus Christ Superstar (the song “What’s the Buzz” uses this phrase repeatedly throughout), but if it is it would effectively put Aziraphale in the role of Jesus, with the archangels being disciples. Not exactly fitting with canon, so maybe this is a little Easter Egg. Or maybe it’s nothing at all.

Whilst I was doing this write up, I noticed that Aziraphale is the only one of the angels to be wearing a patterned garment – his trademark tartan. It’s a nice way to subtly distinguish him, or more precisely his relationship with the concept of free will, from the other angels, and whilst we know he has been exercising his own free will for centuries, his addition of a non-standard item of clothing to angelic attire would suggest he is becoming more comfortable with his stance. Looking back through the historical scenes (including the ones from season 2 we are yet to see), I think the tartan first makes it appearance in 1862, but I’m happy to be corrected on that.

It's a good job that the archangels are a somewhat dense bunch because Aziraphale does not do a good job of hiding when he’s hiding something here. He has a tendency to overact when it comes to the discussion around Crowley, and the pause he puts in before his non-committal answer to Gabriel’s questioning is almost painful.

It should be obvious to them that he’s covering something up but luckily they’re totally oblivious and Aziraphale actually manages to buy himself some time. Credit to him here – he went to Heaven with preconceived ideas of how this conversation was going and he not only manages to adapt to the deviation from his expectations, he also considers what this means, how it changes his plans, comes up with a plan for how to achieve his new objective, and executes that plan very convincingly. There’s a lot of talk about how Aziraphale can often be pretty dense at times, but this little scene should tell you that that’s only really true when it comes to Crowley – outside of the blinkers of friendship and love, this is one quick-thinking and intelligent angel.

We’ve had a couple of mentions of Crowley being “fallen” before now in the show, but I think this is the first time we get any clues as to why that might have been. And surprisingly for such an important piece of information, it’s delivered in an almost nonchalant way.

There was war in Heaven, long before the Earth was created. Crowley and the rest were cast out. Not nothing was ever really settled.

We already knew that Crowley wasn’t the only fallen angel (see Hastur’s comments in episode 2) but this is the first mention of him being involved in all-out war against Heaven. Hastur talks about rebelling in the previous episode, so we can only assume that these are two puzzle pieces that fit together. I don’t know whether season 3 will bring us a fuller answer for Crowley’s fall, but I hope so. I feel like it’s a huge part of his history and who he is; as a fan it would be nice to be able to put it all together for an even better understanding of his character.

Gabriel’s comments about the war and Armageddon make for some interesting discussion points. He says that even though the fallen angels were cast out of Heaven, nothing was settled. What exactly were they hoping would be the outcome of that war? If it was the destruction of those who rebelled, why only cast them out? Why not destroy them at that point? And why exactly does Earth have to get tied up in all of this? His parting line about Earth’s destruction offers little to the debate about what Earth’s role is in the whole Heaven/Hell war, only that Heaven is determined to destroy it, regardless.

The Earth isn’t going to just end itself, you know.

Charming. And unfortunately for Aziraphale, his lack of enthusiasm for another war has triggered the suspicion of the archangels – it’s interesting that he was able to cover his intentions through his talk of Crowley and poorly disguised buying for time but what really makes them think he can’t be trusted is that he clearly isn’t fully on their side when it comes to war.

There is a line in the book about anybody who meets Aziraphale believing him to be “gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide”. I can see how this might have been a little difficult to get into a TV show, but I think the double entendre delivered by the following exchange probably serves as a suitable alternative:

AZIRAPHALE: Do you have any men free? I need them to poke about a bit. SHADWELL: Poke, eh? And where exactly do you want them poking?

And if it wasn’t clear what Shadwell’s thoughts on Aziraphale were, calling him a “great southern pansy can probably fill in the blanks for you.

Remember what I was saying about Aziraphale not being dense earlier? Well this is one of those moments when he proves the exact opposite. He genuinely appears to believe all the stories Shadwell has fed him about the soldiers of the Witchfinder’s Army. I suspect he simply can’t bear to think that somebody would lie to him for financial gain, something which Crowley appeared to be fully conscious of when he dismissed Shadwell’s presentation of the ledger in the café earlier on. Whatever the angel’s reasons for this gullibility, we as the audience can now see that both of our hero pair are not only funding the Witchfinder Army (for the paltry combined sum of £500 per year according to the Script Book) but making use of their services, and hiding the organisation from the other for fear of reprimand. How very Shakespearian.

There are a few little things I’d like to show appreciation for in the Famine scene. First off, and I did have to look this up, but the word “sable” can be defined as “black”. So Famine’s chosen name consists of 2 words that describe black. Given that one of War’s alternative names is Red (or Carmine, which means crimson, as well as her chosen surname of Zingiber, which is another name for ginger – a word you might use to describe a red-headed person), this is hardly surprising. Next up. I love how beautiful the plate of non-existent food in the fine dining restaurant is. I have eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant and I can assure you, that isn’t far off the mark at all.

Next little Easter Egg – there’s a picture of the Bentley, albeit in red, on the wall of the burger joint that Famine and his assistant go to:

And how many times have we heard/read terms and conditions that sound very similar (scratch that, there are some phrases that are word-for-word perfect) to the ones for Chow for any/all new health product that comes to market with the sole purpose of making money out of gullible/vulnerable people. Neil really nailed the wording and delivery in the script there. Elvis’s presence in the restaurant is a cute bit of humour too, and halfway makes up for one of the lines in the script that didn’t make it to the final cut but made me guffaw like a loon – it’s Death’s response to a question about the year of Elvis’s death from the quiz machine:

I DON’T CARE WHAT IT SAYS. I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.

Lastly, I’d like to think there’s another instance of script mirroring in the use of the word Chow here. Cast your mind back, all the way to episode 1…

LIGUR: Wassat mean, “Ciao”? HASTUR: It’s Italian. It means “food”.

Except to anyone actually eating Sable’s prized invention Chow isn’t food at all, but eating it might result in you having to say “goodbye” to a lot of things like “hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs.” Beautiful word play.

Side note for the next scene: the Witchfinder Manual actually has a price on the cover (I can’t quite make out what it is, but it’s “old” money), which means at some point that sack of crap was actually sold to people.

One last tiny note: Crowley tells Aziraphale to meet him at the 3rd alternative rendezvous. Not the 3rd rendezvous or the alternative rendezvous. And Aziraphale can’t remember which location it maps to, though he can list off three possibilities, much to Crowley’s annoyance. I’d quite like to know how many formally named rendezvous locations they have, and why they think that referring to them in “code” prevents their respective superiors from knowing they’re meeting in the first place.

I am going to call it on this part of the write up at this point. I had intended for this part to be the last one for this episode, but I’m already at nearly 3000 words and I haven’t covered the “break-up” scene yet. I think I’m partly just putting off the inevitable by not including it here because I find the last scene of this episode very difficult to watch. Nevertheless, I hope you’ll forgive me. I’d hope I can give that scene the attention it deserves if I split it out into its own write up. So for now… comments, questions, discussion, all welcome, as always.

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