#john finnemore

[aheavenofhell]

They mirrored the Job story

I don’t know if this has been said yet, but during the Job episode I was extremely preoccupied with the “sounds lonely” arc, preoccupied with Aziraphale changing, but I noticed something else.

There is something about that scene in the villa, where Aziraphale asks Crowley not to destroy Job’s children. Now, we know Crowley never had any plans to do this, so why would he lie to Aziraphale instead of just admitting it? Does he actually want to seem that demonic to him, does he want him to think he’s evil?

I don’t think so. At least, that isn’t the way I interpreted it.

I think Crowley was testing Aziraphale’s faith in him. He looks him in the eyes, he tells him he’s going to go through with it, and he watches his reaction. Aziraphale is on the verge of tears when he walks away, and when Crowley goes the opposite direction, you can see he looks a little disappointed.

Then Aziraphale finds out he didn’t kill the goats. And like that, his faith in him is restored.

So what does Crowley do? Just like God with Job, he escalates. He raises the stakes.

Next time, it’s the fire. The “are you sure, angel?” gets me every single time. He is looking Aziraphale in the eyes and asking for his faith, and Aziraphale looks back at him and this time, he gives it resolutely, firmly. Quite sure. And after that, Crowley doesn’t test him again.

It’s just so interesting to think about the state of their relationship at this point—the fact that Crowley is, relative to the rest of their existence, newly fallen. They’re treading this new ground, and Crowley doesn’t know where he stands in Aziraphale’s eyes. So in his own weird, definitely-not-trauma-fueled way, he decided to find out.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #good omens season 2 #go2 spoilers #analysis #good omens 2 #john finnemore #neil gaiman #good omens meta #s2 e2

[olympain]

Cabin Pressure references in Good Omens Season 2

#goodomensedit #good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 #david tennant #michael sheen #aziraphale #crowley #cabin pressure #neil gaiman #john finnemore #original #*gifs

[neil-gaiman]

I wanted to thank you for the Good Omens S2E2 “A Companion to Owls” “minisode” which I found personally very moving as something that stands on its own (independent of the season 2 arc or the relationship arc in the show).

The choice to do what is right in real life is a hard one. It keeps you up at night, makes you grind your teeth, wring your hands, pace the floors. Depending on the situation, the pressures can be enormous, and frankly terrifying. And yes, the reality is that once you have made your decision, doing what is right can indeed be very, very lonely. It has consequences, and even if you form temporary alliances, in my own experience, potential consequences are still faced alone (whether in the impact on one’s career, or personal life, etc.). Doing the right thing usually does *not* get you a gold star or a pat on the back.

As someone past the half-century mark now who has found myself in these circumstances a number of times before in life, I cannot even begin to express how important it was to me to see this represented in mainstream media like this, and that we were allowed to sit with that feeling, that struggle. When Aziraphale is looking out at the sea, in that last scene, I looked at his face and said to myself “I *know* that, exactly that, right there, I have felt that. Someone else understands.”

Thank you so much for what you have created (along with thanks to all those who have worked to bring it to life – especially Michael Sheen whose performance I found so moving). Watching “A Companion to Owls” has offered a sort of peace in its representation of that struggle, and I think about it often. It is what I needed, when I needed it.

While I thank you, your thanks really are for John Finnemore, who wrote the Job story and wrote it so beautifully.

#john finnemore #job #go2 spoilers

[theeldermillennial]

So I've gone to church my entire life, but I'm not familiar with all of the stories in the Bible.

After watching GOOD OMENS 2, I wanted to read the full Book of Job because the series made the story so interesting.

Cue this past Sunday at Mass. I pick up the Bible on the back of the pew and flip to the Book of Job. The series was dead accurate and kept to the source material very well. I'm reading, I'm reading some more...and then I see it.

I swear to you, the way the writers set his name up in the episode made it 100% sound like a ridiculous made-up on the spot name. NOPE! They picked the friend with the most hilarious name!

I nearly started cackling in the middle of Mass! XD

#good omens #good omens 2 #bildad the shuhite #david tennant #crowley #neil gaimon #book of job #john finnemore

[kwistowee]

Cabin Pressure + Good Omens S2 John Finnemore’s fingerprints are everywhere!

#goodomensedit #good omens #john finnemore #cabin pressure #crowley #david tennant #aziraphale #michael sheen #cabinpressureedit #goodomenssource #amazonedit #usersugar #userpayton #tvedit #dailyflicks #mediagifs #cinemapix #filmtvcentral #userthing #my*gifs #so much of this was SO dark and SO yellow #coloring that nighttime bookshop fight was a bit of a drizzly solo trek #i adore john's brain and his heart #absolutely brilliant

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

#good omens #gos3 #season 3 #neil gaiman #john finnemore #<3

[tinsnip]

so if you liked the sweetness and humour in season 2 of good omens, i have good news for you: neil gaiman co-wrote with john finnemore, who is incredibly good at sweetness and light and love and also very funny

and you should listen to cabin pressure, which is about 26 episodes of john finnemore humour, with some fucking incredible voice actors, some of whom you may recognize

it will delight you, and is excellent for car rides and commutes. prepare to become Emotionally Invested in Funny Idiots.

#john finnemore #cabin pressure #good omens 2 #i will evangelize for this show forever

[andsomemaniacgotridofthewheel]

I think "Bad Writing on Purpose" is a misnomer.

And people focus too much on it.

First of all, I really don't understand why people were surprised by the cliffhanger. Everyone was talking about how Neil said season 2 was going to be "quiet, gentle, and romantic" but nobody noticed that he also, on multiple occasions, wrote that season 2 was not the sequel he and Terry plotted, but what needed to happen to get the characters to where they needed to be at the start of what they plotted as the book sequel but would now be season 3. He was always completely open that season 2 was a bridge, and after reading it here and there before season 2 came out, I for one knew that season 2 would most likely end with a cliffhanger.

I mean, I surely didn't know we would get OFMD-ed, that was indeed a surprise, but I knew there would be a cliffhanger. Why didn't you?

Now I have read ariaste's famous 15 000 word essay. I find her theory quite brilliant. I don't think she will be (totally) right about it, it's too specific and too reliant on her assumption of how the Book of Life works. I also disagree with some of the details of what she calls "bad writing". Especially Maggie might just be portrayed as a dork neurodivergent. And some of her visual "clues" already turned out to be simple homages. (Not "The Crow Road", though, I think. Yes, Neil and Terry were friends with Ian Banks. But he has written like 40+ books, why choose THAT one, the one that deals in part with people solving a mystery by going through old documents, just after we are shown that Aziraphale keeps diaries and definitely leaves them in the bookshop when he's going to heaven? Even if we ascribe its first appearance to the famous opening line which Gabriel reads aloud, why show the same book a second time, mid-frame?)

Also, yes, I disliked that Aziraphale's & Crowley's new first meeting put them on the wrong foot with each other, when their meeting in Eden had established them as kinda instant co-conspirators from the very beginning. The same with Crowley in the Job episode being the one to introduce Aziraphale to worldly pleasures instead of him discovering them on his own. But that is sometimes what happens when you learn more about characters from new canon, sometimes it doesn't fit your established headcanon. You either roll with it or you choose to ignore that part of canon.

But I do think she is on the right track. And the most important thing that ariaste pointed out is still the missing/unsatisfying payoffs and the unfired Chekov's Guns, which I am pretty sure is the very reason this season felt so "off" for most of us and why ariastes theory found so much resonance. But I wouldn't call that Bad Writing. I would call that at most Weird Writing Choices. Especially if

you view the whole of season 2, the bridge season, the quiet gentle and romantic interlude, as one. giant. setup.

Having Aziraphale use his never-before-mentioned halo as a deus-ex-machina option to defeat the demons in his bookshop is a weird writing choice. Especially when we know we have a literal Chekov's - Derringer - Gun hidden somewhere in there, which is not being used. Mentioning the Book of Life several times and have it be of no consequence, Crowley even doubting that it really exists, is another unfired gun. The Nazi-Zombies, which are somehow left to their own devices and never mentioned again, could be a Chekhov's Gun - and I feel a lot better knowing now that yes, the living dead are apparently part (a sign?) of The Second Coming.

But it isn't bad writing. It is setting up season 3. It has always been about setting up season 3. We got a nice, little, quiet gentle and romantic, fan-fictionesque Ineffable Bureaucracy main plot to go with it, but that was never the raison d'etre for season 2. It's main purpose was always to set. up. season. three.

After all, most paraphrasings of "Chekov's Gun" speak of acts. If a gun is shown in act 1, it has to be fired in act 2. If a gun is shown in one act, it has to be fired the following. If we look at Good Omens as a 3-act-story, with one season being one act, then all the Chekov's Guns were shown to us in act 2, and are not required to go off until act 3 - meaning season 3.

All of you who dismiss this and go "no one ever wrote bad on purpose just to fix it in the next season, why not accept this season was just bad" are missing the point, because you fixate on the "bad writing on purpose" misnomer. It's not bad writing. It's delayed gratification. It's setting up a payoff over more than one season. Which you can absolutely do if you have a plan, if you know where your story is going. It is what everyone still seems to expect from J.J. Abrams, even though we should know better by now. His setups never pay off, because he sets up things he never intends to resolve, never even has an idea about how they could be resolved, and keeps getting away with it. And yet, the overwhelming presence of his shitty writing in media has probably screwed with our expectations from mystery shows, which thanks to him are not very high. But I truly believe that Neil Gaiman (and John Finnemore, a frickin' COMEDY writer, for whom the setup-payoff concept must actually be like breathing) are both simply better than that windbag. There will be a payoff. Only later.

I believe we will come back to the halo. Aziraphale's Derringer Gun will be fired. The Book of Life will have meaning, even if it is different from what we might theorize. The Zombies will at least be mentioned. And I think even the weirdly framed and then forgotten Eccles cakes will make another appearance. We will have an actual, big-stakes gen plot next season. Aziraphale & Crowley will be stopping another apocalypse. It will have to do with Crowley's "all of us against all of them" line from season 1. It will have Anathema & Newt (I remember one Tumblr ask before season 2 where Neil was asked if they would come back for season 2, and he answered no, but they would hopefully be in season 3), and I personally think they're gonna regret burning that second book from Agnes. Crowley & Aziraphale will not have much time to talk about their relationship or to feel sorry for themselves, as a lot of fans seem to expect. This will not be fan-service, this will not be fan-fictionesque. The bigger picture is the second apocalypse and once again saving humanity, and saving earth. Doing that, Crowley & Aziraphale will find common ground again, they will find each other again. They will end up in their shared cottage in the South Downs, openly in love, and everything will be ok. I don't know exactly how, and I don't want to speculate too much, because that almost always ends up with me being disappointed by how canon actually turns out.

But I believe in Neil Gaiman. I believe he cares. I believe he might even care more about "Good Omens" than about any other of his creations. And I believe in the Brilliance of John Finnemore. I don't believe that he would have let Neil get away with these setups without real payoffs if he didn't see the point of them.

(And if Amazon and their greedy CEO/shareholders are the reason we won't get a third season, you'll hear about me in the news, I swear. 😡)

#good omens #neil gaiman #john finnemore #crowley #aziraphale #the magic trick theory #the magic trick you didn't see #ineffable divorce #ineffable idiots #ineffable dumbasses #good omens season 2 #good omens s2 #go2 #anthony j crowley #south downs cottage #good omens 2 #nikku.txt #nikku's posts #aj crowley #az fell

[mywingsareonwheels]

No but really, love stories about middle-aged queer people (or immortal equivalents ;-) ) in which they hit the halfway through or 2/3-of-the-way-through agonising cliffhanger break-up beat, being as it is a really time-honoured part of happy-ending classic romances. And in mainstream tv shows! Mainstream tv shows aimed at a wide audience!

That’s actually bloody awesome. I mean, at the time of course it hurts like hell. But... really. For queer love to be treated as suitable for a love story? To be hitting the Emma-and-Knightley-at-Box-Hill, Darcy’s-bad-proposal, Ladislaw-leaving-Middlemarch-because-clearly-he-and-Dorothea-can’t-be-together etc. etc. bit... I grew up on sitcoms like From May to December when fall outs like this were part of the story. It’s classic, it’s standard. It’s tropey in the best way: and one of those tropes which is a hundred times more fresh and powerful for a non-cishet couple.

I mean, I don’t know. I’m 44 and British. I grew up bi and nonbinary and closeted with Section 28 (even if the teachers at my school broke the Section 28 laws All The Time, bless them <3 ). I could not have imagined stories like this with a big audience. And as a community globally we are so hard beset, things are truly terrifying, but... but this is so powerful. Aziraphale/Crowley (and Nina/Maggie; actually and also Gabriel/Beelzebub given that too is a queer relationship!). And other stories too that I haven’t seen but know are out there. :-)

So no, I don’t love Neil Gaiman or John Finnemore any less for the end of series 2. Quite the contrary. Hitting “conventional” romance tropes with queer couples in a show like this? Yes, including the romance tropes that hurt dreadfully? Oh hell yes. Thank you, Neil and John. Thank you Pterry. Thank you Michael and David and Nina and Maggie. <3

And... well, since we did ask them for a story about an angel and a demon in love... It was never going to be easy. :) <3

#good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens s2 #good omens s2 spoilers #good omens series 2 #good omens series 2 spoilers #good omens season 2 #good omens season 2 spoilers #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #john finnemore #gnu terry pratchett #aziraphale/crowley #aziraphale x crowley #nina x maggie #michael sheen #david tennant #nina sosanya #maggie service #tw homophobia mention #tw section 28 #uncle newt

[thekenobee]

Cabin Pressure AND Master and Commander combo will be the death of me

#dont ask me to do more of ese #YES PLS DO #cabin pressure #master and commander #jack aubrey #stephen maturin #100 proc CANON CONVERSATION #douglas richardson #martin crieff #cabin master and COMMANDER #sdknhfkasjnkasd #bbc #john finnemore #thekenobeeedit #my edit #aubreyad #aubreyad memes #Patrick O'Brian #russell crowe #paul bettany #age of sail #memes #funny #to me at least #bbc radio 4 #cp #mac

[rainbowpopeworld]

I’m sure other people have noticed this, but I love that both human children and goats are in the shot when he’s talking about not killing kids.

And then in s2 Companion to Owls, he saves both kinds of kids.

Sources for screencaps

As we know from Neil, kids are his favorite animal

#good omens #crowley #good omens 2 #kids #means both humans and goats #neil gaiman #john finnemore #ineffable motherfuckers #ineffable husbands #ineffable* #aziracrow #job minisode #companion to owls #noah’s ark #david tennant #michael sheen

[exlibrislaurac]

For Otter Day 2024. Only a few weeks late.

#john finnemore #otter day 2024 #cabin pressure #hedgehog

[olympain]

cabin pressure (a-z): ottery st mary

#otter day 2024 #cabin pressure #a to z #john finnemore #carolyn knapp shappey #hercules shipwright #arthur shappey #martin crieff #original #*graphic #i am aware i skipped molokai and newcastle and i'll get to them when the stars align

[londonspirit]

aaaaand it's Christmas!

#john finnemore #cabin pressure #christmas tweets

[kwistowee]

CABIN PRESSURE ➥ 3.04 - Ottery St. Mary x

#otter day 2024 #cabin pressure #cabinpressureedit #ottery st. mary #john finnemore #animaledit #otters #animals #sea otter #mjn-air #usergif #cinemapix #mediagifs #filmtvcentral #dailyflicks #usersource #usercreate #userthing #chewieblog #my*gifs #userbbelcher #guys if we had a show and not just delightful episodes to listen to i'd gif every single frame #and then tweet them to mr. finnemore #as a snack

[gingilocks101]

ARTHUR: But that's not true. I'm fairly often just completely happy. Like, for instance, when you get into a bath quickly and it's just the right temperature, and you go "ooooh". I mean really no one gets any happier than that.

MARTIN: What a depressing thought.

ARTHUR: No, no, it's not though, because those sort of things happen all the time, whereas you're hardly ever, you know, blissfully happy with the love of your life in the moonlight, and when you are, you're too busy worrying about it being over soon, whereas the bath moments, there's loads of those!

'Fitton', Cabin Pressure, John Finnemore, BBC Radio 4, 6 August 2008

#cabin pressure #arthur shappey #martin crieff #john finnemore #idk i just like the arthur shappey approach to true happiness