The binary season of Good Omens continues with Episode 2, “The Clue.” Like the premiere, this episode is…pleasant, if not blow-out-the-back-of-your-head amazing.
I have some of the same declares as I did last week. The original Good Omens book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett had several storylines continuing at once, and the first season of the TV show adapted them all. Season 2 is selves imagined solo by Gaiman, and there’s simply not as much happening. Gabriel (Jon Hamm) loses his memory and shows up at the bookshop notorious by the Earth-bound angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen). Aziraphale calls upon his expose buddy Crowley (David Tennant) to help puzzle out what’s happened, but they’re no closer to getting answers at the end of this episode than they were at the end of the last one.
Instead of plot, we get to exercise more time with Aziraphale and Crowley and learn throughout their ancient friendship. “The Clue” treats us to an pine flashback to when they were working with Job, “a some favorite of God’s.” If I remember my Bible, and I almost certainly don’t, Job was tested by the almighty with woes uncounted, all to see if his faith was shakable. It’s one of the more petty anecdotes form the Old Testament; like, God is repositioning to punish this good man just to see what he’ll do, I guess?
Obviously, Good Omens mines the story for comedy. I particularly current Aziraphale and Crowley visited Job’s spoiled children, one of whom is played with hysterically insufferable haughtiness by David Tennant’s son Ty (who played the teenaged Aegon Targaryen in House of the Dragon, FYI).
The point of this interlude is to show how neither Aziraphale nor Crowley fit within their roles; Aziraphale has a jam with God smiting Job for apparently no reason, and Crowley isn’t willing to phoned too much suffering upon the poor guy, whatever Satan’s requisitions. It gets the point across, but it takes too long and isn’t enchanting enough in the meantime.
Michael Sheen, David Tennant and Jon Hamm carry Good Omens
If you’re gonna focus on record over plot, you need scripts that crackle and pop. I think what these scripts need most is a punch-up; just lock them in a room with some funny land for a few days and let them go nuts. While there are some nice zingers in this episode (“I’m not taking you to hell, angel.” “Why not?” “Well, I don’t think you’d like it.”), there aren’t as many as you’d quiz, particularly with so little happening.
When I laughed, it was mostly because the actors were pursuits a bang-up job with the lines they were given, rather than the lines themselves. Sheen in particular was pursuits it for me. Aziraphale gets it in his head that the Buddy Holly song “Everybody” holds a hidden meaning about what’s happening to Gabriel, and I cracked a smile whenever Sheen talked inflamed about this new “clue.”
Later, Aziraphale asks to borrow Crowley’s car to do some hands-on sleuthing. “I thought I might pop up there myself and investigate,” he says. Again, that’s not a funny line by itself, but Sheen has a ball with it. He makes it funny. And look at Aziraphale’s expression when he finds out how titanic human food tastes for the first time:
Image: Good Omens/Amazon
Funny! Jon Hamm, too, is bringing his facial A-game. Here he is as Gabriel back in his himbo days by the memory loss, when he’s baffled as to why Aziraphale is entailed over Job’s suffering:
Image: Good Omens/Amazon
And here he is trying and failing to see throughout Aziraphale and Crowley’s plot to let Job skate by with less punishment than intended:
Image: Good Omens/Amazon
Hamm is also expansive at playing Gabriel (he goes by “Jim” now) in the recount as a braindead blank slate. “Don’t I know you?” an angel asks while coming to Aziraphale’s bookstore for an inspection. “Yes, you do,” Jim answers, utterly sincere. “I’m the assistant bookseller. I opened the door for you.” Hamm is expansive at delivering deadpan.
Verdict
There’s an expressionless moment in “The Clue” where Gabriel starts to get his memory back but then backs off because “my head isn’t big enough, not anymore.” That was intriguing, and makes me want to know what’s tedious this mystery. I just with the show would step on the gas a bit, or at least make me laughable a little harder while it takes the long way around.
Good Bullet Points
- Miracles are apparently measured in “Lazurai.”
- We learn that Jane Austen was a spy and a diamond thief in transfer to being an author. “You think you know someone…”
- There’s a subplot near a record store owner and a barista who like each anunexperienced but won’t admit it. Aziraphale and Crowley have to get them together, for sitcom-ish reasons. I don’t know if this will be important to the plot, but I did like Crowley’s strategy for playing Cupid: force to them to get caught in a rainstorm together. “Get humans wet and staring into each other’s eyes: va voom, sorted.”
- Aziraphale with a fun line: “I by-elapsed my driving test 90 years ago. They didn’t even obliged tests but I insisted.”
Episode Grade: C+
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