Crowley And Aziraphale Are Closer Than Ever In Good Omens Season 2
When "Good Omens" returns to Prime Video later this month, it'll be with a storyline that goes beyond the pages of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's 1990 novel of the same name. In the show's first season, the apocalypse was averted, the world saved, and the demon Crowley (David Tennant) and angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) left sharing a toast over lunch. The two age-old beings seemed to have gotten a happily-ever-after, but when the well-received show was renewed for a second season, their future became an open book once again.
Although the trailer for "Good Omens" season 2 shows the life-long frenemies living in quasi-domestic bliss (until Jon Hamm's memory-wiped Gabriel shows up), their living arrangement apparently isn't quite so simple. The latest issue of SFX magazine includes an interview with Sheen and Tennant, and although the pair say their characters end up closer than ever, SFX also reveals that season 2 will pick up with Crowley living out of his car (plants and all) while Aziraphale is thriving hanging among humans at his Soho bookshop. It's at the shop that Crowley often finds himself, according to Tennant.
'They have no one else'
"He spends a lot of time in the book shop," Tennent tells SFX magazine. "He only has one friend. He can only have one friend." As Sheen notes elsewhere in the interview, the pair aren't exactly on the run, but aren't off the radar of the powers that be in heaven and hell either. When Tennant notes that the pair are "kind of free agents" these days, Sheen says they're also semi-fugitives. "They are sort of in-between. But this amazing life they have created over a millennia, they are now able to enjoy in a slightly different way," he explains.
The pair might be retired from their jobs working for the big men upstairs (and downstairs), but that freedom leads to a dependence on one another that perhaps feels different than what they've known in all their previous centuries of coexistence. "That is the great liberation, and also the great prison, that they find themselves in," Tennant says after noting that Aziraphale is Crowley's only friend. "They have no one else. They have come to rely on each other more than they ever did. And more than they care to admit."
An angel and a demon against the world
Fans have already caught a glimpse of that denial in the "Good Omens" season 2 trailer, when Gabriel asks Aziraphale whether the presence of one person in his life has ever given him an inexplicable sense of comfort, and the angel responds with a stuttering "No, certainly not." Meanwhile, the trailer edits in a shot of Sheen's character looking quietly delighted while sharing a drink with Crowley, making it pretty clear the angel's caught feelings. The actors don't address Aziraphale's heart eyes in the interview, but do talk about how the sense that the pair are, as Tennant puts it, "strangers in a strange land" will impact their relationship.
"That kind of connects them in a slightly different way," Sheen says. "They have always been the only two beings who could understand each other's position. Now they are pushed even closer together."
Luckily for the two co-stars (and for fans), the show is never better than when it's exploring the closeness of the pair, as Crowley and Aziraphale possess a dynamic chemistry that gives their companionship an undercurrent of romance. How much season 2 of "Good Omens" may or may not explore that aspect of their relationship remains to be seen, but it sounds like series creator and showrunner Gaiman is well aware that the dynamic duo is at their best when it's them against the world.
"Good Omens" returns with season 2 on Prime Video beginning July 28, 2023.