And Behold, It Was Very “Good Omens” Season 2!

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Good Omens is officially returning for a second season over at Amazon Prime, in collaboration with the BBC. In the excruciatingly long two year gap between the first season’s release in 2019 and today, there had been occasional whisperings of a continuation, some even straight from the lips of the series’ creator, Neil Gaiman, but nothing ever seemed to pan out. Many fans had given up hope that we would ever see the future misadventures of Crowley and Aziraphale, and the first season’s fairly conclusive ending seemed to back up that dreary assumption.

Good Omens
Aziraphale and Crowley | bbc.com

But the long delay can now be attributed to Gaiman’s deep respect for the source material, Good Omens: The Nice And Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch, which he co-authored with the late great British fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett. Gaiman today revealed that many of his and Pratchett’s ideas for the Good Omens sequel they never got to write together will now form the basis of season two – meaning the series will continue to be as much Pratchett’s work as Gaiman’s. The first season of Gaiman’s Good Omens adaptation borrowed a couple of major characters and plot beats from this unwritten sequel, but the second season appears to be a mystery story revolving around the sudden appearance of a stray angel with amnesia in a street market in Soho, where Crowley and Aziraphale are now living quite peacefully, having averted Armageddon and prevented a war between Heaven and Hell at the end of season one.

What happens after that is anyone’s guess, but Gaiman did give fans reassurance that Good Omens will continue to explore the far-distant past, putting a quirky and humorous spin on Biblical events – this time including the moments leading up to Genesis, and the creation of all things. We’ll also presumably see more of Crowley and Aziraphale’s time on earth, meddling in human history or cautiously observing it from a reasonable distance – and most importantly, just as in season one, we can safely assume these flashbacks will give us more insight into how the unique relationship between the begrudgingly spiritual demon and the charmingly worldly angel has developed over the years, and how it will continue to grow.

Good Omens
Crowley | themarysue.com

Good Omens has one of the few fandoms that is almost unanimously in support of the two male (or in this case, more likely male-aligned) leads becoming an explicitly romantic couple – perhaps because Good Omens is already so abhorred by the right-wing that very few homophobes seem to watch it at all – so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Gaiman gives the fans what they want in this case. Regarding Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship in season one, he said that he consciously structured it as “a love story”. And with the stakes a little less high in season two (at least at the outset, it seems), there’ll be plenty of time for more cute moments between the duo, whom fans have dubbed the Ineffable Husbands.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen will return to reprise the lead roles in season two, which will begin filming in Scotland sometime later this year. We can reasonably expect to see other major characters from season one return, including Jon Hamm as the Archangel Gabriel, Adria Arjona as the good witch Anathema Device, and Frances McDormand as the Voice of God, but I’m very excited to see which new characters Good Omens has in store for us. We’ve met the literal Antichrist already, so one has to wonder if some version of the Messiah themselves – like, the real one – might pay a visit to Earth in season two. It seems obvious, but at the same time perhaps a bit too obvious? The wheel-shaped Ophanim angels, or Seraphim angels with six wings and hundreds of eyes, might offer less predictable alternatives.

Good Omens
They’re in love, your honor | polygon.com

With the first season of Marvel’s Loki – which I described as brilliantly emulating the spirit of Terry Pratchett – nearly over, it’s comforting to know that we’ll soon be seeing more zany comedy on our screens, and from Pratchett’s own wild imagination, no less. Now how about we finally get the Discworld adaptation we deserve?

“The French Dispatch” Trailer Review!

Director Wes Anderson is back in the game with his boldest, brightest, most bizarre project yet: The French Dispatch, a film anthology of stories from a fictional newspaper (loosely based on The New Yorker) operating out of a fictional French city (obviously based on Paris) in the middle of the 20th Century, playing witness to some of the most explosive moments in the nation’s history. The abstract and absurdist comedy stars a massive cast of A-list talent, and employs a number of curious camera-tricks, as well as being partly shot in black-and-white.

Bill Murray stars as the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, who went on a holiday and never came back to his home-state of Kansas: instead, he turned his travelogue column into The French Dispatch, which appears to be a semi-satirical weekly newspaper chronicling “world politics, the arts (high and low), and diverse stories of human interest”. He is surrounded by a star-studded cast playing his small army of editors, journalists, columnists, sources and the local characters they interact with on the streets of Paris, including Tilda Swinton (wearing a very bright orange wig), Benicio Del Toro as an artist imprisoned in a padded cell, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet already working on his Bob Dylan impersonation, Léa Seydoux as a stone-cold police officer, Owen Wilson, Mathieu Amalric, Liev Schrieber, Elisabeth Moss, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, Henry Winkler and Saoirse Ronan, among many others. Not all of this cast are comedians, but all of them look like they’re about to be.

"The French Dispatch" Trailer Review! 1
slashfilm.com

This trailer certainly makes it look like The French Dispatch will be a memorable cinematic experience – not only because of its extraordinarily weird cinematography and quirky visuals, but because I can’t wait to see the interactions between this amazing cast: Tilda Swinton and Henry Winkler in the same movie? Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan reunited onscreen for the umpteenth time? Count me in.

So what do you think? Does The French Dispatch look too weird for your taste, or do you think this looks stupendously strange? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!

Trailer Rating: 8/10