This might be a reach, but...

I was thinking about this moment:

And am I the only one to find it interesting that Saraqael here is reminding Crowley about his past as an angel (and nebulas, that were his passion back then) just a couple of hours before the offer is made to take Crowley back to that past? And Saraqael does react to his answer?

Now, I'm not in a team "trust Saraqael" - I am in a team "don't ever trust the security officer of an opressive system however friendly they might appear to be, unless you know their full motivation". We don't know any of Saraqael's motives - yet we can see, for example, that them letting Crowley looking into Gabriel's files actually led to Heaven finding out what happened to the former Supreme Archangel.

We also can see just a minute from this moment that Heaven as a place does have video surveillance:

So...what if Saraqael is directly subordinate to The Metatron and here they do follow his orders? What if these words ("remember how you was an angel and how much you enjoyed making nebulas?") was spoken with a purpose to see Crowley's reaction to it? Will there be some kind of regret, or shame, or anger - or just indifference?

What if his reaction was recorded in a real time and was quickly analysed by The Metatron himself, so he could imagine how Crowley feels about his angelhood in the present, and act accordingly?

About The Metatron's motivation to promote Aziraphale...

...why people usually dismiss this part?

Unlike other The Metatron’s ‘compliments’ made as an ‘argument’ to why Aziraphale should be a new Supreme Archangel, this one is made in later part of the conversation (not in the French restaurant, but right before the elevator, and right before ‘we call it the Second Coming’ bombshell). Unlike those ‘compliments’ this one isn’t a blatant lie – Aziraphale is familiar with ‘Earth ways’, not perfectly, but better than most angels.

And, unlike The Metatron’s earlier reasoning, this one can be true (or at least part of the truth).

Heaven are preparing a new Armageddon. The last one attempt was prevented mostly by humans, with aziracrow acting as a support at best. If The Metatron researched it properly to avoid mistakes of Hell, he should know about that. So humans of Earth might be considered as a significant threat to a Great Plan* - probably more significant than two defectors, even if these two are somehow powerful (if The Metatron is even aware about their 25 Lazarii miracle).

 (*also, remember: The Big One would be All of Us against all of Them, with Them meaning Humanity)

There might be a reason for The Metatron to start to go on Earth and “blend in”, to the point of understanding how to order coffee and have a small talk with a barista: to understand the enemy in general.

And tell me, isn’t Aziraphale an angel who spent more time on Earth than any other angel - literally all of its 6000 years? Doesn't he have the most experience with humans and their antics? Wasn’t he there when humans ruined Hell’s plans of Armageddon, meaning he should (at least in theory) understand how they did it and for what would a half-human Messiah reject their purpose?

And he is smart. Wouldn’t it be a waste to not use this source of knowledge for the benefit of Heaven? Of course, this one angel won’t just agree to work with Heaven again (we heard him refusing a few times in S2E6), so there must be something that will convince him – this part, how he was convinced, was discussed a lot of times and isn’t the point of this post, though.

I think, it also can lead to Aziraphale’s memories not being wiped in S3 and him having some (if very limited) capacity to act on his own. If The Metatron’s main purpose is just divide aziracrow or something like that, then wiping angel’s memories looks like the most logical action of his part. But if his main purpose is using Aziraphale's knowledge and experience, if angel’s memories are the main reason of why he is needed on Heaven – then memory wiping doesn’t look like a very good idea anymore.  

....Technically, "by the point of S2E6 The Metatron is aware about 25 Lazarii miracle being aziracrow combined work and not amnesiac Gabriel's doing" only works together with at least one of these options:

If there was no precedent of angel/demon producing more powerful miracle before, and there is supposedly (and then confirmed) a Supreme Archangel (even amnesiac one....if he did got an amnesia and didn't escape before his memories were fully wiped - does The Metatron know about it?) present in a place and time of a great miracle happening - who in his right mind will assume this miracle is not the said Archangel doing, but some thing that never happened before and thus doesn't have a confirmed effect?

Crowley does tell angels and demons that it was them who hide Gabriel with a miracle that 'apparently works too well' - but then again, this is said inside a bookshop in a middle of S2E6, and there is no time for any of the archangels to report it to The Metatron before his appearance.

So, unless there are ways for him to finding out while happened in a bookshop while only three people (Aziraphale, Crowley, Jim) were present...how would he know about it?

Crowley's POV, Part II

(the first part is here)

The first post was made mostly as an observation - about how Aziraphale's distressed face after he heard about the Second Coming was visible to Crowley in all details, and how we can see it from the shots made from Crowley's point of view. This part, though, is more of the speculations - I tried to make a guess what other moments where we see things by Crowley's eyes might mean in a bigger picture.

I also know that this particular director's decision might actually mean nothing, but it is still something that is fun to speculate to me.

A little warning - this post is tied to the idea (theory?) "The Metatron might have watched in the window in the Final Fifteen, or at least Aziraphale assumes so". I made (maybe a little self-confident) post about it back in October, but since then a lot of people expressed this idea a lot better than me back then, so you probably know it already.

Anyway.

The first one for today is from S2E3. Crowley is explaining Jim his vavoom plans. Do you notice there are window frames in a shot, to show us we are looking from Crowley's POV once again?

Personally I don't believe in "Warlock is Jesus" theory. Even if season three's Jesus turns out to be a different person from the man who died on the cross, it seems more logical to me to assume that it will be Johnson (the Beast's neighbor and all).

B U T.

I love the idea of the Metatron finding out that Heaven's new Messiah, the main star of the upcoming Second Coming is a bratty teenager without any sense of duty or something. And he's this way because of how he was raised by a certain demon and a certain angel. And they might be the only people Warlock would ever listen to now.

And then the Metatron was just "FUCK IT, you raised him - you'll deal with him!" and invited Aziraphale and Crowley back to Heaven so they could babysit Jesus!Warlock again. Or at least Aziraphale, even if Crowley didn't agree - that's at least something, the boy liked his Brother Francis when he was a kid....

A few days ago I was kindly informed that "The Show Must Go On" is playing in the background in S2E6 when the Metatron is ordering his latte, and it has been mine Roman Empire ever since.

Like...all the implications. Wow. Especially with "The Show Must Go On" being included into aziracrow playlist by Gaiman himself....

But also - it makes Nina's coffee shop a place where Queen songs were played twice last season. With Bentley only playing it once. Which is also a bit weird?

-You know what it's like when you don't know anything at all, and yet you're totally certain that everything would be better if you were just near one particular person? -No. Certainly not. I have no idea what that feels like. What makes you say that?

-Yeah, I've been looking back over a number of your… previous exploits, and I see that in quite a few of them you formed a de facto partnership with the demon Crowley.

I don’t think Metatron left Muriel on Earth just “to take care of the bookshop”.  But why exactly?

To keep a low-ranking angel knowing about Gabriel’s story on Earth? Or to keep tabs on Crowley?

They are terrible at being a spy, but they already have…well, not a friendship, but still some sort of non-hostile relationship with Crowley, and Crowley finds them amusing and non-dangerous (and if Metatron knows about Crowley’s trip to Heaven, he should know it); yet they still are actually loyal to Heaven. And Metatron considers them to be “dim”. Can it be that he wants to use it for his own convenience?

We all are imagining sweet scenarios where Crowley looks after Muriel while they are learning about life on Earth and they eventually become friends, but what if this exactly what Metatron wants? So he could fool Muriel into reporting to him about Crowley’s movements?

I don’t think it would work as intended - it’s dangerous to underestimate the “dim ones”. But can it be Metatron’s initial plan?

De facto partnership

…De facto partnership.

In Metatron’s words, ”I've been looking back over a number of your... previous exploits, and I see that in quite a few of them you formed a de facto partnership with the demon Crowley”.

You know, English is not my first language, and I’m not a lawyer at any point, so I just was thinking “Yeah, this is about Aziraphale and Crowley basically being in relationship unknowingly for Heaven”. But today I decided to google it. And turned out, this term actually has at least two meanings??

I mean, the first one is something I expected, more or less:

A de facto relationship is a relationship between two people who are together as a couple, but who aren’t married or in a civil union.

But the second one?

A de facto partnership, sometimes called an “Ad Hoc Partnership”, is an informal business arrangement between two or more parties.

Business arrangement. Arrangement.

And we know that for some time aziracrow tried to position their Arrangement and their relationship as a purely business transaction.

And well, by the time of S2E6 Aziracrow being “together”, be it in romantic or any other way, has been a secret for no one for four years. And it is definitely not a secret for Heaven at that point. It doesn’t exactly needs “looking back”, you can just ask Uriel about them.

But by implying he knows about the Arrangement, Metatron is all but confirms that he indeed looked back over Aziraphale’s files – you know, the same way Michael did in S1. And he looked through them carefully.

What else he could see? I don’t know. But there is at least one thing that potentially could get into these files undetected – at least at first. One thing that both Aziraphale and Crowley gravely need to keep a secret from Heaven and Hell if they want to survive.

You know. The secret behind them surviving in the end of season 1.

And there is a possibility that Heaven (or at least Metatron) already know everything.

...Muriel probably could see The Confession through the window. I think it was already established in the fandom.

But also - they were with Metatron at the moment, who had to explain them their new appointment (I wonder, in what words?) while also watching the drama unfold through the same window.

I wonder if Muriel can say something...interesting about it. I don't know what exactly - the very fact he was watching (though if it would be told to Crowley in S3, he probably already deduced it?)? Some of his expressions or words - could he be a bit careless with them while being around "a dim one"?

Was there a reason Muriel was a bit sad in the bg when Metatron entered the shop after Crowley leaving it? Can they provide some unexpected (even to viewers) view of what they saw through the window?

....or maybe they just spent all their time reading and were sad because Metatron said to them it's time to start their new responsibilities and put the book aside. That's possible too.