I get that the bookshop fire was traumatic for Crowley because he thought he lost Aziraphale.

I keep seeing people say they want Aziraphale to know what it would feel like to lose Crowley, but I'm pretty sure my eyes weren't the only ones open when this happened...

Right?

"And that was the last I was to see of Crowley for some time."

Aziraphale has lost Crowley. To Hell.

He could do nothing to stop what happened in Edinburgh, and I can't imagine that he didn't fear he'd lost Crowley for good here.

Aziraphale has experienced more heartbreak than some fans care to even acknowledge. He exists in constant fear of losing Crowley to Hell again. AGAIN.

We saw Aziraphale save Crowley from Hell in 1941 with the human magic trick he used on Furfur.

Aziraphale was the one sitting in the bathtub of holy water after the Notpocalypse, knowing this was the reason he'd been so scared to hand Crowley his own thermos of holy water in the first place.

He's lost Crowley to Hell before and he will do anything to prevent it from happening again.

That's the impact Edinburgh had on Aziraphale. This is the impact that losing Crowley had on Aziraphale.

Yes! And it’s clear Aziraphale fears for Crowley’s safety especially if the arrangement was discovered. See the theatre scene for instance (“they would destroy you”).

You know how Crowley is like: "Why don't you just go by train? You love trains."

The more important question is: Why would you go by car? It takes 7 hours 43 minutes (probably a lot longer with Aziraphale driving) from London to Edinburgh according to google maps. The train only takes about 5 hours. Why Aziraphale? It's not like he needs the car. He goes from one major city to the next - plenty of public transport available.

Maybe Aziraphale just really wanted to drive his demon's Bentley. Just a nice road trip to properly investigate the clue.

Or was that just an excuse to talk about the whole "our car" and "our bookshop" thing? Is it Aziraphale's way of making clear they are a unit? Or that it's okay for Crowley to move in?

Right. Great. Now road trip facts give me the feels too. 😭

My question is why do other demons and angles pop up whoever they want (maybe angels not so much, because they keep walking to where to need to be? But certainly show up in vicinity, Gabriel appeared just fine in episode 1 though)

BUT THESE two need earthly apparatus is move about when once … they didn’t either (Noah and Jesus and Job)

What’s that about? Only gone native?

I mean, if we look at the way they got to Tadfield, I would assume they need human transportation. Because otherwise they would have miracled there right? It was pretty urgent after all.

Maybe they can "fast-travel", but only with the help of heaven/hell? (Like coming down from heaven with the elevator close to where you want to be?) Which they couldn't do to prevent the Apocalypse ofc.

Or maybe it just draws a lot of miracle power and attention, so they generally don't do it?

In Paris Crowley asks why Az doesn't just perform another miracle to go home. Which suggests to me, he isn't only talking about getting out of prison, but the journey as well. And Az says that he can't, because of the frivolous miracle thing. That would mean that they could theoretically "fast-travel" by miracle, but heaven/hell would know, if they did.

But yea maybe they just like it the slow human way (haha no pun intended. Well, maybe a little^^). Crowley loves his car. And apparently Az likes taking the train. Same with food. They don't need it, but they still eat. Going native indeed.

SO THE THING IS.

THE THING. IS.

A) A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square came out in 1940.

B) They clearly both KNOW the reference, they KNOW it’s their song, it MEANS something to them.

C) SOMETHING else happened in 1941 that we haven’t seen yet.

LISTEN.

I’ve seen everyone talk about how that final part of 1941 is going to give context to the “you go too fast for me” BUT have y’all thought about how much fucking context it’s going to give to “[perhaps we could] dine at the Ritz”????

If they heard that song and had a MomentTM that changed their relationship, and THEY BOTH KNEW what it meant, even though they wouldn’t say it out loud.

AND THEN AZIRAPHALE GOES AND SAYS THAT ?????

Hey, you know that song about angels falling in love while dining at the Ritz? DON’T LOOK SO DISAPPOINTED, PERHAPS ONE DAY WE COULD DINE AT THE RITZ.

AND CROWLEY KNOWS WHAT THAT MEANS, he was THERE when that code was unwittingly established. He knows EXACTLY what Aziraphale is really saying here, AND AZIRAPHALE KNOWS THAT HE KNOWS, CAN ANYONE HEAR ME—

Crowley and Job

I'm sure this has been written before but I haven't read it so here's my thesis:

The Job minisode is a metaphor for Crowley.

The Job minisode shows us that this God is willing to put her favourites through significant pain, to have them lose everything, to carry out the ineffable plan. In fact, God considers their favourites to be the only ones able to endure this and remain "faithful" or "good." Funny that, as we see Crowley - a Demon who has every reason to hate God and do a lot of evil - continually showing himself to have a stronger moral compass than the Archangels.

Job is stripped of absolutely everything he has, one after another. Starting with his livelihood, his possessions, his home and finally his most loved thing - his children (sounding familiar at all?). Crowley loses his status, his identity, his job, his flat and ultimately Aziraphale.

Job is angry but not at God, he's angry at himself. He questions how much he must have done wrong to not even know what it is he did (sound familiar?)

When Job talks to God at the end, the first thing she says to him is "You have questions for me Job?" and then she responds with a series of questions back to him. She isn't angry at him asking questions.

He then returns to Sitis, a broken man, to be saved by an Angel and a Demon who reinstate his children to him, having kept them safe the entire time.

How fortunate for God that a particular Angel and Demon pair have quietly ensured that some of the most disturbing plans of Heaven and Hell have never made it to fruition.

How interesting that we see Crowley going through each of the pains of Job.

At the end of S2, Crowley is metaphorically sitting, head in hands, wondering what he did that was so wrong to deserve this.

What if the answer is nothing? What if the answer is he did everything right?

I think it's interesting how aziraphale was technically the first one to acknowledge that him and crowley are on the same side. when aziraphale realized crowley didn't destroy job's goats, he was grinning, crowley straight up denied that they're on the same side, and aziraphale responded sarcastically.

of course, crowley quickly said "temporarily not on different sides" but aziraphale wasn't even having the "temporarily".

what's particularly interesting about the Job-isode is that Aziraphale tries to convince Crowley to go against God's plan (as confirmed by the Archangels). So he isn't just acknowledging they're on the same side, but that they are on a unique side (neither aligned with heaven nor hell) although I'm not sure he fully realises the implications of what he says and does until the end of the minisode.

I agree that Az doesn’t realise the implications at that point.

But, and I’m sorry, but he might also still consider his side to be gods side despite everything that went down.

Because even while defying god’s will, AZ still thinks that killing the kids is not what god actually wants. He says as much to Crowley.

And later he says to Crowley “you’re a little bit on our side” - our as in heaven/god. And when Crowley asks him what side he is on he says “god’s side of course”.

So Az could interpret Crowley not destroying the goats to mean he is on god’s side. Not their own.

I don’t think he’s made the leap in the job story quite yet. (Not his fault really, he has been fed the “party line” for a long time). But he is getting there, although not quite in the same way as Crowley.

(“that’s just how it started for me. See you in hell.” - but he doesn’t actually fall for that or anything he does later.)

It would be consistent with AZ’s actions in s1 too. He thinks that if he just talks to the right people (god), they will stop Armageddon. He really believes god wants to do good.

(And I think that is why he hasn’t fallen. He defies heaven the organisation, but not god or what he thinks god is. Well, except for the bit about the flaming sword *cough*)

im sure theres already a billion posts about this. but i just fucking realized is. this is the song that plays when crowley takes adam and aziraphale here

and it JUST OCCURED TO ME. its a reference to Another Place, where its always too late, from the book:

in conclusion crowley took them to Another Place. which is cool 👍

GUYS

How have I never noticed this before

Angels don't eat, it's even frowned upon. It's a pretty good clue that Crowley is not in fact a reliable narrator of his Fall

We gotta talk about Rome, y'all.

So, the flashback in Rome is pretty much exclusively the only time Crowley is actively short with Aziraphale and it has always sort of itched in my brain as to why. When I finally got my hands on the script book it started to make sense:

For the uninitiated, Caligula was a Roman Emperor so despicable that there's literally a wiki dedicated to his atrocities.

Some of the deplorable things he was said to have done include, but aren't limited to:

With this in mind, we know that Crowley, despite his indifferent attitude toward his demonic assignments, actively works against hurting people and animals, and even though his dialogue implies that he never tempted Caligula, we don't actually know what he might have witnessed. Still, it's not at all out of the realm of possibility that he saw things that could have straight up left him scarred psychologically.

Though the filmed scene leaves this portion of the conversation out, including his failed rebuff of Aziraphale's company, it's clear that he's in some emotional distress. With this in mind, Aziraphale's appearance may have occurred at just the right time. If he saw even just a hint of the monstrosity and madness of Caligula, he'd have needed some sort of comfort, so Aziraphale's stupid question and temptation for oysters may have been the best thing that could have happened under the circumstance.

Plus, given Aziraphale's ignorance about Caligula (he was there for Nero,) he'd have no idea how badly Crowley was messed up. He never reacted to Crowley's irritation or boarish attitude with anything other than continued enthusiasm for his presence. Demonhood has likely been incredibly tragic and traumatizing for Crowley at times, and, in this scene, Aziraphale was a balm for that pain without ever knowing.