The Ringer-Verse - Tropes Course: Enemies to Lovers and ‘Good Omens’ Season Two | House of R

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

We are neither too prejudiced nor prideful! It is time for another ‘House of R’ deep dive into ‘Good Omens’ Season 2 (07:30)! Afterwards Mal and Jo offer up their tropes course on the "Enemies to Lovers" trope throughout literature, fandom, and fiction (63:30). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, the Vietnam War has been a Hollywood obsession. Apocalypse Now, platoon, full metal jacket, first blood. These were blockbuster films, embraced by audiences and critics alike. And for decades, they've helped us understand a painful war and understand each other. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Raftery. And this is Do We Get to Win this time, how Hollywood made the Vietnam War. Listen on the big picture feed. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more, or visit Trimfaya Radio. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. I'd just like to say, if we don't get out of this, that I'll have known deep down inside that there was a spark of goodness in you, nice knowing you. Here's to the next time, and Azirafel. Yes?

Just remember, I'll have known that deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth. of liking. Your Nexus. Podcast for guess what? All things, fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson

and joining me today. She's the angel on my shoulder. It's Mallory Rubin. Morning, Mallory. How you doing? Joe, take a big cup, put six shots of espresso in it. Nothing else.

We are here today to talk to you about good omens, season two of which just dropped on Amazon Prime. We're here to talk about the book, season one, and season two. And if that weren't enough for one podcast episode, we have decided to throw into the mix a little mini-tropes course on the trope known as Enemies to Lovers, which is a sort of central idea of what a lot of people really enjoy the most

about good omens, the story of an angel. Angel and a demon and their millennia long friendship plus something more. We'll talk about it. So, spoiler one, I'm just going to start with spoiler winning, which is this, everything up through good omens. Everything that has ever happened in good omens. If you've not watched season two yet, you might want to go ahead and do that. If you've not read the book, I mean, season one cover the book.

We're well past that. But, like, you know, you can stop and go read the book if you want to. But mostly we're here to talk about the show. season two, twist and turns. And then as far as the tropes course, what are we putting on the table?

We're putting on our... I mean, that's a spoiler mind field, to be honest. Our old standbys. Yeah. Thrones. Star Wars. Marvel.

Lost. Battlestar. Buffy. You know what you're going to hear about today. No Doctor Who today. But, you know. No promises. Okay.

So that is, that's the spoiler warning. also programming reminders. Next week, instead of a House of Arne Friday, you will have this very special episode with Ben Lindberg and yours truly to cover this latest season, season two of Star Trek, Strange New Worlds. People would ask for it.

Ben and I are delivering it. There was just a musical episode this week. It was so good in the finale's next week. So I'm thrilled to talk about it. It was just a tremendous, has been a tremendous season of television. I'm so excited to talk to. Ben, about that next.

Friday. Malar and I'll be back the following week to give you our first of two planned Asoka Primers. We're trying to give you that a little bit early so you have time to like, you know, watch a gazillion episodes of television and get ready to do Assoca with us. So that is coming soon to you. And then elsewhere outside of the Joanna Mallory verse, we've got button mash is doing an adaptations conversation. The Midnight Boys, Poo, Poo! I've been doing something that they've been threatening for a while, which is to confront the state of the end. MCU. And then the Middint Edition team will be here, I think next week or the week after, I believe, to give us a Harley Quinn season three mid-season check-in. So that's just a lot of stuff.

A lot of varying conversations, varying mediums, varying team-ups, varying mashups. All right. How is someone possibly supposed to keep track of all this? Great news. There's an easy way. Follow the pod. Follow the ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts while you're at it, go ahead and follow some of your other favorite ringer pods. Follow trial by content. Follow the prestige TV podcast and then come back to the Ringiverse and make sure that you

definitely hit Follow. If you're thinking, hey, are there ever times where I might be able to follow something other than the podcast feed great news? The Ringerverse is everywhere on the social media platforms. We're on X. Do we have to?

Is that? Do we have to say that now? We're on X. Did you see that? Did you see They changed. I mean, I know you're not on Twitter as much as I am, but you see that they changed, re-tweet. Now it just repost. And I'm like, it's just, Elon. What are you doing? Anyway, yes, on X, I suppose.

It's not a, boy, it just doesn't feel right to say it. X. Okay. Instagram. Yeah. TikTok. We're all over the place. And, as you know, you can also send your emails.

You could send your questions. You could send your theories. You could send your musings. You could send your Apple thoughts to the inbox. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. We do listen because we had several people writing asking us to do enemies to lovers as a tropes course. We had several people right in asking us to do Good Omen Season 2.

So, et voila, here we are. Thanks so much for that, Mallory. So appreciate you. Hey, you know, hey, you know, someone pointed out an inequity in the Apple Wars. Would you like to hear it? Sure. Okay. There is only one right answer.

for someone to be on my team, and every other answer is your team. Some might say that one of us says a little more open-minded about the Apple Wars. One of us is a little bit more rigid in our position. I think that's not true because I'm not saying all red apples are bad. I'm not even saying your picks are bad. You're saying my pick is trash. No, I actually think... I never said that.

I think there's a time and a place for a Granny Smith apple. Disgusting pie. Okay. Fair enough. Applesauce pie as an accompaniment on a sandwich, a turkey brie and green apple sandwich, a delight. I just, I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around it being your favorite go-to apple in hand, taking a bite out of it.

That's all. But that's okay. This is part of the joy. And one day maybe after podcast, after podcast, after podcast, after podcast of discussing and debating, warring, fighting, we will look into each other's eyes. And I will hold a honey crisp in front of you and you will hold a Granny Smith in front of me

and we will take a bite out of each other's apple and then someone else will podcast about it on an Anemies to Lovers, Troops Course 2.0. I'm so glad you went there. Here we go. Speaking of taking a bite out of an apple, let's go to the Garden of Eden and talk about good omens.

And just let you know, if you, like let's say you're not really watching Good Omen or whatever. Steve, our great producer, Steve Wallman, always puts time stamps in our description. So, like, say you want to tune and you want to hear the Enemies Delvers discussion. You're not cut up in Good Omen's. It's got to bleed together a bit. I can't guarantee you a clean divide. But if you need to skip ahead to Enemy's Lovers, Steve King Among Kings, we'll drop a timestamp for you. Okay. So Good Omen was for a very long time. And I actually couldn't tell you exactly what's replaced it. Maybe it still is. What I would answer when someone asked me about my favorite book. all time was. I would say good omens. This was published in 1990 and it is very, it's a fascinating like curio of a book that shouldn't exist. Collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett to very good friends, both geniuses with incredibly different sensibilities. This is oil and vinegar. Actually, that makes delicious. Oil and water is what I should have said. Oil and vinegar is delicious salad dressing.

This is like sort of oil and water sensibilities, like somehow came together to form a delightful literary emulsion. I love this snippet from the forward that they wrote for a later edition of the book. It reads like this. It was a summer job. We had a great time doing it. We split the money in half. And we swore never to do it again.

Good omens is written by two people who were at the time, not well known, except by the people who already knew them. So here we are two giants in the sci-fi fantasy genre at the beginning of their illustrious careers, putting together a sort of spoof of the book, the film Omen. Actually, I don't know if Omen is based on a book. It might have been. But anyway, the Omen, the Omen series, Antichrist, Damien, et cetera, et cetera, as well as the book of revelations. And what you get is you get, quick sidebar. Mallory, do you ever, do you cry when celebrities die?

It's a weird question. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Okay. Oh, yeah. I don't. I've only ever done it twice. And one of it was for Sir Terry Pratchett in 2015 when he passed away.

Because his wide, long bibliography meant a lot to me. And I care a lot about him as a genius and a person. And his tone is like this very light spry mocking, clever, just witty, witty, clever, light, bubbly. That's Terry Pratchett. Dark, sort of violent, mythological, fantasy, all that sort of stuff. That's Neil Gaiman. And you put them together in the blender and somehow you get good omens.

And that's part of why it's one of my favorite books of all time. And in our notes today, in our doc, I dropped to you. My copy of Good Omen's has a long story. It's a first edition that my sister got from me because she lost my copy that was signed by Neil Gaiman. So she bought me another first edition copy. Or mine wasn't a first edition. She found me a first edition. I was like, and I'm sorry.

And then I lent it to a friend and he lost it for years. And then he found it in a box in the back of a garage somewhere. And I got it back in time for the last author event I ever hosted, which was a Neil Gaiman event. And Neil Gaiman signed my book. And so, like, that is the story of my treasure. edition of Good Omens, but on the back of that edition, is an author photo. Mallory, would you like to describe this author photo? As you noted in the dock right above the image that you dropped in, they, in all caps,

are Crowley and Azerafell. The picture is left to right here. They in like a graveyard? Looks like a tomb to me. Yeah, tomb? Yeah. There's like an hourglass with bat wings. We're in a mini soon.

Yeah. Here in the graveyard. Yeah. Trying to thwart a grave robber. And Neil Gaiman is on the left of the photo looking as cool as it is possible to look, much like Crowley looks in every frame of Good Omen, Season 1 and 2. He's got the tight pants, the black jacket, the shades of course. What do his eyes look like beneath who can say?

And then Terry is in the doorway. The most bicked and elegant and nonchalant and yet also deliberate lean, much like our dear dear Mr. Fell. You can imagine this being the entrance to his treasured bookshop, decked out in white, a wonderful little hat perched atop his head. And they just look like our dinosaur. dynamic duo here, like our demon and our angel, come together against all odds for a perfect pairing that shouldn't work, but for that very reason, is magic itself. I just like, they could not

look more cruelly and Azirphil if they tried. Honestly, it's incredible. There have been like a couple different iterations of the book that are, you know, if you're a good, I'm a super fan are worth checking out. There's a 2015 radio play that was quite good. And I think that adaptation is part of of what may Neil Gaiman think, like, maybe this could happen. Then we'll talk about another reason why. And then there's a 2021 Audible full cast recording that features Tenet and Sheen in the lead roles. And then other people doing the voices of the other characters, not the people from the show. But Tenet and Sheen are doing the voices.

And that's what you heard at the beginning of this episode. That's a section from the Audible book that they did not choose to use in the show, but it's one of my favorite lines, so I thought we should put it in, you know, just enough of a bastard. What's your personal relationship to Good Omen? How did you come to it?

How do you feel about it? I also adore this book. It is a story that I cherish. I was so excited when the first season debuted when we got this show in 2019. I was really intrigued to see how they adapted it. And, you know, it's one of those adaptations as we'll talk about

a little bit more in a moment that in many ways Hughes so closely to the book that it doesn't do. the show a service. I really liked the first season. I'm quite fond of the show in general, but it is impossible not to compare it to the book of basically every beat. And the book is such a work of genius and like unrivaled perfection. I think the blend of humor and heart and like deep penetrating questions is just a, it's that, that alchemy and that that brew that I love so much. The characters are so vibrant. The writing is divine. I love. I love.

over the years, like getting these glimpses and interviews and hearing Giman and and Terry talk about like who wrote what. And on the one hand, they know I could tell you the exact math and like the word count and a percentage. And then also they'd both say like by the end you couldn't tell like who was responsible for any given sentence. And I love that about it too, like the things that feel so specific to each of them and their sensibilities and their styles and their strengths. But the rendering is just like it's this encapsulation of a partnership and what you can build with somebody. And I think the themes, these questions of good versus evil and these rules and norms and laws

and strictures that guide the world and behavior and that are like ingrained into so many people from the moment they're born. And what if a couple beings just said, does it have to be that way? And there are so many lines in the book, many of which made their way to the show, either word for word or in some version, that I think beautifully sum up what is so lasting and impactful about the story, and one of my favorites is very early, it may help to understand human affairs

to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. And that is about humanity, but when we see that as something that the characters, the demons and the angels,

Crowley and Azirafel have to recognize in themselves, it's just a really wonderful thing. So I absolutely, absolutely love the book. We're going to talk about this, you know, an angel and a demon, they're unlikely friendship, they're unlikely other ship, et cetera, et cetera. But like a recurring element in both season one and season two and in the book is this idea of like, there's heaven, there's hell, there's angels, there's demons. And then when it comes to Crawley and Azirphil, there's the us.

What is the us that is neither heaven nor hell? It's us, right? And what I love about the us here is, and there's, I'm just going to, I'm going to skip it. I have this later, but I'm going to use it now, this like quote from the book about their friendship, couple quotes. This is from Crowley's point of view, and he says, Azirafel, the enemy, of course, but an enemy for 6,000 years now, which sort of made him a friend, right? And from Azirphal's point of view, he says, on the whole, neither he nor Crawley could have chosen each other's company, but they were both men, or at least men-shaped creatures of the world. And the capital A arrangement had worked to their advantage all this time. Besides, you grew accustomed to the only other face that had been around more or less consistently for six millennia. So there's that, like, familiarity. But there's also, there's so many lines and moments in the book and, like, a little bit in the show, but, like, much more in the book of, like, oh, I thought that was your side.

Oh, oh, I thought that was your side. or Crowley is constantly insisting that, like, human, like, no torment that hell could possibly dream of is worse than what humans put themselves through or devise themselves. And so all of that is really interesting. And then in addition to that, in addition to that, very sharp observation from Crowley is what bonds these two, not just the time, but their shared love of Earth inhumanity, very, very doctor who of them, honestly. But like the conflict of the first book is the apocalypse is coming. The world's going to end. And this demon and this angel who have spent millennia on earth are like, but we like the earth. And we like our wine and we like our books.

And we like our Bentley and we don't want these things to go up and smoke. And that is their shared passion is just like the trappings of humanity. You know what I mean? Yes. And I love that it's about. like the pleasures of the human experience, like being able to sit down and enjoy a meal or stroll through St. James Park

or drive that car that you love, even if you haven't had to put gas in the tank for decades. But the other thing about their relationship to humanity is like the way that people are able to make decisions about their own lives, that a demon or an angel, somebody in either of their positions, would never have the opportunity to do. So like another quote I really love from the book

that's kind of like one of the foundational notes that sets us on the story. Being a demon, of course, was supposed to mean you had no free will, but you couldn't hang around humans for very long without learning a thing or two.

So they're supposed to be in this position where they are either side, right? Superior or better. The number of the, of course, one of the great treats of reading the book

is like you can't go more than a few pages about seeing the word ineffable pop-up, right? This has become incorporated into the ship, the ineffable husband's ship.

This idea of something that is grand and unknowable and out of reach in amorphous and that you couldn't possibly understand. And then you look at these people who are supposed to be like small and insignificant and your playthings, your pawns, and they're able to guide their day and their life in a way that theoretically you cannot. And that is the thing ultimately that they covet and that they crave. And that's just, that's just so, so wonderful. I promise, I said that we were going to talk about Dr. Who, but it does make me think of like

our discussion of the last David Tennant run. We must look like, dance to you, you look like giants. You know what you mean? This idea of like... So many Who references in season two of the moment's fungiful stuff. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. All right.

So let's get into season one. Steve, will you play our first heartbreaking clip? Thank you. You know, this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo. We can go off together. Go off together. Listen to yourself. How long have we been friends?

Six thousand years. Friends. We're not friends. friends, we are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. I don't even like you. You do. Even if I did know where the Antichrist was, I wouldn't tell you we're on opposite sides.

We're on our side. There is no our side, Crowley. Not anymore. It's over. You do. You do. You do. I was looking at Good Omus TikToks the other day, and there was this one,

there's just this guy in a room somewhere with like no evidential support to his statement. He's just like I feel like David Tennant owns the word well. Well. I can't even do it. Yeah. Well. And he's like, no one else can say it. It's just

David's now. I apologize for our terrible impression. Steve, do you have an impression of David Tennant saying well? Well, it's impossible to capture it is. Is it a high-pitched well or is it a low well? He does a high-pitched. He goes, well, but he does it moves. Yeah. Yeah.

Well. I have, okay, so as someone who spent so long reading and rereading and rereading good omens, I of course had like very, very high expectations coming into season. Or just sort of like when it's, when it's the adaptation of something you treasure so much, you have to acknowledge that you are going to be just like the most persnickety audience, right, going into something like that. And I remember I was going to. sound perhaps like gross and name dropy, but at a television critics association party, I was talking to Neil Gaiman about this. And I was talking to Neil Gaiman about he was there for American Gods

and Good Omens, I think, at the same time. And American Gods was in like a real rough spot. And there had just been a long history of Neil Gaiman's work not being very well adapted. And he looked at me in the eye and he's like, Joanna, I really think we did it. He's like, I think we did it with this one. Like this is, we finally figured it out. And I, I, So that's one way in which I am not the most clear-eyed when it comes to this. And the other is the very personal reason why Neil Gaiman finally decide to do this adaptation. He and Terry Pratchett had attempted to adopt the novel for many years. And then in 2014, the year before he died, Terry Pratchett wrote Neil Gaiman in a letter asking him to return to the project.

He said, quote, and this is a letter that Gaiman printed in the independent, quote, you're the only other person out there that has the same love and understanding and passion for this that I have. I know how busy you are, but I want to see this before the darkness takes me. Will you do this, please? And Gaman said that. Terry Pratchett, he died in March 2015 after a long battle with dementia. And so, and that's one of the most, it's one of the reasons why I cried when he died because his is just one of the loveliest, sharpest minds I've ever had the pleasure of

like engaging with and the fact that he like sort of was slowly losing it as before he passed and that he knew that his end was coming just like for years that kind of wrung my heart out. Anyway, so Neil Gaiman said in this piece in The Independent, he says, suddenly I was dealing with the last request and I'm honoring it. So this is a gift that he made for his friend who died before he got to see it. And so in that way, like, I can't look at it, you know, unemotionally, wholly, like, coldly critically. That being said, I will say that it's not, I, there are things that are absolutely bang on perfect about season one, and their names are David Tenon and Michael Sheen. Yes, agreed.

And then almost everything else around it is just so like over, overshone by their beautiful chemistry and connection and performance that whereas I find the stuff with the kids, Adam Young and the them, and I find the stuff with the stuff with the stuff with the book, the prophecy and like, you know, anathema and all that sort of stuff, a perfectly well-balanced equation in the book. that that's not what we get in season one to the show we get you know, Corley and Azirafel absolutely crushing it and everything else is kind of like also there and the other thing that I will say

that didn't land as well as the thing that is so hard to adapt when it comes to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is their beautiful writing which is like their is should in dialogue but in both of their books both this one together

and their books independently in Terry there's so many like jokes and witticism and whatever. And then in Neil, there's so much, like, dark, dank, cool world building and his writing that it's so hard to translate that to the screen in a way that, like, really feels like it captures it. So in season one of Good Omens, not in season two, but in season one, they have this voiceover

narrator played by two-time Oscar winner, Frances McDormon. Yeah. As sort of, like, the voice of God slash the narrator, just pulling lines, pulling great, funny lines directly from the book. My problem with it, and I hate that this is a problem for me, I would love to love it, Holy, is that I think that humor is very, very British in nature. And I think it sounds incorrect for an American act. I really wish they had gotten, say, a Helen Miran or something like that to do this. Rather than there's just something sort of just like dry and rye that like is not quite right for Francis McDormand, who is, of course, a talented genius in.

everything else that she does. Mallory, what's your broad, big picture feeling about season one? Yeah, I feel similarly. I enjoyed it on the whole because I was so glad we had it. I was glad to see it on the screen. I was glad to be back in the world. And I just thought, I mean, in general, we've discussed David Tennant a lot on our recent Who pods.

He's a favorite. Michael Sheen is like one of my great loves. dating way back. I think they're just both magnificent individually and together they are sublime in a way that kind of like defies comparison. It's just truly, truly magical.

They have some of the best chemistry that we've been treated to on screen. Every second with them is bliss. I will say that I think the scene of John Hams, Gabriel, jogging through the park in sweatpants is also a magical scene. It's pretty fantastic. Demi.

Very special moment in television history. Truly wonderful. I love everything with Crowley and Azarefell in season one in the present day. I really enjoy in the third episode, Hard Times, when we get to go back. across history with them. I told you already that one of the things that was so top of mind for me rewatching was just like, I can't believe I didn't get to enjoy

in real time. Weigwatch with Joanna Robinson, but I'm going to get to enjoy it now. So everything works out in the end. That's one of the lessons. But getting to see them together across these moments of time, and then that's one of the ideas

that they ported over to season two, deployed a little bit differently, these minisodes. It's just a joy to watch them as Noah's Ark is loading or at Shakespeare's Globe or of course most meaningfully of all Crowley saving the books inside a church where he shouldn't even be during the Blitz. So that was all wonderful. I really agree with you that at the time with most of the other characters, it is difficult to, like, not to overstate it,

resent not being with Grolanda Xerofel. And so, like, when we talk about season two in a few moments, I'm interested to discuss that recalibration around their characters, which I found interesting in a few different ways. I will say I thought on the Adam and the Them front dog, you know, Hellhound CGI dog, Not the best rendering of a pup we've seen, but darling little, little terrier dog,

sensational. 10 out of 10 no notes on little dog. I really, really, like, had a hard time fully enjoying the scene specifically with the horsemen. And with respect to the Dukes of Hell, I wasn't digging Haster in season one. Just wasn't clicking.

I also am just not sure I love this depiction of hell, though, like if it's Neil Gaiman's vision, It's Neil Giman's vision. Who am I to say? But yeah, I think that the travel through time... I did like hearing Shadwell always say Jezebel. That was fun. The travel through time aspect of that episode in season one is so delightful.

Wonderful. I have in our notes done a taxonomy of every single one of the wigs we get. Do you have a personal favorite? Right. From season one episode three, well, I guess, you know, we get, because the Garden of Eden, the beginning, that's episode one. So we get some other episode, wig flashbacks. I think my least favorite is one that I'm more confident in, which is with love and respect to the Shakespeare Globe scene, which, again, is mentioned, I really, I really love it. It was a kick for me, by the way, to revisit that after having watched the Doctor Who Shakespeare Globe episode, which I had not seen, but it's the same bit. of like, we're going to drop some Shakespeare and shakes or just going to steal it. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, this is sort of trippy having just watched that Doctor Who episode and now revisiting

this. The goatee was difficult for me to believe. It's not great. And like to accept. It was astonishing. But what about you, Joe? You're the wig watch expert. I'm going to shout out my favorite only because what is so funny about like going through

and just specifically writing down the wigs, what's so funny is that Azir Phel's hair doesn't change and Crawley's does a million. different times. Yeah. He's leaning into the style of the moment. Yeah. The only time that Azirfell's hair changes is in Rome when they're both sort of got the short curly. Like, Azirphil's hair is like a little curlier than it usually is, all of them.

But like, but Crowley's like bright red, like little plastered Roman ringlets. Incredible stuff. I mean, of course, Azirfell, like, refusing to change his outfit and appearance as part of the plot of the French Revolution Rescue. It's just delightful. Would you like a crepe, Joe? Should we take a break for a crepe? Yeah, only if we send someone else to the guillotine in our stead.

What a totally cool, a normal thing for an angel to do. And you mentioned the Blitz moment. This is the moment that Michael Sheen has identified as the moment that Azirafel, like, falls for Crawley is when he gives hands in the books and he walks away. And if you rewatch that scene, there's this, like, look on his face of, like, heart eyes. a look you will see again and again. Like when Crowley removes the like paint, ball paint from his jacket, just like blows it away. And Azirville is like, could not be more in love. Anyway, anything else from season one?

I know there's a short little jaunty trip through it, but no, I think that's, yeah, let's hit season two. Steve, break our heart once again, please. Right, I didn't get a chance to say what I was going to say. I think I'd better say it now. Right. Okay. Yes. So, we've known each other a long time.

We've been on this planet for a long time. I mean, you and me, I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We're a team, a group. A group of the two of us. And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't. I mean, the last few years, not really. And I would like to spend...

I mean, if Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it, go off together, then we can. Just the two of us. We don't need heaven. We don't need hell. They're toxic. We need to get away from them. Just be an us. You and me, what are you saying?

Come with me. To heaven. I'll run it. You can be my second in command. We can make a difference. You can't leave this book. Oh, crudely. Nothing lasts forever.

Fucking. In tears. Watching it for the first time. and now again. When we open our bookshop together and if you ever decide to leave and hit me with a nothing lasts forever, I would kill you. I would never. Absolutely not.

I would never. I'm definitely going to be the we could have been us person. All right. So season two is like very, like there was never really supposed to be a season two and we'll talk about sort of why it all came about. actually a little later in the podcast, because season one is the whole entirety of the book. We're done with the book, right? Season two is, like, patently much lower budget.

We have really narrowed the cast. We've really narrowed the location. We're mostly on one block, you know, for most of the season. And in Edinburgh Graveyard, which, you know, I love Edinburgh. Many of the expensive actors, including the voice of God herself, are not back for season two. We were just like tightening it up and narrowing down in on, as you said, the thing that, like, worked so well in season one, which is Azirafel and Crowley. Gamen, in terms of like what the source material is for this season, he said when they announced the season two is happening, he says, I got to use bits of the sequel in Good Omen. That's where our angels came from. Terry's not here any longer.

But when he was, we had talked about what we wanted to do with Good Omen's and where the story went next. And now, thanks to BBC Studios and Amazon, I get to take it there. So he is, I feel weird saying the word claiming. I choose to believe that this is all some sort of ineffable plan that he and Terry have laid out. And what he has said post-season two or, you know, because of the strike, he's not getting me a ton of interviews. I think he recorded this sort of like before the season went out. But there has been a massive outcry because of the poignancy of the finale and the separation of our core duo. He's like, cool, that's what you want a season three?

That's where the happy ending is. You got to watch it and tell your friends to watch it so we get a season three on Amazon, which is pretty crafty. He could have given it to us this season, but he's like, no, that's season three. So allegedly, resolution is coming in season three, and that would sort of be. be the end of it if Amazon and BBC studios and their infinite wisdom and effable wisdom decide to give it to us. Many people are gone, but

John Ham has a much bigger part this season as Gabriel has come to Earth. James? Yeah. Without his memory. And his clothing. And his clothing. And his razor. And is working

in the bookshop and Zirafel and Curley are trying to discover what happened, what What is this sort of dire world ending thing that he is kind of alluding to? Is there another apocalypse? Do they have to stop it, et cetera? How did you feel about John Hamm and Gabriel in this season, Mallory? In terms of the actual plot of like the Gabriel mystery and solving the Gabriel mystery,

how we learned what we learned and when and how long it took and like the pacing there, I thought that was less successful, though there's another aspect of the Let's Solve a mystery thing that I liked a lot, which I'll circle back to in a second. But I will say, I found John Hamm hysterical, and I really enjoy John Hamm, who we have watched Brut on our television screens for years.

Work is a comedic actor. Like, I think he has an incredible knack for it. And the, I liked his, I didn't love everything in general with Heaven and the Archangels in season one, but I did really enjoy Gabriel as this like incredible, um, domineering corporate dickhead who can't wait to ruin your day and is there like literally in a business suit lording over you from above to strip away the lilac of his eyes and the suit and put him in a sweater in a bookshop

where he's reading the sentences of some of our most cherished texts allowed and sipping hot cocoa. Including good omens itself. Yes, and Pride of Prejudice, which we'll come up again later. Just offering people past hors d'oeuvres

talking about how food can be free. I mean, I found this quite amusing. The thing that I liked about the mystery in general is the same thing I liked about the bloody Holly mystery. It's the same thing I liked about the Maggie Nina, Meet Cute, the actual things inside of those storylines, we will take separately. Azirafel and Crowley talking about these things together, trying to crack the case together, I loved.

And in terms of that question of like, does it make sense to move beyond the book? Does it make sense to do Good Omen's Season 2 or in the future Good Omen's Season 3? Like when you, when the stakes of your initial story are the apocalypse, the great war between heaven and hell, how do you move forward from there? Well, you can't go bigger. You have to zoom in. And that decision not only to focus around like that pairing, those two performers, those two characters, their chemistry, their energy together, which is so cherished.

and beloved by fans, I think obviously is the right decision. But specifically to like give us so many moments where they're talking about something with each other and just can't yet say out loud that they're really talking about themselves. Like, why can't we figure out what we think can feel? Or hey, let's help these two people realize that they want to be together. I loved that part of it. And frankly, like, found myself thinking, could I watch 15 seasons of these two trying to solve like neighborhood mysteries together happily? And it reminded me of a conversation. that we have often about other stories where, like, when you talk about the big stakes and the big scope and the big scale, you have to, like, you always, you always, like, return to this idea of, like, show us the neighborhood, right? And, you know, I'm always like, well, can you go back to San Francisco after Thanos? So you have to go back to San Francisco after Thanos, right? Because, like, you have to remind us what we're trying to save and who we care about in the first place. So to make this so focused on, like, one relationship or three relationships, ultimately, three love stories. And to, like, remind us why it matters if people can build a life together and find their way toward each other, I dug that part of it.

And I think that, like, what I love is that the mystery, they think that Gabriel has racist memory and, you know, all of this is related to some sort of big apocalyptic thing. Or that Beelzebub is, like, demands Gabriel for nefarious, again, world-ending purposes. But it's not, I mean, it is big stakes, but it's small stakes. love story. You know what I mean? And so it's a surprise Gabriel and Beelzebub love story. And so but those stakes can feel like the biggest stakes. That can't feel like the

apocalyptic. Yeah. So I do love that. It's so intimate but so like universal all at once. I will say so they recast Beelzebub from Anna Maxwell Martin in the first season to Shelley Con in the second season. There's nothing wrong with Shelley Conn's performance at all. I just love, personally love Anna Maxwell Martin like in everything.

that she does, so I missed her. And I thought the recast was like a little funky. You know, they had to like explain the new face and stuff like that. They also did this bizarre thing of bringing back Miranda Richardson, Reese Shearsmith, Nina Sassania and Maggie's service from season one in different roles.

And Nina and Maggie just playing characters called Nina and Maggie after playing you know, chattering nuns in the first season, which is just sort of like weird. And also just I wanted it to, but the Nina and Maggie's story just didn't work at all for me.

So I agree when Azirphil and Crowley are talking about, like, when Crowley is talking about getting them under an awning under like a massive downpour, like couldn't be more charmed. But spending any time with the two of them who I thought, I personally felt had like negative chemistry, I was just not that interested. And then the last thing I'll say. And again, I would actually watch David Ten and Michael Sheen in literally anything. It could be like the worst thing in the world and I would watch them. And I would watch like the worst surrounding story around Azir Phil and Crowley like any day of the week.

But I will say that the character Muriel, who a lot of fans seem to have really liked, nothing has annoyed me more in a TV series. Tell me why. I just didn't get it. I didn't get the bit. You didn't, you weren't captivated seeing somebody discover the joy of reading for the first time. I just did not, I'm sure there's some version of that character that works from me, but like the sort of, like the daffy, naive, I don't know.

Maybe she's there to, like, show us a sort of like how far as the Eirfell maybe has come from, like, his origins or something like that. Like how much of the, like, of the devil is now phrasing inside of him, you know, etc., etc., but like, I don't know, that character. Muriel did not. Most of the angels didn't work for me and most of the devils didn't work for me. And Miranda Richardson, who is great and other things, didn't really work for me. But again, the pleasures of Azirphil and Crawley are worth whatever is around them for me. Yeah. I wish we had gotten to still be back with Miranda Richardson on her bed full of sex toys.

That was my strong preference, alas. The minisodes also, again, it was just like a weird, like, I don't know, why they could just give us shows of these, like, mini-sodes of them throughout history. And I would be 1,000% content with that. But, like, again, it just felt like a weird off-kilter equation. Did you have a thing? I did have a absolutely gobsmacked moment where I was like, isn't that Oliver one? And it was.

It was. Wonderful. That was me when I was like, oh, my God, Taita is here in a truly terrible wig. I love this for me. It was absolutely wonderful to see, to see, Ty. and a day together at a scene. Just wonderful. Anything else you want to say

about the main story before we get to this ending situation? I must for a moment comment on the music on the central starring role for Buddy Holly's every day. One of my,

without exaggeration, favorite songs of all time. This was a classic moment watching this at home. It's just a little scenes from a marriage action for you, Joe. Yes.

Oh, yeah. There are a few songs that I really love. And it's not that Adam doesn't love them. It's that he finds it maddening that I play them constantly. And this is one of them. And so when it kicked in, and it was featured in the trailer, but sometimes the song is in a trailer, it's not in the show. So when it kicks in, I turned him on the couch and I was like, fuck yeah.

And he gave me a little smirk, you know, an eyebrow raise. And then when there was the line about it was. how every record is turning into this. It was very apparent that this was going to be a recurring part of the story. And then Zadirfell is like humming it and trying to sing it and recreate it.

And I was like, this is going to be, this is episode two where all this happens. This is going to be a fixture of this season. He was just like, I can't, I simply cannot believe that a song that I cannot escape in real life is now like with us for six seasons, six episodes of television.

I loved it. Hearing John Han. as Jim Briel sing every day to Prince of Hell, Beelzebub, was, I just can't believe it's something we got to see on our TVs. This is a pretty clutch go-to pop culture needle drop. The thing I associate most with it is lost. This is the song that Emily, Emily Locke is listening to in Season 4's Cabin Fever. This isn't stand by me.

This is a madman right toward the end of the run. et cetera, et cetera. I just love the way it sounds. I love the lines. Great love song. Great Jam. So that was just really fun and wonderful. Will you hit me with it? Do you, you gave me some Spotify wrapped stats about this song. This has been a top five song for me a couple times in recent years. Yeah. In recent years, it's just like really wild and fun. You know what, you know actually what got it back to the top was when I rewatched lost at the beginning of the pandemic. And I heard it. And I was like, man, got to spend some time with this absolute heater,

and then I just kept playing it forever. On the Gabriel Vyelzebub front, did you think that this second example inside of the season of like enemies to lovers of our trope today diminished anything about the ending for our central pair or that it actually heightened the theme of like bridge, that gap between evil heaven and hell. So as Michael Sheen has stated,

Azirafel has been gone for Crowley since the 40s, right? So like, Crowley needing something to kick in his understanding of his own feelings and for that to be seeing another couple do this. Yeah, we can do it. So I felt it was useful for that. It sort of dragged out a little bit for me. Again, I thought the resolution, I don't know. I guess I just really get impatient every time we're not just like hanging out with

Sear Fell and Crowley. So, you know, that's how I felt about that. But yeah, no, I thought it worked for, and actually I did really like Shelley Cohn as Beals above at the end of the day. It's just like it's missed an actress that I liked. But yeah, I don't think that it diminished. I think it's nice. We always love to see like foils or mirrors and stuff like that.

So to see a mirror of something that works well and be able to hold that up against the shattered mirror that we get, you know, of our, of our favorite duo, then that's interesting to me, you know? That's how I felt about it, too, and especially, like, your point about Crowley, if these seconds, this, like, Supreme Lieutenant's can make this choice and find this courage. Why can't we? In terms of anything else before we get to the absolutely soul shredding ending, you were asking, like, highlights from the minisodes and the flashbacks. I love the nebula sequence that really, really, really, really. really, really early glimpse of an interaction between Crowley and... Is their meat cute, I think? Yeah, and it was wonderful not only because it gave us this crucial, like, initial interaction

between them, but, you know, the saunter gently downward, like, introduction to Crawley, right? Not so much fell. It was so great to see on the screen, like, a question he's asking, that so many people watching would agree with. Like, the point he's making is right, and for this to be the origin of his descent, it was a really great thing to see

and, like, that early spark that he's placing in Azirafel's head of, like, wait, this guy's kind of onto something. Like, this actually makes sense and realizing how far back that dated, and then I just loved the little, like, the reaching out with the wing to cover his head. The callback to season one. Yeah.

Absolutely fantastic. I think that what I love most about that that the rebellious, you know, like when we talk about fallen angels and the rebellion is something like that challenging God's authority, like the idea that it could be a question as innocuous as this, right? You know, that that this is the shit, you know, what harm could a few questions do, right? You know? Yeah, exactly. I think it's important to think about that idea of a rebellion and disobeying when we get to this final sequence and sort of like how Crowley thinks about it and how Azirafel thinks about it and the different, the. The crucial difference between them and the division of the wedge in this beautiful coming together's phrasing. Love to come together. Let's break our hearts one final time. I guess we're not going to talk about Crowley saving the goats. That's fine.

Beautiful moment. Let's talk about this ending, Steve. Work with me. We can be together. No angels. Doing good. I need you. I don't think you understand what I'm offering you.

I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do. Well, then there's nothing more to say. Listen. Hear that. I don't hear anything. That's the point. No nighting girls.

You idiot. We could have been us. I forgive you. Don't fall out. I cut the grand swall of the music of the kiss, but you can just imagine that and have the... Then there was the kiss. I am imagining.

Yeah, I imagine. Please imagine. Crowley grabbing his ear, fell, and giving them a... Sitting on my couch. Screaming. Kiss! Um,

this, the reason this broke my heart... Yeah, this is so sad. Is not because of... They are not together, because if this is a season two of a season three, like, I love a...

low burn. So I'm fine with like a division and like a for now separation. And I love the way that the two of their faces played over the closing credits. Again, I would just watch these two do literally anything. So would I watch all of the closing credits just to watch Crowley drive angrily and Azirphel think about his actions in a heavenly elevator? Yes, I would. And I did. But what is built into what Azirfel does hear is what feels to me like a double rejection. So there's a rejection of the offer of, you know, let's run off together

or, you know, fuck heaven, you don't need it, it's toxic, etc. But they're also baked into that is an inherent rejection of who Crowley is, of like, we can be angels. And Crowley's like, I'm not an angel. And the fact that you see me as someone who's like temporarily non-angelic rather than the demon that I actually am.

And I thought, you saw me and I saw you and I saw a little bit of myself and you. You saw a little bit yourself and me. And that goes back to that first quote that we started with. And for Azirafel to say, come be an angel with me. And for Crawley to have this moment of like, oh, you don't see me at all. That's not me. was devastating. That I forgive you?

Like curdled my insides and really upsetting to me. So I was heartbroken by it. I don't, it's not that I don't understand it. I am heartbroken by it. We're going to talk about a popular fan theory section, but I do want to talk about some textual support from the book that was helpful to me to sort of illuminate what's going on here, right? So like in the beginning of Good Omens of the book,

Crowley is making the pitch of like, you know, we don't need heaven our health, right? Which is similar to what are you saying here, right? And he says, like, you know I'm right. You'd be as happy with a harp as I'd be with a pitchfork. And Azirle says, you know we don't play hops. And Crowley says, and we don't use pitchforks as being rhetorical. And then there's also the nature of like angelic demonic sexuality that is addressed in the Good Omus book. where they write many people meeting Azirphil,

this is one of my favorite lines of all time actually, many people meeting Azir Phil for the first time formed three impressions that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on the Hintrosok side. Two of these were wrong. Heaven is not in England, whatever certain poets may have thought, and angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort.

But he was intelligent. So the idea that like, and there's a number of times, there's a number of moments throughout the book that people are like, oh, are you a couple of people? Like, are you together? You are very queer to me, like sort of stuff. Like, but that inherently they are like sexless individuals, which is hard to think about, especially when you've seen David Tennant in black denim.

All right. And last and at least is this question of like rebellion. Angels of the nature of rebellion, right? So they're discussing whether or not to disobey heaven and hell and form their own arrangement in the book, right? And Azirafel says, it's not that I disagree with you, it's just that I'm not allowed to disobey, you know that. And Crowley says, me too. And Azirafel says, oh, come on now, you're a demon after all.

And Crowley says, yeah, but my people are only in favor of disobedience in general terms. It's specific disobedience that come down on heavily. And so there is this idea that they're both similarly constrained by their masters, if you will, but it is much easier for Crowley. disobedience is sort of like baked into his personality. And it just isn't for Azirafil. And so I can really understand why this is a hard decision. I mean, I'm screaming run away with him and like, never trust Derek Jacoby. We just watched Doctor Who.

Why would you like all this sort of stuff like that? So like I, I, of course, could never turn down an offer from David Tadden to say run away with me. But Azirafel is like, this is who he is. And so he needs a little bit more time, perhaps may have another six episodes of television. A whole other season? To sort this out.

How do you feel about it, Mallory? Very similarly. I thought this was absolutely devastating sequence for the reasons that you said. I think, like, from Xerofell's perspective, this is something that he so obviously has wanted and longed for. And sometimes people aren't ready to accept a thing that they want and they're afraid of it. And it's also true that sometimes people aren't ready to let go of a thing that they know is bad for them or wrong.

And so like this backslide felt like the most human thing. he's ever done. Like, we're just watching somebody make a bad decision that we know they shouldn't make for reasons that we think are abundantly clear and that the person they trust the most in the world is literally voicing to them in the room in that moment. And it doesn't matter. And I also thought, like, to, to your point about how heartbreaking it is for Crawley to have to confront, like, maybe you don't see me clearly after all, there was this aspect

within that that I found so upsetting because we've heard AzeraFel say before like the why don't you just make your own plan oh I have one but like he so enjoys coming to the rescue and you could feel how how thrilled Azirafel was to be the one who got to try to save Crowley this time yeah yeah yeah completely obscuring the fact that that wouldn't be what what Crowley would want and like for for that to come at the expense of the progress that they'd made together, which was like, I think your word rejection is the right one. It's the thing that they need out of each other has always been an understanding that someone else cannot provide and an acceptance that felt impossible.

And so for that to be lost at this moment of like supreme vulnerability is just like soul crushing. You played the clip already, but like, we spent our existence pretending that we weren't is One of the saddest things I've ever heard. That is just absolutely heartbreaking. We could have been us. I mean, this is devastating. Now, I think, like, one of the things that will come up when we talk about our

trope a little bit more and go through some examples is that sometimes when the will they or won't they bear fruit, it's never as good again. I don't think that would be the case with these two because, again, they are just, the real miracle in the story full of miracles is them together. And I think that would continue to be true. but the waiting, I think we will be rewarded for that not only with hopefully a happy ending,

but like with a really rich narrative as they confront the choices that were made here in this moment. So I am really hopeful that we get season three. If we end on this no forever, I would be absolutely fucking crestfallen. Risky little gamble, Mr. Neil Gaiman, that you're playing here.

I also just, the only other thing I want to say that I loved, loved, loved. Like, my heart was, I thought was going to explode in my chest when Crowley decided to say this out loud anyway, after. Because he wanted to go first. And Zirphil was like, you know, what's that human saying?

Right? And says the whole thing about heaven and the offer, Medetron's offer. And I'm like, we're never going to get to hear him say it now. He's just going to say, tell me you said no. And then walk away. But like he mustered the courage to do this anyway, and as we are listening to that emotion in his voice and him, like, struggling to

choke out this offer and these words, I was like, I was just in tears watching this. I thought it was so beautiful. Very, very sad. We did have someone, sorry I didn't grab it, we did have someone email asking us, like, what the, thanks, Steve, Johnny on the spot, asking us with the, the nightingales reference is, that's A night and gale saying in Berkeley Square, which plays, the lyric is there were angels dining at the writs and a night and gill saying at the ritz and a night and gill saying. The coffee theory we should talk about really quickly. And I really understand why people latch on to things like this.

Here's the theory. The metatron comes. It's very suspicious because Derek Jacoby is being as gritty as possible as the metatron, right? Yes. And he's also like, do people ever ask for death? Your coffee shop is called give me coffee or give me death. Do people ever ask for death? So a lot of people are wondering if perhaps there was something in the coffee that he gave his ear,

Phil, that is like controlling or brainwashing him, or some people even claim they heard and I listened for it, but I don't hear it. I hear what they're talking about, but I don't think it's like, the sound of a miracle, which is like sort of this like little chime sound that we are aware of that like there was little miracle that happened that put azirphil under the metatron's control or something like that. I find that really, I understand why people would want that. I find that very dissatisfying and I would far prefer it be an internal conflict of someone, as you say, as you beautifully said, not ready for the thing that they want.

Or not ready to let go of a toxic previous relationship. Then there was something in my drink. Do you know what I mean? So that's sort of where I am on that. that theory. Yeah, me too. I think it's more interesting if he actually made that choice. But I understand why these theories happen. All right, that I think is everything you were specifically going to say about good omens. Anything else you want to mention? Just to do us just once again, an absolute joy to talk about a story that we love together. So many new things lately. It's

really been fun. I'm excited for you. We're really in our David Tenonera. We are. And I would love to not leave it. Should we just like, free watch Broadchurch just for us? We'll be together this weekend. Do you want to just spend our time watching Broadchurch? Want to come over? Can you want to come over? Let's not go out. Let's just come over and we'll watch broadchurcher. I mean, you can't actually make that offer to me because you know my answer would be, yes. I would prefer to sit at home watching television with a cat than go out. Transport your senses with Sol de Janado's limited edition perfume mist collection.

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the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predicted from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Joe, take us into our trope here. All right. So here we go. We are going into the, I should have given Steve a audio cue for this, but I didn't. So we're just going to go right in to the enemies to lovers trope section of the podcast. If you listen to our previous tropes course episodes, this is going to be

less in depth, I think, than some of those other ones, especially because we're like sharing real estate here with good omens. But we have the same caveat as always that this is just a sampling, some of our faves, not a complete total tally of every example of ever. I had someone email in and say that like this trope is so prevalent in like manga and anime. And this is, those are two areas that Mallory and I are not experts in. So please email Justin Charity or Charles Holmes if you want them to do an enemy celebrity course about manga and anime. We are prepared to do that.

But we have a lot of other things we're going to talk about. And what we found, what we were so surprised to find as we were, like, putting this together is how many of, I knew I liked this trope. I didn't know how many of our alone and shared together very favorite characters of all time and relationships of all time fall into this category. It is just shocking. We have a type, Joanna. This is where we live. This is our home. Okay.

So I'm going to start with this quote from Dr. Lori Morimoto, who's the author of, a companion to media fandom and fan studies, gave this interview. There's a great sci-fi, sY-f-y-com piece on this trope where she gave this quote where she was saying, Enemy's delivers comes in two flavors, essentially. One is stories that center on characters who antipathy is so palpable that lends itself to reworking as heated passion. The other, oftentimes but not always, related to the first, is centered on characters whose animosity comes from some fundamental misunderstanding. Right? The misunderstanding trope is another whole thing that we could talk about. But I really like this. What it means is that this trope is so often, like, we talk about conflict as the very nature of storytelling is conflict. And oftentimes we talk about external conflict. But what am you quoting George Martin quoting Faulkner talking about conflict in the human heart? I was like, countdown to Mallory, quoting George, quoting Faulkner, talking about conflict

of the human. Am I quoting you, quoting George, quoting Faulkner, talking about conflict in the human heart? There's external conflicts, external conflicts such as war, right? So an external conflict is the Monta-us and the Capulites are at war, right? The internal conflict is, do I date my, you know, the, you know, the end. opposing family's hot teenage son. Should I do this? I say go for it. I'm going to do it. My life expectancy be damned. There's a lot of subdivisions of enemies to lovers. There's hate to love. There's reluctant allies. A lot of people like to quote cite the ship of Hook and Emma for Once

Upon a Time, which is not a show that I spent a lot of time with, but I did want to mention it before we got any of your angry emails about it. Rivals to Lovers. Rivals to Lovers is one of my favorite. This is often takes shape. in modern stories because we no longer have warring Montague's encapulets, so it's like, I'll meet you in the boardroom kind of thing. But we get like intellectual equals, marriage of true minds is sort of like, no one can fight me the same way because no one is on my level the way that you are. And that sort of like intellectual match is juicy. We love it.

Undercover enemies, friends to enemies to live. lovers captured by the enemy. This is your classic beauty and the beast, which can edge into Stockholm syndrome. And don't worry, we will talk about the problems of this. Our examples involve somebody being a prisoner at one point. I will say, that was slightly troubling to confront. We'll talk about it. But I feel like this answers, like, when you are in the enemy's lovers soup,

you are asking to the fundamental questions that we'll be. like to ask in fiction, which is will he kisser, will he killer, or him, if you prefer, or will, and will they or won't they? I mean, it's just like these are iconic things that capture our attention. The other thing that I thought was really interesting, I was like, you know, reading a bunch of different articles and watching YouTube videos as I like to do about this trope. And I love this concept that kept coming up with this idea of, like, when you do an enemies to lovers story in order to give us that initial conflict. What you have to do is give us two fully formed people with fully formed ideologies and wants and needs and desires and show us the ways in which

those clash and oppose each other so that they can then, you know, either get past them because their need for love or vulnerability or whatever supersedes that, or they were seeing something from a different point of view, and now they see it from the same point of view. But what you have to do in the first place is give us two fully formed individuals. So you're not giving us a love story where we get one fully formed individual and their love interest. Yeah, object of desire, right? So we are just like with two people who are just like interesting and full of interest. And that is, I think, one of the strongest elements, like why I think I keep coming back to something like this.

And there's also the psychological power of the enemies to lovers trope that I think is really interesting of this idea of, and this is where like maybe we should seek therapy, this idea that like, I don't want it. Even though you're hated, you still deserve love or someone who sees you at your worst but loves you anyway. I just, I think that's a really powerful situation. So, yeah. Enemy's lover is not the same as Star Cross, which is Romeo and Juliet. that I use that as an example, but like, we will talk about Shakespeare in a second, but like, but yeah, that external conflict, that internal conflict, you can have both, you can have just the internal conflict, et cetera, et cetera, but you're not just dealing with external

conflict. Melor, anything you want to say like sort of big picture about this trope or its taxonomy? Boy, I think you covered it beautifully. And yeah, there can be some bleed between, you know, a trope category, is a little bit of crossover. But I think what you just said, about the fully formed characters. Because I was like, wow, so many of my all-time favorite couples and fiction are on this list. What is the reason? And in addition to just the highly compelling drama, we love characters on arcs, the journeys to get to this point. You have often spent so much time with these characters.

They have overcome something, either together or individually. But it is, I think, specifically what you identified, that we are invested in them. as human beings and individually independent of each other. And so when there is something rewarding that they are able to foster together, it is more meaningful because of that time and what we understand about their heart, their perspective, their point of view, the things that they've lost, the things that they've sought. You know, I was thinking a little bit of, this is one of the Thrones lines that I quote a lot

that I'm kind of like surprised I go back to you so often, but it is something I think about often. And it is not, to be clear, Kat and Ned were not enemies to lovers. So that part of it is not applicable. But there's that great moment after Rob, you know, I don't want to marry the fray girl. And Rob and Talisa have hooked up.

And Kat has come back and found her son breaking his vow because he wants to have a lot of sex with somebody that he's lusting after. And she says to him while talking about her own marriage with Ned, love didn't just happen to us. We built it slowly over the years, stone by stone, for you, for your brothers and sisters, for all of us. It's not as exciting as secret passion in the woods, but it is stronger. It lasts longer. And so even though she's not describing the enemies to love her stroke, to be clear, I do know that.

I think there's something in the substance of what she's saying about the kind of relationship that can grip us so fully. Like the one that you have no reason to expect will ever be a part of your life or the character's lives when you are first with these people. And that really is the magic of it. And then like that other thing, which we've, we've chatted about a lot with the noamens. And it's part of why I love that relationship so much. I think often about love as like a very messy and untidy and complicated thing. And that there are something you and I talk about with. And I think this is true of friendship too.

And any kind of like meaningful relationship with people you're close with, romantic or otherwise, sometimes those are the people that you're like cruelest to or the people who you say things to you or they say things to you and you're like, I can't believe like I'm capable of feeling that, let alone voicing that out loud or vice versa. And then if you can make your way through that, like how much stronger you can be on the other end. And also there is some safety in that. Like there is some safety in someone that you can be your worst self. Yeah. Yeah. Because exactly. And like that's the thing. That acceptance, that's forged in a vicious fire sometimes. and like people can only accept you if they see all aspects of you.

And we don't show all aspects of ourselves to everyone, right? And so sometimes the worst version of yourself is somebody, the person who sees that is somebody that you're trying to thwart or are opposed to or our arrival with initially, right? Like it's not just the thing you show to a person who you've been buried to for a decade and are like, well, fuck it. Like the candle went out a long time ago, right? There are all sorts of different timelines and pathways to that point.

Are you a Cheryl Crow fan? I mean, I don't know that I'm allowed to call myself a fan. I dabble. What do you ever just like rock out to strong enough, like, alone for a few minutes in the end of the day? Does this also end up on your Spotify raft? Oh, yeah. It's a favorite.

But like I was thinking also about that, like, that one lyric specifically that I love so much, just try and love me if you can. Like I think about that a lot. and how really truly hard that is for people. And so, like, when we think about not to spoil our list, but characters who, anybody who's listening to this podcast know we are going to be mentioning today, like Jamie and Brianne, it's like that kind of idea is so central. Like, the bias and the prejudice and the vitriol that you bring at the beginning

and, like, the absolute gift of anybody, but specifically that person, being the one who says, I understand something about you now that nobody else has gotten to see. That's just, like, incredible. And when they confer worthiness on you, I mean, to use to allude to Jamie and Brian, like, it just means something else. And so when you take something like enemies to lovers versus like something like love at first, I hate love at first sight, because like what the fuck does that mean? Do you know what I mean?

I don't believe in love at first sight. I believe in lust of first sight. Sure. Lest at first sight, sure. Yeah. But like, unless it for sight can turn into like an enduring love. absolutely but like what do you know about the person what do you understand about the person what do you respect about the person and that's just you want to sleep with them that's right and that's and that's

a fine thing to know and understand about someone but like you're talking about it how it takes time like you know the other tropey sort of phrase that people like to use is slow burn and like the idea of a slow burn of an enemy's to lovers is that we are on a journey of deeper understanding of realigning our worldview so that they they they match each other's um and and and you're have to respect that person. You have to admire and respect that person at the end of this journey. And again, it's often like, in addition to this person is hot and I want to fuck them, which is a great, you know, a great starting point of like, and they're so brilliant or they're so honorable or they're so this, that and the other thing, there are these deeper qualities that endure longer than once the lust burns out. And that's why I think this is such like a cool foundational storytelling device. Again, we're going to talk about some of the problematic nature of it.

And I have to say, I don't know that this is something that actually translates to real life. But when it comes to storytelling, I think it is just chef's kiss. One of the best things ever. Let's do a quick mini history of the origin of this trope. One of the earliest examples is Sir Gareth and Lynette from Thomas Mallory's more to Arthur. We talked about Arthur quite a bit in our Magical Sword's trope's course. But if you don't know, if people listening aren't familiar with the story of Gareth Linette, it's probably because it's not actually, I think, one of the most romantic stories, which is that

Gareth, who's Sigouraine's brother, he's not a story yet. It goes, disguised. His mom is like, you should go work as a kitchen boy, Camelot. I think that will build character for you. And he's like, okay. And so he's undercover as a kitchen boy. And Arthur, in his Infinite Wisdom, assigns him as sort of the protector, the knight on this quest involving this lady Lynette. And she resents him because she's like, ew, poor, right?

It's very, like, Summer and Seth going from, except Seth is not poor, but, you know, the ewe part, okay? And then he proves himself to be brave. And then she's like, I think you're not as poor as you're pretending to be. And then they fall in love. So that's a really early example. But let's go to maybe a better example. One of my favorite stories of all time. Stephen Allman, will you hit us with a little bit of William Shakespeare?

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he'd love me. God keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentleman or other shall escape a predestinate scratched face. Scratching could not make it worse and were such a face as yours were. Well, you are a rare parrot teacher. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. I would my horse have the speed of your tongue. Keep your way, God's name, I have done.

You always end with a jade's trick. I know you're old. That is Emma Thompson and Kenneth Brana as Benedict and Beatrice from Much Adieu about Nothing. Legends. Thoughts our feelings about this? This is one of my favorite, this, that's my favorite Shakespeare play. That is my favorite cinematic adaptation of a Shakespeare play is that particular version. I think it is so delightful.

I think they're sparring, their matching of wits that turns into this, a love story. But what I love about that, and I, you know, I want to cite my, like, English professor for teaching me about this concept is, is this is an early entry into the idea of the comedy, what's called the comedy plot of remarriage. So, this is not Beatrice and Benedict meeting for the first time. You hear her at the end of that clip saying, you always end with the Jay's trick. I know you of old. The idea is that Beatrice and Benedict, Benedict, have known each other for a while, perhaps had a thing before. And then it ended poorly. And this is what. where we are. And so this idea, you'll see it time, time again with, like, exes who meet again

in a story and fall in love again. And I love those stories because they already know each other. They know each other very well. And especially if we're telling a story over the course of, like, two hours or three hours or something like that, I like this idea that they already know each other. It's not like they're just meeting each other and they have to start from scratch. So much do about nothing. Tammy the Shrew is also, of course, an example of this and or the modernization 10 things I hate about you, of course, also falls into this category. Anything you want to say about Shakespeare? So do you think that Shakespeare got these particular ideas in this case from Dr.

Who or from Crowley and Azirafel? Crowley. Crowley is like, here's my life story. Do you want to hear it? I'm a demon in love with an angel. Anything else you want to say about Shakespeare? About much ado. The bard.

Always there at the beginning. Will we ever have a tropes course that Willie Shakes doesn't come up during? Probably not. Speaking of a similarly important literary legend. Let's talk about your favorite, your girl, your fave. Love. Jane Austen. Now, before Steve plays this cliff, I just want everyone to know, I am for the record, a

Colin Firth girl. That's who I am. Greta Gerwig is also a Colin Firth girl if you watch the Barbie movie. But I know the internet, and I know Mallory and how Mallory feels about Tom Wamsgam. So we are going to hear 2005. Let me state for the record. Are you also? Well, I love Sir Matthews, Darcy.

Colin Firth is, other than Ray Fines and Harrison Ford, literally one of my greatest loves of all time. Top, top, top of the list. Well, I should have done this differently. I'm a big Mark Darcy Head and Fitzwilliam Darcy Head. Oh, my God, Mark Darcy, the best. Anyway, here we are to talk about Kieranightly, Matthew McFadden as Lizzie and Darcy.

Steve Lee, play this, please. So this is your opinion of me. Thank you for explaining so far. fully. Perhaps these offenses might have been overlooked had not your pride been hurt by my honesty and admitting scruples about our relationship. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances? And those are the words of a gentleman. From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others, made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.

What this version has over, I guess, Jennifer Ely and Colin Firth is they, they, give this particular exchange you heard a rubble of thunder, soaking wet, heaving bosoms in the rain. Some great rainfall, though of course Colin Firth had given us a sopping wet shirt. The lake dunk, yeah. Both powerful. Pride and prejudice. Oh, yeah. A key, a core, core enemies to lovers' text.

This was, I mean, anytime we get to hear, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be a one of a wife. I love it. Always love to think about Jane. Always love to think about Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth. But I loved hearing it inside of season two of good omens because it makes us think about this pathway inside of a relationship. Yeah, this is one of the seminal examples of the trope. You know, I was thinking about this duo a few minutes ago when you were talking about the difference between love at first sight or lust at first sight because it's actually quite, not only is that not present here. there's like, I don't want to dance with this person.

I'm not attracted to this person, right? And then the resentment over the meddling in an affairs, it's just a complete and total mess. Like the initial impression is she's not good enough and he's a haughty douchebag. And it changes for them at different speeds, which is also one of the things that makes this so memorable. this very begrudging, budding respect that is not the product of the societal expectations

and matchmaking, but just of like their wit and their tenderness unearthed over time. Like realizing this guy I thought was a piece of shit actually has tried to help people. And it's just very special. And then to get the Bridget Jones's diary, like modern day version of it and the perfect, there is no better encapsulation than the historic bottom of the stairs conversation after Bridget flees the dinner party. And Mark is listing all of the things that are puzzling and baffling. But then what does he build to her? Of course.

I love you. I like you very much. Just as you are. Just as you are. And then when she's debriefing of her drinks with her pals, what does Tom say? But this is someone you hate, right? So I love that we get the modern, like, update of it that connects to the Jane Austen original article, the best. My favorite, I love you, or I like you, just as you are.

I love the way that that scene ends with Mbeth Davis just, like, snapping at it. Like, he's a spaniel. Anyways. Oh, good. Yeah, and I think Lizzie and Darcy are under that misunderstanding umbrella, right? I have an assumption about you. Yeah. Fundament, you know, a prejudicial.

point of view. I'm going to take a very selfish personal stop journey on this way through history to talk about one of my favorite stories that has been remade over and over, and I love every version of it. It started as I believe a Hungarian play, or perhaps a Hungarian short story and then a play, and then it was a 1930s film starring Jimmy Stewart, and then it was a 1950s film starring Judy Garland, and then it was a Tony Award-winning musical, and then it was a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks rom-com and it is the shop around the corner or in the good old summertime or she loves me or

you've got mail. It's any any version of those. Are they problematic? Yes. Has a certain generation rejected you've got mail? Yes. But what I love about these remakes and I've watched them all countlessly, including the Broadway musical, the fundamental scene is actually not the club I'm going to play, but the fundamental scene of them meeting in the coffee. shop and he knows who she is and she doesn't know who he is and they are just slicing into each other and it is so juicy and good. But I'm actually going to ask Steve to play a different clip from You've Got Mail right now. You're entitled to hate me. I don't hate you. But you'll never forgive me. Just like Elizabeth. Who? Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. She was too

proud. Oh, I thought you hated Pride and Prejudice. Or was she too prejudiced and Mr. Darcy is too proud. Well, I can't remember. I'm sorry. I just always loved that. I always like quote that when I talk about Prime Prejudice. Anyway, enemy cell lovers, they work together. In most versions of story, they work together at the same shop. And you've got mail there, business rivals. He owns a big box bookstore. She owns the shop around the corner, the small bookstore. And, you know, they have every reason to each other, but they have struck up a correspondence, and they actually love each other. So it's that duality split, which we'll come back to, actually, a little bit later. And then, you know, screwball comedies, the 1930s and 40s, like, live on this because this is when we get into, like, women in satin gowns actually just, like, physically fighting with men in movies.

And it's just a great era of cinema. A lot of the comedy plot of remarriage X is thrown back together, fighting is flirting, all this sort of stuff like that. A more violent contemporary version is, like, something like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, right? They were attracted to each other, driven apart, and then they come back. together and it is like combustive, you know, their chemistry. I do want to zip through some like not, we're going to mostly focus on genre examples because we are the ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. But I just want to like zoom through quickly some other non-genre versions really quickly before

we get to the genre. So like Logan and Veronica, Veronica Marrador is killing eat, the core plot of killing Eve at American sex education, Debbie and Ben and Ben and never have I ever. Ben and Leslie in Parks and Reconnaughtation. Ben and Leslie, by the way, some of the only, you talked about that whole, like, the magic goes out

as soon as the consummation happens. Ben and Leslie are, like, one of the only pairs ever to beat that charge, as delightful post-marriage as they were pre, you know, etc. This is, of course, also a core tenet of the romance novel genre, some very popular romance novels,

Hating Game, Red, White, and Royal Blue. most of Bridgetton, like this is these current things that are being adapted into major property. Like these are stories that people are really into. But the romance novel, which is among the most popular genres in publishing right now, has blood his way into YAA and genre fiction. So we get stuff like Six of Crows with Nina and Mattias or Shadow and Bone with Alina and the Darkling, court of thrown and roses with Rice and and Affair, or spoiler alert, fourth wing. So, you know, like a lot of people who read sci-fi fantasy right now are reading this trope because it has sort of seeped in over from the romance novel genre. A couple of my closest friends have recently torn through a court of Thorne and Roses and are obsessed.

It is a thing. It is definitely a thing. And I'm sure, I mean, I've read them. I haven't read them closely, but I did like read them. And I don't think I finished it, but I think I read like the first four. But when it inevitably gets adapted into a miniseries, Mallory and I will probably read it together, I'm sure. Do you remember when you were first aware of this, of this trope? I was trying to think about what my first exposure to it would have been.

And like, I can't say definitively, I can't pinpoint when I maybe like thought about it consciously or deliberately. But like my first exposure, she glanced this way. I thought I saw. And when we touch, she didn't shudder. at my paw. No, it can't be. I'll just ignore. But then this,

she's never looked at me this way before. Beauty and the Beast, it has to be. I used to watch that movie all the time when I was a kid. I feel like it has to be that. I can't think of anything that would have been in my life before that.

I think shutter at my paw is one of like my favorite lyrics a long time. She didn't shut her at my paw. Yours is a totally normal and age-appropriate example. Mine is not. Am I?

Okay, what's yours? Mine is, I just remember growing up, there was a show, it's quite famous called Moonlighting with Sybil Shepard and Bruce Willis. This is Bruce Willis before he was in Die Hard, etc. They played Maddie and David, and they were just like constantly sniping in each other. And this was just a famous, a very, very famous, one of the most famous, will they want TV examples that people hold up as like the whole. air went out of the balloon of the show

once they actually got together. There was also Sam and Diane and Cheers and blah blah, but this was like a real thing in 80s television. Again, I did not watch Moonlighting. I was too young to watch Moonlighting. I did watch like cheers and reruns and stuff like that. But like I just, when I think,

when you say enemies lovers, I think about Sybil Shepard and Bruce Willis yelling at each other in like office attire in the 80s. So that is, that is just, you know, Let's get to some of our stories The stories that we talk about the most On the ring of verse Yeah

Want to kick us off Mallory Rubin? I think it's time I think it's time Steve Can you play the next clip for us? What the hell do you have us breaking all those rocks for anyway? We're building a runway Runway for what? The aliens

I don't know what for Do you think they told me everything? Are you screwing Jack yet? No. Are you? How far away are these guns? There are any guns. What?

I lied. You lied. It was the only way he let us go back. Why are you going back? Karma. Why are you going back, James? There were a couple places we could have started. This was one of them.

One of our truest shared passions, one of the first things we've ever, we bonded over. The first thing we ever podcasted about together over on the StormPod. Again, spoilers for a million shows impending. This one's for Lost. Sawyer and Juliette. James and Blondie LaFleur. Soir is quite literally, Juliet's prisoner at first. She's the one who tranks him.

He is caged by the others. This is how we first are spending time with this pair together. in season three in A Tale of Two Cities, they're not just opposed as individuals. This is, again, kind of a good omensy comp, right? Where they're camps. They're imposed as collectives, different missions. And yet there's this aspect of like, well,

each of us has always been like a little bit of an outsider within our group. Is there something there? A little rebel. A little rebellious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to maybe bring us together.

And like, from that initial tranking all the way to finding each other, in front of a vending machine over a candy bar in the flash sideways. And what happens in between, like what absolute magic are we treated to? Help to spark the escape, joining our heroes, subterfuge, plots revealed.

Well, let's just spend a moment talking about one of our favorite stretches of television. The time travel stretch, the little floor era in season five. We built toward that from that first moment, like sitting together, one of the great joys of watching is like that moment when we're, because we know what's coming. And we see after Sawyer had

jumped out of the helicopter and they're together on the beach. And he swam back in jeans. I mean, what can't he do? What of many times that characters will swim in jeans on Lost and I have questions? What can't he do? Not only just like wade down with water, but like a salty water too, by goodness. The time travel aspect of their love story, like the circumstance that sparks this great change is one of the really interesting things about it because not only we as viewers, but the characters, and Juliet, we'll talk about this more in a second. Like, do you have to actually grapple with that? What if things had gone differently? Would we have been together? Like, would we have found our way together? Or is it only because Kate wasn't here and we went back

and X, Y, and Z? And part of what makes them such an incredible and memorable enemies to lovers couple is like what they bring out in each other. they're not trying to actively, like, reject or change each other. They heighten each other, right? They don't become different people. They become, like, more fully realized versions of who they are. And they're, like, little things, like, the way that she calls them James instead of Sawyer that feel, like, manifestations or, like, actually, like, active recognitions of that between them

that are just so, so, so beautiful. And the show and the pairing never forget about the past, right? and like how unlikely it was that we got to this point. And the constant fear from Juliet that Sawyer will go back to Kate, that he prefers Kate is inescapable. And so when Kate is there again, like, and Sawyer's saying, I've got a right to know what changed your mind. And she says, I changed my mind when I saw you look at her.

It's so devastating. And one of the most heartbreaking moments in all of lost, I think, and this, again, we said spoilers. We said spoilers. This before the absolute fucking heartbreak of Julieta's death is what she says to him, just because we love each other doesn't mean that we're meant to be together. Maybe we were never supposed to be together.

Like that's just, that is so deeply, deeply tragic that that would be the thing you had to carry with you. And then when she's barely hanging on and he's screaming, don't you leave me? Like, you know that they were meant to be together. And that that fear is not valid. And that, like, they have decided that they are, they are the, the other person is the one that they want to spend eternity with. And it's just incredible.

We could go Dutch. Kiss me, James. You got it. Blondie. The best. Absolutely the best. I think that there's another scene that I almost clipped for this that is when she and she wants to get medication for Claire and Saeed and James Sawyer with her. And they don't trust her because she's the.

others, right? And then she just like dresses them down and calls them out for all the shit that they've done, right? Like you don't need more blood on your hands, essentially. And she's like, she's like, Sawyer, this is what you did when you first got here and these like, these are the people they've killed and like all the sort of stuff like that. And so like that idea of like, I know you. I know exactly who you are. And then as you say, that sort of like unlikely allies aspect, which is a which is a key sort of splinter of the enemies to lovers. Like you would say Crowley and Azirfell, United as they are against the apocalypse happening, are unlikely allies. Like, you know, so Juliet and Sawyer, some of just a few handful of people left on the island together become the people who watch each other's backs because their usual allies are gone.

Jack, who is like most closely connected to Juliet and Kate with Sawyer, are gone. And so they learn to lean on each other. and they find that they are much more reliable people to lean on each other than their previous people were, et cetera. So, yeah, I love this. I love that it starts with her tranking him. And then they are a love story for all time. All right. Next on our list is one that Mallory has not yet had the pleasure of enjoying.

So I'm just going to, like, spoil the shit out of Buffy Vampire Slayer for her. Um, Steve, will you play this clip of Buffy Summers and Spike, please. You are one step away, Missy. Charles, help. He's going to scold me. Maybe we made it a little too comfy in here for you. Comfy. I'm chaining a bathtub drinking pig's blood from a novelty mug. Doesn't rate huge in the Zagot's guide. You want something nicer?

Look at my poor neck. All bare and tender and... and exposed. All that blood just pumping away. Oh, please. Giles, make us stop.

If those two don't kill each other, I might lend a hand. Fans is Bansie's Vampire Slaer. We'll definitely know that Giles was definitely cleaning his glasses when he said that last part. When Buffy Summers meets Spike

who is a vampire, she is the vampire, the titular vampire slayer, Buffy. the Vampire Slayer. This is their literal first words to each other. Who are you? You'll find out on Saturday. What happens on Saturday? I kill you. That's how they meet. The genius at the core

of Buffy Vampire Slayer the TV show, this is not in the movie, is that Buffy Summers, a teenage vampire slayer, falls in love with a vampire. His name is Angel. That's sort of the beginning of it all. Angel's a nice vampire, though. Spike is not a nice vampire.

And so what is at the core of this sort of enemies to lover's idea is, like, someone in love with the darkness, with the very darkness that they're supposed to fight, right? And so there's this, like, rebellion. And you could apply that to Azirafel and Crowley if you want to. But like, in love with the thing you're supposed, you know, your enemies, but drawn inevitably to the darker half of who you are is such an interesting thing about Buffy Summers. And then the journey that Spike goes on Spike showed up was just supposed to be a one-season antagonist, but the chemistry that he shared, James Maristers and Sarah Michelle Geller shared,

was just like too irresistible and he becomes a series regular by season four. And then Spike is then in that clip that I just played, chain of the bathtub, again, a captive, not a great trend we're seeing in this trope that we're discovering here, but he gets a chip implanted in his head so he can't hurt people. And so then it's like, It forces him to confront what do I do when I can't hunt humans, which is what I've done my whole entire life.

And then he goes on this, like, massive redemptive arc of Angel is famously a vampire with a soul. Spike is a vampire who chooses to reclaim his soul. And the reason he chooses to reclaim his soul is so that he can be worthy of Buffy Summers, the person that he has fallen in love with. It's like, it's very awe, but it's also a very... dark and sad and like all the sort of stuff like that. And it's, um, I love their final words together in the finale where she says to him, I love you and he says, you don't, but thanks for saying it. But what she, whether or not she like loves him, loves him, I mean, they're, they're physically lovers. So like that falls under the trope. But like, she respects him. She admires him. There's

all this stuff that happens for them by the end of it. And, um, I just love them. And I love Spike and his journey so much. But if you're an angel girlie, that's also there for you because Angel and Buffy definitely have plenty of that as well. So, but yeah, Spike and Sawyer and the next person we're going to, the next gentleman we're going to talk about are all just like very sitting right next to each other on the bench in terms of character description. Mallory, would you like to take us to our next? Very. Some of your problematic faves. Problematic faves. We will now be talking about a that we've never spoken about before. This will be the first time that we talked about it.

It's called Game of Thrones. I'm Yard of a lot. So, of course, we are going to be chatting about Jamie and Briann. We're also going to talk about John and Eagrit, though, because they also fit the trope. Let's start with Jamie and Brian. I think maybe this is, is this our single favorite example? Yes.

Of the trope, I think it is, right? Like, if you could only have talked about one today. it would have been this. That would have just same for me. Yes. Yes. We don't get to choose who we love. This is the foundational idea at the heart of both characters.

And to your beautiful point from earlier, we understand that so supremely about both of them, with Jamie and Cursie, Brian and Renley, before they're ever in the same pen in, once again, a makeshift prison.

We're in our examples here in our Game of Thrones section. Our sincere apologies. Do you want to Let's hear the clip Yeah Steve, let's hear the clip here Have you known many men I suppose not

Women Horses I didn't mean to give offence My lady forgive me Our crimes are past Forgiveness Kingslayer Why do you hate me so much Have I ever harmed you

You've harmed others Those you're sworn to protect Weak The innocent Has anyone ever told you're as boring as you are ugly. You will provoke me to anger. I already have.

Look at you. They're ready to chop my head off. Sensational stuff. This is like so the anti-love at first sight. You know what I mean? Like he calls her like a beast and ugly like five times than the first like you sees together. The viciousness of those early interactions.

Is that a woman? Where did you find this beast? I mean, it's actually like repellent. It's horrifying. And we should say, Brian's opinion of Jamie is just as low. Like the, you know, that oathbreaker man without honor, Kingslayer idea, that is what she feels about him.

Now, Kat is obviously there in that initial meeting. And the so many vows, they make you swear and swear iconic Jamie line that he, that he issues his retort is, it's, it's in reply to Kat, but it's also one of the cornerstones for his relationship with Brian. There are so, I mean, we could, we could and have talked for hours of fun. hours about this relationship. It's, like, difficult to sum up succinctly because there are so many meaningful moments along the road, but like just a few of them, Jamie losing his hand, right? He loses his sword hand. I was that hand. What sparks it. Trying to trick lock into sparing Brian. Now,

on the one hand, it's like classic Jamie thinking he can outsmart everyone, that he can outwit everyone, that he can best everyone. But it is actually the kind of protective act that many, including Brand at this time in their shared arc, I think he is fundamentally uninterested and maybe actually incapable of. We build toward one of our shared favorite episodes of television ever, season three, episode five,

Kissed by Fire, the Bath at Harren Hall. Jamie sharing the truth, the true story about what happened in Kings Landing with the Mad King, how he acted to save legions, to save the citizens of Kings Landing from burning by wildfire setting up, of course, the tragedy of what

Sarsie will later do in Kings Landing, burn them all. This is what he thwarted. When Jamie is letting all of this out, saying this out loud for the first time, the opening note, the thing that he knows to be true, and this gets back to this foundational scene with the first time we meet Taiwan in the show. Like, the lion does not concern themselves with the opinions of the sheep. You all despise me, he says here to Brann. Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, man without honor.

He says later in the same scene, he meaning Ned, judged me guilty the moment he set eyes on me. Now, he's talking about other people, but this is also true of Briann. This is what she brought to their relationship together, right? And so when he faints with his filthy stump and the heat and the steam from the bath, and she calls out help, it's the Kingslayer. And he says, Jamie, my name is Jameslayer. Jamie is the beginning of one of the most, like, beautiful things that we have gotten to witness. Going back in the bear and the maiden pair, finally on the road home, the paths of freedom,

the return to Cersie and his family, but he decides to turn around. He decides to turn around. And nobody would have made him or told him that he had to. He decided that he wanted to. It was the thing that he knew was right. And already Breanne was helping to bring that out inside of him. Oathkeeper, when Jamie Giff, Gifts Brianne one of the two Valerian steel swords that Taiwan had made from ice. He is honoring a pledge. It was re-forged from Ned Stark's sword. He says you'll use it to defend Ned Stark's daughter.

Gifts her armor. A squire, shout out pot. It is a knightly recognition. Now this is building toward a crucial place. This is important. I'll find her, Brian says, for Lady Catlin and for you. And then when we cut to the outside sequence and we have our comedy with pod

and then we have one of the most meaningful moments in the history of Thrones, they say the best swords have names. Any ideas? Oathkeeper. We have had those oathbreaker moments after oathbreaker moments and for Brianna to say that out loud.

Oathkeeper, the look of gratitude on Jamie's face. I don't know that we have any single frame elsewhere in like the history of stories that can better express the feeling of somebody who thought the worst of you seeing what you are truly capable of and that you have the best of you there at last.

River Run, the reunion, when Jamie says, I'm proud of you. And then Brea tries to give the sword back and he says, it's yours. It will always be yours. Joanna, I ask you, what is he really talking about? His art. The despair of being on the other side,

the way that she says that she might, you know, honor would compel her to fight for Sonsa's kin, right? Let's hope it doesn't come to that. The magnitude of everything that is passing between them, the little wave from the battlements, and then we build toward the final season. The second episode of the final season, the final season, very painful. We've discussed this at length.

The second episode, a work of genius and brilliance and sheer perfection. And the nighting is a huge part of that, and we will talk about in a second. But before that, we get a really meaningful moment, too, when they were reunited after Jamie's decision, his choice to leave Searcy and to go up north, to fight for the living. And there's no more mocking.

There's no more derision. There's just pride and belief to the point that Brianna actually comments on it, right? She says, we've never had a conversation lasts this long without you insulting me. And he says, I'm not the fighter I used to be,

but I'd be honored to serve under your command if you'll have me. Like to go from the withering indictments and the belittling to, I would, it would be like the pinnacle of my life to stand by your side at the end of all things is just incredible. But of course, nothing can top the nighting itself. Any night can make another night. I'll prove it.

The magic of the scene is like, it's, it's, it's bag to fold. I think one of my favorite things every time I rewatch it is that everyone is there, but they are just in their own world completely. like we're cutting to Pod's face and Davos's face and Tyrion's face and Torman's face, but Brian and Jamie are in a universe of their own making with each other and nobody else. And when Jamie is knighting her, in the name of the warrior, I charge you to be brave. In the name of the father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the mother, I charge you to defend the innocent. Arise, Brianna of Tarth, a knight of the seven kingdoms.

And that look passes between them. Like, there's a lifetime of shared understanding and the acceptance that you earned with each other. And of course, there are other things, right? There's in a subsequent episode, the sex and the trying and the leaving and everything there, too. But the fostering of, like, empathy and real sincere understanding and the acceptance that comes from that, like, that is the real heart of that companionship and love. and it is just so wonderful and deeply sad, and I miss them quite a bit. Any night, the nighting of Subriand of Tarth, one of the most important things that has ever happened in all of storytelling,

and definitely to me personally, I have a Sabri Anniversary recurring date in my calendar, marking the anniversary of that episode. That idea that any night can make a night, but it is so important that it is Jamie, because like the other flip side of that first interaction they have in the cage in season two, is that a woman, where did you find this beast? As you already mentioned, but what Katlin says is she's a truer night than you will ever be Kingslayer.

And so she is a truer night than you will ever be, but for him to make it official, for him to be the one, for him to say, I see you, I respect you, you deserve this, this thing that you've been kind of told that you can't have, you deserve it. And I am so honored to be the one to give it to you. and for her to look up at him and say, I am honored to receive this from you. I admire you as a knight in return. And what I've always loved,

shout out to our pal Brian Cogman, what I've always loved about that episode and what I've always loved about the way that it is titled is A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, not the Night of the Seven Kingdoms. And so it's both of them. And it's just...

And then to your earlier point, I know we have a lot to get to, and I will be done with this in a second. You've done such a beautiful job of explaining this relationship that we care so much about that parting of the ways, which a lot of us like despair about when he leaves her in the courtyard. And there's a lot of aspects of it I don't like.

But there's a fundamental thing that I do like and do understand. And it goes back to what we were saying about Azirafel and Crawley, which is that idea of like, sometimes it is hard for you to believe that you deserve the thing that you want. So for Azirphil to go back to heaven and Jamie to go back to Circe is the same move. It's the same. good man and you can't save her to she's hateful and so am i it's just absolutely fucking heart-wrenching yeah so oh they're the best quickly on uh another one of our our favorite thrones pairings john and eagret love them talk about kissed by fire man what a fucking season three just rules banger

of course they they meet in there's another prisoner stretch uh this like a thing i love about revisiting these early moments beyond the wall is like the flirtation and the attraction is there from the jump. John is supposed to kill her. Can't. The way that he gets like rubbing against him as they're trying to sleep. Did you pull a knife on me in the night? The free folk temptation, right? It's not just about her. It's about a way of life that John has not allowed himself to think is possible. And in fact, has vowed that he will forget about completely, we can't make steel as good as yours. It's true. But we're free. The cave, the lower. Lord's kiss. It's exceptional, the best. You swore some vows. I want you to break them. The climb,

you're mine and I'm yours. And if we die, we die, but first we'll live. Oh, it's just like, man, when she's chasing him after he reveals that he's still a crow and she says you know nothing, John Snow, and he says, I do know some things. I know I love you. And then she shoots him three times with arrows. And then Torpman's like, if he's alive, it's because you let him go. You wanted him to be. And then, of course, her death, the battle. And John choosing to take Eagret into the true north and burn her body and say a proper farewell to the woman that he loved, even though he knows what it will mean for him, what people will say, what people will think,

what that will ignite. And then we have John and Danny, but we won't talk about that. All right. We have to pick our spots here, you know? Speaking of potentially toxic, we're going to move on to a very contentious example that Mallory and I happen to love. But it's going to be a good example for us to talk about some of the critiques around this trope. This is Star Wars, have you heard of it?

A little pairing known as Raylo. Kylo Ren and Ray or Ben Solo and Ray, if you prefer. for. Their first interaction, she is, what? His prisoner! You still want to kill me? That happens when you're being hunted by a creature and a mask, is what she said to him. And then it ends, of course, with the smooch of life, smooch of death, sort of exchange, etc.

But he has become Ben at that point, right? And she is the one like Juliet with Sawyer, like Brianne with Jamie, the one to call him by the cleaner version of his name. You are not Sawyer, you are not Kingslayer, you are not Kylo Ren, you are James, Jamie, Ben. Is this trope toxic or problematic? Is he a space fascist? Yes, he was. Who in Star Wars isn't? But if Darth Vader deserves to have a nice moment with his son before he dies, then Kylo Ren deserves something to. It's fiction. is what I like to say about this. Like, to what extent do you need your characters and romances to reflect real life in order

to enjoy them? And I will hit you with this, I thought, really interesting quote from Dr. Ashley Polisek from that aforementioned scifi.com article about enemies to lovers. She said, the human condition is complex and varied, and it includes an unimaginable variety of experiences. Each of us will only ever live a fraction of those experiences, but we can work to understand the larger range of them through literature. As readers, we can elect not to live through someone else.

experience by choosing not to read literature that we don't wish to read. But I don't think it's our place to tell people they can't work to make sense of themselves in their own writing. We only ever learn and grow through access to more information, more literature, more art, more analysis, more commentary, nevertheless. And so this is what I say when people are trying to like yuck someone's yam or shame them about, you know, there are versions of this trope. And I've read a lot of fan fiction. We're going to talk about that in a second. But there are versions of trope where I'm like, too far. You went too hard, too toxic, too fast, and I can't join you on the other side of this arc. Those stories exist. They're way past my line. Raylo is not past my line because the Last Jedi

I filmed that both of us really love is so much about these two characters, trying to understand each other, trying to use the support of each other to understand themselves, the journey that the temptation of Ben Sol of Kylo Ren to his better nature from Ray and then temptation of Kylo Ren to

Ray of her darker nature is you know we're talking about light side dark side falling all like this is Star Wars it's just in a more openly romantic Han and Leah have the like sort of light screwball comedy version of this you know what I mean

they're they're spitting and sparring before they're kissing like that's that's that but this is a darker version, but I just, I, I love Raylo. We love Relo. Do you want anything you want to say about this, Mallory Rubin? You summed it up beautifully. If we'd ever gotten to see Obi-1 Inventures fuck,

as we should have, we could have put them on the list. Alas, it's just head cannon at this point. Yeah, I think on the Railo front, like, obviously, Rises Skywalker is a crime against cinema and a tragedy that still pains us deeply, but I don't think that the

quality or lack there of that film. For me, it didn't sap my interest in this pairing. For the reasons you said, I think like everything in Last Jedi, it's this almost like incredibly

electric and magnetic mutual pull to the point where, of course, you can still see it so clearly in your eye, right? Anakin's lightsaber snapping in half because of that pull in both directions. And like, where will they go and what will they choose? And just the depth

of connection. Like before we're all saying diet in the force, we're seeing two people who are drawn to each other and are able to unlock something for each other and hopefully maybe make each other better, but certainly call upon something inside of each other that is like singular in their experience and in their life and in the case of this film,

like in the galaxy. And that's an impactful thing to see. And that feels scary and feels dangerous and all of sorts of stuff like that and other generations just won't understand, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, we are certainly not here advocating for the Rises Skywalker,

but I am advocating for... No, we ever! The foundation that's built in both the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi. Really quickly on the Batman front, over on another podcast I do trial by content, we're doing three whole goddamn weeks of Batman, so we're not going to linger along here.

But the cat and the bat, I mean, Batman and his fondness for... Fem fatals and Bixens and villainesses and all that sort of stuff like that is, you know, and his attraction to the darkness is a really interesting part of his character. Again, we were talking about this for three straight weeks on trial by content. But I do want to play one of my all-time favorite film clips. This is Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer. Steve, on, will you play it, please?

A kiss under the mistletoe. No, mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it. The kiss can be even deadly. Does this mean we have to start fighting? Oh, that's right. Boy, that is a breathy clip. A lot of background music. And, yeah, you could use a, you could use some close captioning on that mistletoe exchange.

But the Batman, Catwoman, Bruce, Selena, sort of, you know, multifacets of their personas and which ones are attracted to each other, both as it turns out and like all this sort of stuff like that. And do we have to fight? I just love the bat and the cat. So I just want to make sure that we mention them. What else do we want to talk about? Malory Rubin. Let's spend a second over on Marvel Corner here. Let's talk about Loki and Sylvie,

one of our, it's more recent example of the trope new to our hearts and lives. We're about to be back in the Lokiverse. Can't wait. Let me say a trailer has fooled me before. I thought the Loki Season 2 trailer looked fucking great. Why is this such an interesting version of the trope? There are a lot of reasons. We have spent so much time with Loki.

We have seen him evolve and go on such a journey on such an arc. because they are variants, this is not just enemies to lovers with someone else. It is enemies to lovers with oneself. This assessment of whether self, whether and how self-loathing can turn into self-love. And the show has a lot of fun with that. Like in the fourth episode, What Phobius is just like what an incredible seismic narcissist you felt for yourself, which is hysterical and completely valid? there's a beauty to that too and like a power to that. We start in the second episode with this isn't about you introduction to Sylvie and this

great reveal. And then we're keeping that in mind and thinking about it the whole way. Well, isn't it in a fashion, but also no, because they're individual versions of who they are. Third episode, train. Great stuff. Should we rewatch for sunrise again just for us? Like maybe for content, let's do it anytime, name the time.

name the time. Love is a dagger. It's a weapon to be wielded far away or up close. You can see yourself in it. It's beautiful until it makes you bleed. Difficult to sum up. Enemies and lovers all in one messy suit more appropriately than that. You go to episode four and everybody's trying to what happened here? This idea that the power and the dynamic between them. Actually, this has made me think, I was thinking back to this nexus event in season two of good omens because this miracle

that should be undetectable, but is this forceful, powerful thing because Azirafel and Crowley together are capable of something mighty that they can't even understand. Like, that's the nexus event that Loki and Sylvie spark

detectable inside of apocalypse, an apocalypse, the one place it shouldn't be. And when we build toward the penultimate episode, and Loki's like trying to like, smoothly put a little like blanket warming wrap around them, just incredible stuff. Like they have to think about like what this means that this is the thing they did and this is a thing that they brought into the world and unearth. And the moment where we get to hear them

say to each other like, I don't know how to do this. I don't even know what we're doing. I don't have friends. I don't have anyone is like so amazing and hard. heartening because we're seeing rare vulnerability, like in a sharing of something that this is, Loki is not a character who reveals these things or says them out loud to people he barely knows, but also because it's like the belief that something might be possible. There's the same stretch here where they talk about,

like maybe we could figure it out together. And so this all builds toward the final confrontation, not just with He Who Remains, but with each other. And Sylvie has been waiting the entire time for a betrayal. Ah, you want. the throne. And the only person more devastated by like the realization that she's been waiting for this than we are is Loki, who's like, that's what you think of me after all this time. What was the point? And that is just like so crushing. That's so cruelly, you don't see me.

Like you haven't been paying attention to me the way that I've been paying attention to you. Exactly. And like to get to see Loki express this empathy that is so. uncommon for him. Like, I've been where you are. I've felt what you feel. Like, he's trying to choose someone other than himself. And the person on the other side isn't ready for it. Oh. I'm not you. Pain. An important thing about Loki and Sylvie that we want to mention it. Like, they're, like Azirphel and Crowley, we're mid-Ark with Loki and Sylvie. So, like, there's a betrayal at the end of all of this. I would, you know, from Sylvie to Loki.

direction, but who knows what awaits us in season two. Shira, I just want to mention Adora and Katra, who are a perfect example of friends to enemies to lovers, where they were like, grew up together, were like sort of child soldiers together, and then Adora has this sort of like awakening about that, and Katra then is like her enemy for most of the show, and then they come back together. But like, it's a very, like, faith and Buffy, like, you know, punch you or kiss you sort of. dynamic. Very, very good. And then I want to shout out a book that we both read and loved. I read it while watching Loki, in fact, inspired by Loki, but it is a book we've mentioned

a number of times. This is how you lose the Time War by MLL. L. L. Mottar and Max Gladstone, red and blue are assassins who are sort of chasing each other through time and various wild locations. I just want to read this one passage. And then that venom and that hatred and that teasing and that like outwitting and stuff like that becomes affection. It's almost like, you know, in the Azirphel and Curley model, like, it's just been us for so long that like, you know, and that idea, that idea of like the person you're constantly fighting is a person you're constantly giving attention to. The person you're thinking about all the time. You're, yeah, you're preoccupied with them. Anyway, here's the quote. I want to be a body for you.

I want to chase you. I want to be eluded and teased and adored. I want to be defeated and victorious. I want you to cut me, sharpen me. I want to drink tea beside you in 10 years or a thousand. Flowers grow far away on a planet they'll call cephalis and these flowers bloom once a century when the living star and its black hole binary enter conjunction. I want to fix you a bouquet of them, gathered across 800,000 years so you can draw our whole engagement in a single breath all the ages we've shaped together. Chills. This beautiful, beautiful story contains what I genuinely think is the most romantic thing I've ever read. I want to meet you in every place I have loved.

Like, just that's everything, right? Like, what is it to love somebody? It's like you want to share your life with them. I don't know how it's done between such as us, red, but I can't wait to find out together love blue. Like, it's incredible. Read it if you haven't. It's sensational. Battlestar Galactica.

Yes. Yes. Rosalind Adama. you count it. I do. Yeah, I do. I would not say that they were enemies feel strong, but I do think like two people in a position of power, leadership control, in an extraordinary circumstance guided by duty and necessity and like this urgent imperative of the moment, the survival of humanity after the silent apocalypse, they were often at odds in the early going, like in a way that like they're again, enemies feels it's almost impossible now to quite think of it that way, but

like antagonists, who did not always agree. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're trying to be the one who made the call or rallied the fleet and then some division. In the moments where they were not aligned, there is a division that then springs up in the wake of that in a way that always felt consequential. And it's like they've got to unite, right, for the sake of everyone. This is, I said earlier that Jamie and Bram would have been the like, if we could only choose one, the one I'd talk about.

As you know, though, Adam and Roslyn are like my all-time number one, like, favorite couple in favor. I've never, ever wanted to see two fictional characters say, I love you to each other and then have passionate sex more than I did.

Domma and Roslin, sincerely, the little gifts, like the budding, the slow building of this appreciation and respect and then affection, one of the earlier moments where Rosalind tells Adama that she only brought one book with her

and it says, like, I have a weakness for mysteries and he's got his whole collection. And then he starts to give her books, Joe. It's a gift. Never lend books. It made me think of like revisiting it. Made me think of paying attention to things

that's how we show love from Last of Us because he knows this is a thing that she cares about and that will make her happy. There are so many great little moments where the text around them is like incorporated into their relationship in real time. They're at a dance. He doesn't like, you don't like these things. Yeah, but like, let me like wiggle and take you out on the dance floor.

And what are they talking about in this like cute little romantic moment? Politics war, the many deaths that can claim you at any moment in time is just like not an easy path to being happy together. Of course, there's Roslyn's illness. There are the constant challenges and attacks and threats to life, mortal peril and many, respects. They call each other on their bullshit, which is something that I love so much about their relationship. One of my favorite exchanges is, Laura, I forgive you. And she says, thank you, Bill, but I didn't ask for your forgiveness. It's just like so incredible. The little kiss that they share when she promotes him to Admiral, and he's saying that he had just given up, like he had given up

hope. And she says, just goes to show you, Bill, never give up hope. These, like, drunk confessions. I love Adama getting high. The water's so clear. This is Roslyn. It's like looking through glass. I'm thinking of building a cabin. His little moments of like glimpsing a future that ultimately is elusive. Of course, one of the best moments in television is when he returns after separation and says mistya. And she says me too and they hug. And then she finally says like chokes it out. It is so beautiful. And he says about time. at the end when he is taking her around showing her new earth and says earth is a dream when we've been chasing for a long time we've earned it and then again we said spoilers but very very tragically rosalind dies and at the very end of the show right before the epilogue adama is sitting at the crest of the hill looking out and says i laid out the cabin today it's going have an easterly view, you should see the light we get here. When the sun comes from behind those mountains, it's almost heavenly. It reminds me of you. Like, she's not there, but he's still

built this for her. And it's just so beautiful and so sad. Love them. The last example we want to use is not romantic by nature, or it is if you care to view it that way. I'm not here to tell you one way or another. But we recently, on the prestige, TV feed talks about one of our shared loves, which is the TV series Justified. We talked about Bloody Harley Harley in the episode alongside our pal Chris Ryan. And I'm currently talking about City Prime Evil with our pal Rob Mahoney. And what is missing from City Prime Evil is this core magical thing that they didn't know was going to be such a strong point of the series Justified, which is the push and pull between Boyd, Crowder, and Rowling Givens who do, yes,

love each other in a way. You can define that, however. you like, but they are constantly on the other side of the law from each other, but they have the shared history, they have the shorthand of we dug coal together, that means something. Our shared history means something. There are ways in which, and they are constantly put in a position where they have to, you know, to their criminal factions or to their law enforcement courts, have to guess what the other one will do, and they are always perfect at it because no one understands the other person better than they do. And like various, with love and respect to Ava and Winona and all the other love

interests that come and go, like, it's Boyd and it's Raylan two sides of the same coin. And that is the juice of that show. And that is why it's so important. And it is in enemies to, but it is like, it's not even enemies too. It's just like enemies slash lovers the whole way through. Do you know what mean? It's a rejection of like time as linear. It's everything all it wants. Everything all it wants. All right. All right. Last one. at least we want to do a little section actually requested by our producer, Steve Allman, but I am happy to provide for Steve. This is Fanfic Fick Fodder, a fanfic corner is what we're doing here. And I thought we would kick off with a guy you might have heard of. His name is Michael Sheen.

And this is him talking about fan fiction, Steve. But they seem quite passionate, those fans. Oh, they're very passionate. Yeah. Absolutely. There's a lot of fan fiction going on out there, which is very passionate fan fiction. Now, for a long time, people, People were a bit weird about fan fiction and people sort of look down on fanfiction. This is when fans of a show start writing their own stories based on the characters and the... It goes gay so fast. It does go gay very quickly. It does.

But it's kind of amazing. I think it's a fantastic thing. The fact that people sort of were a bit weird about it, I think it's wrong. It's such a love of the show and it shows such commitment to it. I think it's wonderful. I mean, it does involve on Good Omen's me and David Tennant having sex, mainly. But that's what we're here for it. All right.

So enemies to lovers, which is quite a very popular trope on the fan, on the fanfiction websites. My favorite fan fiction website is A.O3, but there's a few different ones, WAPAD, fanfiction.net, etc., etc. I was looking at the AO3 stats of the last couple of years, and I thought it was really interesting to see, like, what pairings were the most popular when it came to fictions. And I knew this sort of, until, like, I knew this about good omens, but I have not read any good. Good Omen's fanfix, so I had not experienced it, but I knew that there was a lot of fanfiction. I knew you already mentioned the ship name is called the ineffable husbands. I knew this was a thing. I did not know that it was among some of the most popular in the top 10 in the two years after

season one comes out. Season one comes out in 2019, 2020, 2021. It's in the top 10. It's still up there in the top 20 now these many years later. I'm sure it's going to boost back up after season two. But this is just like a huge, and like we're talking thousands upon thousands of of fanfix that people have written about David Tennant and Michael Sheen about Crowley and Azirafel. And it is the reason, essentially, that there is a season two of Good Omens is the popularity of

these invented stories about Crowley and Azirville from the fandom. And I just thought that was really interesting. Last year, our flag means death, which had a very similar ending to Good Omen's Season 2, sort of supplanted its space, I think, a little bit in the fan fiction. University's room for both, I say. But I think it's really interesting the way in which fan fiction, the conversation around it, I know that a lot of people, like, via TikTok now or via Tumblr back in the day, conversation about a fandom can inspire.

Of course, it spreads and more people want to know. What are people talking about? I read this fic. I don't understand who these characters are. I want to read more about them. I want to know more about them. I think one of my favorite examples of this, because it's just like a fairly unexpected source,

is Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter on the TV show Hannibal, which Brian Fuller made that show. There is some very dark sexual chemistry between these characters, but it became this, like, huge Tumblr thing, and, like, the fans would show up with these, like, flower crowns to conventions, and then you would have, like, Hugh Dancy, like, wearing a flower crown. Very fascinating.

But, like, the power of that share. storytelling. It's why I think I really wanted to stress the like all things fandom. We often talk about very like straightforward in the limelight fandom stuff like Marvel or Thrones or Star Wars or stuff like that. But fan fiction, this is part of fandom. It's a huge part of fandom. I know you talked about this a lot when you guys covered Potter. Like it's a very important thing. I personally, when I do read fan fiction, I really only read one kind of fan fiction and it is Harry Potter fan fiction. And I only just I started reading it in the last couple of years. And it is of enemies to lovers, Draco Malfoy Hermione Granger.

I will not apologize for it. No. It is the pride and prejudice of my dreams, but make it potter. It is so good. Are you going to read some of the Good Omen's fan fiction? Because I'm eager to check some of it out. I also haven't read any of the Crowley-Zerofell fanfic. But now I really want to.

Yeah, I do. I definitely want to. And there's this subsection of fan fiction called a fiction. It Fick, where when people are pissed off about how something happened, they read it differently. And so I think there's going to be a lot of fix-it-fick around the end of season two, which you and I like the end of season two as a middle step towards a longer story. So I'm not necessarily in need of that, but I think that's going to be interesting. But yeah, I'm interested.

Of course I'm interested. I want to shout out our pal Jomi and his weakness for Zucco and. Katara from Avatar the Last Airbender, and I don't think he's read it, but I just want to let him know that there is a lot of fan fiction out there for you. If you prefer that Katara end up with Zuko rather than Ng, that is available to you. But I'm with Jomi on this one. Yeah, I agree. I totally agree. Ang is an infant. The perennial popular ships, like these ships come and go up and down the charts, but the perennial popular ones are almost. always, I mean, I don't understand the anime and manga ones, so I'm not going to speak for them. But these other ones I do understand are almost all enemy celevers. Draco, Malphoid, and Harry Potter. Yeah. Has been...

Eternal chart topper. It won't be toppled. Forever. Well and Hannibal, as I mentioned. Raylo, huge... Like, this is why Raylo became such a thing is because of fan fiction. Merlin, you could say that Arthur and Merlin from the BBC series, Merlin, that's a common one. And then, Bucky and Steve, which is sort of like a friends to enemies to...

to lovers, you were my mission, sort of journey. But I just say, I think the role that fan fiction plays in getting people invested in these pairings and pulling out, you know, something that was maybe background. And for so long, you know, that clip we played, that's Graham Norton and Michael Sheen talking about fan fiction. Graham Norton's like, it goes gay so quickly. I think a lot of preoccupation with fan fiction

has to do with the time when we had zero queer representation, like on screen. And so it had to, you know, in the form of Draco, Malfoy and Harry Potter, let's say, like, fans had to invent these stories in order to feel represented. And so, you know, there is a lot of queerness in the fan fiction space. And obviously, you know, Azir Phil and Crowley are, like, not explicitly lovers in the first season. And this was like the engine behind all this fan fiction. And then, you know, Gaiman's like, all right, let's make it, let's make it the subtext text in

season two. And so here we are. I love it. I love it. All right. Anything else we want to say about enemies lovers, fan fiction, good omens? Any else of this? Absolutely joy. Love it. Delightful. Do we learn something about ourselves? A few things, I think. Yeah. I'm going to talk to my therapist about it. Okay. That's it for us this week. What a joy. What a delight. What fun. As I mentioned, I'll be back next week to talk about season two of Strangist New Worlds with Ben Lindberg, Ben Lindberg. Ben and I are very, very excited to talk about this. So we'll be back next Friday to talk about that. And we will be together, Joe, on prestige, talking about only murders.

It's true. We've already recorded our season one and two recap of volume learners in the building that will come out this weekend. And then we'll be here for the beginning of season three next week over on the Prestige TV podcast feed. Thank you for reminding me of that. Mallory. I really appreciate it. Also, Midnight Boys, talking about the MCU. button mash, Mint Edition, so much cool stuff so subscribe, follow along check out everything

our beloved Jomea Dinner on will post on social thanks as always to Argena Rappal for his production work on this and thanks to Steve Alman for playing one billion clips

and a dear me and a bad baby and requesting Fan Fiction Corner you're the best Steve we love you. All right, bye. Feels like every product claims real protein these days

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