The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 13: Good Omens (TV) Pt.2 (Snippet Of Conversation)

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “Good Omens” - The TV series. We’re talking about episodes 4-6 of the recent BBC/Amazon Prime adaptation of Good Omens. Bunnies! Selfies! A Surprised Kraken! Faith! Dancing! Euphemisms! Limbs! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] send us your best surprised Kraken memes! Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Meet the cast of Good Omens on BBC Two  (Radio Times)Metatron (Wiki) Dogma (film) (Wiki)Paul Kaye (IMDb)Terry Pratchett: Back in Black  (IMDb)Dancing Demons (Instagram)400 Euphemisms For Sexual Intercourse (Thought Catalog)Surprised Kraken: 1, 2, 3Crazy Delicious (Jayde Adams’ cooking show) (C4)Jayde Adams: Serious Black Jumper (Prime Video)Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (Goodreads)Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

My entire aesthetic is swanning into a room covered in Pashmina smelling faintly of gin. I just want to be the mad gin soaked, aren't it? It's all I want Francine. I think you're well on your way, my love. I can't wait till I'm 40. We haven't got to 30 yet. I know, but I feel like 40 is really when I'm going to hit my stride aesthetically. I can see that, yeah. I think both of us are made really good 40 to 60 year olds.

Well, I'm still looking forward to our retirement plan of moving in together grace and Frankie style in a castle with snacks. So you know, readers, hurry up with those. Well, you've got till we're like 60. Yeah, but people procrastinate. You have to give them a short deadline or they won't do it, as you know very well, because I keep giving you the edited episodes about three minutes before you need to upload them. Which is really difficult for listening to an hour and a half long episode, especially because I have no concept of time management.

Oh, it's me too. This morning, I was looking at my schedule and thinking, right, I've got three hours of television to watch. Well, I can squeeze that into two hours. Right, exactly. It's like, I know, I know if I've got a three hour episode to edit down to two hours, I know that's going to take at least six hours. And yet somehow I'm like, yeah, no, it's fine. I can start at like noon on Sunday and get it to Joe by two.

Yep. So bad at this. We're both so bad at time management. That's cool. Shall we make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Speaking of that. Hello and welcome to the two shall make you fret ineffable edition.

This is usually a podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series in chronological order. However, however, we've taken a little break from the Discworld to visit Armageddon. And having totally this time of year and having talked about the book Good Omens and the first three episodes of the TV series Good Omens. We are now here to talk about episode four to six of Good Omens, the TV series. That sounds pretty effable to me, Joanna. I'm Joanna Hagen Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And yeah, we're here to talk about episode four to six of Good Omens.

We are. Note on spoilers. Lots of them. They are bound. We're not going to spoil anything from the Discworld, especially nothing from the Shepard's Crown. But major spoilers for the book and TV series of Good Omens. We're talking about the last three episodes of the TV series. Don't listen to this until you've watched it.

Yeah. Don't care about spoilers in which case, throw your boots. I'm not your boss. I'm not your mum. I am in. That would have been a hell of a weekend. I did read some beer that apparently spoilers on the whole don't make people enjoy things less. But I think that's very much a personal thing.

Personally, I don't care about spoilers very much. No, I don't really. But I have seen people like really get upset if they know that there's a twist coming even if they don't know what it is. There's been times where I've been spoiled and it's kind of bugged me like when the first of the new Star Wars films came out. Like it was inevitable I was going to get spoiled for this because I work in a cinema. So it was like a couple days after it came out and I overheard two people discussing like a major character dies. And so then I spent the whole film like I can't be excited that this character's here because I know they're dying at the end of the film. So sometimes it really bugs me.

But like Game of Thrones, I obsessively looked for any leaks and spoilers about the final season in the hope it would get better. I'm still bitter. So follow up from last week? Yeah. Kind of be honest mate. We just went away for five minutes. I haven't done a lot more since then. A little follow up from the episodes we did on the book.

You as one of your obscure reference finials talked about Charles Fort. There is a line in the script. I don't think I actually made it into the show. There's a man called Charles Fort who could make it rain fish. Yeah. When Adam's trying to like explain all the stuff he's learned from the magazines. Yeah. They made me quite happy.

Yes. Especially because they had to cut the actual rains of fish. Which I think is why that line was cut. Because of budget stuff. Fair enough. It turns out I was reading the stuff with Neil Gaiman in the script book about what was cut and why. And he did kind of say, yeah, it turns out it's really expensive to film on motorways. So a lot of stuff to do with it.

It's fever is, yeah. A lot of stuff to do with rains of fish on motorways got cut for some reason. I feel like they could have done The Guardian's question time. Yeah. But it's like playing through a car. It's kind of used as a really nice transition actually as it goes from someone's radio in the kitchen to I think Dick Tappen. That's true.

Obviously, yeah, they wouldn't just cut to black for a bit and do the whole thing as it was in the book. Like, yeah. There is a really, really good moment. And I've annoyed, I forgot to write down which episode it's in where, you know, the demons speak to Crowley through the radio, but it's whoever was already talking on the radio. Yeah.

And it's Nicholas Parsons doing just a minute and they got Nicholas Parsons to come and do this voice-over bit. Oh, that was him. Yeah, it was Nicholas Parsons. Oh, good. I think, I think that one was the last episode, wasn't it? Oh, not the last episode, the last five. Yeah.

Like right near the apocalypse. Yeah. It's when it's Nicholas Parsons is telling Crowley he's in trouble. Yeah. And that was really well done. So I liked that. Right. So we are kind of breaking this down into an episode.

So let's talk episode four, Saturday morning fun time. Is that what it was called? Yeah. Saturday morning fun time. Was that a kids TV? That was the, you know, the bit where Crowley's in the cinema. Yes. Oh, yeah.

That's it. Yeah. Saturday morning. Also, it hints that this episode takes place on the beginning of Saturday. Ah, yes. So we're now halfway through the book and. Yeah. We're past the halfway point.

We're getting up to it. So the way that it's almost the same structure as the book. Yeah. The first half is 6,000 years. The second half is Saturday and Sunday. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So this is kind of Saturday morning. Cool. So Francine, could you tell us what happened previously on? Yeah. Oh, fuck. I'm not sure I can read my handwriting. So I scribbled this between episodes.

Okay. Stop letting them behind the curtain. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a really, really flimsy curtain today. The world begins and two divine beings cast as two divine beings begin a friendship. Sometime later, the Antichrist is delivered to Earth to start apocalyptic proceedings. Unfortunately for demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale, the downed child is misplaced. But nobody realises for a bit.

When they do, our occult ethereal protagonists start their search. Marvelous. I had like 30 seconds. I'm sorry. I know a lot more happened than that. It's fine. I'm assuming people listening to this have no idea what's happening. So yeah, so in episode four of Good Omens, Atlantis rises from the depths as Adam's dreams begin to manifest.

That's the only clever bit of writing in this somewhere. I like that. I want to say. Adam starts telling them about all of his new beliefs from the magazines he's been reading. It's really quite exciting. Yeah. Aziraphale pops out for a jog with Gabriel to keep trying to warn him about this. Because he's a witch.

Yeah. What? Because he's a witch. Yeah, definitely a witch. Burn him. He turned me into a newt. I got better. No Monty Python reference.

Sorry, Francine. I can't help it. So Aziraphale's still trying to prevent the apocalypse. Gabriel is ignoring him and the angels start getting suspicious of Aziraphale's behaviour. Crowley starts looking for a way off the planet. I hear Alphacentra is lovely this time for you. Yes. No, I've had that.

Heads to Tapfield having received his armour of righteousness. Pollution receives their crown and death gets a message, RIP, International Expressman. Adam and the dem rescued Newt from a car crash and deliver him to Anathema, which he's thrilled about. Haster goes to meet L'Worlock at the fields of Megadoe and realises they've got the wrong guy. As Adam starts getting a little bit more evil, Crowley goes to see a movie. After getting yelled at by Haster, he goes to apologise to Aziraphale.

He gets the holy water bit, Haster and Lyga turn up to finally deal with Crowley. He kills Lyga with holy water and traps Haster Screams and gets trapped in an answer machine. Newton and Anathema do the horizontal fandango. I know, I really love horizontal fandango. I couldn't think of another funny euphemism. Really? Newton and Anathema play hide the sausage. Oh no, that's much worse, do the other one.

Newton and Anathema get to know each other a little better. If you know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more squire. Ah yes, sexy, sexy wrist gripping. That is my main note from that scene. Aziraphale gets let down by the metatron, loses his faith, gets discorporated and his bookshop catches fire. Not a good day. Yeah, no, that's a bad day.

Right. Favorite quote slash line reading from this whole episode has got to be when the other kids are doubting everything at the store. Things on the internet can be made up, but this is magazines, of course it's real. Because obviously this is taking place about 30 years after the book was written. Yeah, that's the fun bit. It doesn't have to do a lot to acknowledge the shifts in technology and society, but it does in a couple of really subtle ways.

One is this, of course the kids have the internet, which wasn't really a thing when the book was, well, no, it was a thing. It's not a thing the kids had easy access to. But it deals with it really quickly. He just says, well, yeah, we know stuff on the internet's made up, but they've still got this like faith in magazines. Yeah. And mentioning that Crowley's vintage answer phone.

I really like how they did the answer phone thing, because I was wondering if they didn't try and fuck it with some mobile phone. Like trapped in an iPhone. They used the iPhone in the scene as well, and he's kind of got both. But yeah, and it doesn't, because you see his answer phone used elsewhere in the series, and it's just like, it's just an answer phone. It doesn't bother trying to explain what it is. There's just one line about it.

I wonder if people younger than us who just haven't grown up with answer phones or didn't see them on their TV and that would be confused by the click answer phone thing, or whether that's just so everywhere on the telly. I think it's still enough in pop culture. I don't think it's fallen out of, like it's still in so many TV series and stuff. And it's not like young people aren't watching older stuff. No. And I suppose even modern answer phone works in much the same way, doesn't it?

You can still have the deleting the answer phone message, or it goes beep message. Yeah. And also, like, if you think when we grew up in the 90s and 2000s, we were watching a bunch of stuff from the 60s, 70s, 80s. Yeah. So. But then we didn't have the whole of Netflix to choose from, we watched. Netflix is full of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Yeah, I know, I know. But yeah. I'm pretty sure kids still know what answer phones are. I don't think they've fallen out of culture all that's gone enough yet. Generation Z, tell us what you think about answer phones. Yes. If anyone from Generation Z is listening, please email us and tell us your thoughts on answer phones.

It'd be nice to think that young people listen to us, Joanna. Wouldn't it be nice? No young person's ever listened to me. I work with Generation Z. They don't listen. They just vine. No, the vine's not a thing anymore, is it? TikTok me.

Yes. Vines are generations thing, Joanna. Oh, God. I don't know how old I am. I am both extremely on the internet and extremely bad at internet things. I like TikTok. I downloaded TikTok yesterday, which I feel like is just going to become a huge time suck for me.

Yeah, it is. Sorry. Anyway, yes. That was my favourite line reading. And the way the show just acknowledges the slight shift in eras from when it was written to when the show was made. Yeah. Because I can't think of another time it's going to be brought up, the answer phone

scene. Yeah. David Tennant casually jumps onto a desk. What? Is he a grasshopper? Do you know how hard? Like, have you ever? Yeah.

It's so hard. Vertical jumping is incredibly difficult. I don't know. I mean, he's got a lot of legs, so I guess there's just a lot of spring there. Yeah. Do you think he dances? I'm just kind of, like, what kind of athletics is he into? Like, he dances in this episode.

It's glorious. I will get to it. Yeah, not like that. I mean the kind of dancing where you know where your feet are. Oh, God, no. I've got no idea. I have no experience with that sort of dance. What do you mean, the gavotte?

Yes, just like the gavotte. Oh, mate. Just watching Michael Jean do the gavotte and looking so pleased with himself is one of the most wholesome things I've ever seen. Oh, I love it. It was so perfect. Actually, I mean, I was going to talk about it. Yeah, we'll get to that later when we talk about it.

So yeah, so big changes from the book. There's a little bit in the script that didn't make it to the show that's just an unspoken scene where sort of war gets off a bike and a bunch of people get into a punch up trying to return a glove to her. Oh, okay. It was really weird coming across that in the script because they don't do that with the other horsemen. I don't know if it was just written before they decided we're not going to do these little

interleads. Yeah. But also I kind of missed it because I really liked the woman playing war. I thought she was very good. Yeah. Carmen Zerbiger. No, that's the name of the character. Yeah, no, that's right.

Yeah. Other big changes from the book. We've got the whole scene where we actually see Haster in Megado with Warlock, who he thinks is the Antichrist, which it feels like it was partly just used to use Nick Hoffman again, which I totally get. Like if you have Nick Hoffman, put him in there. But there's also the chat with Haster's having with the young demons where they talk about selfies, like the fact that the younger demons, because the whole comedy of Haster and Liger

is that they don't get the real world. Yes. So then having these young demons who are really tech-savvy with tablets. And then Haster just getting angry about it. Yeah. And there's a line about Crowley inventing the selfie, which of course he did. Yeah. The avocado thing, I don't think landed very well in the TV series.

I don't think it, I didn't land well with like the young tech-savvy ones because it always feels like millennials and avocados. Like I don't think that's what it was meant to be. I mean, if it's just in the book, it's just a silly, well, there's a really big avocado kind of thing. But in the TV show, it didn't, it really needs to be that than that to be the joke. It was too played up. Yeah.

Although the guy playing Haster's line delivery, because that character isn't really meant to be funny and is bad at humor, somehow made it hilarious. Yeah. No. Because he was just very bad at telling a joke. I love him. Nick thingy. We just talked about it, but yeah, I can't remember his name now.

Also, the whole thing when Newton and Atom figure out that Adam is the Antichrist feels very early. Because they figure out in, well, no, they're just, they're trying to figure out, you know, they're there and the apocalypse is kind of starting and the hurricane is starting and they come to the conclusion that Adam's the Antichrist because, because Newt has been spent specifically to look for Adam. The flame thing. Yeah.

Which, it was sort of weirdly simplified. I didn't dislike it or like it. I just thought it was an interesting shift from the book. I guess they had to show the realisation somewhere and that was a non-crowded scene. Yeah. If we had the realisation when everything else was happening. It gives Newton and Atom a, like, just a bit more purpose as well because, you know, where I said in a few scenes, they kind of stagnate and feel unnecessary in the book here.

It keeps them a lot more central to the plot. Yeah, yeah. We can get the, the cruise captain at the beginning of the episode as Atlantis comes out from the depths. The guy playing him is David Morrissey and it's only a little part and he's, he's perfectly good in it. But I really like that the, sorry, my post-its are not actually. That is the, the sound of post-it notes still.

None of them are purple. We're not getting too feminist right now. In the script, Start One Captain Vincent played, if possible, by William Shatner. I like that. Clearly it was not possible. But I like that Neil Gaiman just threw some casting requests, bits into the script. We meet the International Express guy's wife, Maud, played by Indra Ove and I really like that they gave him just this little humanising backstory.

Yeah, that feels quite practical. It was very sweet and it was a nice scene between the two. The act of considering it's like a two minute less than scene, the actors had a lot of chemistry between them. Yeah, they, they got in some really talented actors for the youth bit parts. It worked so well. Obviously we meet Pollution, played by Lord Faber. I'm not entirely sure if I'm saying, I'm not sure if I'm saying it right.

That's how you say Lord. Yeah. Is she French? Filipino. Oh, then I don't know. Yeah. Which, but there's French influences on Filipino language. Yeah.

The only other people on the internet was my name of Filipino. So. Yeah. So I really like that they made the character of Pollution non-binary and is anyway, but like, and they could have cast a non-binary actor, which I think I said, I'm probably going to sound like an ignorant twat here. How many non-binary actors are there? I don't know how I'm like out.

Yeah. There's not many out non-binary actors. So I do get like not doing that, but it's still a bit. It's, it's not a bad thing. Yeah. It's just, it could always be better. It's not, it's not something I've seen a lot of people be publicly out about yet. Not as major actors, especially no.

And I still think the actor did an amazing job. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was still really well cast and I thought Pollution was really good. And the eyes, especially as the crown goes on. Glistening. It was, it was visually amazing. And I really like Lorde as an actor and want to look out for her and more stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't look out what else she's been in, but. But yeah. She's, she's a rising star. Is she? I think so. Yeah. I didn't recognize her at all, but that could have been just cause she was in a weird ass costume.

Well, that too. So obviously we've got death as well. Uh-huh. Uh, voiced by Brian Cox. Yes. Not that one. Not that one. I think I mentioned this.

Please now to avoid the rush. I think I mentioned this in, uh, when we were talking about the book, but I found it so weird because I've recently like watched succession a whole bunch and Brian Cox plays a very different character to death in that. Yeah. But he's very, very good in it. And I couldn't help but hear a bit of his succession character in death. And it was just a bit sort of, I keep expecting him to yell at his son and then everyone

play Boer on the floor. Oh my God. Succession. So good. Um, but also I thought the description in the, in the stage directions for what death looks like. Um, the international express man looks up. Death is there.

The trick in design is going to be not having death look either comical or like a puppet. A grinning skull with tiny blue dots like stars in the eyes. We don't talk in the book about how he's dressed this first time. And I think this is the one time he should be in classical Grim Reaper robes to make the bike a costume later stand out. But I can be talked out of this by a designer or costume person with a brilliant alternative. Wow. I really like that he's in his notes.

It sounds like, it sounds like the editorial notes you put on the first draft of an article before you send it to, for, for editing. Yeah. It does sound, he did, he does say like, this is not how scripts are normally put together. Oh, okay. Okay. This is just because he's got such a strong vision for it. But I found it really interesting that the death we get in this doesn't actually really

look anything like that. And it does not look anything like Terry Pratchett's death. Ah, see, I thought they'd very deliberately stayed away from that. Well, that's why like with the weird sinew over his eyes, I thought that was kind of we are not doing the Discworld death. Yeah. It was a lot, it was a bit more horror skull. Yeah.

And I thought it really worked. Yeah. I thought it was really good. I was expecting Discworld death. Yeah. And so it was a nice kind of full shock. I'm glad they made it. Especially because obviously they, Christopher Lee had passed away, but since this was made

in Christopher Lee is the Discworld death. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, his, the voice of Brian Cox is not tombstone slamming into. No. Light and conversational as far as death goes. Yes. But also intimidating rather than a cult.

Yes. Whereas death is just matter of the Discworld death is very matter of fact existence. Yeah. This is an angry vengeful death. Yeah. This is early Discworld death. Yeah. But yeah, I thought it was interesting considering that's the stage direction that he doesn't

look like he does. He isn't a grinning skull with blue stars in his eyes. So a choice got made somewhere and I'm really interested in that. Yeah. But we get the Mestron voiced by Derek Jacobi. That made me laugh. Oh, I love Derek Jacobi. But who was like, there's a whole, a whole bunch of Doctor Who references, especially

like, like, well, I say a whole bunch. There's a few Doctor Who references and crossovers and they're quite like Derek Jacobi's obviously played the master at some point. So just like that was not a little Doctor Who link there as well as David Tennant. Yeah. But also, so I was obviously the Mestron's the main character in Dogma, which is my favourite Jay and Silent Bob movie played by Alan Rickman. Yes.

And if me was thinking like, I wish Alan Rickman hadn't died and they could have got Alan Rickman to be the Mestron. But also I didn't realise and like this came up while I was thinking through stuff and things like that. Dogma thanks Good Omens in the credits. Really? For its own existence. Oh.

Like Jay and Silent Bob. For inspiration. Yeah. So Kevin Smith thanks Dogma. Oh, Scythe's Dogma. Oh my God. Sorry. I'm going to start that sentence again.

Kevin Smith cites Good Omens in the credits to Dogma. Cool. And that's just a nice little. That's a nice little thing. I didn't know that. That's one of my very favourite films. I haven't watched that in a long time. Oh, it's so good.

I'm kind of scared to rewatch it in case I don't love it. Yeah, right? I loved it as a teenager. I'm like, ooh. Yeah. There's a whole thing where there's people talking on the radio about this nuclear power station that's lost all of its stuff and Paul Kay voices the nuclear power station press guy.

So Paul Kay played Terry Pratchett in Back in Black, the documentary about him. Oh, fuck. I forgot to watch that. Well, it's still on iPlayer. Wait, how long ago did I say it was five days left on it? More than five days. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. I can probably buy it. Yeah, I think you can. Yeah. So obviously Terry Pratchett's job was nuclear power station press guy. And he was writing like the first few disc albums. That's so cool. I didn't notice that.

That's really good. I've heard Paul Kay doing the voice, the Terry Pratchett voice. Really cool little thing, which obviously isn't intentional, but when you have the two Tibetan people tunneling, the woman, the Tibetan woman is played by an actor called Lobsang Samaton. Oh, cool. And yeah, people who have read all the disc books will know why it's quite cool that there's a Lobsang.

The Tibetan thing, I thought it was nice that instead of just putting them in saffron robes, they actually put them in clothes that Tibetan people would wear. Yeah. Or like traditionally. Yeah. That scene could have been kind of weird and racist and it wasn't. And I thought that was very good. Yeah.

No, I was fucking selling train tickets and I'm dressed like this in a tunnel. Yeah. All right. Tea break over. Yeah. Keep digging. We know we've got to dig. And then last of all, Neil Gaiman has his cameo in this episode, which is, you know,

the scene where Crowley is in the cinema and there's like a drunk guy asleep in the front seats. That's Neil Gaiman. But also the animated bunnies. Yeah. He's doing all the noises. Oh, is he? Yeah.

It was grim. It was very grim. So I, again. It was the first like bit of. Yeah. And the whole thing. Like the first few episodes could be pretty. Like kid friendly, I guess.

It does get done. And then it suddenly from, yeah, from episode four, I would be putting an age limit on it. I thought it was really sweet actually. So again, background reading around it because the original thing, if Terry Pratchett had been alive, the idea would have been that him and Neil Gaiman had their cameo in the sushi restaurant and they'd just be, because then they could just eat as much sushi as they liked while he was being filmed. And Neil Gaiman didn't want to do that without Terry.

So there's Terry sort of has his cameo. Don't want to eat sushi without Terry. No, it makes me really sad. So there's the whole thing with the hat and the scarf in the bookshop and also Paul K doing a Terry Pratchett impression as little cameos. But then Neil had to be, have a cameo somewhere. And they were saying like, they were deciding how they were going to fill this cinema for me with Crowley, getting spoken to by the animated bunnies.

And they went, oh, it'd be really funny if it's just empty apart from a couple making out and a drunk guy in the seats and apparently the director just looked at Neil and went, oh, I found your cameo. Oh, I'm going to, oh. All right, fine. Amanda Palmer couldn't make it for the make out scene. I guess not. A bit of me was hoping she'd have a cameo somewhere, but no, that made me sad.

Well, she's busy. Very talented women, isn't she? She's busy anyway. So, giving back to your Aziraphale and Crowley check-in. Yeah. How are they doing? Crowley coming, screaming around the corner and is bently to apologize to Aziraphale. What's he apologizing for?

Well, for their big fight. I know, but he didn't really say anything mean. I know, but I think he's just so desperate to be friends with him again and he really wants Aziraphale to come away with him. Yeah. Like the whole point is escaping that he's doing anything he can. Yeah. And he calls him angel.

Yeah. Like, and it's very pet namey. Again, not really in the script. And I think that's sort of ad-libbed in. Yeah. And it's, you know, as the actors have worked together in the relationship progressives and you start in character throwing pet names at each other and stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. That's happened with stuff I've done. Cool. But I think it's because they're obviously at this point in the book, they've separated and they don't meet up again until the very, very end. Not physically. And this keeps bringing them back. And this kind of screaming fight on the corner and the way Crowley is getting, when Crowley

is looking for somewhere to go and he's at home and he's getting really frustrated with God and saying, why have you got to test that thing in the world? Oh, that whole thing was very, I thought it was interesting. Sorry, again, my notes are a mess. I thought it was really interesting because we were talking when we talked about the book about how Crowley is like the anti-rinse window where he's sure things are going to work out for him. And that is, that's never changes in the book.

But because this is a TV series, not a book, because it's the same way you needed that break up moment with the Zerophil and Crowley in the TV series to keep the pace where it was. You needed Crowley to grow and not just be that the whole time. He needs to face an internal challenge. This is his internal challenge, which is he is odds with the world. He wants to run away and he is begging God not to test the people to the end of the world. He isn't the Crowley, he isn't the anti-rinse wing Crowley yet because whereas in the book

you can just state it, here we have to watch him become it. I'm not sure if he doesn't go away from that. He definitely isn't book Crowley and that he's sure things will work out for him. But when we get to episode five we can talk about the shift he gets from running away to running towards. But to see him get that frustration and frustration with God and come to a Zerophil with it and beg a Zerophil to run away. And a Zerophil is still maintaining this blind faith that if he can just talk to the right

higher up, everything will be okay. And then says to Crowley, I forgive you and he's just so sure it's all going to work out. And Crowley says, well fine, I'm going and I'm not even going to think about you. I thought it was Zerophil with the right asshole and I was like, for what? It's to do with this faith thing and this episode does it so well. Are we on the Catholic Guild again? Yeah, probably. The I forgive you moment, I kind of saw as almost a, he's forgiving Crowley for not believing.

So it's a very good buy thing to say. Yeah, he's forgiving Crowley for not sharing his faith that if they can just get to the right higher authority, it will be all right. Whereas Crowley, he's begging the higher authority, he just can't be heard. And it's kind of, that's a bit of a lost cause because they've got to figure it out for themselves. God, this is such a good show. It is a really good show. Me making pointed sad faces probably isn't coming across very well on the microphone.

He's making very appointed sad faces. Also, like just that scene between a Zerophil and Crowley of them kind of yelling at each other outside the bookshop. And again, it's almost like a second breakup. Yeah, yeah. It's really, I was like the confirmed breakup. Yeah. It's like, are you sure you don't want to get back together?

Yeah. I can't. When a Zerophil, when not a Zerophil, when Crowley is looking at places to run away to you though, I was talking about Doctor Who references Gallifrey comes up as one of them. What is it? Yeah. Also, it's not in this episode, but when you get a close-up on Adam's father's car, the number plate is TARDIS backwards.

Somebody, Crowley's number plate is Curtin backwards. Does that mean anything? I have no idea. Yeah. I hadn't looked at that. I hadn't noticed that. I'm assuming it probably is something. Yeah.

Okay, but let's talk about the dancing. Okay, let's talk about the dancing. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? One. Sadly. And he doesn't even need a partner because it's a gumbot. The actual piece of music used is Gilbert and Sullivan's I Am a Cortier Graven Sirius, which is pointed out in the script book.

Is that very... Well, you know Gilbert and Sullivan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, is it more famous than I should? Should I know it already? No, I mean, I didn't. Okay. I'll accept you having the same level of knowledge as I do.

Okay. But yeah, I really loved angels dancing on the head of a pin. And then the demons do. Like, oh, fucking, just looking so happy. He just looked so pleased with himself. And especially because so much is happening in this episode that it takes time out to be that silly. Yeah.

And it needed it. It needed that moment of levity because obviously it gets a lot darker after that. Yeah. But to have that moment also, I'm going to link to this in the show notes. There is an extended video of David Tenen and the guys playing Hasterin Liger in green screen with a giant pin figuring out a bunch of different things to do with it. And it's so good. That sounds good.

That Neil Gaiman shared on Instagram and I scrolled back through a year of Tumblr posts to find. I've got to have a look at Neil Gaiman's Tumblr. Yeah. There is so much love. Maybe I should finally get into Tumblr 15 years too late. Oh, God, don't bother. Say that.

Well, no, I'm just really bad at Tumblr. Oh. So yeah, so I will link to that in the show notes. Go and watch it whenever you feel sad. Okay. And just David Tenen in the 70s mustache dancing with a giant pin. But also I like that, yeah, you have Michael Sheen doing his happy gavotte. Yeah.

And then the music is just a disco-ed-up version of the Gilbert and Sullivan for the angels of the demons. Oh, is it? Oh, yeah. Which I didn't realize right away. That's great. I love that. Speaking of Hasterin Liger, you were talking about how his screaming is really good.

The camera work and the way it's used in that shot where it looks like it's Liger screaming and then it turns out and it's Haster screaming. And it's Haster screaming because Liger's obviously every round that talked again. Yeah. God, that's such a clever way of filming it though. Do you know what? I don't think I've ever watched something where I made such liberal use of the skit back ten seconds thing.

Yeah. That was good. Clip. Easter eggs and little moments and clever bits. And yeah, I was talking about earlier like Douglas McKinnon, the way he does really good horror directing in a lot of this stuff. Everything about watching Adam get more and more evil is so perfectly horror film. The way the storm starts and he starts floating and the score is horror film scary, not funny

scary. Yeah. And the way you watch his friends get more and more terrified of him. Yeah. I didn't like it, but that's because it was done well and I don't like. Yeah, you really don't like horror. Yeah. I'm not.

It didn't scare me, but it makes me uncomfortable watching that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I don't watch a lot of horror, but I also really appreciate it technically as a genre. God, that's the wankiest sentence I've ever said. No, it isn't. It's not slightly the wankiest. Thanks, Francie.

I've got audio evidence now. God, you've got so much on me now. So yeah, so I thought that was really impressive. It was. Newton and Athema. Yeah. Yeah. They do the no pants dance.

Yeah. The no pants dance. Well, that's weird. Just yesterday, we watched an advert on Channel 4, I guess, that had the new Cadbury's advert. Yeah. And it said, everyone's got a glass and a half. Yeah. Like the voiceover kind of did a Shadwell accent maneuver.

Why? Glass and a half. Why? I don't know. I don't like that. It was weird. The actual thing I wrote down when I was taking notes is, oh yes, sexy, sexy, wrist gripping. Because there is, like, during the sex scene, you just see the hands come up and grab part

of the overturned bed. And the way they grab it, there is no way they are doing anything sexy under there. Someone isn't elbowing someone else in the eye. I quite liked it as a comedy sex scene that wasn't explicit. I thought that was quite... It was very PG and it wasn't... But there was not chemistry between them and Anathema seemed so resigned. And I said, I don't just like...

But that was always going to be the way, wasn't it? No. But at that point, yeah. However, I did, again, No Game is Tumblr, find the picture of the prophecy, the note card, with annotations from Anathema's family. So the actual... And again, I'll tweet a picture of this. Anathema of eye bloodline.

As the great storm rages, the line of my murderer will hold you tight beneath the bed. Once and once only he will take you. And ye in his turn will take his long preserved virginity from his ever untouched man store. Yet the fine thrust of his great cockalorum shall bring thee to an ecstasy thou has never yet felt. He is I mighty, although he looks like someone has dragged him backwards through a great hedge. So basically what we've learned from this is that Newt has a big dick. Cockalorum. But so the annotations, there's some little hearts drawn on it.

Utter pornography, what was Agnes thinking? That's the Victorian. Sex or position, male organ. Anathema, my descendant. I trust he will be a finer feature, a mighty of cockalorum. You go boy, may fortune be with you. And like that's on screen for like a second. But anyway, and that just makes me really happy.

Like it was worth Newton and Anathema's total lack of chemistry and still somehow doing what they did. Yeah, I know. Why am I so bad at innuendo today? I don't know. There are so many innuendos for sex. There are so, so many. Let's find a better one. Hold on.

Because I, well I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you something on the phone in a second anyway, so I'll just bring it out while we're... Man walks into a bar, asks for a double entendre. So the barman gives him one. In place of Google Hall music. Have my terrible ex works. 400 euphemisms for sexual intercourse. Oh, please start with good ones. A bit of crampit.

Ooh, actually yes. There is the benefit. That was the first one on the doubt. The benefits of being English is that if you say anything sufficiently poshly, it sounds like a euphemism for sex or being drunk. A bit of housey father. Yeah, so you know these. A bit of the old in-out, in-out. I'm gonna scroll down a bit here because some of these are gross.

Driving me to Daisy, I like. Doodle bopping. Storming the trenches. Probably. I haven't got to ask yet. Knocking boots. Levitating the vending machine. No, not you.

Sorry, I'm reading some of these. Riding the baloney pony. Oh. Fighting in the bandstand. Seeing a man about a dog in England, that means something else. Yeah, if I've got a guy to see a man about a dog, that sounds like you're gonna do something dodgy involving a white van. Right, okay. A little bit of housey father.

A little bit of housey father. Fighting in the bandstand also very good. Yeah, no, all the rest of these are gross. I've just descended into filth. Sorry, filth. What are we talking about? Sexy, sexy wrist gripping. Okay.

The last thing I want to talk about for this episode is something I've been touching on. But just this final scene with a zero foul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I was talking about his blind faith that he just needs to get to the highest authority. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the angels are suspicious of him. Everyone wants this apocalypse to happen and he's ignoring that. Yeah.

And he calls up the metatron and he's sure he can get it sorted. He's so full of faith. He is sure if he can just talk to God, it can stop the end of the world and it will be fine. And he's talked to the metatron and the metatron says the point is not to avoid the war, it's to win it. Yeah. And you can pinpoint the exact moment. It's at 51 minutes and 31 seconds. I know this is...

Michael Sheen does this thing with his face where you see a zero foul lose all of that faith that has kept him going. I'll only make a note of that timestamp and I'll have a look. Through his two breakups with his best friend that he has just had, through the last 6,000 years you see him lose that in a single second with one sentence from the metatron. And like as someone who's gone through a whole faith and then loss of it thing, it's stunningly good. Like nothing is as good as Michael Sheen's, not good, but incredibly, incredible to watch as Michael Sheen's face in that moment. Wow. And he's fine. And you know, when you think about the fact that Crowley fell because he was asking questions, not because he lost faith.

Yeah. It's quite, it's a bit, a dismal reference here, quite hard to lose faith when God is the one kicking you out. Yeah. And in this case, a zero foul, yeah, has finally asked enough questions that he has had his own fall. Yeah. And that's, you can see him, you can see his heart break. It's such good acting though. And then before he can really process that or deal with it, Shadowwell turns up, he ends up falling into the circle and he discorbrates.

Yeah. And ah, the way he says fuck. Fuck. Yeah. I know we try and not swear too much. No. Did we? We've done alright this episode actually.

Yeah. The way he just goes, oh fuck. And I think it's also, because I don't hear a good bit of swearing in telly very much. No. But like, actually there was a good article I was reading, we were talking about Bojack Horseman earlier. There's like one fuck per season. Oh right. And it's, I didn't notice it until I read that, but it is always very carefully placed.

There's a moment in season four, you know, like Todd finally rejects Bojack and he says, it's you man. Fuck. It's you. Yeah. And then walks out and it's, yeah. So I love a judiciously placed fuck. Maybe we should start being more judicious without fucks. Yeah, fuck that.

Well now we can't use it again. No, I'm sorry Francine. But yeah, to, again, it also, it's quite funny that he swears there and you hear the angel swear. Yeah. And it needed again that little bit of levity. Yeah. Having just watched, like in my opinion, one of the most tragic scenes of the whole series. And then isn't it pretty soon after the curly arrives or is this the next episode?

Next. So that's the, that is the end of episode four. Okay. So in case I have a thing to, I have a proposition, a proposal, if you will, for the Kraken to be the next surprised Pikachu. Are you saying when I did like, I watched 12 hours of television to write these episode plans. You just found Kraken memes.

Did you make these? Yeah. Oh, sorry, this is like crap visual, this is visual content for our podcast. We'll tweet these. Well, I saw him, I saw the Kraken come up in the credits and I was like, he just looks like startled and horrified. He doesn't look like the terrifying monster bent on vengeance. This is at the beginning of episode five, isn't it?

All right, it would. Oh, then we can see him. We will tweet all of these. So yeah, my, my proposal is the Kraken becomes the new surprise Pikachu. Thank you for listening to my Ted talk. Thank you. Right. So episode five, the doomsday option.

Yes. Yes. As you've mentioned with your Ted talk, the Kraken, we see, we see a lot of manifesting in this episode. Yeah. Adam is manifesting. He has not done manifesting. Well, I mean, we are, we asked him to describe podcast front scene.

I don't know if you noticed. Stensibly. It's been a while. Well, it has been, hasn't it? Anyway, sorry. So episode five, the doomsday option. Even this episode, Crowley comes to find a zero fell having at the end of the last episode received a phone call from him only to find the bookshop burning.

He thinks the zero fell is dead. He is. Well, he's discorporated. Yeah. That's what he thinks. He finds the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter. Adam has gone full anti Christ, complete with glowing red eyes, Kraken's rising from the deep and killing a whaling ship.

Two birds with one stone a bit there. Yeah. A miserable Crowley drives off to get drunk. As the inconveniently discorporated a zero fell arrives in heaven. Yeah. They try and rope him into leading a platoon. But he realizes he can actually pop back to earth if he can possess someone. Yeah.

Shadwell in shock at the power of his exercising finger. He takes a nap at Madame Tracy's. Post-coital Newton and Nathema decide what they need to do next. Okay. Jack Whitehall is actually quite handsome in the post-coital scene. All right. Yeah, fine. He's all right when he's a bit wroth.

Because I'm not sure why. I think he's not gunning. Yeah. In most of his shows, he's always pulling a face. And even in this one, he's always looking confused, which is fair enough what's happening. Yeah, like I think just with a neutral face on, he's quite good looking. With a little hint of innocence to it. Like there's one moment in Fresh Meat where I briefly find his character attractive because

of a little sad moment he has with... Oh yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Sorry. Yeah, so post-coital Newton and Nathema have their chat about what to do next and how to track down the Antichrist and prevent the apocalypse. Azirafel pops in on drunk Crowley and tells him to head for Tadfield while he goes off

to Hunter Body. Yeah. The Four Horse People get together at a motor-side cafe. Azirafel interrupts one of Madame Tracy's seances to ask her if he can borrow her body and get himself to Tadfield. Yeah. The 125 is rather fucked. Haster reforms out of the answerphone as a big pile of maggots, turns up in Crowley's

burning car but can't quite cope with it and runs away. And everyone is off to Tadfield Air Base with RP Tyler. What a fun day. RP Tyler giving some lovely directions to the Four Horse People of the Apocalypse. The car is on fire. So good. So yeah, so characters and casting and cameos in this bit. There's some really good cameos in this episode.

Characters, casting, cameos. Oh my. That's so good. The quartermaster who is trying to have a go at Azirafel and saying like, what are you doing? You were supposed to have a body. You're supposed to be leading a platoon. Is Jonathan Triss who is Anderson in Sherlock.

And I always get a bit excited when I see him pop up. Did you watch Sherlock? I did, yeah. You know, the guy who is like obsessed with the fact that Sherlock must be evil. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then becomes like full. He does play very unlikeable characters. He plays unlikeable characters but he does it very well.

Yeah. I'm always excited when I see him turn up in something because he's, and the way they Oh that fine, fine, fatal hair. Oh yeah, the way they style him. The way they, the way they make all of the angels look a bit human. Fucking weird. Yeah. Human but not quite.

I could imagine this is what someone writing something set in the future in the nineties would. Yeah. This is human inspired fashion. Yes. In the seance bit, Jade Adams has a cameo as Julia Petley. I love Jade Adams if you haven't seen her stuff. She's hosting a really weird cooking show where she's dressed as Glinda the Goodwitch

and there's like a magical forest made of food at the moment that I can't remember the name of but I'll link to it in the show notes. She's also amazing. Yeah. She co-hosts. Julia Petley with the Bob. She co-hosts a live show called A Musical where comedians come and perform songs from their favorite musicals.

Deborah Francis White's been on it. She did Mine Air as Theresa May. There's also like an A Musical podcast where people just come on and talk about their favorite musicals. I'm particularly excited about A Musical because they're doing a live version of the Buffy musical with like Nish Kumar and Rose Masefeau and I've got tickets for it. On Monday on this podcast we all go 20 minutes without you mentioning Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But it's relevant.

I'm literally barely. She's also a really good stand-up comic as well. She's a really talented singer but she's also a very good stand-up comic. She's got a special on Amazon Prime at the moment called Serious Blackjumper. It's very funny. Okay. Sorry I just hit the table. So yeah I like her as a cameo because she's not massively well known but it's still very

cool to see her in it. Jade Adams. I'll link to her stuff in the show notes but I recommend like following her on Instagram and things because she's just very entertaining. Okay cool will do. Where's her TV show that has the cooking? I think it's busy. I'm not sure.

Do you know what? I'm just going to get the fucking TV license again though I've employed. Okay get a TV license Francine. Johnny Vegas has a little cameo as well doing The Voice of Ron Olmerod. Which show? That was Johnny Vegas. I thought you sounded familiar. I've never been particularly fussed or not about Johnny Vegas but it was really, it was

a very good choice for that. The stuff he used to do 10, 15 years ago I just found it irritating just because it's not my style of comedy. Yeah. But when I've seen him since it's always been on things like panel shows and that and I like him. Yeah I like him. I like how he's still playing a character a bit because all comedians do well on these

things but I like the tone down version of it. I find that very funny. Yeah. So yeah he was very good in this. It was perfect casting. Although the weird, the shouty bit I thought was a bit much like the shot up. Yeah. I think it might have been a bit more effective if it was just the shut up and that was it.

Yeah. But then they had to make it obviously magical seance. Yes they had to kind of do something with that. Yeah. I did like the updated modernised version of Beryl Olmerod's run on sentence being about a wedding in which she would serve Korean food and I held up the kimchi and I said what am I supposed to do with this? And she didn't even have the sense to be ashamed.

I also made me really want kimchi. I've still never eaten kimchi. What? I suppose I put you off from that time I had it on crumpets with cheese didn't I? While I was hungover. Yes, yes you did. I mean I was hungover as well. I wasn't after that.

Kimchi and mozzarella crumpets. Good hangover cure. Oh is this what Jeeves is always serving more stuff? Yes that's the one. Bit of crumpet. Bit of crumpet. I know I already talked about RP Tyler slash Bill Patterson but him directing the Four Horse People and then Crowley and the rather than him composing a letter in his head that

just giving Bill Patterson the excuse to scream your car is on fire. I just, as he left. As he left. It was perfect. Yeah that was very good. The other amazing bit of acting in this episode is obviously Miranda Richardson being brilliant. One of my few notes for this episode is Miranda Richardson has such a good face. She has such a good face.

It's incredibly expressive in a very... Well she's playing two characters and even without the voice stuff she is physically very distinctly two different characters. And again she's not girning. No, no girning. It's subtle but it's really well done and that's what I'm saying. I'm saying the same thing for every actor in this but they're just really subtle well done facial performances.

Yeah. I think. Apart from David Tennant who's really well done over the top body humour. Yeah. But that's because if you have that amount of limb like that's what you have to do with it. And then there are points obviously where he is having to look just quietly distraught and he does that too but we know he can do that because we've watched up to here.

I mean don't start crying. Sorry I just remembered that. Yeah yeah don't. In the rain. No. Okay. David Tennant is having a rain. Oh yeah.

All the bit where his face is up against the wall and then Billy Piper's face is up against the wall and they're both crying. Oh my god. Geri stop. Oh no I really. We're going to cry later anyway just stop. Okay fine. So that's all I had about characters on cast out.

Like all the characters have kind of been introduced by now. Yeah. There were two really good line readings I'd noted down for this episode. I want to try and see you try and do this one. I know what I'm going to fuck the new mics. Somebody killed my best friend. Bastards. Ow.

You're going to blend back instead of forward. I know but I was doing sad crying on the floor. Well backwards though. Bastards. There we go. Bastards. We were just talking about the fact that there's some really subtle actions. Sorry puppy.

Just as we were talking about how there was some really good subtle actions. Yeah yeah yeah. David Tennant distraught on the floor of a crying bookshop. Screaming somebody. On the floor of a crying bookshop. Right sorry let me try that again. David Tennant distraught on the floor of a burning bookshop. Crying.

Somebody killed my best friend. Bastards. But it's the way he says best friend. Because he doesn't just mean best friend there. He means only friend. That is. Oh. I just want to give him a hug.

And it is. It's just this incredibly poignant. It's the utter moment of defeat for him almost. It is. It's just this. These are literally the only two of the kind. Yeah. It's like when you see two circus elephants who were kind of separated 30 years ago and

then they reunite and they're like, ah we were born to best friends in horrible circumstances except the elephants of David Tennant and Michael Sheen. Sorry that went on a tangent. I was watching a video about elephants last night. When are you not watching a video about elephants for us? Right now. Oh yeah good point. We're making a podcast.

Oh yeah right. There's one other bit I really like which is when Adam is going full anti-Christ and he's floating. He's gone full anti-Christ. Don't you hate it when you just like go full anti-Christ? And he's floating and like it's what I was saying about this whole really good horror film vibe to those Adam bits. And he's screaming at his friends and he's taken away their mouths.

And he doesn't want them to argue with him. I mean I'm all for children not having mouths. They're very loud a lot of the time. It's such good acting but it's the way they keep his boys own brigadiness about him. Yeah. And he's saying this and this and this and this. This is the best day of all. Yeah.

And this is the best day. Yeah. But it's the of all of it. Yeah. Yeah. That is very annoying. I know from a kid's book and not something a kid would actually say and he's so. But that's him isn't it?

Yeah. That's the point. Yeah. And he's so desperate to manifest this idea of the best day and when he's gone full evil it's just because he wants the best day with him and his friends and he's losing his shit. Yeah. That kid is so good in this especially in this episode.

Yeah. Yeah. Because this is that that whole moment when dog runs away and he says I gave me my dog back. I full on cried. Yeah. No. Because of all the horrible poignancy and sad scary moments in this film that little boy

crying give me my dog back in an anti Christ voice was going red eyes made me full on cry. There was there's a bit right at the beginning of the episode like pre credits before that where Adam is floating up and he's shouting at his friends and the camera does this amazing thing where it moves like something kind of crawling really quickly along the ground and pans up and like as far as like horror style filming goes it's almost like a point of view from some horrible creature. Yeah. And it's very very well done because then it becomes really still when it starts focusing

on Adam and sort of slowly pans around him screaming at his friends. Yeah. I thought that was a really clever bit of filming that I really liked. You don't think that was maybe the dog? It could have been the dog's kind of view. He ends up cowering next to the friends. I didn't think it I didn't think of it as the dog's friend of you. I can't remember.

I can't remember. So if it if it wasn't clear then it probably wasn't. It wasn't obviously. Yeah. The moment where he wants his dog back. Yeah. And he starts and then he starts floating after them and he's kind of the moment where he becomes human again.

And I think it was quite clever that because we talked about that when we were talking about the book like that amazing piece of writing of that's that scream of pure human anguish and they couldn't really do that with as much weight without narration in the book. And I think the fact in the show I think the fact that instead of narrating it you show everything that built up to making Adam who he was at that point. So you see him from baby and you get this kind of cards. Was that the cards at the same time? Yeah.

And there's that little montage thing. I think that's such a good way of representing that really real humanity to him. Yeah. And there was very now I don't know very much about schools and music and I don't know the right language for this but there was very muddled conflicting music building up through that whole montage. Well there was a... What's the word for that?

Like a discordant. Discordant. Thank you. Yeah. There was a good interview with David Arnold who did the whole score who I've mentioned a couple of times like God ridiculously talented. Clearly. Every time trying to keep the heaven and hell and everything he used so if he used to be

heavenly sounding instrument he'd try and have something hellish in the background. And he uses heavenly choir sounds. There are discordant strings in the background and that's so strong in that bit with Adam where he floats after them and he wants his dog back and he turns human and oh my god it's so good. And like I said that kid is such a good actor because there's so much in that. Yeah. What was he?

The actor. And they like 13, 14? Yeah. He's a kid, isn't he? Yeah. He's definitely still a kid. Yeah. I just thought it was so beautifully done.

Yeah. No it was terrifying and again it was one of those things I found genuinely uncomfortable to watch and would probably skip over that bit if I watched it again because although it's very well done that's the kind of thing that makes me not watch that kind of movie even though I fully appreciate as you do like some of the technical brilliance of horror films. I mean for a while I edited, I did some micro-website editing horror movie reviews and like I found that all really interesting and I liked reading the interviews with the directors

and stuff but I find it very uncomfortable to watch. I find it like objective, I don't watch a lot of horror films because I react to them too necessarily. Yeah. Yeah that's it. It is a physical discomfort and I don't like that. But I do at the same time kind of enjoy watching them just because I'm fascinated by the technicality of it.

In a way that I think is more interesting than would say a romantic film or a comedy. Actually I'm really fascinated by the writing but horror so much of what gives you that visual reaction is how it's filmed and how it's put together and how it's edited that I find it quite fascinating from a technical standpoint even as I'm not that into watching horror films. Yeah. That's why I like it when it crops up in something like this where it brings horror elements into something non-horror.

To tie it in with the score again I remember, it must have been a kid still for the first time realising how big a role music plays in all these things. I remember what it was now, I was for some stupid teenage reason at home alone as a teenager watching like the top 10 horror moments from films or whatever at night and I was terrifying myself obviously but I really wanted to see what the last one was and I muted it and I played some random music on and I was like oh now it's fine, now I'm not scared at all. It's amazing what it does. Like the score writers for movies are possibly one of those roles where it's like a lot

of the time you just don't notice it if it's done well unless it's done so, unless it's so core to it as it was in this programme like when it twanged over to a tad field and suddenly it was beautiful tad field theme music. It was so cleverly done in this, I know I mentioned Game of Thrones a couple of times but one of the things that I think it doesn't get enough credit for is how good the score is there because Miguel Sapochnik the composer for it is so talented and created some really beautiful pieces but that one it uses all these different thematic phrases and kind of brings them together and it uses elements of like this phrase is so associated with

this character that when it slowly gets built in like they do it very well with the red wedding is one of the big ones. It's like Pavlovian isn't it? Yeah. We have trained the audience to react this way to this music and therefore they will feel this when we do this. Anyway, speaking of music, favourite ease of a Queen song in this episode has got to be somebody to love as Crowley comes bursting out of the bookshop.

That was a little heavy-handed. No, it was perfect. I mean, yeah, no, it was stupidly heavy-handed but we're in the second episode, the heavy-handedness between Zero Fun and Crowley Fun and like it's episode five, someone just killed his best friend, he's burned. Yeah, find me somebody to love because literally there's nobody left on this fucking planet. Okay, let's talk about something happier or at least funnier which is I've been paying attention in the script to obviously scenes that got written but didn't make it into the

show. Oh yeah, what did you... I was so gussed that this wasn't in the show because it was even cast but it was a budget. It was what I was talking about earlier about the fact that the other four horsemen get cut and the scenes in the script work at the end. Was it cast? It was even cast and I really want to know who was cast because I don't know but I know they had cast people and I bet they would have been good and I bet they were gussed.

Yeah. But it was budget stuff, like filming on motorways and they had to cut all the range of fish stuff and but I mean the... if I find it in the script book. Brackets, range of fish also cut. How dare they cut the range of fish? Because obviously the horsemen were meant to drive into the range of fish. The names that they give themselves are obviously slightly updated so Pig Bog wants to be people taking selfies.

Yeah. And then Pig Bog says, I want to be really cool people. I hate them. I'm so post hipster I don't even use apps anymore and I drink beer with no alcohol in it. How? And it's just a little thing and then obviously they drive into the things of fish and they all die and it ends on scars, I know who I am, I'm people covered in fish.

And I'm gutted that that's not there, I get why but I wish I could have seen it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although I quite like how they have the horse people meeting up instead and there's a nice chat between them and the shot of death turning around from the quiz machine. In his leathers and the proper guitar, rock and roll, whacking. Yeah. Do you know what I liked? I liked that.

I liked that shot but I can understand why they didn't put it in because it's a little bit of a niche thing but the fact he was just doing his super duper answering all the questions at 300 miles an hour instead of being on the quiz machine with people yelling over his shoulder as it would be in it. Yeah, I did kind of miss that being. But they haven't made him as conversational as he was in the book and they haven't got the other four horsemen so it would be weird just to put a couple of characters in. Just for shouting over his shoulder.

Yeah, I get why it's cut but I do miss it. There's some other interesting changes from the book for this bit. So you've got a Xerophile realising that he can probably possess people because demons can do it. Yes. And I think that's just a nice, interesting... Demons can. I think it's just interesting that it's the overlap in the angelic and angelic demonic

abilities. We're from the same stock. We are. We're basically the same thing. Demon is fallen angel. Yeah. Therefore I can possess people. Yeah, we already talked about this but the fact that Adam Schiff to human comes as he's

sadly floating after his friends and the image of him almost is like a sad balloon trailing after them. I just, I know it's not in the book but it's such a good visual. The fact that rather than it being at the beginning of the book and part of the narration explaining here that the M25 is on fire because it's, and doing the flashback of Crowley explaining in a PowerPoint presentation, we get to revisit Crowley's facial pair from the 70s, which I love. The reaction of Haster saying, what's a computer?

Yes. Just the way he's like unappreciated in his own time. Yeah. Again, the whole thing with Thomas A. Dysonberger got cut, which I get why, but again, I'm going to miss it. It was such a sweet point. Yeah, it was sweet. So Aziraphale and Crowley check in, obviously we've talked about him losing his best friend

but they reunite in the pub with Aziraphale's sort of ghostly appearance. Yeah, that was sweet. And again, the stuff the score does, the sort of really simple piano playing and they're so happy to see each other. And then I think almost as good as the loss of faith moment Michael Sheen does with his face is when Crowley tells him the bookshop's burned down. And he gets almost exactly this is almost that same sense of loss. It's almost as big a loss as his faith to him.

And Crowley genuinely seem seeming pained to have to tell him. Yeah, he really cared. It's gone. It's gone. It's burned down. And then the little moment of delight where it's like, no, I've got that one. Yeah. I've got this one.

I got the right one. And so they agree to meet up at the air base and then obviously Crowley turns up at the air base, swaggering out of his burning car. And there's Madame Tracy and Aziraphale also in that same body. And the way he sort of doesn't really look and flirts a little bit and says, oh, I like the dress. And you can tell he's like really trying to not show how relieved he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's again, it's a really good bit of acting. Yeah. The fact that, yeah, obviously he's trying not to be bothered, but at the same time the fact that they're really not too fast if they're in another body or whatever, like they're just they're just corporeal. They're very corporeal beings. Yes. Yeah.

Something like that. Um, the scene where Crowley is drunk and he he's talking about fact, he didn't mean to fall. He just sort of melt with some vehicle and then it just sort of happened. Yeah. Um, I really like that it sort of says that the reason Crowley can get to Tadfield on the flaming chorus because he has an imagination and other demons don't. Yeah.

Um, but yeah, the way he sort of does rediscover his faith in himself and he goes from trying to get away from danger to going into the danger. That was what I was saying when we talked about this is where this is what this needed, but the book didn't. Yeah. Is you had to see him lose faith in himself and come back into it and choose to go into danger. Yeah.

And seeing the moment he makes that choice while he's in the flaming car. Is in the car as it catches fire and he drives through the M25 while it has to freak. So when he gets like the mad face, the grimace, his mad, mad grimace as he keeps going. And again, he's just got the best face for it. It doesn't come off as gurney. It comes off as, what's the word, grim determination. So I thought that was really good. That was really good.

You're right. Correctly. The conversation new and anathema have post-guitaree, speaking of faith and losing faith in things, new questions, anathema's relationship to Agnes and he says, you can't let a 400 year old witch tell you what to do. And he kind of points out the agency that anathema's losing by doing whatever anathema says. And it actually makes me more sympathetic to Newt here.

Yeah. And elsewhere in the episode, anathema says, she's never failed me. Sometimes I fail her. And to me, that line kind of stood out as weirdly reminiscent of like an abusive relationship. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. She's like, she's been telling you what to do the whole time. Like you've been acting without agency and yet you failed her by what?

By how? By losing the book. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. The show actually puts the, that relationship under a bit more of a microscope and it makes the choice at the end better with the sequel when we get onto episode six. And it does make me sympathise with Newt more because he's genuinely looking for this woman

to have more of her own agency. I think Terry Pratchett would have really approved of these slight changes because later on in the desk world, later on in Good Home and that is with the witches and that, there's a lot about how controlling a narrative kind of makes the other evil. Yeah. Eventually. And trying to have the control leads to corruption. Yeah.

And I think that's hinting at here. I think it definitely is. And Agnes, while she was a very cool character, was like not really thinking possibly about the complete lack of agency this would give her clearly beloved descendants. Yeah. It starts to address Anathema's lack of agency and it makes me sympathise with Newt more, but it is also, where in the book Newt's job is to play the straight man to Anathema's occultism here.

He's playing stating reality as it is, including Agnes's prophecy. While Anathema is caught up in the story of it, if that makes sense. Yeah. The connections to the whole situation are a lot more mature and a lot less. Oh, I don't want an old woman looking over my shoulder while I have sex and a lot more. Are you okay? Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's quite an interesting, like it's a subtle shift, but I think it's an interesting point. Yeah. Good point. I like that. Speaking of Anathema actually, I noticed this in her episode and then again with famine coming to the airport. So when Anathema turns up, she's a woman of colour, she's South American.

Yeah. And she turns up at the airport and they're like, what are you here for? And she says something really fucking weird. Yeah. And then she's like, oh, just visiting. Well, that turns fun. Yeah. And famine turns up and they're like, what are you here for?

And he's like, the end of the world. And they're like, oh yeah, fine, go through. This is twice people of colour turn up at the airport and say really weird shit and I just waved through and that would not happen in the real world. Like if a person of colour turns up at the airport and says weird shit, they're in a weird little room for a while. I almost felt like that was deliberate. I wasn't sure if it was deliberate or not.

Because it's so obvious and there is no way in hell that Neil Gaiman is not aware of that. I don't know. I thought it was just trying to put another comedy moment in. It's funny that someone's saying that and it's not being reacted to. But I think if there were more people of colour on a writing team, they would have said, no, because they wouldn't have done that because this is what would have happened. There is also the fact that although they are people of colour, they are American people of colour, which in England, there is a distinction.

There is a distinction. But the racism is generally a lot stronger towards people of colour. I still think there's an absence. I mean, we're both whites and we can't really speculate that much on. I think we can speculate wildly. We just don't know. I was reading a Twitter thread yesterday and it was a black woman talking about how you can tell if people of colour are written entirely by white people.

And one of the things is thinking we won't code switch, thinking we're not on guard in a certain way. I'm really watching what we say in places like this. And obviously, famine is actually a horseman of the apocalypse. Yeah, it makes more sense for him. But with anathema as well. I just thought it was, it was, I don't think it's necessarily bad, but I think it was something worth noticing.

Yeah, no, I did notice it. I noticed it and thought, I think they've deliberately done that. However, I can see why you think the opposite. Yeah, I didn't think it's deliberate. I didn't think it did enough to acknowledge it and to still be deliberate. I think it was just written as it would be funny to have someone show up at the airport and say that. And I don't think it had that extra depth of thought to it.

But either way, we're wildly speculating. As is our entire premise. Yep. So I thought that was interesting. What else have we got? Oh, yeah. So the spirit guide, I want to point out that I'm clearly either this had stayed in the back of my mind or just, I think, in the same direction as Neil Gaiman that I said last

week, my spirit guide would have been a nine year old Victorian orphan, but I am glad they changed that. And they also, obviously, they take out a lot of shadow while being a bit racist and they took out the stuff about Zerophile traveling, which I think may have had something to do with, is there a way we can show these different cultures sensitively or it might have just been cut for time constraints. I don't know. Yeah, because I think definitely getting rid of the Haitian bit was probably a good shout

for this bit. But I think the American bit could have been funny, but that would have been a budget and a time thing. Yeah, the televangelist bit would have been really funny. But again, yeah, televangelists are still fair game. Yeah, I'm trying to try and make it very much different, but an aboriginal culture and walk about some things, maybe not so much, but I thought it was interesting, like changing the spirit guide and cutting shadow while being a bit racist and I found this quote

from Neil Gaiman and it was someone asking him on time that like, was it your choice to cut this? And he said, this is me and they cut this and I thought it was really good. And he said, they is me. And yes, I did, along with a homophobic comment from a small kid at a party, which was originally intended as something that would show how awful the kid was, but which I simply wouldn't do now. And the wasabi car voice messages, which I didn't feel like a pull off in any way that

wasn't offensive. But given that the budget didn't stretch to creating a completely original dreadful car, we just gave new to reliant Robin as Dick Turpin. Shadwell was still pretty awful in the script, but somehow on the screen, Michael McKean manages to imbue him with so much joy in what he does that you cannot help falling just a little bit in love with him. And I like that it was acknowledged that while it was never a negative intention in the book, it didn't need to be in the show and it works kind of better without it.

Yeah, the broken East Asian English thing is very difficult to do on screen without being weird. Yeah. I think it's still going to be quite funny in writing because literally translations are funny. Translations. But doing it with the accent is weird. Yeah.

Yeah. However, I do feel like we're missing out on the haiku because of that, but definitely understand that choice. I understand the choice. I kind of miss the haiku. Yeah. But I think... However, it's nice to see a reliant Robin on the telly because it's been a little while.

Yep. We're still... Whenever I see a reliant Robbins, I know most people think of only Fools and Horses, but for me, it will be the car that the father has in the Georgia Nicholson books. Oh, yes. Because that was when I first became aware of what one of those was. Book recommendation for you dear listeners, Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging. As far as I hear, don't bother with the movie and I think in America, the book's called

something else. Possibly. The second book is called It's Okay, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers, which I still say whenever I still... Yeah. Which is great because no one else who knows me understands what I'm talking about, apart from you. Do you know what?

The Georgia Nicholson books are like a precursor to the trendy way of naming podcasts, which we do, which is just taking a weird out of context bit of conversation and making it a title. Angus, Thongs, Full Frontal Snogging. It's okay. I'm wearing really big knickers. Something about bazookas. And then here at My Boy and Trance is...

Yes. Love is a many... Is a many trouser to think. Yeah. I love these books so much. Oh, fuck. There's sometimes, I wish, I wish, I wish I was a teenager again, very rarely, just so I could reread those with the kind of girlish hysteria.

That is such a sexist thing to say, but the kind of teenage hysteria. The screaming giggles and you'd all lend them to each other and those books were probably the formative part of my comedy. Yeah. They're the first thing that was funny for me before it was funny for anyone else. Read any interviews with Louise Reddison. I have... Because she's passed away now.

Yeah. Quite recently, which is very, very sad. She's been quite young, but I remember, yeah, the formative thing was comedy. I remember reading an interview with her and her just saying, I just thought back and remembered what I would have found funny when I was 14 and went from there. I was like, oh yeah, you kind of don't need to be so weird about it. But it was the first time, I think, I really read teenagers written like me who were like the TV teenagers.

Obviously, I watched a lot of American TV. Yeah. American young adult novels. Yeah. Yeah. And all the... Or it was Jacqueline Wilson and everyone... Had a tragic backstory.

Had a tragic backstory and there was a learning moment and these were just girls being silly around each other. Yeah. Like, do you remember how stupid you'd always be around each other as teenagers? Yes, very much. And you would... You'd shove a pencil case under your bra. Yeah.

And... Every now and then, I still think of these books when I do something really stupid. They are perfect, perfect, perfect books for 14-year-olds and I have reread them more recently than that. Yeah, I need to buy myself a set. I've got like half of them on Kindle and a couple of physical copies. Yeah, I think I want the physical copies. I think I want the collection.

I think I will probably buy them as a box set at some point. Anyway, sorry. Sorry. It's huge digression there. Worth it. So worth it. God, I completely forgot what I was talking about. The other things I had to say about this episode are all really little bits.

I liked the maggot bit. It's not quite as horrifying as the book. I did like it, but I just thought, like, I understand why they didn't do the horrifying book bit because that would probably be weird. It's still fairly horrifying. I mean, maggots still eat everyone in the office. Yeah, but like, I was watching it going, yeah, but that's not like a maggot thing made up of other maggot things.

No, I mean, it's still a swarm of maggots. It's fairly horrific. I was just listening to know such things as a fish and they were talking about jumping maggots. Oh, maggots can jump? Some of them, yeah. I'm not okay with that. Yeah, I don't want to know that.

Sorry. Little Easter egg that, like, everyone has spotted, but the guard at the gate to the air base is reading American Gods. Not everyone. Have you not spotted that? No. He's reading American Gods. Good.

Glad to hear it. And it's the UK, it's the, it's that UK cover, not the one that we have that's black and gold, but the newer one that's where if you get a bunch of his paperbacks, they'll make a picture of a tree or something, but I haven't done that because... I don't have the shelf space right now. No. And everything that he's released since they came out with that paperback design, I've got new in hardback because I got it at the end of the lane and Trigger Warning and...

Yeah. Anyway, sorry, enough about me being sad and collecting books. Oh, the one... I thought that this is the kind of audience who will not call you sad for collecting books. Yeah, right, fine. This is your safe space, Joanna. Oh, good.

Oh, good. Even though I mercilessly mock you. You mercilessly mock me. I'm definitely the antagonist in this. Okay, cool. Oh, God, I'm the hero. Yeah. Well, you're the one with the funny coloured hair.

Oh, yeah, good point. No, that makes me a manic pixie dream girl. No, that makes you an anime protagonist. Oh, it depends on the face of the moon. We just had a full moon, what does that mean? Manic pixie dream girl, unfortunately. That's it. We've got to sit cross-legged and eat something with chopsticks while giggling.

Oh, that's right. It's the half moon that's witchy. Yeah. It's according to Pratchett. Thank you, Pratchett. He's always right. Yep. Anyway.

Where are we? Fuck, sorry. VFX, what's that? Okay, so, you know, the horse people have come into the airface and they start screwing around with the computers and the way, like, because you, one of your favourite quotes when we were talking about the book was the description of the Earth Cup. Oh, that's really pretty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think the way they did it was really good. I think the visual effect of cutting to panicking nuclear power stations and everything, but just the way you saw the light shift across the whole world and the way, as every time it cuts back to the horse people, they look less and less human. The visual light fall back. The whole light fall back. But every time, yeah, everyone looking slightly less human, like, famine's teeth get sharper and a war starts falling and pollution's sort of oozing.

Yeah, I loved it, I loved all of those effects. I felt, I was slightly unsure about Pollution's one because I felt like they kept them a little bit more human than the other two. Yeah, I think it was, I'm not sure if that, maybe that's because it's a very human thing. Yeah. But also, I think it's a harder thing to make someone look more and more like a person in the world. Yeah, you don't really want to cover them on oil.

Yeah. I think that was all I had for episode five. Okay, cool. Let me think. Do you have any more thoughts before we get on to them already? I'm sorry. The end of the world proper. What have I got here?

Oh, no, do you know what? I think I covered everything I wanted to. Oh, I was just thinking something while we were talking about the airbase and now it's gone out of my head, but we're in the airbase again next episode, so we'll see you next time. Are we? Yeah. Where's this one end? This ends in the airbase as Adam and his friends arrive.

Yes. Everyone's kind of arriving at once and it's sort of this cliffhanger of the world is ending now. Yeah. Adam and his friends have turned up to try and try. No, that's right. Yeah. No, that was just a little bit like when they, when a zero fail.

Yeah. And Madame Tracy and Shadwell are kind of trying to finagle their way in and the kids just cycle through. And they're in trouble as well, but you're in trouble. Four-side sergeant, a Dyson vega. Oh, I wish he had got to go home and have a nice time. Well, he definitely did. Yes, we just didn't see it.

Yeah, we just didn't get to see it as it was still a zero fail or banished him. Oh yeah, so it still was. Okay. So episode six, the very last day of the rest of their lives. He. So in this episode, shall I summarise? Please do. We open on the trial of the demon Crowley.

Oh, dramatic. And then we rewind. Sorry. Sorry. Jesus. We've been recording for a really long time. Okay. So we open on the trial of the demon Crowley.

We rewind back to Crowley arriving at the air face. Yeah. We see the four horse people of the apocalypse face off against them and lose. Newt manages to turn off the computers that are trying to plan Armageddon and it takes part in saving the world. Yeah. And as Anathema receives her copy of the nice and accurate prophecies back astray prophecy lands with a zero fail.

Ooh. Beelzebub and Gabriel turn up to have a go. God, I misspelled Gabriel. Grab real. It's in my nose for yours. Grab real. Beelzebub and grab real. Grab real.

Am I right? Handsy. Anyway, Beelzebub and Gabriel turn up to have a go at Adam for stopping the apocalypse. And as they're trying to scream at him that the war has to happen, we get the lovely argument about whether it's the great plan or the ineffable plan that confuses them and they run away. Everyone realizes that Satan's about to turn up so Crowley quickly stops time and has a chat with Adam saying it's up to you what happens next. Adam explains to Satan that you're not my real dad.

And his real dad, Misty Young, turns up. And in theory, apocalypse averted. Everything seems all right. A zero-fellon Crowley have a lovely chat on a pot bench before taking the bus back to London. International Expressman turns up to reclaim all the bits and pieces. But then heaven and hell aren't happy with a zero-fellon Crowley. They're taken away.

Oh. Because there's going to be a trial. A trial? Because they averted the apocalypse. Oh, they did? They did. I saw that. Then, brief interlude, the sequel to the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter arrives

with Newton and Nathamaren. She decides that she doesn't want to be a descendant the rest of her life. Madame Tracy sits down with... I've done this in a funny order, sorry. Sorry? I've done this in a funny order. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm not frowning at you.

I'm frowning because I turned to the last page of my notes and clearly it was late at night by that point. Mine is still handwritten. Madame Tracy sits down to dinner with Mr. Shadwell and asks if he'd like to move into the night and we'll bundle it together. So sweet. Oh, God. Miranda Richardson.

Love her. We get the resolution of the trial and discover that the Xerophil and Crowley, in fact, switch bodies to get away with each other's respective punishments. I have things to say about that whole thing. I've so many things to say about that whole thing. We see Adam chasing his dog off over a field. Xerophil and Crowley go to dinner at the Brits. Sorry.

And the Nightingale sings in Barclay Square. Right. You can hear it over the track. But it was there. I know because I was there. Trust me on this. I guess there's like no new characters really introduced apart from there's a little hell zasher, the little dude that gets dissolved during the Crowley trial is Andy Hamilton.

He's been in lots of, he's a very good British comedian. Which is, he's funny. And obviously the big thing is Satan, a voice by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is just doing a smorg voice. Yeah. Is someone else doing the motion capture? Um, should we talk about that bit now? Well, it's the character.

Yeah, I may as well. I don't think they should have had him there. Really? I think it should have been more like in the book. The crack was coming. The volcano was coming. I think possibly the start of the shadow of his apparition should have been there. And then Adam's belief turns it into his dad.

I think having that whole, right, A, sorry, hearing my thoughts. Do it. A, like so much of the theme is the fact that angels and demons are from the same stock and are more or less the same. And yet they bring the head of this fucking questioning revolutionary force up and he's this massive fucking red dickhead. Yeah. Um, B, I think because you can't, I think this is the same problem I have with a lot

of fantasy TV and movies. It doesn't. You can't portray this in the same way that you can write it. Yeah. It's never going to look big and scary enough. Yeah. It can't look big and scary enough and it can't look realistic because it's not real. Yeah.

Um, in everybody's head, the devil is going to look like something slightly different and more terrifying. It's like, like, don't try. Don't try and do it. Yeah. And also I just didn't, I didn't care for it. Um, I didn't. I think they had a really good chance for it to be sinister, building up the shadow

starts to form. And I think you could have still used Benedict Cumberbatch and had some of that voice over. Yeah. Yeah. The voice. Yeah. Fine. The voice because I think there needed to be a bit where the part of the reason this

is there is in the book, it's Beelzebub that Adam kind of faces off with. Yeah. But because they've brought Beelzebub in, it's more of a character to me, this parallel to Gabriel, then needed to be a bigger thing for Adam to face off against. And I really liked the whole, you're not my dad. That's my dad. And I, for that reason, I understand why they brought Zayn in. So he could yell that.

It was this like chosen family moment. And I really loved that. And it is Adam choosing humanity over everything else. I thought that was really sweet. Yeah. I see why they did it. I think it was a weird choice, but what do I know? It was.

I don't make cool TV. No. It was one, I mean, I didn't hate it, but I, it didn't need to be there. You're right. Yeah. Um, anyway, that's literally the only negative thing I have to say about this episode. That's fine. Um, but the way Benedict Cumberbatch does it is there's quite a good little right line

reading with the way he says, you're my rebellious son. Come here. And he, the pauses are in a really weird place in the sentence that makes it less human. Yeah. Um, and I really, really liked that. Yeah. Apart from that, I couldn't really give a fuck about it. I mean, like, I like Benedict.

I like Benedict Cumberbatch. He's just doing smoke. It's just smoke voice. Yeah. Um, he was actually very, he was the best thing about the Hobbit films. I didn't watch that far. I don't watch the Hobbit films. I watched the first one.

I remember nothing about it apart from them having radic acid in there and they didn't even do it well. So, yeah, no, I gave up at that point. I was very upset when I heard it was going to be a trilogy. Yeah. My, really one of my top three favorite books of all time. And I was like, you're going to stretch that into a fucking trilogy. Are you?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. It would make quite a good TV series, actually. It would make Neil Gaiman write it. I feel like he's busy. Yeah. Okay.

Probably. It's fine. I'll just make him. I was just going to do it, but fine. Okay. Yeah. You do it. You do it.

No, it's fine. I like you. It's fine. All right. No, you can't get offended if I say Neil Gaiman. Can't really think Neil Gaiman's about a writer than me just because that's objectively true. God, Francine.

So far. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. I'm with you on the Satan thing. Favorite. Okay.

So I'm going to do a least favorite quote slash line reading, which is, I think I talked in the last episode about the fact that some of the feministy things, pepper say feel really when she turns to war and says, I do not condone every day sexism. That was so cringe. It made me laugh. It made me giggle, but it was also cringy. Right. But like saying something about the sexism is a bit funny, but it's not every day sexism.

No, that's not what every day sexism is. No. And the every day sexism Twitter thing and the website and everything was a really interesting project that got, yeah, you didn't work for me. I didn't like that. No. But I can also see as a younger girl watching it kind of having a bit of a punch the air moment.

And I did. That's it. It's for the kids. And like I said, it's nothing against the actor because like a line later, she does the I believe in peace bitch and stamps on war's foot and I love that. And when after it's all over, anathema refers to new as her boyfriend. She says another deleted victim of the patriarchy. I kind of like that.

I thought that was quite funny. That was our character, but that one worked for me. It was funny. Yeah. My favorite line reading is, is, is the two of them in the rich saying to the world because let's get to the end of the episode before we just sigh how much, how much we love them. Best use of a queen song in this episode is Bohemian Rhapsody.

Oh, you actually did that for a riff though. Oh, no, I missed it for a couple. Okay. Because there are a couple that didn't really have any good queen moments, but Bohemian Rhapsody playing as Crowley draws up to the devil's. No, wait, is the guitar solo as he drives up to the gates. And I really liked that because like it was Crowley showing up in a flaming car and swaggering out of it to flirt with Madame Tracy as a zero foul.

Like it was, it was just cool. Yeah. It was cool. Yeah. It was cool. Crowley's got his Modra back. Yes. Is it Crowley or Crowley?

I've been saying Crowley. I think I've been veering madly between the two. Well, a zero foul says Crowley. All right. And I'm going to go with what Michael Sheen says because I love him. He's precious. All right. Crowley it is.

Excellent. I'm going to go between this in the book. The change in how the face off with the horse people happens, I think is interesting. In the book, it's about them bringing their childish homemade versions of weapons. In this, it becomes about belief. It's about them believing in the antithesis of the horse people. So Pepper says, I believe in peace and Wensley Dale believes in a healthy lunch. I love Wensley Dale so much.

A healthy lunch. Brian believes in a clean world. Yeah. Which is not Brian. Weird. But then Pepper's not peaceful. No. Yeah.

It works. It works but only if you don't think about it. And I think they put that in because it would be very difficult to portray visually how a little kid believes a stick and some whatever is scales. It keeps it because it was, it's about the power of belief in the book as well. But I think this is a better way to do it. It needed dialogue rather than just being a visual. Yeah.

It's a lot more dramatic like Maxie. Yeah. Well, what I found interesting is, Nogaine was talking about the fact that the beginning of season six, the beginning of episode six was originally the end of episode five, but six was too short and five was too long. Yeah. So this was meant to be the climax of the penultimate episode. The entire final episode was meant to be epilogue.

Yeah. And instead they kind of moved the climax to the beginning of the final episode and then the rest is epilogue. Yeah. It's an interesting pacing choice because it's very rare, especially in a limited series, that you get this long of resolution section. And you know me, I fucking love an epilogue. Oh, I love it.

I love everything wrapping up. I love montages. I love clips. Yeah. Yeah. No. To have a whole episode in a mini series that just wraps things up. Yeah.

And a half hour clip. I'm just a little bit happy. And a half hour clip. Pre-log, pre-log. Soft open. Yeah. I thought it was interesting. I don't know if that's where I would have put the climax of it.

To have the climax of the horse people and then the time stop and then the devil. It's kind of like, right, let's have three big climaxes and then a 40 minute epilogue. Yeah. It's a very fun, weird pacing thing that kind of works because it's not what you normally get. And it's very soothing. Yeah. I like having so much resolution.

Yeah. But yeah, the shift in how they do the power of belief thing, I thought was, it was a good release. But I think it is more impressive in the book because of the whole thing of sticks and string. Yes. But again, it's not really. Yeah. That would be very difficult to do.

The biggest change from the book is this trial and body swap bit. Yeah. That is completely added. Yeah. And I think like obviously that's some of the stuff that they talked about maybe for the sequel or that they just never made it into the book. I love it though. Yeah.

Love it so much. It's so good. Before a zero fail walks into the flame, again, Michael Sheen's face, one second where he suddenly becomes curly. Yeah. Dusty goes in. But. Oh, can I do my favorite line?

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I've overtaken you completely. No, that's all right. Usually I didn't write one down, but for this one I did. Don't talk to me about the greater good sunshine. I'm the archangel fucking Gabriel.

Oh, yeah. Again, dishes use the word. And shut your stupid mouth and die already. Yeah. I've written down the words the peculiar honor, and I can't remember what it pertains to because as I said, this is what I was frowning at earlier. I'm not really sure what my notes are anymore. Yeah, no, I've got no idea.

I have the peculiar honor of something it must have been, but maybe I'll think of it in a minute. Yeah, I think that was something to do with one of the trials. I mean, yeah, like I said, I loved everything about it. It's kind of fun trying to work out where the switch has taken place and when they start playing each other. Yeah. Because once you've watched it.

For me, it was that moment. Well, the switch has happened before. Oh, yeah. No, sorry. Yeah. But that's like when the, when it's meant to become a parent, I think. Yeah. I think it's just as they go into it.

But there's, once you know, if you start looking for the hint, there's a lot of them. Yeah. But it's really subtle acting. There's a moment where Michael Sheen, there's a really nice Easter egg where Michael Sheen, Aziraphale returns to the bookshop. Yeah. And by this point, it is Crowley and Aziraphale's body because the only place. Oh, is it?

Oh. I think because the, like it's never explicitly stated. But what else? Yeah. The only, they're together when they get the bus. Yeah. Then they're apart and then they're together in St. James's Park and get taken from there. Yeah.

So it must be before that St. James's Park bit. So I think by these points we, so you see Aziraphale in his shop and obviously it's been rebuilt, but Adam did it. So there's just, there's a whole thing of just William. Yeah. And I love that because of the William the Antichrist thing. There's something in the way he says something that's, if you know to look for it is a bit different.

And then the moment Crowley sees his Bentley, but then hails a cab. I thought that was kind of like, because it's Aziraphale. Aziraphale's not going to drive the Bentley. Yeah. And he's thinking, oh, maybe that's just because he likes it parked there or something. But yeah, that doesn't make much sense. Yours does. Okay.

Yeah. Win. And just the way when Michael Sheen is Crowley, he's just drawing out his vowels a bit more. And he's just slightly, Lisa and David Tennant is slightly more upright. And then slightly later when they're on the bench, that is the most impressive bit of fucking posture I've ever seen from the two of them. David Tennant is so clased in, legs together, sitting like a lady. And Michael Sheen's fucking legs a Kimbo, waking up at two thirds of the bench, trying

to do the David Tennant limb thing. Matt is spreading. He's just not got quite enough limb. But yeah, the posture was perfect. So yeah, so that takes us to obviously the Aziraphale and Crowley check in. And the body swap is incredible. Crowley taking a bath for David Tennant's knees sexier than anything between Newton and anathema.

Why is that sexy? Like he's in a singlet and socks. That is the least sexy outfit a man could wear apart from a t-shirt and no underwear. I think, well, A, because it's David Tennant. Yes, he's got very sexy knees. And B, because it's odd and looks a little rebellious and strange. Ridiculous. And he's flicking the water at them.

And he asks, yeah, I'll change your mic or for a rubber duck. I feel like it's for theoretically the same reason that a woman in a wet dress that's gone a bit see through is a bit more titillating than dosing for naked women. Yeah, that's fair. I can't explain why the socks work, but that's just David Tennant for you. The socks work because it's David Tennant. I think it's a bit, I was more convinced in those scenes by Michael Sheen as Crowley. Sorry.

By Aziraphiles. Crowley is Aziraphile. Then I was by Aziraphiles. Crowley, help me. Help me. You were more convinced. I was more convinced by The Heaven Bit. Yeah.

By Michael Sheen playing David Tennant than by David Tennant playing Michael Sheen. Just because I can't imagine Michael Sheen as Aziraphile like with his legs flayed like that in the bath. Yeah, I think it's kind of nice if you think about it as like Aziraphile never gets anything slayed as well. Yeah, I think like he's having fun. Yeah. Yeah.

And a bit where he asks for the rubber duck and then later when they're on the, I asked the archangel Michael for a rubber duck. And that's like getting revenge on your dick head boss. Yeah. Kind of. So I really liked that. But also before the switch, when they're on that bench at the end, sharing a bottle of wine before the bus turns up and they're sort of, it's almost a bit like the end to

their Star Cross Novels narrative and the bit where Crowley turns to Aziraphile and says we don't have sights anymore. Yeah. And obviously somewhere between that scene and the body swap, there is a conversation where they realise what they have to do. So it's interesting as Nick's, it's a really quiet resolution to the Star Cross Lovers bit instead of any climax or drama to it. It's just a, well, obviously there was a climax and drama, but that was kind of to do with

more important things. Yeah. And afterwards they're like, oh wait, that kind of means that. Like what do we do now? Yeah. And obviously they come up with this plan and they must do that on the bus to get heaven and hell to leave them alone. But the way they're on the bench and the way David Tennant looks at Michael Sheen and

he looks at him the way like Aziraphile has been looking at Crowley for most of the episodes. I'm going to have to re-watch this whole bit. Yeah, yeah. Again, it's just a good acting moment. The music swells and it's really similar to the way the music swells when Crowley hands Aziraphile the bag of books after the bombing bit in the World War II scene, like it's almost exactly the same swell of music. And it very much earned me shipping them in the way I was grumpy about in season two.

Cool. Episode two. I keep saying season two. I wrote the rest of the sound of music verse for the renegade aid and also tied up with string. Would you like to hear that? Yes, please. Shall I try and sing it?

And then if it goes terribly, I'll read it out. Yep. Oh wow, singing into a microphone makes me all horrified again. Yeah. That's horrible. Yeah. That's so weird. It's like I'm doing the mic again and I hated it so much.

Jesus. Don't sing it if you don't want to. Purity, piety, prayers and tradition, platitudes, masking, malicious ambition, renegade angels all tied up with string. These are a few of our favourite things. That's amazing. I wanted to write the rest but it was very late at night so I did not. I love you so much Francie.

That's perfect. There should really be one for the demons and I'll leave that to you. Come work. Okay. That can be my homework. Please write that down for me because I never remember my homework. Sorry. I don't even know how to phrase that.

Homework. Homework. Joe. Demonic. Right. Arrow to that. There we go. Okay.

Cool. That'll make sense to me. There is really good chemistry between Gabriel and Beelzebub when you see them actually on screen together. Yeah, it's interesting isn't it? They're very much the counterpart. Yeah. But it's really good.

I could watch like a whole half hour of just those two kind of working together because they almost are. They want the same thing. They want the war. Yeah. Whereas when it was the Archangel Michael, she was very much more kind of hands off. Yeah. Just doing this because this is what we do and clear and here's the border and now I'm

going. Yeah. Gabriel's definitely more hands on which would make sense as he's the Archangel Gabriel. Yeah. Although not actually an Archangel. No. Although also... I know he is in this but in the Bible.

He's not an Archangel. No, it's just me. No. But can you imagine John Ham as Gabriel delivering the news to Mary? Yes. Be not afraid. Jesus Christ. Be not afraid.

Be not afraid. So you're going to have the Messiah. Yeah. See ya. That's it. That's it. Just I want them to have put that in. Yeah.

It would have been horrible. I don't know how you're going to explain this to your husband but you are pregnant. You are going to have the Messiah. Good luck with that. Thanks. I really love that. I like... Yeah, like I said, I already talked about anathema, choosing to burn the sequel.

Her claiming her own agency is a really, really satisfying resolution for her. More so here than the book again because in the book it's Newt puts his hand on her shoulder and says, do you want to be here? Yeah. Whereas this, she's made the decision before he makes that point. Yeah. And you seem quietly approving. Yeah.

No. I'm into it. Yeah. And actually I like... Supportive. Supportive of her leaving the weird dynamic. Yeah. Supportive boyfriend rather than making the choice for her.

I think that was good. Good boy, Newt. And yeah, the way the ending changes compared to the book. Before I talk about this, did you have any other points to make? Oh, this is probably now bullshit and was quite likely to be bullshit anyway. But now you've said they've swapped bodies by this point. I see more so because obviously they had. But when they ordered the ice cream, I thought maybe it was a weird bit of symbolism because

Azerafail got an ice cream, a vanilla with a flake, vanilla but with something else. Yeah. And then Coralie got red lolly with vanilla inside. Right? I mean, I think there's probably... I'm looking into that too far. I feel like a choice was definitely made about what ice creams they were going to have. Yeah, right.

They had to make a choice. They didn't both just get the soft set up with a... Yeah. Yeah. Right? So I feel like there was something intentional in there. What else have I got? I've got...

Oops, sorry. Yeah. What do you have to say for? I've written down 3004, question mark. I don't know what that meant. That's ancient Mesopotamia where the Noah thing happened. PC. Cool.

Well, I don't know when it was referenced in episode 6, but it was. Okay. Oh, Dagon is a demon that turns out... Lord of the Files. Yeah. He's another Lovecraftian one. Oh, is he? Mm-hmm.

Oh, good. So that's good to know. I liked war's little boys with your toys thing because... It was a really... The little boys with their toys is very much the war. Yeah. That's what she... That's the style war kind of thing that's referenced in...

Oh, every fucking story ever. Yeah. That's one of the backbones of some stories. That was a really, really good line delivery. I really liked her in that. Yeah. She's the right balance of sinister. Yeah.

You've put here that the effects of deathwings as a beautiful moment. Oh, yeah. I've put... Actually, I'm not like considering the way it was described at the same time it was going on. I loved what they did. Yeah. I thought it was going to be the actual...

The wing spread and it was that black cut out against the... Oh, see, I like the fact that for a second it overtook everything. Mm-hmm. Because they've just had so much happen to have a second where there was nothing on the screen but that and imagining that for the people watching it, there was nothing else for them but that. Yeah. When you think about the fact that death is so all-encompassing and the whole point of

death is that he never really goes away. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I think it would take over the screen for a minute and be beautiful, isn't it? I think there was a hint of Pratchett's death to that moment. Yeah. Yeah, there was definitely death.

There wasn't with the rest of the portrayal of death so that's why I liked that bit so much. Yeah. As I said, it was beautifully done. It's just not what I was expecting. Yeah. And it's weird to be kind of expecting a certain bit of the effects. Yeah, so the other bit I've got is the line and I'm pretty sure this was in the book as

well but I didn't appreciate the significance of it until I heard it allowed. Yeah. There never was an apple in Adam's opinion that wasn't worth the trouble you bought into for eating it. Which is a reference to the apple. The fucking apple. The Bible apple. Did you not?

No, when I was eating it, I was just like, oh yeah, no, it's like I was like, you know, when you're little and you get an apple and it's amazing and it doesn't matter that you get in trouble running away and I just thought it was another nice little eating bite in a moment. I'm like, oh no, wait, really heavy-handed biblical reference I didn't get. Okay. Yeah, that was very much there. I did spot that.

Yeah, that would be any of it. And yeah, that takes us to the ending ending, which is different. Yeah, so they changed it. So in the book, and we talked about it when we were talking about the book, I love the ending to the book of imagining a boy slouching hopefully towards Tadfield forever. I think it's a perfect place for the book to end. Yeah. But because the series focuses so much more on Aziraphil and Crowley, it doesn't.

You see Adam running in the summer and there's a lovely voiceover about the summer coming to an end and he's chasing his friends. And I thought actually, sorry, just interrupting one more time. I thought another really good bit of acting from that little boy is the dog going away and the expression on his face, which is the happy, oh no. Doug, no, don't do that running after it. He's a really good actor, actually, isn't he? Yeah.

I'm quite curious to see what he grows up into because I think he's going to do some really good stuff. Yeah. But yeah, so instead of that, there's the ending ending. It ends on Aziraphil and Crowley and as much as I think the ending to the book is perfect, I think this is the perfect ending to this. And what I kind of thought of as a throwaway joke in the book becomes so significant here of they're in the Ritz and obviously you have that bit.

They lean back in their chairs and they cheers to the world. And the way Crowley says it and the way Aziraphil responds with this soft, really loving to the world. Having watched Aziraphil go through this journey of humanity is kind of almost secondary to his faith, to losing his faith, to really, really finding faith in the world and loving it so much to say it like that. Yeah. And then A Nightingale sang it at Berkeley Square and it has the voiceover and then the

song and it's Tori Amos doing it and it's such a beautiful version of it. I shazammed that. I've got it. It sounds butterfly to you, sound happy. Yeah. And it's just such a perfect place to end it. Which? Yeah.

Pretty nice. Kind of almost. I suppose I should do an outro already. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, all right, fine. A Nightingale. In Berkeley Square. No, I'm not doing that.

Can you sing our Gmail address to that tune? Thank you for listening. No. That's one of those game shoes, isn't it? Game shoes. That's one of the Radio 4 game shows. Yeah. The truth shall make you fret.

You can find us on Instagram. Okay, no, no. Thank you so much to listening to the ineffable edition of The Truth Shall Make You Fret. I hope we are now more effable than we were before. I was never effable. Oh, darn. I think you're very effable. Darn.

Thank you. We're going to take a week off now and we'll be back in March, in the second week of March with our first episode on Mort. Mort. Which we're very excited about. Book 4 of the Discworld Books. So stick with us for that. In the meantime, you can find us on Facebook or Instagram at The Truth Shall Make You Fret.

You can find us on Twitter at Make You Fret Pod. Email us your thoughts, queries, criticisms, castles and snacks and albatrosses. The Truth Shall Make You Fret Pod at gmail.com. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. It helps other people find us. And until next time, dear listener. To the world. To the world.

You're a good friend to have, Joe. You make me feel happier when I see you. I like you too. Hooray. This is good. Look at us being grown-ups about having nice emotions. Oh, God, that's horrible. I know.

It's all right because we can't physically touch each other. Oh, yeah, no. And so there's no risk of that having to happen. You know, if we, like, hugged or something right now, I'd want to die. Yeah, I know. That'd be very upsetting. Maybe we could go shout at each other and bounce down after this to even things out. That is third base in a queer relationship.