‘Good Omens’ episode 3 features hilarious 30-minute sequence chronicling Aziraphale and Crowley's friendship over 6,000 years
On Neil Gaiman's 'Good Omens', angel and demon duo Aziraphale and Crowley (played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant respectively) do not want the world to end. This is what they've been put on earth for in the first place - it is their destiny to be catalysts in bringing about end times.
And so, through the six hour-long episodes of the limited series, viewers see the forces of both heaven and hell strive for the onset of Armageddon. Simultaneously, we see Aziraphale and Crowley race against the forces to stop Armageddon from happening. And here is the highlight of the show - the camaraderie displayed by the duo is highly enjoyable.
Their banter is reminiscent of the childhood friendship you have treasured forever except that in Aziraphale and Crowley's situation, the friendship spans a little more than a few decades - roughly 6,000 years. This friendship is chronicled in the first thirty minutes of the third episode of the series.
Titled 'Hard Times', the episode takes viewers on a roughly 30-minute long glorious intro devoted entirely to the development of the duo's friendship across centuries. The sequence is set in 40 different periods and starts right at the beginning of the earth - the Garden of Eden.
It is actually Crowley who is the snake convincing Eve to eat an apple from the tree of knowledge. It is Aziraphale who gives Adam the gift of fire in the form of a flaming sword that God herself had given him. From the Garden of Eden, the story takes us through Noah's Ark, the Crucifixion, Ancient Rome, Wessex, Shakespeare-era London, the French Revolution, to the Second World War.
In an interview, Michael Sheen shared exactly how exciting the filming of the sequence was. "We got to dress up a bit, wearing ancient Greek togas, then a full suit of armor, and then we're in the Victorian era, so that was great fun to do. The filming was spread out through the shoot, so every now and then, we got to go, 'oooh good, we get to do another one of those. French Revolution tomorrow!'"
Before the third episode, we saw the mix-up that happened in the Satanic hospital and how Satan's son ends up in a completely different household than planned. Following this, we also saw that heaven and hell are both very eager to fight each other because as Jon Hamm's Gabriel says, "there needs to be war for heaven to win it."
We also see a thoroughly confused Aziraphale miss the point of what Gabriel is saying. He doesn't want the war to happen because he loves life and humanity. And, so does Crowley - that's why they are working together towards sabotaging the grand plan. We see them targeting the wrong boy throughout thinking they're being hindrances.
It is a sheer delight to watch them go about history as it were - even fun to imagine they really were there - dressed in various period-fitting costumes and exchanging jokes only us, from the future, find hilarious. Be it religious absurdities, historical figures, or the Nazis, the third episode takes us through a hilariously documented friendship that has lived to tell its tale. To be honest, we would literally binge-watch if they decide to take this 30-minute sequence and make a spin-off out of it - trust us, it is worth it.