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All right, fandom, we all know why we're here. Episode 6. The Metatron's offer. Aziraphale's choice. Crowley's heartbreak. No nightingales. Wailing, screaming, gnashing of teeth, et cetera. So let's talk about it!
Aziraphale's choice to return to Heaven was a huge shock to most of the fandom, obviously. At first blush, it almost felt like he had regressed in terms of character development; to me, it seemed that so much of season 1 had been about Aziraphale letting go of his connection to Heaven and choosing to cut ties with them, learning to trust Crowley more than he trusted Heaven, and making the decision to leave Heaven for Crowley, that for S2 to end the way it did felt like a slap in the face. When I brought this up to Whiteley, though, they pointed out that even though Aziraphale choosing Crowley over Heaven was a huge step for him, it wasn't the case that Aziraphale wanted to turn his back on Heaven, even when they treated him horribly. He was eventually left with no option but to cut ties; it wasn't something he chose freely. It was very easy for us to READ his choice that way, though, because the audience (and Crowley) saw what we wanted to see.
I think the idea that Aziraphale had fully accepted leaving Heaven behind forever is very ingrained in the fandom by this point- so much fanwork has been informed by this very idea!- and part of that is probably because, if season 2 had never been made, that would have been the conclusion of that character arc for Aziraphale. It's a solid place to leave things! But coming back for another season means we have to allow for the possibility that things aren't as settled as we thought they were. To the audience (and to Crowley!!) that felt like a betrayal, and I was having a really hard time reconciling it with the first season. Again, it seemed like a regression; why spend so much time on that sort of hard-won character development if you're just going to undo it all and wreck everything the characters have worked for?
Whiteley really helped put this in perspective for me by framing it through the lens of religious trauma. That's a subject that comes up pretty frequently in the Good Omens fandom (see the tags on this work!), but I think what doesn't get as much acknowledgement is that trauma recovery is not a straight line, and that sometimes people who have been abused do return to their abusers after leaving. Earlier in ep. 6, we see Aziraphale still resigned to leaving Heaven. He's being threatened by Michael, and even when the Metatron shows up and defends him against Michael's overreach, Aziraphale is still on his guard. His immediate response to the Metatron inviting him for a chat is to refuse, since he "doesn't believe there's anything left to be said;" he thinks he's going to be ordered to return to Heaven, or have his choice to leave called into question, and doesn't want to have to hear it all again. But instead, the highest authority figure in Heaven (that we know of) aside from God Herself starts love-bombing him with praise, telling him he's leadership material, that his honesty is a good thing, that his individuality is valuable, not a defect in his makeup. He's being invited back to Heaven with the promise of being able to do real good for others, and to be able to bring the person he loves most with him, and to give that person the gift of getting to be an angel again. If it occurs to him at any point that this offer might be too good to be true, it's also too good for him to even think of refusing.
Whiteley drew a comparison that I felt was really compelling between Aziraphale's choice in episode 6 and episode 9 of Our Flag Means Death, in which Stede agrees to run away with Edward, then abandons Ed almost immediately to try and return to his wife and children. There are obviously a lot of differences between Stede and Aziraphale's characters and circumstances, but in both cases we are talking about someone who has been brought up to do what his community demands of him, who has struck out on his own to try to find happiness and falls in love with someone who offers him acceptance and profound trust, who agrees to forsake his old life to be with the person who loves him, but ends up betraying that person to try one more time to fit into the life he was "supposed" to have. Stede's old life was boring, but predictable and safe; it was what he had been brought up to believe he should want, and he was also far more practiced at it than he was at a life of piracy. Being with Ed and the crew of the Revenge made him happy and gave him a sense of belonging, but it was also dangerous. Their capture by the British navy and that final terrifying encounter with Chauncey frightened him badly enough that he went back to his family out of desperation, thinking he would do less harm to himself and others by just going back to the life he was used to.
Whiteley pointed out to me that Aziraphale had spent over 6000 years believing in the ultimate goodness of Heaven, even when he didn't toe the party line exactly; at the time of season 2, he's spent a total of 4 years on "our side" with Crowley. In the proportions of a human lifespan, that's an incredibly short time. Being with Crowley makes him happy, but it's also uncertain and messy and scary, compared to the order and security of Heaven. So we have a person who has made the painful choice to separate from his family and religious leadership, who is now being told by the people who rejected him "we still love you, we want you to come back, we'll accept you for who you are, this time will be different, we want to work with you to make things better, AND you can bring your partner with you! He can even convert!" Aziraphale is being offered everything he ever wanted, without having to sacrifice his relationship with Crowley OR his ties to Heaven; he is being offered a world where he doesn't have to choose between his religious community and his chosen family. Of course he's going to accept.
Now I want to talk a little bit about Crowley's role in all this. I don't mean to imply that Aziraphale doesn't deserve the lion's share of the blame for what happened in that disaster of an argument, but things might have turned out differently if the two of them had ever really, truly talked about their feelings. As Maggie pointed out during her and Nina's conversation with Crowley (I loved this scene btw, and it really clarified for me that Crowley and Aziraphale had unconsciously been treating Nina and Maggie as a cipher for their own relationship all season, but I cannot get into that right now LMAO. maybe another chapter??) They talk all the time, but they never say what they're really thinking; they never talk about the hard stuff, ie. their feelings. They especially don't talk about Heaven as it relates to themselves and each other, just what they're each expected to say, ie. "heaven bad" "no, heaven good!!" ad infinitum. And I am absolutely sure that Crowley has never opened up to Aziraphale about what being cast out of Heaven really did to him, and why he would never go back even if he could.
I think that's really what it comes down to, for Crowley: he's never made himself vulnerable in that way. Hiding your weaknesses for so long has consequences; it can protect you from people looking for ways to hurt you, but it can also mean that the people who love you may hurt you by accident, without being able to understand why. Crowley feels betrayed by Aziraphale's offer because after all this time, Aziraphale still doesn't really understand why Crowley would never want to be an angel again, even if he had the chance. During that final argument, Crowley points out that he turn down Hell's offer for him to return as a Duke, with the expectation that Aziraphale would react the same way to an offer from Heaven. Aziraphale, meanwhile, reasons that of course Crowley wouldn't want to go to back to Hell- they're the bad guys, after all!- but takes for granted that of course anyone would want to return to Heaven if given the opportunity. Part of this disconnect may be Aziraphale not being able to empathize with Crowley's experience, but part of it is also because Crowley's never told him, isn't it? Crowley just assumed that Aziraphale finally understood, but on some level Aziraphale has still been hearing "I can't" when Crowley tells him "I WON'T." And because of that, the one time Crowley has geared himself up to be vulnerable, the second he drops his armor, Aziraphale stabs him straight through the heart, without even understanding what he's done.
I think it's more than fine to be sad, frustrated, and even angry about the way season 2 ended. The media we love should be able to make us feel those things! But I really hate to see my fellow fans experiencing real pain over this season, feeling betrayed by the writers, or that they can no longer love one of their favorite characters as much because they can't believe he would do something so seemingly cruel and thoughtless. If that's something you've been struggling with, I hope you take care of yourself however you need to, whether that's talking to a friend about it, reading some really fluffy fanfic (or angsty, if you need that catharsis!!) or even taking a breather away from fandom spaces for a while. What I really hope we can all do is hold space to be righteously pissed off at the characters we love for making terrible choices, while also still loving them and having sympathy and understanding for the (fictional) struggles that led them to make those choices.
Thanks so much for reading; if this was helpful to even one person, that's reason enough for me to have shared it. Comments are open if you'd like to share your own thoughts. Above all, be kind to each other!