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And Behold, It Was Very “Good Omens” Season 2!

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Good Omens is officially returning for a second season over at Amazon Prime, in collaboration with the BBC. In the excruciatingly long two year gap between the first season’s release in 2019 and today, there had been occasional whisperings of a continuation, some even straight from the lips of the series’ creator, Neil Gaiman, but nothing ever seemed to pan out. Many fans had given up hope that we would ever see the future misadventures of Crowley and Aziraphale, and the first season’s fairly conclusive ending seemed to back up that dreary assumption.

Good Omens
Aziraphale and Crowley | bbc.com

But the long delay can now be attributed to Gaiman’s deep respect for the source material, Good Omens: The Nice And Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter, Witch, which he co-authored with the late great British fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett. Gaiman today revealed that many of his and Pratchett’s ideas for the Good Omens sequel they never got to write together will now form the basis of season two – meaning the series will continue to be as much Pratchett’s work as Gaiman’s. The first season of Gaiman’s Good Omens adaptation borrowed a couple of major characters and plot beats from this unwritten sequel, but the second season appears to be a mystery story revolving around the sudden appearance of a stray angel with amnesia in a street market in Soho, where Crowley and Aziraphale are now living quite peacefully, having averted Armageddon and prevented a war between Heaven and Hell at the end of season one.

What happens after that is anyone’s guess, but Gaiman did give fans reassurance that Good Omens will continue to explore the far-distant past, putting a quirky and humorous spin on Biblical events – this time including the moments leading up to Genesis, and the creation of all things. We’ll also presumably see more of Crowley and Aziraphale’s time on earth, meddling in human history or cautiously observing it from a reasonable distance – and most importantly, just as in season one, we can safely assume these flashbacks will give us more insight into how the unique relationship between the begrudgingly spiritual demon and the charmingly worldly angel has developed over the years, and how it will continue to grow.

Good Omens
Crowley | themarysue.com

Good Omens has one of the few fandoms that is almost unanimously in support of the two male (or in this case, more likely male-aligned) leads becoming an explicitly romantic couple – perhaps because Good Omens is already so abhorred by the right-wing that very few homophobes seem to watch it at all – so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Gaiman gives the fans what they want in this case. Regarding Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship in season one, he said that he consciously structured it as “a love story”. And with the stakes a little less high in season two (at least at the outset, it seems), there’ll be plenty of time for more cute moments between the duo, whom fans have dubbed the Ineffable Husbands.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen will return to reprise the lead roles in season two, which will begin filming in Scotland sometime later this year. We can reasonably expect to see other major characters from season one return, including Jon Hamm as the Archangel Gabriel, Adria Arjona as the good witch Anathema Device, and Frances McDormand as the Voice of God, but I’m very excited to see which new characters Good Omens has in store for us. We’ve met the literal Antichrist already, so one has to wonder if some version of the Messiah themselves – like, the real one – might pay a visit to Earth in season two. It seems obvious, but at the same time perhaps a bit too obvious? The wheel-shaped Ophanim angels, or Seraphim angels with six wings and hundreds of eyes, might offer less predictable alternatives.

Good Omens
They’re in love, your honor | polygon.com

With the first season of Marvel’s Loki – which I described as brilliantly emulating the spirit of Terry Pratchett – nearly over, it’s comforting to know that we’ll soon be seeing more zany comedy on our screens, and from Pratchett’s own wild imagination, no less. Now how about we finally get the Discworld adaptation we deserve?

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Simon Merrells Cast In Amazon’s “Lord Of The Rings”!

Amazon Prime recently announced the main cast for their upcoming Lord Of The Rings prequel adaptation (a multi-talented fellowship of fifteen, all of whom seem like admirable and interesting people), but now, with their production start-date inching closer, it’s time for them to start casting the smaller roles: recurring characters, guest stars, that sort of thing. Simon Merrells is the first such actor to be cast, according to new reporting.

Simon Merrells Cast In Amazon's "Lord Of The Rings"! 1
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Merrells, best known for his work on the TV series Spartacus (and for his brief but hilarious role on another Amazon Prime series, Good Omens), will supposedly be joining the cast of the epic fantasy in a recurring role: unsurprisingly, we don’t have a character name to attach to his face just yet, nor do we know how many episodes he will appear in. But that’s never stopped me before, and it’s not enough to stop me now from taking a wild shot in the dark and throwing out a guess for who I think Merrells could portray in the first season of Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings.

The character who came to mind immediately, after taking a long, hard look at Merrells’ long, hard face, was Círdan the Shipwright. Círdan is by no means a pivotal figure in the histories of the Second Age of Middle-earth, when this series takes place, but he is still just important enough to warrant popping up from time to time: he was one of the three Elven Ringbearers, and throughout the Second Age he wore on his hand Narya, the Ring of Fire – a responsibility he doesn’t seem to have ever exploited, as there’s no record of him ever using the Ring (and as soon as the Third Age rolled around, he took the first chance he got and passed it off to Gandalf). In this Age, he mostly stayed put in the peaceful country of Lindon, where he was probably a close confidante of the Elven king Gil-galad. He also started construction on the Grey Havens, which would later serve as the Elven peoples’ last escape-route from Middle-earth in times of war and hardship. There, at the Havens, he was probably the guardian of one of the palantíri seeing stones (which technically was housed a couple miles away at Elostirion, but close enough to still conceivably be within his sphere of influence). He stood by Isildur and Elrond on the slopes of Mount Doom after the first defeat of Sauron, and presumably backed Elrond up when the latter tried to convince Isildur not to take the One Ring. He’s a character who stands on the margins of this world’s history, watching events unfold with a patient, foreseeing eye, but rarely getting involved in the action. In other words, he’s not going to be around often in the series, but when he does show up, it’ll probably be for big, dramatic moments.

And of course, Merrells matches his physical description well enough: Círdan is written to be an old Elf, still noble and majestic, but weathered and worn-down a little from the weight of his burdens and the pain he has seen. Merrells, with his gaunt features and deep-set eyes, looks almost exactly like the character – I say “almost”, because Círdan is supposed to have a long grizzled beard, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for Merrells, who has grown a decent-sized beard before for multiple roles.

So that’s who I think Simon Merrells could play in the Amazon Prime series. Who do you think he’s playing, and what do you think of the casting? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!