#it just didn't feel like i was watching season 2 of ofmd s1

[mascarponx]

you guys have fun i'll just wait for the james somerton essay about s2 of ofmd

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

The more I think about season 2, the more grateful I am.

In a lot of ways, OFMD's writers, cast, and crew were given an almost impossible task. S1 was brilliant and took everyone by surprise by how successful it became. I am still shocked every time I rewatch by how smart and efficient the writing is, how intelligent the social commentary. S1 is a masterclass in good television.

And for s2, expectations were incredibly high. OFMD found massive word-of-mouth success in a way I've never seen with any other show, and they suddenly had a big, incredibly passionate audience - the renewal was because of massive fan support, and that must have translated to an incredible amount of pressure in the writer's room. Plus, as if that wasn't enough on its own, they're having to deal with budget cuts and Max slashing them down to only 8 episodes to tell a 10-episode story. This is an incredibly daunting task.

And yeah, I've been critical. OFMD is my favorite show, no contest, and it's easy to be critical of the things we love. We can all see that the pacing was off this season, especially in those last two episodes. Some arcs felt rushed; some side characters didn't get enough screen time to set up what they're doing this season. Jim and Olu especially suffer for that. It's inexcusable that this show's budget was slashed the way it was and I'm sad for what we could have had.

But, on the whole? Holy shit, this season was incredibly successful! Despite an incredible amount of fan pressure, the writers told the story they wanted to tell. They never lost sight of Ed and Stede's story, and were smart about allocating screen time so our leads' arcs never suffered too much for it. There's so much creative problem solving - when they realized they'd need to be smart about which side characters to keep on screen, they turned Buttons into a bird in a way that underscored season themes of transformation and change. 10/10, no notes. They even remembered their audience and left us on a satisfying note for all our characters - we get to end with Ed and Stede, happy and together, starting their new life.

They had an impossible task and they did a fucking commendable job. Character beats and humor are balanced amazingly well. Ed and Stede feel so much more fleshed out this season. Just like in s1, OFMD will never be a show where you can catch everything with one watch - there's so many little jokes, hidden gags, small details to discover with every rewatch. And every single actor is giving it their all in every scene! You can tell how much this show was a labor of love for everyone involved.

I'm proper fucking impressed. Here's hoping they get a renewal and a better budget for season 3!

[clairegregoryau]

Through the Looking Glass

From fairytale in Season 1 to stark reality in Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death- meta ported across from this Twitter thread by popular demand!

This thread contains spoilers for the entirety of OFMD Season 2

First OFMD S1 rewatch since S2, and holy shit, if you haven't done that yet... do that. A thing that it made instantly clear: they told us *all along* where this was going, but there was a reason we didn't see it. Because we were living in Stede's world then. Now it's Ed's.

I know that a lot of us have felt that the tone shift at the end of S2 was... jarring, compared to what's come before. This felt like a show that wouldn't go there. One where being run through was a temporary hiccup. We've travelled all the way from this to this.

But we haven't jumped there without a journey in between. And from the minute we started hearing about Blackbeard, the show never tried to hide what Ed's world and his specific life was like. Not once. In fact they told us over and over and over.

But Season 1 told us a lot of those things through song and story and fuckery. It blended reality with fiction.

Stede met the Blackbeard he knew through books and tall tales, and the real man was even more wonderful than he'd imagined.

We, along with Stede, were comfortable thinking that all those other tales were exaggerations and misrepresentations, and a lot of them very likely were.

The Ed Stede got to know was a person who was capable of whimsy and silliness and loved soft things and doing something weird. Yep, he was also capable of violence and rage, but when he was with Stede, he didn't feel it so much.

This was a vacation from that life.

To Stede he was absolutely lovely... oh, and also a bloodthirsty killer. And Stede loved (and loves) everything about him, and both of those things can be true. This is a perfect example of a spot where (in watching Season 1 without the benefit of hindsight) I assumed that everyone else in that pub was wrong, and Stede was simply trying to protect Ed's fearsome reputation by agreeing on the bloodthirsty bits. And I think from Stede's perspective that was largely true. I think that's how they wanted us to see Ed, through his eyes. Now, after watching both seasons, I think it wasn't the whole picture.

They told us, we heard it, we saw glimpses of it. But we (and Ed) were in Stede's run-away-to-sea fairytale the whole time. It wasn't until Stede left that we saw the reality- the Ed we knew had been, to a degree, a fictional character all along. I always saw this scene as Ed putting a bit of distance between himself and reality; it always felt like the Blackbeard of Stede's storybooks was the fictional one. But now it feels like the softer Ed that Stede knew was much the same- neither of them the whole story of who Ed was and is.

The one person who refused to live in Stede's fairytale was Izzy. I've seen people say it before, but he always gave off that vibe of the only human in the Muppets movie, or the guy who was in Black Sails while everyone else was in Pirates of the Caribbean. He saw the real risks clearly.

And in that light, the end of S1 has shifted an inch to the left for me, and I'm seeing it at a slightly different angle.

Izzy ripped away the healing Ed was doing, but in some respects he did it by tearing away the fairytale we'd all been living in, shoving Ed back into the Blackbeard story.

And that's where we pick up again in Season 2.

The fairytale reference came back in S2 in two notable places, those being Jim carrying that legacy forward in the darkest times, and in Izzy invoking the wooden boy against Ricky's efforts. Stede's made himself into a real boy. Ricky, nope.

Now that I've watched both seasons together, the tone shift doesn't feel so jarring at all, actually.

It feels like sliding through the looking glass, out of Stede's world, and into Ed's- a world that existed all along; we were just seeing it, la vie en rose, through Stede's eyes.

At the beginning of S2, Stede's gone, and we're seeing it unfiltered through Ed's reality.

But Stede wasn't lying when he said he loved everything about Ed. He made a promise to come back and find him- he went down into Ed's darkest place and reminded him that no matter how bad things got, there WAS someone waiting for him, ready to love him.

The contrast between S1's fantasy and S2's reality (excluding mermaids and actual bird guys and cursed coats) is stark, but it really is that.

We have the same settings, the same people, and very different ideas and outcomes at different times.

But it was always there.

Things do come back to a state of (precarious) balance once they're all together. Apologies are made, whether they're spoken out loud or through actions. Things go right, things go wrong. Healing happens. Izzy continues to have the steadiest, most real through-line in the story as he tracks toward redemption, finds acceptance, and to an extent finds himself.

Once again, I hate that they went here with the ending and I wish they hadn't. But it got a fraction easier for me looking at it not as a continuation of Stede's fairytale, but of the grounded-in-pirate-reality arc Izzy was always on, even while we lived in Stede's world.

Where does that leave us? We're not going back to the fairytale, but we're not going to be living in Black Sails for S3, either. We've hit a fusion point where S1 ended with each of them going to separate, miserable homes, but S2 ended with them in the same place, ready and willing to make a go of it.

Season 3 is going to give us their world, together.

I LOVED the moments in this season where the deep emotions were in balance with the silliness I've always adored about this show. Eps4-6 were wonderful like that. Clearly we're not done with drama, either, but like Ed and Stede, I think we'll find a middle ground.

Anyway in conclusion, a rewatch of S1 after S2 somehow made me love the first season even more, which felt impossible? It's now gained /even more/ layers of depth than it had before. No matter how you feel about S2 I think it's worth that rewatch.

Adding one more bit of clarity for myself: I think we got a bit (intentionally) seduced in S1 by the idea that the Ed of the storybooks, the Vampire Viking Clown with the nine guns, was a version of him that others saw, when Stede saw the REAL person who 'worked' for Blackbeard.

In hindsight I think it's clear the Ed Stede go to know was also not the complete version of himself- the reality is, there's a whole spectrum between the two, and they've landed in the middle of it now. Ed intentionally leaned into the unlovable Kraken image to protect himself.

It very much didn't work, just like being just... Edward hadn't worked to protect himself, either. This season has been very much about pulling those two extremes together and finding all the parts that make up Ed overall (another thread on that here on Twitter, which I'll also shift across to Tumblr soon!)

And I think one of my favourite things in S2 has been seeing the way Stede SEES that- he knows what Ed's done, everyone's told him, but he still loves Ed. sees his trauma and how it affects him, and believes he's a good man regardless. He IS lovable; he's not forever broken.

And together, they can heal.

[candied-cae]

Okay... I finished OFMD S2...

And yeah, as much as it breaks my heart, this season disappointed me in so many different ways. There are a few things I absolutely adored, but a lot of it felt like a disservice to a lot of the work S1 did to establish the universe and its characters.

Oluwande gave Stede advice like one whole time this season, even though that was a big part of the first. Him consistently being supportive was such a light, and it was pretty much replaced with him just being generally bubbly (and I fucking loved watching him be bubbly and joyful, might I add, but it's different).

Jim's complicated relationship with the idea of taking vengeance wasn't brought up at all. Jim's relationship with Oluwande was absolutely shifted, even now, I cannot watch S1 with the knowledge that they're going to be played off as "best friends who hooked up once" and see it, they HAD to have been intended as an endgame couple in the beginning.

Frenchie didn't sing even once, despite the fact that the very first scene opens to his voice! Frenchie as a character was shrunken a ton, in general. Ed leaned on him a lot in S1, that was gone. Wee John was shown as his best friend, but how many words did they even exchange this season? They let him do another grift, but it didn't include Oluwande so (personally) it felt cheapened.

Wee John didn't make a single fucking joke about fire! Even though there was a lot of fire this season, and he made like three separate comments about arson in the previous one?!?!?! And, again, he barely even talks to Frenchie at all!

The Swede was benched for half the episodes, Buttons became a bird halfway through and possibly won't be coming back at all, Ivan was killed off with a one-liner, and Izzy died as a completely backwards version of himself that we were given almost no show of him transitioning into.

Izzy, who practically stole a bunch of other character's "moments" while they rushed through his redemption so they could kill him at the end and hope they got everyone attached to him enough to care. Izzy got to sing, Izzy got to play advisor to Stede, Izzy got to do drag with John, Izzy whittled a gift for Lucius instead of Pete, Izzy pretty much interrupted every single scene Gentlebeard had... It's just... frustrating.

Season 1 was revolutionary to me, but Season 2 just felt far more average in comparison. I don't know, I was so excited, and rewatching season 1 is still exhilarating, but season 2 just doesn't do as much for me. I really feel like it was the wrong choice to spend as much time as they did with Izzy when they still skipped almost the entirety of his "redemption," condense so many of the other characters to make for time, but still make sure we could fit in some incredible jokes.

One of the only things that didn't change for me, was the humor.

But about half of my favorite things just didn't exist these last 8 episodes, so I need to go drown myself in some fanfics.

[gattinarubia]

so I decided to watch Our Flag Means Death after feeling bereft in the wake of season 2 of Good Omens thinking it might help alleviate some of the *feelings* I was feeling from that... and it almost... kind of did? I got a new ship out it so... mission accomplished?

I had LITERALLY no idea that season 2 of OFMD would be launched in FOUR DAYS. now i'm absolutely spiraling and this was not the plan at all. for some reason i thought OFMD s1 came out way before GO s1 (probably because black sails content had been around for a while but it didn't have the fucking gorgeous and amazing Taika Waititi in it so I have no idea how I got them confused) but it was only a year earlier!!!

i'm extremely excited and also really worried that i'm headed back down the angst rabbit hole. i just want these middle aged queer characters to be happy, dammit. maybe it's because i'm 30, but mature, fully-realized adult queer characters are my emergency bread and milk these days and will probably remain so forever.

Taika Waititi and Neil Gaiman have become disproportionally important to me and i feel both guilty and a bit silly that i'm hinging so much of my sanity on their creative choices.

(also Vico Ortiz now has me in a chokehold and I want them to have the best career ever where they can be 100% authentic and a drag king superstar to their heart's content... at least i think OFMD S2/Taika won't disappoint me there, at least. it seems like taika waititi drinks his "respect enbies" juice every day.)

please feel free to PM if you just want to squeal about either of these shows, because i have *thoughts* and i'm not totally sure how to deal with them. RIP my tumblr front page.

[louisinart]

Okay let's talk about Jim's gender.

Jims gender in s1 is something else about their character that didn't quite make sense to me until I was rewatching more recently, having already seen season two.

I remember feeling a bit disoriented back in 2022 because on one hand I had queer friends glowing at the upfront representation of being nonbinary and then, on the other hand, my parents genuinely did not understand Jim was queer at all. Of course, some of that can be chalked up to my parents as people, but it did itch at some deep feeling for me. While I understand that ofmd is technically historical fiction (silly jenkinisms aside), and therefore can't have a character break into an educational monologue about what it means to be nonbinary (a modern day word to describe a modern day understanding of gender), jims transness felt almost discreet to me. There was a fuzziness to it that didn't sit comfortably in me, even if I didn't hold it against the writers or the character.

Then came season 2 and with it a much more actualized Jim. And, for that matter, a Jim whose gender feels (at least to me) quite different. There's less fuzziness, and more play. Some of this is that they've been styled to be more aligned with modern modes of queerness, for sure, but I think it has meaning beyond that. Where their clothes were once loose and beige, Jim has incorporated color and different fits. They have that delightful party outfit that just sings of gender euphoria to me.

So, after all that, I went back to watch episode 4 of season 1 and I hear this:

"So this whole time you were a woman?"

"Yeah, I guess... I dunno"

And honestly? It all falls into place. Of course Jim's gender seemed fuzzy to me in season one, they were in ACTIVE GENDER CRISIS.

Like, if we look at jims gender timeline here's where we're at: Jim is living, unquestioned, as a woman. As they have for their whole life. Then, one day, they do a bit of murder and to help them go on the run they wear a disguise and start living as a man. That works pretty well, actually! Great! Everyone is treating them well, and they're pretty damn respected too. Until it comes out that they're not a man, actually. And then everyone is talking to them like a woman and it feels bad now in a way it didn't before -- or at least they think it didn't? Maybe it was always bad and they just didn't realize? But also they definitely aren't a man, they know that for sure. So fuck it, they're just Jim. Everyone can deal with that, and it feels right enough, and it's fine.

And that's how they end season 1, more or less, because they're too fucking busy getting shit done to worry about their gender right now thank you very much.

[rahnekat]

OFMD and Love

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

"I loved you best I could."

Spoilers for S1 and the first 3 eps of S2, along with triggers in those episodes.

I'm sure there will be a lot of deep and insightful metas about the themes of OFMD from people who are far better writers than I. (For example, I think we're very clearly seeing the effects of toxic masculinity in Ed. Ed's inability to healthily process emotion becoming violence towards himself and others is often the conclusion that toxic masculinity barrels towards.)

However, what's really stuck out to me on this first watch is love or possibly the inability to love. Another way to look at it is that I'm having feelings about stupid fucking Izzy Hands.

Season 2 starts with Izzy getting what he wanted. Ed loves him. Ed even admits it in the second ep. The problem comes when you realize that Ed loves Izzy as an extension of himself. Izzy is possibly the part of himself that Ed identifies as Blackbeard. I think Izzy even starts to see it since he asks Ed what he is to him, tells Ed he has love for him, and gets nothing in response.

Since Ed sees Izzy as part of himself, Izzy becomes victim of Ed's self-image. Purgatory!Ed didn't have to say that he thinks he's unlovable when he shows it every moment. He repeatedly maims Izzy in order to torture himself. He lets Izzy rot for an indeterminate amount of time with his infected leg wound before giving him an out.

Even the fact that Ed tries to push Izzy into killing him shows that Ed sees Izzy as part of himself. (I'm about to start reaching so stick with me please.) Ed seems to still have his hang up around killing. The only murder we personally witness him do this season is a guy who has a sword through his chest and will die anyway. He can explain that away as putting him out of his misery. Now, you might think his killing ~*thing*~ is why he didn't just commit suicide but I think it's more than that. I think its because Ed thinks he's unlovable and also doesn't love himself. He's in so much emotional pain that death would be a mercy, in his mind. The problem is that mercy and grace are forms of love. Ed doesn't think he deserves that or is even capable of having it. I think Izzy confessing his love is the tipping point and the reason Ed is finally ready to end it. If Izzy is telling the truth, that's enough love for Ed to get his peace. When that doesn't work, it's not long before he uses Jim and Archie's relationship to try for his mercy.

This is all a big long way of saying that Jenkins & Co. seem to really believe in the idea that "you can't love anyone until you love yourself." Since Ed cannot currently love himself, the love others have around him becomes poisoned like an infected wound. I personally think you can love while still learning to love yourself, but for the purposes of the story, I think they are right about Ed. He needs to reach a point of self-tolerance at the very least if not self-love. He can't rely on a fantasy to save him. (It doesn't matter how adorable merStede is.) This all leads me to believe that the love story for this season will be Ed/self. Stede's in it for the long haul; he'll wait around until Ed figures himself out.

Note: This didn't come out quite the way I hoped, though that's gonna be because I haven't completely figured out what I want to say. I have thoughts brewing under the surface about several other themes though I doubt I'll end up writing anything about them. So, um, fix-it fic writers got their brief with "warmth, good food, and orgasms," huh?

[allielikeapearl]

I'm actually so lucky.

Sooo, i've just finished ofmd s1 yesterday. I got it on my fyp and decided to give it a chance.

honestly the first 2 episodes didn't really pull me in and i got bored and went to watch something else (BROADCHURCH) but then i was like "okay... let's give it another chance now." So i did, and i'm glad i did because soon enough we were introduced to Blackbeard, and honestly he made the show so much more fun.

Now, episode 9 was scary, i was forced because of some "personal reasons" (sleep + school) to not watch episode 10 right after it, so i spent a whole day thinking of what could possibly happen in it, i was getting stressed out and thought about not even watching it and just living happily with the story that i had left and i wanted to believe that Stede actually went to Blackbeard instead, and didn't leave Ed hanging.

But i watched it, and it was a good episode, lots of positives but ofc negatives. I liked that Stede reconciled with his wife and children and that they ended things on good terms. But he literally did the same thing to Edward (left him without any notice), I hated watching him be heartbroken.

BTW, i didn't a second season was planned until i finished it which made me feel so lucky and happy (hence the title) cuz i only have to wait for 2 DAYS for a second season (ha jokes on you)

Also, Lucius better be still alive!!

[londonspirit]

Incoherent GO Rambles for prosperity

It's been two weeks and three days since Good Omens 2 dropped, and I'm still not over it.

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR GOOD OMENS S2!!

For not even having WANTED the show, back when they announced it, I haven't been this in love with anything since S1!

I mean, I love the book and I was all for it when they said they're going to make a show out of it. (Do NOT get me started on the awesomeness of the cast; those who had been around, KNOW - the rest doesn't need to know the extents of my unhingedness back then!!!) I mean, I have a GO banner in my kitchen, for crying out loud!

Anyhow, when they announced a second season, I was more or less meh! Yes, I didn't really want it, it felt like overstaying its welcome and making the best of something that was too damn epic to be replicated again!!! (Which is still true for many sequels these days - some things just do NOT need a continuation! Some things just are allowed to END permanently!!!)

Boy, was I wrong!!! On second thought, I should've known. Neil (and Rob) know what they're doing. If anyone could make a second season of something that only existed in Neil's and Terry's heads, it was them.

Of course I was happy to get DT and MS back - they're just fucking epic together! Of course I followed the filming of it - it's DT, I always do (casually). But I didn't really care as much for it as I did for S1. I did see the promos and everything, I watched the trailer but my heart wasn't really in it.

But of course I watched it when it dropped (I'm not nothing but loyal to something I love(d), and I will always give it the benefit of a doubt). Well, I watched the first episode at work (calm day, and boss doesn't really care much anymore) and then the second one and since a dear friend had a head-start on me, she made sure I watched the 3rd one as well - I have never ever laughed this much about a stupid zoom-out onto a CAR in fucking EVER!!!!

I mean, that was one of the few reasons I was actually excited about it - John freaking Finnemore - I've been watching and listening to him for over a decade now (Thanks BC) so I KNEW it would be good on the writing front (Yes, I know, Neil's also very good at it, I never questioned the writing or anything!! I love him dearly; just didn't feel we needed more, that's all!)

Anyhow, I had to stop watching and could only finish after work on Saturday. I'm still utterly amazed that I wasn't spoilered on it - and GOOD LORD, am I glad for that!!!! Even The Leak didn't make it on any of my sm's - well, it did but I had that much self control to NOT click any links... which I will never not be grateful for!!!!!

Because it surprised me, shocked me, blew my fucking mind!!!!! In the best possible way, mind you!!!

I've NEVER really seen those two as lovers.

There, I said it. For me they had been best friends, platonic soulmates, whatever you wanna call two beings who hung around each other for over 6000 years and still wanna be around one another.

Of course I saw it all before: the art, the fics, the meta's and hey, good on you. Just wasn't how I saw it but hey, that's totally fine.

So The Kiss really caught me off guard. Like, staring at my screen with my mouth open and my heart pounding kind off guard.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe Neil went and did that. It was just too damn good to be true!!! (I mean, I've watched OFMD, I KNOW it's possible to do that but its soooo fucking rare these days, it's always better to expect disappointment than something some people have been waiting and wanting for over 30 years!!!!)

The rewind button got a workout, I was soo glad I wasn't at work watching that, so I could freak out properly, and I will be forever grateful that I had my friend who had watched it so I could scream and wail at her all I wanted and she was there for me, holding me virtually, screaming with me and just in general keeping me from losing my mind entirely.

It took me a while to wrap my head around it (still trying to catch up with all of Neil's asks (as I had been ignoring a lot beforehand as I didn't want to be spoilered too much)) and Im still sooo very much in love with it.

Yes, I am. It's maybe not the show I wanted but BY GOD, it's the show I needed. I loved S1, and I fucking ADORE S2 just as much. The whole damn thing is just perfect (as I should've known with Neil!) and I swear, Amazon better be renewing it, unless they want to deal with an angry mob of GO fans descending on their headquarters...

I ignore all the bigots and homophobes and in general people complaining about it because they're just wrong. If they still don't get it, yeah well... they never will.

I love how my very own perception of these two has shifted now. I mean, I knew they loved each other, just never really in THAT way (still understood why and how others may saw that differently, that's the beauty of fandom!). I still don't see it very sexual (right now at least), more like the kind of deep and endless love that comes after having spend sooo much time together, having avoided Armageddon and scheming against their bosses. It comes with trust and a feeling of 'he knows me better than I know myself'. It's a love humans probably never will have, and it's so fucking beautiful I wanna weep!!!

It made me write my first GO fic (after having tried and failed back in the days), and I hope there will be more because I am fucking inspired right now!!!

It made me fall back in love with DT which I never say no to *hehe* I mean, he's always been there for the past decade or so, at the back of my fandom life, popping up every now and then when there's new things he's done but boy, did he stoke that simmering flame into a roaring fire with his beautifully nuanced and incredibly heartbreaking Crowley! It does help that he ages like the finest wine and has never looked better! (although im still sad that demons apparently don't have freckles... god, I love those freckles so much!)

I'm still a little taken aback at the INTENSITY of my own feelings for this season! Right now, there's nothing more pressing than having the confirmation for a third season and then getting that on its way. (Its DOES help to know that Neil would be writing a novel in the VERY UNLIKELY case of S3 NOT happening!) But hey, that's take time, so I'll do the one thing I am really really good at - waiting. Trusting that the strike will resolved in favour of the artists, knowing that as soon as that happens, Neil will get on it. Hoping DT and MS still wanna do a third act with those two idiots, and knowing I will be a lot more invested in everything again going forward!!!

Until then, I will be rewatching it over and over, look at all the beautiful art and read all the wonderful fics, maybe write some more myself and just revel in the unapologetic love Neil (and the fandom) has for these two (That man's a fucking SAINT - I've never seen anyone have this much patience with our fandom, yet he's not afraid to call people out on their assholery if needed and I will love him deeply and wholly for the rest of my life!)

So yeah, basically just wanna say how very much I love Good Omens S1 AND S2!!! And that I was wrong!

NEVER doubt Neil Gaiman!