Good Omens Season 2 — Michael Sheen and David Tennant deepen their cosmic bond

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The heart is resistant to logic, judgment and expectation. So much so that sometimes even a kindly, dandyish angel and a reptilian, sharp-tongued demon can’t help but become inextricably attached to one another. And sometimes a TV critic with little interest in fantasy finds it impossible to resist a show revolving around supernatural beings.

The otherworldly comedy Good Omens returns after four years with an unplanned sequel prompted by popular demand. Writer Neil Gaiman has duly written a new narrative that expands the story beyond the material of his (and Terry Pratchett’s) 1990 source novel and further deepens the unlikely bond between Michael Sheen’s seraphic Aziraphale and David Tennant’s louche Crowley.

Having only just averted the apocalypse in the previous instalment, the cosmic odd couple soon discover that there really is no such thing as rest for the wicked — or the good. The trouble begins when the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) arrives at Aziraphale’s London bookshop without any clothes on his back or memories in his head. He is — even if he can’t remember — the most wanted being in the universe: an apparent traitor of those above, and eternal enemy of those below. Fearing that they and their precious Earth — not just a blue planet but a liberating moral grey area — might again be plunged into chaos, Aziraphale and Crowley join forces to protect the amnesiac Gabriel.

Beyond this basic set-up, the storytelling is loose and digressive. We move from unreal contemporary Soho (never mind the celestial lifts, the abundance of independent shops is the real fantasy here) to the dawn of time, and from the waiting rooms of hell to heaven’s business suite. That the empyrean and abysmal are both mired in everyday bureaucracy is one of the show’s better recurring jokes.

It can be easy to get lost in all the show’s tangents and idiosyncrasies, but the plot can feel largely incidental to Sheen and Tennant’s effortless chemistry. Whether bickering about nothing or supporting each other through major moral and existential dilemmas, the duo share a funny and touching rapport. Here’s to the next 6,000 years of beautiful friendship.

★★★★☆

On Amazon Prime Video now