SPOILERS!!!

SPOILERS!!!

AZIRAPHALE'S INVITATION TO CROWLEY IS DARCY'S FIRST PROPOSAL TO ELIZABETH. I REPEAT, Aziraphale asking Crowley to join him in heaven is Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth. It's the wrong proposal at the wrong time and it's meant to break our hearts before the couple finally get it right.

The mid-point or 80% breakup scene is part of the typical romantic arc. It's part of every romance genre novel. Romance fans juoke about coping with the heartbreak of this point of the story because it's notiriously the one that's meant to get you sobbing. It's common to romance arcs within stories of other genres, too.

Good Omens has used the romance arc structure for Aziraphale and Crowley since season 1. That season was written to feel more complete, so of course it ended with them choosing to be together. It was a small cycle within what is now a bigger story. Crowley is the first one to make the wrong proposal there, asking Aziraphale to run away with him instead of trying to save Earth.

It makes sense to end the 2nd season with the breakup both because of the emotional punch and to encourage demand for a 3rd season.

This relationship has been treated, in terms of story structure, as a romance the entire time. This comes wiht the territory. This isn't fanfiction that's just about giving you the emotional feeling you want all the time. The breakup is there for a reason, and i'm probably going to write about it because I'm a story structure nerd and I think it was done really well here. (They can be notoriously bad when the breakup feels contrived or forced, not a natural result of conflicting feelings/needs).

We're even given a big clue with the Pride and Prejudice allusions. Jane Austen is a HUGE influence on modern romance stories and the references were explicitly called out by the characters in the show.

Like, they're just shouting at us that these two characters are being given a grand Jane Austen style romance! This isn't homophbia, people.

I’m seeing some clowns. Stop it

Big is like if someone asked

"what if ff7 Reno and Tseng were the same person?"

Nodt Nutthasid as Big ↳ KinnPorsche the Series - episode 2

They definitely delivered the butt shots

Thank you Bas for your contribution

Women of KinnPorsche: The Series || Episode 1

No but really, love stories about middle-aged queer people (or immortal equivalents ;-) ) in which they hit the halfway through or 2/3-of-the-way-through agonising cliffhanger break-up beat, being as it is a really time-honoured part of happy-ending classic romances. And in mainstream tv shows! Mainstream tv shows aimed at a wide audience!

That’s actually bloody awesome. I mean, at the time of course it hurts like hell. But… really. For queer love to be treated as suitable for a love story? To be hitting the Emma-and-Knightley-at-Box-Hill, Darcy’s-bad-proposal, Ladislaw-leaving-Middlemarch-because-clearly-he-and-Dorothea-can’t-be-together etc. etc. bit… I grew up on sitcoms like From May to December when fall outs like this were part of the story. It’s classic, it’s standard. It’s tropey in the best way: and one of those tropes which is a hundred times more fresh and powerful for a non-cishet couple.

I mean, I don’t know. I’m 44 and British. I grew up bi and nonbinary and closeted with Section 28 (even if the teachers at my school broke the Section 28 laws All The Time, bless them <3 ). I could not have imagined stories like this with a big audience. And as a community globally we are so hard beset, things are truly terrifying, but… but this is so powerful. Aziraphale/Crowley (and Nina/Maggie; actually and also Gabriel/Beelzebub given that too is a queer relationship!). And other stories too that I haven’t seen but know are out there. :-)

So no, I don’t love Neil Gaiman or John Finnemore any less for the end of series 2. Quite the contrary. Hitting “conventional” romance tropes with queer couples in a show like this? Yes, including the romance tropes that hurt dreadfully? Oh hell yes. Thank you, Neil and John. Thank you Pterry. Thank you Michael and David and Nina and Maggie. <3

And… well, since we did ask them for a story about an angel and a demon in love… It was never going to be easy. :) <3