Good Omens – The Book

By: Ariba Bhuvad

The arrival of the four horsemen is set into motion as The Summoner (Simon Merrells) begins to gather them. The first stop is War (Mireille Enos) who is in North Africa when the package arrives. Initially, she was meant to be signing a peace treaty, but as soon as she sees that her package containing a sword arrives she gets out of there as soon as possible.

The scene shifts to 1656 Lancashire, England where a witch by the name of Agnes Nutter (Josie Lawrence) is introduced. Things aren’t going so well for her as a Witchfinder by the name of Newton Pulsifer (Jack Whitehall) is preparing to burn her at the stake. Of course, Agnes has other plans as soon as she is taken to the stake. She kills the civilians around her along with Pulsifer with the gunpowder and nails she had tucked away in her coat. In the event of her death, Agnes prepared a book of prophecies that she only wanted to be published after she was gone. As time would eventually tell, all these prophecies turned out to be true.

In the present time, there was only one copy left of this book in her family. These family members had just one job–figure out what the prophecies mean, track down the Antichrist and figure out a way to save the world for Agnes’ great (times five) granddaughter, Anathema Device (Adria Arjona). It is around this time “Good Omens” introduces Anathema who lives in Tadfield and spends all her time using magic to find the Antichrist.

This isn’t the only great, great, great, great, great grandchild we meet. Newton is a descendant of Pulsifer who grew up in Surrey. He’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the toolbox and lacks social skills, to say the least. Lost, confused and jobless, Newton eventually runs into Sergeant Shadwell (Micheal McKean) who is a Witchfinder. It doesn’t take much for Shadwell to convince Newton to join his cause of hunting down witches.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Crowley (David Tennant) are still busy trying to figure out where the Antichrist is, given all the confusion that kickstarted this whole thing. They head to the convent where the problem first occurred but things aren’t exactly as they remember. Upon arriving there, they find themselves in the middle of a paintball course. It’s not long before Crowley decides to use his demonic tendencies to switch things up on the course a bit by changing the paintball guns into real guns. No one actually dies, but it’s a bit frightening nonetheless.

Crowley and Aziraphale debate over the topic of guns, in which Crowley is surprised to learn that angels have a gray area when it comes to guns. According to Aziraphale, if the gun is with someone that knows what they’re doing with it then there is room for discussion. Crowley doesn’t seem to agree or understand this point of view at all, which comes as extremely shocking considering he’s a demon from the pits of Hell. Unfortunately, this visit to the convent leads them to a dead end with no new information or a possible inclination as to where the Antichrist may be.

Back in Tadfield, Anathema meets Adam (Sam Taylor Buck) in the neighborhood, who is intrigued by the news that a witch is in their midst. It’s ironic considering she has come to Tadfield in pursuit of the Antichrist and is completely unaware that Adam is exactly who she is looking for. Things take a weird turn when Aziraphale and Crowley inevitably show up and cross paths with Anathema–whom they literally run into while she is out for a night bike ride. Luckily, she’s in the middle of an angel and a demon so healing her wounds and getting her back to tiptop shape is no problem, except for when she accidentally leaves her book of prophecies behind by accident.

At this point Aziraphale and Crowley have had zero luck in finding the Antichrist, so the two send out their own agents to do the job. While on their way home; however, Aziraphale realizes that Anathema has left her book behind and is shocked when he figures out what the book is. There’s no time to dilly dally so he rushes into the bookstore to start reading it immediately. The first prophecy? That Aziraphale would read the book.

There is enough information contained within the book to help find the Antichrist. But now that he has the information, how will he go about utilizing it?