by Neil Gaiman
Aziraphale steps into the flames and is engulfed by burning Hellfire.
641INT. HELL
The walls and roof of the court of Hell are transparent, and dozens of demons are staring in at us: they look HORRIFIED.
What does it take to drop the jaws of demons? Beelzebub and Dagon and Hastur also look terrified, revolted . . . And we follow their glance to . . .
THE BATHTUB.
In which, wearing nothing but his underpants and, oddly enough, his socks (but his feet are out of the bath, resting on the far edge) is Crowley. He doesn’t actually have a newspaper and a cigar, but damn, he’s enjoying himself in his bath . . .
CROWLEY
I don’t suppose that anywhere in the nine circles of Hell there’s such a thing as a rubber duck? No?
He waves at Beelzebub.
642INT. HEAVEN – DAY
And in Heaven the angels are watching, with horror, as Aziraphale stands in the flame, without burning.
He’s standing in it like a man taking a much-needed shower.
He takes a deep breath and breathes out a huge gout of Hellfire into the room.
The angels back away in terror . . .
GABRIEL
It’s worse than we thought.
643INT. HELL
Beelzebub is having the same thoughts.
BEELZEBUB
He’s gone native. He isn’t one of us any longer.
644INT. HEAVEN – DAY
Uriel is terrified, but he’s asking the question . . .
URIEL
What IS he?
645INT. HELL
Beelzebub watches as Crowley enjoys himself by taking handfuls of water and dripping them over the side of the bath, where they flame and flare and burn through the floor.
CROWLEY
So you’re probably thinking, ‘If he can do this, I wonder what else he can do’? And very, very soon, you’re all going to get the chance to find out.
HASTUR
He’s bluffing. We can take him. One demon against the whole of Hell, what’s he going to do?
BEELZEBUB
Shut it! We have to get him out of here. He’s going to causze a riot.
(she looks at the demons staring at this through the walls)
What are you all looking at? Nothing to see! Nothing to szee here!
The glass goes black, and the demons vanish.
There is a DING! The lift doors open. The angel Michael is holding his empty jug.
MICHAEL
I came to bring back the . . . OH LORD.
Crowley gets out of the bath.
CROWLEY
Michael. Duude. Do us a quick miracle, will you? I need a bathtowel?
Michael looks desperately at the demons, then, nervously hands a miraculous bathtowel to Crowley, who starts towelling off. Crowley looks at Beelzebub and co. He starts to do up his shirt.
CROWLEY (CONT’D)
I think it would be best for everyone if I were left alone in future. Don’t you?
Beelzebub and Hastur and Dagon all nod. Crowley looks at Michael, who nods too.
Crowley picks up the rest of his clothes.
CROWLEY (CONT’D)
Right.
646INT. THE LOBBY OF THE HEAVEN AND HELL BUILDING – DAY
The lift doors DING open. Crowley, finishing getting dressed – doing up his tie perhaps – walks out into the lobby.
A moment later, another DING, and Aziraphale, looking very pleased with himself, gets out.
They look at each other. Then Crowley and Aziraphale walk out of the building together.
AZIRAPHALE
(sotto voce)
Now THAT was playing with fire.
647EXT. TADFIELD HILLSIDE – DAY
Newt is at the top of a hill. He’s leaning in with a box of matches. Drops one towards us and a fire starts.
Pull back. A bonfire is burning in a small circle of stones. We’re on a hill outside Tadfield.
NEWT
Are you sure?
Anathema steps into shot.
ANATHEMA
Yes. I’m sure. I know what I’m doing. I just don’t like it.
NEWT
Technological marvels could be revealed.
ANATHEMA
You’d probably just break them.
She takes the manuscript, and picks up the title page, and is about to drop it into the fire. Then she hesitates.
NEWT
Think of it this way. Do you want to be a descendant all of your life?
And she drops the title page into the flames.
We look at it blackening, as another page joins it. And another.
Newt and Anathema, laughing, drop the pages in.
The smoke wreathes up from the bonfire, and for a moment we see Agnes Nutter, in the smoke, looking down at her descendants, and smiling. She’s happy . . .
648EXT. ADAM YOUNG’S HOUSE – DAY
Adam’s in the back garden. He looks gloomy. A PSSST! is whispered from behind the fence.
Pepper’s head pops up. So does Wensley’s and Brian’s.
PEPPER
Your mum said we can’t talk to you. So we came round the back.
Adam shrugs.
BRIAN
Adam. What happened last night?
ADAM
Just stuff. Doesn’t matter. All I try and do is help, and now I’m stuck in the garden.
WENSLEYDALE
How long until they let you out?
ADAM
Years. Years and years, I expect.
PEPPER
What about tomorrow?
ADAM
Tomorrow will be all right. They’ll have forgotten by then. They always do.
PEPPER
There’s a circus in Norton. We were going to go over on our bikes and watch them set up.
ADAM
You should go. I’ll be fine.
They go.
He sits for a moment on his own. Dog is sitting looking up at him. Adam looks around. Then an idea occurs to him.
He looks at the hedge, which is impenetrable.
ADAM (CONT’D)
Dog. Get away from that hedge, because if you went through it, then I’d have to chase you to catch you, and I’d have to go out of the garden, and I’m not allowed to do that. But I’d have to . . . if you went an’ ran away.
There’s a beat. There’s now a hole in the hedge, of a size that a boy and a dog could get through. Dog looks up at him. And then he’s off, through the hole and away into the field beyond the house . . .
Adam grins, delighted.
ADAM (CONT’D)
Dog, you bad dog! Stop! Come back here!
And he runs after him.
649EXT. TADFIELD FIELDS – DAY
And Dog runs ahead, and Adam, delighted, runs after him, laughing.
Pull back.
GOD (V.O.)
Something told him that something was coming to an end. Not the world exactly, just the summer. There would never be one like this. Not ever again.
Newt and Anathema are on the hill having their bonfire.
Adam pauses for a moment, and looks up at the smoke from the bonfire.
Agnes Nutter in the smoke sees Adam, and winks at him. Anathema and Newt wave at the small boy, and he waves back, and then runs, with Dog at his heels . . .
Then we see his hand snatch AN APPLE from a tree.
R. P. TYLER (O.S.)
Oy! You, boy, Adam Young, get away from my apples! I’ll tell your father!
And he’s still running. Eating his apple with joy.
GOD (V.O.)
He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their apples, but life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.
A boy and his dog. Having the best day of their lives.
650EXT. BERKELEY SQUARE – DAY
Aziraphale and Crowley, sitting on a bench in
Berkeley Square, in the garden. It’s a beautiful day.
AZIRAPHALE
Do you think they’ll leave us alone, now?
CROWLEY
At a guess, they’ll pretend it never happened. Right. Is anyone looking?
Aziraphale raises his hands to his temples, and concentrates.
AZIRAPHALE
Nobody. Right. Swap back, then.
GOD (V.O.)
It was just like Agnes had told them. They were playing with fire, and would need to choose their faces wisely. And so they had.
Crowley and Aziraphale hold hands. We watch as they MORPH: Crowley becomes Aziraphale and Aziraphale becomes Crowley.
CROWLEY
A tartan collar? Really?
AZIRAPHALE
Tartan is stylish. So. Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy was on the money.
(confiding, pleased with himself)
I asked them for a rubber duck! And I made the archangel Michael miracle me a towel.
CROWLEY
They’ll leave us alone. For a bit. You ask me, both sides are going to use this as breathing room before the big one.
AZIRAPHALE
I thought that was the big one.
Crowley shakes his head.
CROWLEY
For my money, the really big one will be all of us against all of them.
AZIRAPHALE
What? You mean Heaven and Hell against humanity?
Crowley shrugs. They start to walk away through the garden . . .
CROWLEY
Time to leave the garden. Let me tempt you to a spot of lunch.
AZIRAPHALE
Temptation accomplished. What about the Ritz? I do believe a table for two has just miraculously come free.
651INT. THE RITZ HOTEL RESTAURANT – DAY
A pianist is playing gentle dinner music . . .
Crowley and Aziraphale are eating in the restaurant. They are enjoying the things of the world. A waiter is filling their glasses.
AZIRAPHALE
I like to think none of this would have worked out if you weren’t, at heart, just a little bit, a good person.
CROWLEY
Or if you weren’t, deep down, just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. Cheers. To the world.
AZIRAPHALE
To the world.
Glasses clink. We hear birdsong over . . .
GOD (V.O.)
Perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality because, while they were eating, for the first time ever, a nightingale actually did sing in Berkeley Square. Nobody heard it over the noise of the traffic, but it was there, right enough.
And as the screen goes black we head into the credits, and a voice sings . . .
SONG
That perfect night, the night we met,
There was magic abroad in the air.
There were angels dining at the Ritz
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
I may be right, I may be wrong,
But I’m perfectly willing to swear
That when you turned and smiled at me
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square . . .
FADE TO BLACK.
END CREDITS
The Regrettably-Deleted-Other-Four-Horsemen-of-the-Apocalypse Sequence
It is a rule of film-making that, no matter how much money you have and no matter how much time you have, you never have enough money and you never have enough time. The first casualty of budget and time was the Other Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We had cast them (they were funny, and huge. And actually gloriously scary-looking), but then, a few days before our read-through, we needed to shave several days off the schedule along with a healthy amount off the budget, and I gritted my teeth and began to cut. This is what I cut. You can make it in your head . . .
EXT. UK MOTORWAY – RAIN – DAY
War, in red leathers, on a red motorbike, pulls off the motorway. She stops outside a service station/café.
EXT. THE HAPPY PORKER CAFÉ – STORM, DAY
War stops her bike, dismounts. There are four big battered Hells Angels motorbikes parked there already.
The weather is nasty: gusting and raining, an ice-cream sign is spinning.
A BUSINESSMAN, leaving the café with a CLIENT. They are talking happily.
War takes off her red helmet; shakes out her long auburn hair like someone in a shampoo commercial or a sixties James Bond film . . .
The businessman turns his head to look, while still walking, and smashes his face into a plank sticking out from the back of a lorry. Blood drips from his cheek onto the client, who takes a step back, repulsed, and then stamps on the businessman’s foot.
The businessman takes a swing at the client, and we watch them fighting in the background as we follow War into the café . . .
INT. THE HAPPY PORKER CAFÉ
It’s empty. There’s a bored CAFÉ LADY behind the counter. There are four HELLS ANGELS in the back of the café, all of them huge, filthy and dangerous, with four varieties of interesting facial hair. They are called PIGBOG, GREASER, SKUZZ and, biggest and nastiest, BIG TED. They are gathered around another BIKER who is still wearing his motorbike helmet. This biker is wearing a long black coat, with a bat-winged hourglass picked out in rhinestones on the back.
He’s a lot cleaner than the others, but we should initially assume he is one of them.
The other biker is playing an ancient TV-screen arcade video trivia game with BLEEPS and BLOOPS.
We can see the categories: General Knowledge, History, Films & TV, Sports.
The other biker hits Films & TV: which film won the most Academy Awards? (Options: RETURN OF THE KING, GONE WITH THE WIND, THE GODFATHER, ALL ABOUT EVE.)
PIGBOG
It’s D. The Godfather must have got more Oscars than Gone with the Wind.
SKUZZ
Titanic got lots of Oscars.
GREASER
It’s not on the list, Skuzz, you tosspot.
The other biker’s gloved hand presses the A (RETURN OF THE KING) option. The screen gives a RIGHT ANSWER flash, and ‘you win’-style BLEEPS.
BIG TED
He’s good.
PIGBOG
I’ll give him that, Big Ted. He’s good.
War is over at the counter.
WAR
Cup of tea, please. And a cheese sandwich.
The café lady bustles into tea-pouring action. Outside the rain gets nastier.
CAFÉ LADY
You on your own then, dear?
WAR
Waiting for friends.
CAFÉ LADY
You’re better off waiting in here. It’s hell out there.
WAR
No. Not yet.
Pigbog is talking to Greaser. Pigbog has LOVE and HATE tattoed on his knuckles.
PIGBOG
Thass a new one: ‘How many times has England been officially at war with France since 1066?’
GREASER
Twenty? Nah, s’never twenty . . . Oh. It was.
Greaser has FISH and CHIP tattooed on his knuckles.
We notice that the winnings, many pound coins, are sitting uncollected in the tray under the screen.
EXT. THE HAPPY PORKER CAFÉ – STORM, DAY
In the carpark, Famine’s black bike pulls up next to War’s red bike.
INT. THE HAPPY PORKER CAFÉ – STORM, DAY
SKUZZ
Pop music, current events, general knowledge and . . . war?
BIG TED
I’m hungry. Get us a steak and kidney pie.
And the café door opens. The wind blows into the café, and BLACK/FAMINE walks in. He’s wearing black leathers.
Famine walks over to where War is sitting.
FAMINE
Hello, War. Been a long time.
WAR
Mmm. Famine. Feels funny, all of us finally getting together like this.
FAMINE
Funny?
WAR
W
e’ve spent all these thousands of years waiting for the big day, and now it finally comes. Like waiting for Christmas. Or birthdays.
FAMINE