The second season of Good Omens has finally premiered on Prime Video, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been watching and rewatching clips from it after finishing all six episodes. I am very much still trying to process everything that went down in addition to all the new and returning characters coming to complicate things for David Tennant’s Crowley and Michael Sheen’s Aziraphale—not that they need help in that; to be honest, they can manage perfectly well by themselves.
Still, among these new characters, there’s one we met the very start of the season—back when we didn’t know we were going to get punched in the gut by that heartbreaking finale—who stirs up quite some trouble. So let’s take a bit of a deep dive to examine this new character and their not-so-new face.
This article contains spoilers for the entirety of the second season of Good Omens. Be warned.
So who exactly is Shax?
Shax is the new representative of Hell in London. That was Crowley’s job before he was branded a traitor at the end of season 1 for foiling Armageddon, and before Hell agreed to leave him alone on Earth after his trick—or, well, Aziraphale’s trick—with holy water.
Just like Crowley, Shax is tasked with sowing chaos and dissent around the humans of London and tempting them to do evil. And while Shax is way more zealous than Crowley ever was, she still finds the job quite easy since apparently the humans can do all sorts of evil all by themselves without any demonic intervention at all.
The two demons appear to be somewhat friendly with each other, even though Shax now lives in the apartment that used to belong to Crowley—since all expenses are paid by Hell—and the former has a lot to learn about human customs and behaviours. Still, there’s only so much demonic friendship will do. Shax is incredibly ambitious, and when she spots an opportunity to advance she takes it without question, even if that includes leading a legion of demons to attack Aziraphale’s bookshop to retrieve Jon Hamm’s still memoryless archangel Gabriel.
That’s somewhat coherent with the role that Shax plays in actual occult texts, like the 17th-century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon. In the first of its five books, titled Ars Goetia, Shax is described as a Marquis of Hell, faithful and obedient, in command of 30 legions of demons.
Who plays Shax in Good Omens?
Something everyone noticed about Shax is that her face is a very familiar one. Miranda Richardson was already a recurring character in the first season of Good Omens, where she played Madame Tracy, the medium-slash-‘intimate care and relaxation’ professional who lives in the apartment next to the headquarters of the Witchfinder Army, the home of Sergeant Shadwell.
As we saw in season 1, Madame Tracy’s séances weren’t usually very eventful, except for that one time when she found herself possessed by a discorporated Aziraphale and ended up witnessing Armageddon not go down at Tadfield Air Base.
Richardson is not the only face to return to the show in a completely new role. Nina Sosanya and Maggie Service are both back as Nina the coffee shop owner and Maggie the record shop owner; in season 1 they were both sisters of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl, with Sosanya playing Sister Mary Loquacious and Service playing Sister Theresa Garrulous.
(featured image: Prime Video)
