Weekly Wrap-Up
July 17 2023

Hello, crew! We bring you two weeks of news again, and it’s chock full of fun S2 crew confirmations (and another sneak peek at Taika on-set)! We are also monitoring the situation with the SAG-AFTRA (actors’ union) strike, so keep checking our Twitter for information.

July 3

The recording for the Florida Supercon panel with Con, Nathan, and Kristian from the day before was made live. It is available to Supercon subscribers.

We also had a couple of S2 items come to light… See under the spoilers accordion.

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

We were going through the OFMD BTS Instagram (awesome account btw, give them a follow), and we noticed this Instagram story that we missed from OFMD writer Simone Nathan with Kiwi comedian Paul Williams (currently famous for New Zealand’s show “Taskmaster”). It’s unclear whether he was just a guest at the wrap party, or if he’ll have a small role.

Our industry insider also dug up evidence (PDF) of Alexandra Whitham as a dialect coach. The dialect coach for S1 was Victoria Hanlin, so presumably Alexandra is S2 crew. We haven’t seen evidence of French characters yet in S2, but maybe this coach knows other relevant accents… (They know at least Australian!)

July 6

We discovered that Madeleine Sami is very excited to be discovered by the wider OFMD fandom…

July 7

On Friday the 7th (technically Saturday by Melbourne reckoning), Vico kicked off their appearance at Metro Comic Con. They did two panels (Saturday and Sunday), a dinner with fans, and of course tons of selfies and autographs. You can check out our MCC thread below. (Some fans have said MCC recorded the panels. We’ve reached out to MCC, but have yet to receive a response.)

San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) started releasing their list of programming. There are no official appearances from OFMD cast or crew, but there will be a second-annual “Ships on Ships” panel (about relationships and friendships in OFMD). An eagle-eyed Twitter user also noticed that OFMD producer and assistant director Johnny Recher, and OFMD art director Samantha Avila will be appearing at unrelated panels on Friday.

July 10

AO3, popular fanfiction website, went down. It came back the next day, but the fandom was understandably devastated.

While AO3 was down, we all read this live-tweet of someone watching OFMD for the very first time (we’re so sorry, Kate!).

And a Seattle-based and queer-owned tea shop announced a new collection of OFMD-themed teas, which Vico helped name!

At the very end of the day, Samba blessed us with some season 2 behind-the-scenes.

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

This one led us on a merry little google…

A user identified “Rhum” as being something very specific:

We added to that conversation:

And someone’s family member gave us some context:

So we’ll have to see! A tantalizing clue…

July 12

David Jenkins posted about striking on Instagram, and then came to Twitter to post about it again. (Like it was important, or something?)

A Twitter user discovered that the Carsey-Wolf Center at UC Berkeley recorded their May 20 interview with OFMD writer Eliza Jiménez Cossio:

And… we got a lot of casting updates. Now, these are likely extras and stand-ins, and so we probably won’t be seeing them on-screen very long (if at all), but their role titles are what interests the fandom, and the list of directors. Check under the accordion for more info…

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

First off, thanks to our industry insider for kicking off this flood of information. The first round of information came from “Auckland Actors.”

Helene Wong: “Voice Work” – and this is unspecified, which is interesting. Lots of info about her in her memoir, and her listed accent skills include “Chinese” (though not the language).

Other actors found on this website are credited as “loop group” – basically background talking and crowd noise.

Simbarashe Matshe:

James Roque:

Andrew Grainger:

Then we had another round of casting from management company “Odd Management“.

Nathan Murray: “Lead Stand In” – basically they’ll be on-set when an actor can’t be, for lighting adjustments and so forth.

Justin Benn: “R.O.P. Town” – we know this to refer to “Republic of Pirates,” from some other extras confirmed in March.

Louis Flavell-Birch: “Blue Coat #2” (lots of discussion on this one, but we’re pretty sure this refers to a British 18th century soldier or military sailor, who wore blue uniforms). Also, another confirmation that season 2 will only be 8 episodes (which a Twitter user uncovered in March).

Flynn Chandra: “Extra” – from the same listing of directors as Louis, perhaps they were on the same episode(s)?

Then we had a couple of other confirmations, from other websites.

Ma’aola Faasavala: “Zheng’s foreperson” – and this is fantastic, because this is the very first time we’ve seen Zheng’s name confirmed before. In the March cast leaks, there were a couple of characters credited as “Red Flag,” and so we took a leap in thinking that that referred to Zheng Yi Sao’s Red Flag Fleet, but here it is, confirmed. Of course, Zheng was active roughly 80 years after Stede Bonnet began sailing – and some fans of color have objected to the writers potentially subjecting China to imperialism for an unnecessarily additional almost-century. We will have to see how the writers handle this ahistorical timeline…

Mark Black: “Henchman” – and we wonder, for who??

We also may have confirmation of a return of Tim Heidecker (Doug) in S2? Martin Bailey Illustrator Ltd has credited working with Tim Heidecker and Emporium Productions (the latter has only been involved in S2, to our knowledge).

This is confirmed on Martin’s personal website, where he lists he worked on OFMD S2 storyboards, which are “yet to air.” But this time, no mention of Tim. So we’re not sure what to make of this…

July 13

We had one more cast member join the list of discoveries:

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

Amanda Grace Leo: “A cheeky cameo or two” – interesting! This may be someone with more screentime than the other ones listed in this post.

We also wished Aotearoa New Zealand a very happy Māori New Year – Friday their time, but Thursday in the US.

But the biggest news of the day by far was the declaration from SAG-AFTRA (the actor’s union) that they were going to go on strike alongside the WGA (the writer’s union). Now, SAG-AFTRA and WGA have different union terms, and different contracts. So this is what SAG-AFTRA’s restrictions will look like:

Some were concerned, understandably, for the upcoming panel at New York Comic Con, which features 6 cast members, the largest OFMD panel yet. Here’s some information from NYCC themselves:
How will the SAG-AFTRA Strike Affect NYCC? Our celebrity guests will still be appearing at NYCC. What may be affected is what they’re able to discuss during our panels, as SAG-AFTRA does restrict their members from participating in the promotion of their work. They may not be able to talk about upcoming or current projects, but they’ll be able to talk about their backgrounds, hobbies and work outside of their film/tv careers. It just means we’ll have to get a little creative in the questions that are asked during the panel 😉

There was also discussion of how the fandom can help:

https://twitter.com/thekjohnston/status/1680261275128045568?s=20

In addition to the Entertainment Community Fund (which is here) mentioned above, which provides financial assistance to strikers, we also found resources at @PayUpHollywood (which supports coordinators, assistants, and other entry-level industry individuals), Green Envelope (which gives grocery assistance to any industry workers), and this list of other mutual aid funds.

We heard that evening from Samba, who gave us a last BTS before beginning his strike the following morning.

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

We were excited to see Maaka Pohatu, who some might recognize from “Wellington Paranormal.” Again, it’s unclear whether he was a guest at the wrap party, or if he has a role in S2. We would love for him to join in, if only for a cameo.

Samson reposted this photo on Instagram, adding a clip of Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.”

July 14

We wished everyone in the fandom a happy Nonbinary People’s Day!

Kristen Johnston (Widow Higgins) joined WGA strike coordinator Chandra Thomas on the picket lines! Chanda has been running the show since they declared a strike May 2 – more than 70 days! Go Chandra!

We also saw Margarita Pidgeon, hair department head for S1, striking.

The big new of the day was another Ora releasing a sneak peek at Taika on-set and in costume! Thank you, Ora sisters!

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

Taika is the last photo of this post. This seems to be from the same timeframe as the last picture, supposedly Taika is directing his wife Rita’s music video along the same stretch of land as they’re filming OFMD. It’s nice seeing Ed with no kohl and fingerless gloves again, we can only hope this means Ed comes back from being The Kraken.

July 15

We had a couple more crew confirmations…

⚠️ Potential S2 Spoilers ⚠️

Zain (last name & role not listed):

Maddie Dai – who is listed by the Nebula Awards as writer for S1, but we think they may have gotten caught up in the spring S2 renewal kerfuffle – is confirmed as a writer for S2.

We were excited to see a Max account post about OFMD – it’s been a couple weeks…

To round out the week, we got an announcement from Daddy Jenkins that he has officially joined Tumblr! (And Threads. But we don’t recommend Threads just now. You can read posts without joining up.) His first posts to Tumblr were some BTS from S1!

Other Things This Week:

  • So far OFMD fans have raised over $300 for Zebra Coalition (an LGTBQ+ nonprofit in Florida)! The fundraiser will continue until the end of the month, so get your gift in now! You get a t-shirt!
  • July 4: Rhys has been cast in “The Great Emu War,” filming in Australia later this year.
  • July 5: OFMD story editor Jes Tom started their US/Canada standup comedy tour. (Get tickets!)
  • July 6: Leslie announced her memoir book tour! (Buy tickets here!)
  • July 7: Binge, Australia’s streamer for OFMD, did a nice OFMD tweet about the art of fuckery.
  • July 9: A Twitter user released the first of Animal Crossing outfits.
  • July 9: MCM Comic Con is looking for ideas for October panels!
  • July 11: Montréal Just for Laughs comedy festival announced that Leslie would be having her own gala at the festival on July 29!
  • July 11: The Mary Sue used a photo of Vico striking on June 14 in their article about the impending SAG-AFTRA strike.
  • July 11: A Twitter user is looking for fabric/needlepoint crafters for #OperationAuxiliaryWardrobe.
  • July 12: A fan-made Gentlebeard manga was announced to be going on sale in August.
  • July 12: We discovered details on the second-annual DragonCon OFMD cosplay photoshoot.
  • July 12: The “Our Flag Means Corn” crew got a shout-out for helping strikers on the picket line!
  • July 13: UK crew will be meeting up at Hyde Park in London on August 27.
  • July 14: The Peabody Awards tweeted about (Peabody-nominated) OFMD (among other shows).
  • July 14: Dominic Burgess (Jeffrey Fettering) did an interview about what the strike means to him.
  • July 15: Leslie posted in support of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

There seems to be a constant trickle of little things coming in… We can’t wait until Max drops The Big One! As our fellow Good Omens fandom says, “Everyday, it’s a-gettin’g’ closer…”

Until next week you guys (/gn),
-OFMDCrew

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