MONDO EXTRAS

Jude sits on her bed in the station-turned-barracks, watching the news about her getting blown up. Remember that? The news goes the extra step of referring to her, Frank and Peter, as "the New Disciples." She's almost cool with that, because that's the most laughably queer part of this entire venture. The explosion is "now being called Baxter's second miracle." She smokes a cigarette, and falls back on the bed. It's dressed in lovely red linens. He smiled at her, in the middle of the fire. When the whole world around them was ending, all that existed, all you had to hold onto, was Chris Eccleston's smile. (We've been to that rodeo a time or two, haven't we?) And she looked back at him across the table, everything falling apart, both of them wreathed in literal hellfire, falling from a great height, noise louder than anything. And he smiled at her, with infinite love. She's dealing. I like her a lot.

Steve reads a Third Testament briefly; he drops it and picks up another. He dumps out mailbags, parcels, piles. None of them are right. He starts a minor meltdown, and Peter looks him right in the eye. "You start over there, and I'll start over here." There's your Third Testament, you idiots. That's all you need. Steve whines, "There's millions!" and resumes his wobbler, but Peter holds his gaze. "You start over there. And I'll start over here. And we'll meet in the middle. Okay?" And he smiles. Less magic, more problem solving.

Later, they're all reading Testaments, camped out surrounded by piles and piles. It's another unavoidable scene, isn't it, but it sparkles nonetheless. Peter: "Nutter. Nutter. Nutter." There are lots of funny and crazy and sad pictures of Jesus. Single girls with their photos attached. That's how you know you're famous, when they start sending pictures attached. Jude finds one that says all you have to do is work out the (Subway? One-way? Manchester, what are you like?) system in Oxford. Oxford City Council called, they said, "Park and Ride, bitches! We keep telling you!" So I guess the Oxford City Council is Jesus now. There's another one Steve describes as "a novel," and Frank reads a long screed along the lines of "England for the English, kick out the blacks and Asians and refugees, burn the gays and the Jews, burn them in a pit and salt the earth, whatever." I bet there were a lot of those. Frank is interesting: "What if they're right?" Valid question. Jude's got a bunch of death threats. Steve's been blown up and survived forty days on the moors. He's fine. (Note: Peter's got all the crazies to deal with, Frank has the traditional hate literature, Jude's got the death threats. And Steve's got a bunch of nothing.) "I can die," Steve says. "Wouldn't be human if I can't die." Jude is still doing her bit for secular humanism: "How do you know?" Download, he gestures to his temple. "When? How?" When it's time, he thinks. "Dunno." And Jude throws a wobbler of her own, that has more romantic relevance than anything else. Even though it's mostly true about them both. "I dunno! I dunno, don't ask me. Dunno, dunnoooo. Ask a simple question..." He protests. Things are getting weird. "I don't know!" he shouts, and she cuts a violent glare. "Yeah, I know. Want a cup of tea? Mmm, dunno."