Well, here we are. The end. For now.

And you know what? It turned out to be a solid freshman season. In retrospect, I have some mixed feelings about how everything ended up playing out over the course of these past two months, but I’ll save those thoughts for the wrap-up at the end of this final (for a while) review.

For now, though, let’s talk about “Come to Jesus” and how it worked as a finale.

Um, it worked pretty well.

Boom. Done.

I kid, I kid. To elaborate, though: episode eight didn’t end how I expected it to, but I think it bookended this starting arc nicely and gave us a definite sense of progress. I’m under the impression that I’ll like it more in retrospect, though — specifically, once we have our second season under our belts.

But we’ll get to that.

To give you a general idea, though: I think that this week confirmed an idea that I’ve been chewing over for a while, and that idea is that our year one was ultimately, well, one big setup.

Despite what I was fully prepared for, “Come to Jesus” doesn’t end with the meeting at the House on the Rock, so it appears that we’re saving that particular scene for the start of next year. Because it’s a rather important moment in the context of the overall plot and the direction it takes afterwards, I suppose it could have worked equally well as a finale or premier, but the fact that they decided to push it back leads me to believe that Fuller and company really wanted to use this initial batch of episodes to craft what amounts to a very long prologue, devoting all of its time to setting up both book-based and show-exclusive storylines and ideas before moving forward.

Which is understandable, I suppose — it’s always good to have all of your cards before you start playing them. But we won’t know just how well this approach is going to work until we’re a good way into our sophomore season. For now, though, I see this final hour as a final piece of preparation. That’s also why it sort of irks me, though: it’s more preparation. That’s all this year has really been. On its own, it’s a very enjoyable hour and works well as a finale. In the context of the preceding seven, though, it really emphasizes how slow the pacing has been.

But, again, we’ll get to that.

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Present Day

Shadow and Wednesday are visiting a friend: Mr. Nancy, who runs a very high-end tailor shop out of his home. There are a lot of spiders out and about, because he is the trickster god, and we aren’t about subtlety here.

Nancy decides to tell his guests a story, as that’s sort of his thing. He throws up a spotlight to heighten the mood (gods really like these things, apparently) and, rather unnervingly, makes direct eye contact with the viewer as he begins.

This is the story of a queen. She was once a mighty being, because she had a gift to offer, and it was something everybody wanted.

Can you guess what it was?

Hint: It wasn’t crocheting tips.

Yeah. Surprise.

*

864 B.C.E.

Temple of Bar’an

Well, they took their sweet time to get here, but we’re finally getting some backstory on Bilquis. She actually plays a relatively notable role in this episode, so I’m glad to see that we didn’t completely abandon her character after her few scenes oh-so-long ago.

Robed in splendor in her magnificent palace, Bilquis looks over a, well, orgy. This is an MA-rated show, people, and such shows are contractually obligated to feature at least one. Her subjects pick her up and carry her about in adulation, and there are a lot of genitals being (metaphorically) thrown around. Interestingly enough, there was a surprisingly high number of white people living in the Arabian Peninsula back then, it seems.

So that’s fun.

This is totally safe to post, right? You can’t actually see anything, but you still get the idea that there’s something tantalizing happening.

Nancy explains, however, that kings felt threatened by a woman having such power over so many people, and so they frequently came to her court in an attempt to bring her low. We see such a man, who, for some reason, grows a rather painful-looking crown out of the top of his head. I don’t know if it’s just meant to be symbolic, or if the royalty back then just had that ability, and we’ve lost the fine art since.

These men never lasted long, however. Crown Guy crawls his way across the hanky panky pile, disrobes, and begins to make love to Bilquis, because that’s… how he’s going to stop her? I don’t know. To nobody’s surprise, it doesn’t go super well.

Okay, is this secretly a safe sex campaign?

He and the rest of the subjects melt and get sucked up into Bilquis, in what is probably one of the weirdest things I’ve seen on television in a while. Thanks, American Gods! Don’t you ever change.

*

1979

Tehran

Time passed, and Bilquis changed with the times. At a disco (enjoy it now, folks — that piece of cool is about to die in a very dramatic way), she dances seductively with a woman, who appears to be her newest target.

But kings kept coming after her, fearful of her power: the power that all women have over rebirth and creation. So they came and took it, made it theirs, and sold it to other men. A raid bursts into the club and assaults the dancers, pulling girls away and brandishing guns.

(Point of note, writers: not all women can give birth, and not all want to. You don’t have to generalize feminine strength solely around the uterus and whether somebody has one or not.)

How symbolic.

Bilquis is forced to make do with this robbery, and resigns herself to the “back seat.” She convinces herself that, so long as she stays in “the game,” she’s winning. So on a plane to America, she flirts with a man and takes him to the restroom, where she, uh, eats him.

Now alone in her row, Bilquis is given a postcard by an attendant that proudly announces their destination: Hollywood. The stewardess is also remarkably calm about the fact that a passenger disappeared mid-flight. The ‘70s were a simpler time, I guess. Bilquis believes she will be just fine so long as she learns to adapt.

The New World, however, is not so kind to a woman’s power, either. Bilquis visits a hospital, where a woman with HIV lays dying. I can’t tell if it’s meant to be the same woman from the disco or not, but the message is clear: thanks to America’s fear of sex as (I assume) the AIDS crisis of the 1980s takes its toll, Bilquis is further cheated out of her domain.

*

2013

California

Another jump forward. Bilquis is homeless now and has all but forgotten her glory. She looks into an Ethiopian restaurant, whose logo of a stately woman brings a brief smile of nostalgia to her face. It’s promptly taken away when she sees the story being played out on the news inside — her old temple in Yemen being destroyed by ISIS, who have claimed it blasphemous.

What can she do? Nancy says it’s easy to look down on people when we aren’t in their shoes, to judge their choices, but those at the bottom will take whatever they can to survive. It’s not our place to judge these desperate decisions, because we would do the same. (This is important. Remember this.)

Bilquis’s way out comes in the form of the Technical Boy, who finds her sleeping on a stoop. He explains that he heard about her alter being destroyed, but can offer her a new one. He hands her a phone, which displays profiles on a dating website. Worship, he explains, is a volume business now, a game of surplus — it’s about numbers, and whoever has the highest wins. She stops on a profile of her. Does she want to play?

She does.

*

Present Day

What’s the moral to this story? Nancy asks. Shadow claims that it isn’t to compromise or make deals with “treacherous motherfuckers,” but Nancy promptly shoots him down. Life is all about compromises.

No, the moral is to find yourself a queen — which, Nancy points out, is what Wednesday needs now, since he’s gone and killed “one of theirs.” Vulcan hasn’t been of the Old Gods for a long time, and the New aren’t going to take his death lightly.

Nancy now wonders how Shadow feels about being bound to somebody like Wednesday for life, but Shadow claims that their deal is no longer valid. Wednesday violated it when he pissed him off, killing his friend and then acting like it wasn’t a big deal. He still doesn’t even know his employer’s real name, and is sick of all of the mystery.

Wednesday, however, claims that Shadow is not actually angry. He’s just confused. He will, however, have to start getting angry, because anger is what gets things done. And they have a queen to woo — hence the fancy suits they’re having Nancy make them.

Okay. Let’s break this all down.

Firstly, let’s think about Bilquis here. I’m happy to see her past explored, and this deal that she’s made with the Technical Boy raises some interesting questions. Her arc in the book was very truncated and strangely presented — she shows up twice and then gets murdered by the Boy, and her involvement doesn’t appear to do anything for the plot before or after. Granted, the snotty kid acts a bit strange whenever he encounters Shadow following his attack, but I honestly don’t know if his behavior was implied to have something to do with Bilquis (a curse?) or if he was just behaving oddly, as he tends to. Here, that seemingly pointless encounter and death has been turned into a secret partnership that gives a lot of possibility for further drama down the line. And it should keep her character around for a while. Not pointlessly killing off women is always a plus, and essentially giving her a personal dating site to use as her web is a clever way to update her power.

However. I brought this up in an earlier review, and I want to reiterate it now: I don’t know whether this equating of sex with power is a good way of portraying a ‘strong woman,’ especially when the cast has so few women in general. I could see it (and have seen it) argued either way, so let’s look at both sides of the coin here.

On the one hand, there’s the argument that this connection allows women to reclaim their sexuality (something stolen, as Nancy himself points out, by men) and use it against oppressive systems, turning it from something normally used to objectify and belittle them into something of a weapon. On the other hand, however, there’s the fact that this concept is still using sex as a means of framing and portraying a woman — it’s all about her physicality. And because this is, like in so many works of fiction, a character being largely written and filmed by men, it makes that latter interpretation a pretty difficult one to wave away. Granted, this episode is co-written and directed by women, but they are both white, and the experiences of women of color are not the same, so they cannot be considered in the same contexts.

And to really fuel that fire, there’s the fact that Bilquis’s plot apparently now hinges on her being under the thumb of a whiny white guy who frequently appropriates black culture. That’s gross.

There’s also the fact that Bilquis is not only one of the few women in this series, but also the only women of color that’s had more than five minutes of screen time. That fact adds the additional question of whether or not Bilquis is not only being objectified within a framework that’s trying to repackage sexism as empowerment, but also being portrayed in a racist light as well, with black femininity being linked and defined by themes frequently seen as wrong or ‘dirty’: lust and sex.

This is especially notable because of how the other (white) woman who plays a large role in this episode is portrayed, but we’ll get to her in a bit.

So I don’t know. I ultimately feel uncomfortable with how Bilquis is coming across here, but I’m not at liberty to state with any authority whether or not her portrayal is a good or bad one. That’s up to the women in the audience who see themselves being represented by her. Still, I think they’re important (potential) concerns to bring up.

If nothing else, though, Yetide Badaki kills her scenes. She sells Bilquis’s rise, fall, and all of the emotions attached to such turbulent life with no more than a handful of lines and a lot of facial expressions. The whole flashback is gorgeously shot, as well. Am I including all of the nudity in that assessment? I’ll never tell.

(I’m not.)

Secondly, it’s good to see more of Nancy, and I’m still liking his portrayal now that we’re getting more than him beyond a brief ‘Coming to America’ piece. Making him a tailor makes a lot of sense, as does the general change in his manner from a rather quiet (but still affable) old man to a more charismatic, fiery personality. It’s a good fit for a god of stories and tricks, though it sort of taints the impression of him as a supposedly out-and-down Old God. Given the look of his home and choice of suits, he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. Also, he’s supposed to live in Florida, so I’m wondering if Wednesday really took that long of a detour just to get a change of duds. 

However, I do wonder if his loud, boisterous performance could also be read as racist — the sort of over-the-top, minstrel-esque persona that has an unfortunate cinematic history. Again, it’s not my place to claim that this is a ‘bad’ way to characterize a black man; but given that this is another somebody dreamt up and written by white men, the possibility of it is there.

Do let me know your thoughts on this, if you so choose. I definitely want to better inform myself of these topics, especially since they’ll continue on through subsequent seasons.

Also, the moral of his story is kind of shaky to me. I see the whole trade-off — one killed, one recruited — mentioned, but referring to Vulcan as a queen doesn’t make sense when the whole story was specifically about women being robbed of power. He’s precisely the kind of person who would take it, so giving him that distinction is way off. It’s like they needed an excuse to give Bilquis more focus and awkwardly tried to force her backstory into a relevant lead-in for the main plot.

Plus, this whole speech about queens and strong woman is a good topic to bring up, but ending it with Wednesday stating that he “needs to get one” sort of ruins the whole idea. You’re expressing the importance of women having control, then tie it into the fact that a couple of men (the Technical Boy, Wednesday) are approaching them as acquisitions to add to their collections.

Really, this sequence drives home one issue that this show has been struggling with from the beginning, and that’s the fact that it’s attempting to explore diversity — in culture, gender, sexuality, religion — while being decidedly not diverse behind the scenes. It’s going to be really hard for American Gods to champion empowerment of so many marginalized and/or misrepresented groups when it’s being handled and spearheaded by nobody within those groups. Which isn’t to say that they shouldn’t try, I suppose. I think it’s good that Fuller and the others are taking the opportunity they have to make this story about more than just themselves, but it would be better if they used first-hand experience to inform their dialogue and characters rather than their own, (hopefully) well-meaning but ultimately uninformed perspectives.

Thirdly: Shadow. Shadow, my man. My guy. My friend.

Really? Really. Really.

I say this with nothing but love: How dense are you?

One: How did you completely miss the point of Nancy’s story? He straight-up told you how Bilquis needed to adapt to survive, and your takeaway was that… she shouldn’t have done that? Good on Nancy for calling you out, because that was a blatant swing and miss.

Two: “I don’t even know your name.” Shadow, do we have to spell it out for you? Write it on a piece of paper and glue it to your forehead? Oh, wait, we have spelled it out for you, because Mr. World gave an entire presentation about sending an ‘ODIN missile’ to a foreign country to get people praising Wednesday’s name again. Odin? Does this not ring any bells? Have you never heard of that particular figure before? Do you know how to do a Google search?

This is one thing that has rubbed me the wrong way all season, and it just comes to a head here at the end. I appreciate the writer’s making Shadow more willing to emote his confusion and struggle to accept what’s happening, as it makes him a lot more believable/relatable than his rather passive book incarnation was, but I think that them stretching out this particular bit of character development all the way through to the finale was a mistake. Shadow is not an ignorant man. He’s quiet and apathetic at times, but he’s also observant. He can make connections and draw conclusions even while he’s playing the part of the big, dumb muscle. Having him struggle for explanations and truth for a few episodes was understandable, but at this point, it’s just ludicrous to believe that he’s this clueless and unwilling to accept what’s happening.

They’re clearly angling for a big, grand reveal to use as a conclusion to wrap the year’s focus up, but even eight episodes is just too long to wait for that. We’ve all figured it out by this point, as has everybody else in the show.

Anyway, let’s move on.

Shadow bursts his way out of an enormous mountain of skulls. In the middle of a night sky filled with stars, he climbs his way to the top, where he finds again the skeletal tree and buffalo with fire in its eyes. He falls to his knees in front of it, then wakes up in Wednesday’s car.

Well, it’s a nice bookend to that initial dream sequence in the pilot, but it doesn’t really do anything here. No dialogue or additional imagery, so all it seems to do is remind us that the writers haven’t forgotten about it. I get the concept, though: Shadow’s journey to understanding is wrapping up this week (I pray), and the buffalo commanded him to believe at its start. Callbacks to tie everything together are good. But, again, I think this would have worked better had it come at least two episodes ago.

Also, I’m surprised we haven’t had more of these dream sequences this season. They’re perfect opportunities for Fuller to do his thing with cinematography and maybe throw some more foreshadowing our way, and he hasn’t really bothered. Which is especially odd seeing as there a lot of them built into the novel already, and a few of those have already been skipped over despite how early in the text we still are.

“I gave you one job, Shadow, and you’ve still managed to blow it.”

Wednesday and Shadow, dressed to the nines, are off to meet their next potential ally in Kentucky before they finally head for Wisconsin. As Wednesday warns Shadow to treat their host with respect (“Be nice, but not too nice.”), they pass a great many rabbits along the side of the road, who follow their car. A great many more line up in front of it, but Wednesday takes a good deal of pleasure running them over. Sad.

They come to a beautiful lakeside manor brimming with flowers. Inside is a whole lot of food and a great many oddly dressed people. There are more rabbits, and one of them appears to poop jelly beans. Which is weird.

As it turns out, they’ve arrived at an Easter get-together. Shadow admits that he loves the holiday, and Wednesday tells him that most people do — but more for the food and appearance of the date, not for the true meaning behind it. It used to be a pagan ritual celebrating the start of spring, but that has since been forgotten.

But even today, the parties and the painting of eggs still celebrate one woman, albeit in a more roundabout way, and that woman is their host: Ostara (Kristin Chenoweth), who glows as she shows up on the patio. Shadow is rather smitten.

No, really. She glows.

Ostara calls for a toast and thanks everyone for coming over for ‘her day.’ As she gives her speech, a bearded man says hello to Shadow. Shadow thinks he seems familiar, and the man admits that they do know one another. He leaves before our hero can learn anything more, and Ostara spots Wednesday. She loses a bit of her cheer, but encourages her guests to remember what the day is truly about. “Praise the Lords!” and all that.

Shadow asks if she is the Easter, which Wednesday confirms. “Gods are real if you believe in them,” he explains. Looking around, Shadow notices some strange things. A man has jelly beans falling through holes in his palms. A woman and the child at her breast have literal halos of light about their heads.

As it turns out, Jesus Christ is at this shindig, too. A lot of them, in fact.

Now it’s a party.

Well, this is fun. I like that they’re making good on the idea that Wednesday introduced weeks back of there being multiple versions of gods, and here we see concrete proof: a whole gaggle (parliament? herd? flock?) of Jesuses and saints of many different ethnicities and offshoot religions. It’s a clever way to tie Easter’s involvement in, as well. Given the different interpretations of what the holiday is about, you have to wonder how the different gods who are celebrated on the day would treat it, and here’s a great answer — Easter throws the bash, the figureheads come over and have a good time.

And to get it out of the way now: I’m very pleased with how Easter is portrayed here. While it is a shame that they passed up the chance to cast a larger actress — she’s specifically described as being ‘curvaceous,’ and Chenoweth may be the most petite person in Hollywood — I think she was a good choice. She doesn’t really have to do much to capture the character’s sunny charm and sweetness, as she more or less has this exact attitude both in real life and in every other role she’s ever played. She sort of exudes what you would think of as ‘spring’ already, and she really does have the best laugh.

(I also unashamedly love her, and have ever since Pushing Daisies. But that’s neither here nor there.)

Look at this ray of sunshine. If they don’t let her sing at some point, I will revolt.

And though they’ve changed much of her introduction (she isn’t encountered until quite a bit later in the novel, and said scene is a great deal shorter and less fancy), most of the following dialogue is straight from the source.

Ostara/Easter finds the tongue-tied Shadow adorable, so they go for a walk. When Wednesday brings up his reason for visiting, she promptly shoots him down, and instead asks Shadow where he got his name. He explains that it came from him constantly following his mother around as a child (a very abbreviated version of the book’s explanation), and Ostara is surprised that he’s the one “everybody” is so upset about.

She warns him of the many forces out there (Wednesday included) that might want to use him, and Wednesday notes she isn’t really speaking like one of the Old Gods. It’s because she isn’t one, she claims. She’s doing just fine.

Wednesday, however, calls her out on this, noting that the worship she receives is mere tokenism. People may still do the rituals of old every year, but it’s all commercialized and done in the name of Jesus and his resurrection, if anyone at all. It’s enough to keep her afloat, sure, but it’s a fraction of what she once had. Ostara is upset about this, as are the Jesuses, who feel like they’ve stolen her glory. How very noble of them.

Ostara marches them into a private room. She’s angry at Wednesday for calling out Jesus on His/their/her day, but Wednesday assures her that he’s concerned only for her and what she is rightfully entitled to.

(Props to Chenoweth for being able to play the darling belle so well, then abruptly turning ferocious at the drop of a pin. She never loses a shred of that charisma throughout.)

As a ploy for her sympathy, Wednesday claims that the New Gods killed Vulcan. Good job for following through on that, writers. He pulls out the sword he made for him (how did he hide that in his coat?) to show her, and Ostara is suitably impressed. He promises that the people will worship her once again if she helps them, and sends Shadow away.

Let’s jump over to something else. Once again at a museum, Bilquis encounters the Technical Boy, who is wearing an absolutely horrendous outfit, complete with a sparkling vest (ugh), grill (double ugh), and medieval page boy haircut. I hope we weren’t supposed to take him seriously, because he looks… awful. Just awful.

Look, I know nothing about fashion, but… what is this? What is happening here? Why does everything hurt?

He’s here to call in a favor. She’s done well with him — another satisfied customer of Mr. World’s rebranding campaign — and now she owes something in return. He isn’t interested in sex, but wants her to point her unique charms “in the right direction.”

Okay, this is interesting. I like the idea of Bilquis becoming an ‘inside man’ for the New Gods, especially since it isn’t clear whether or not the Technical Boy’s helping her is something they all agreed to, or if this is some kind of deal he’s doing on the sly. It will give her a chance to show up more frequently, and could lead to some interesting shenanigans if she interferes with Wednesday’s plan. Via seduction, though? Is she going to try to ‘eat’ Shadow? That’s going to be an uncomfortable thing to witness, if so. Still, this is also another good step in making the New Gods seem less passive, seeing as how they now appear to be putting forth effort to keep tabs on the con man rather than letting him run about and do his own thing. One of them is on the ball, at least.

(Granted, that passiveness is actually an important element at the story’s end, and is properly explained, so the writers have to be careful here. With that in mind, I’m going to guess that this deal is something the Boy is trying to do on his own and will probably screw up. How he could get away with this without Mr. World knowing is beyond me, so he’s probably not nearly as sneaky as he thinks he is.)

Now that we’ve met Easter, though, this seems like a good time to bring up my issue with Bilquis’s portrayal again. Consider this contrast between the two, which the episode itself encourages with Nancy’s whole speech: one ‘queen’ is played by a black woman, and her storyline revolves around her being brought low, degraded, and being forced to help a sniveling white guy who tried to lynch a black man in his first appearance. The other is a white woman who is more or less successful and happy, almost childlike in her wholesomeness as she flinches at swears and surrounds herself with nothing but cheer and pastels.

Do you see the problem here? It’s not that having one woman embrace sex and another completely avoid it makes half of the pair inherently ‘stronger’ or more respectable than the other. It’s that we’ve created a very clear whore/virgin dichotomy, and we stuck the black woman on the side that’s most frequently shamed in our culture. It’s especially noticeable because you’d think that the goddess of new life would inherently have some element of sexuality to her as well; but no, she’s been scrubbed as clean as a Saturday morning cartoon. On it’s own, this kind of comparison wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing: the topic is one of women of different pasts and backgrounds making their own way through a demanding world in their own way. But media doesn’t exist in a bubble, and our fiction has a long and troubled history of making this kind of comparison: white woman are clean and respectable and pure, black woman are not.

Bilquis is all of us at this point.

Food for thought. If there were more women involved in this show, this might not be such a big problem. But there isn’t, and that’s the issue with having a ‘token’ cast member of some kind — if you only have one person of X descent or Y sexuality or Z gender (or some combination of the three), they automatically become a lightning rod for representation and how the writers are expressing their world views. There’s no room for variety and the celebration of it.

Moving on. Outside, Sweeney and Laura pull up in their remarkably sturdy ice cream truck. I guess Easter was indeed the one that Sweeney had in mind for a resurrection. He may want to ask her why her rabbits tried to kill him. Laura realizes that Shadow is here and notes that all of the guests are, in fact, Jesus (including the one who died in the ‘Coming to America’ sequence a few weeks ago). This will be a fun new realization for her to wrap her head around.

Meanwhile, the Jesus that Shadow met earlier is floating on top of a pool, because sure, why wouldn’t he be? Shadow approaches and asks him if he “always believed.” In what, exactly, Shadow? Himself? He’s the son of God. Why wouldn’t he?

“I am belief,” Jesus says. Shadow wonders if he knows how to believe in anything, half convinced that everything that’s happened thus far has been some kind of dream. Jesus tells him that he has to walk the road that his senses lead him down regardless.

I was sort of expecting this bit to adapt a scene that was cut from the book, where Shadow does in fact meet this particular deity, but no dice. Granted, that scene was supposed to occur during a rather important sequence much later in the plot, so perhaps we’ll still get it.

Anyway, let’s revisit the fact that I want to smack Shadow at this point. Your wife, who was an incredibly self-assured atheist, has managed to accept the existence of otherworldly forces quite quickly, and you’re still trying to act like it’s all potentially a dream? Granted, she has the one-up on you for having died and seen the afterlife firsthand, so she doesn’t have quite as many opportunities in which to play the uncertainty card. Still, you yourself have seen so many impossibilities these last few weeks that you’ve run out of excuses.

The guy is floating on water and has an ethereal crown of light. That’s hard to write off, you know?

I think that’s the point, though — Shadow stubbornly refuses to accept what he’s seen, despite his claims that he believes in what his senses show him. (Either that, or it’s just bad characterization.) Plenty of people can be obstinate to the point of hypocrisy, I suppose. It would make for a good interpretation of his character if it didn’t contradict his book self so much.

Meanwhile, Wednesday is laying out a plan for Easter: starve them. And by ‘them,’ I mean ‘America.’ People used to fast out of necessity while they waited for her season to bring new growth, and so their hunger became a form of prayer to her. These days, everything is instant and readily accessible. If she takes away their bounty, she can make them remember her again.

Interesting idea. This could work as a good reason to keep Chenoweth involved as a regular cast member, which I would be all for.

Easter is interrupted by one of her rabbits, who whispers something to her in what sounds like tinkling bells. How cute. She leaves to meet another guest.

Laura, in one of the house bathrooms, vomits up a batch of maggots. She’s not looking particularly great. Easter storms in, demanding to know why Sweeney has brought her a dead girl, and dismisses Laura when she tries to make small talk. (Nice. Call her out.)

Easter wants to know why Sweeney wants to bring Laura back, and he only tells her that he has a selfish reason. I’m hoping he’s referring to feeling guilty over killing her, and not the possibility of him falling in love with her. Easter tells him that she doesn’t owe him any professional courtesies, as they are certainly not on the same level, but Sweeney retorts by calling it a personal favor, which she does owe him.

Hm. I wonder if we’ll get some backstory with these two. How do they know each other, and why does she have a debt to repay? There’s a fun dynamic here that I would enjoy exploring.

Realizing that the “dead girl” is Shadow’s wife, Sweeney warns Easter not to tell Wednesday that they’re nearby. Laura asks if she was the one who gave Jesus his resurrection, but Easter claims that he was dreamed back on her day, and she’s just had to deal with that unfortunate coincidence ever since. She confirms that she can “relife” Mrs. Moon, and Laura is excited, as she now understands that she has a lot to live for and wants to feel properly again.

Nice job to Browning for really nailing the delivery of this scene, by the way. She sells the earnestness: that mixture of hope for a second chance and the dread that she may not get it, and I can’t help but feel bad for her. I’m not sure I would quite believe her if those ‘things’ she wants from life again include Shadow, though, as we’ve only really seen her miss living in general, not him.

To start the process, Easter needs to know exactly why she died, so she peers into her eyes, where afterimages of her death lay stored. I doubt there’s scientific fact behind this, but we’ll roll with it. She just talked to a rabbit, so anything goes at this point. Inside those milky corneas, she sees shadowy remnants of a raven and Sweeney’s face.

Whoops.

Easter demands to know if Sweeney is still working for Wednesday, which he answers non-committedly. She explains that she can’t resurrect Laura after all, because her death came at the hands of a god, and she cannot interfere with another deity’s handiwork. She’s visited by another rabbit, who announces a third unexpected guest. She leaves, and a furious Laura demands to know which god killed her.

Double whoops.

I sort of thought this reveal would have been put off longer for the sake of drama, but I suppose the whole ‘resurrection of Laura Moon’ arc wouldn’t have really let that go on for too many weeks. This storyline was clearly going to last only a few episodes at most, and it would have been difficult to keep that twist hidden from her while resolving it. More on that in a bit.

There is so much leprechaun-directed anger in this shot.

And, let’s be real, we all knew that Laura wasn’t going to get to come back. If you’ve read the book, you would have considered it a foregone conclusion; but even if you haven’t, I think it still appeared pretty unlikely, given that her whole character sort of revolves around her being not alive. Still, I like this new angle of her being in the know. It’ll give Laura some additional motivation to keep up with her husband now that she knows what kind of man he’s working for. Though she’s falling apart so quickly that she’s either going to need to become a regular customer of Jacquel and Ibis, or she’s going to need some other divine intervention to keep her from melting into a puddle.

Easter’s new guest, meanwhile, appears to be Judy Garland’s Hannah Brown character from the 1948 musical film Easter Parade (ha). It’s Media in another of her guises, and she’s dancing on the patio with one of the Technical Boy’s Children.

As it turns out, Easter has been in cahoots with the New Gods as part of a repackaging deal, too. In her case, she’s been working with Ms. Ricardo/Bowie/Monroe/Brown, who’s helped her reap the benefits of commercialized candy and nationwide advertising. This is a fairly notable jump from Easter’s character in the book, but it definitely makes sense, and would have made for a perfectly understandable reveal in the novel had we been given more of her. She was never shown to be truly against the New Gods, anyway, and how else could she have done so well for herself, adapting to the times as she has, without their cooperation?

A nervous Easter steers Media away from the house while Laura literally holds Sweeney by the balls, asking again which god did her in. He reveals that he’s the one who ran her off the road, but Laura sees straight through that distraction and wants to know who had him do it. She knows full well who it is, but wants Sweeney to say it aloud. “Wednesday,” he admits.

Well, there it is. It was already blatantly obvious, but now we have it laid bare. This is a curious direction to take, though, because I figured that they would hold off on having Laura figure out the whole truth for at least a while. Most of the book’s plot — especially the ending — relies on Shadow not knowing the details, and now his wife, who in the novel has the free will to more or less visit him whenever she wants, is in a prime position to spill the beans at the nearest opportunity. He’s fifty feet away at this very moment. Where are they going to go with this? I’d say it’s a bad idea, but since we have yet to see how they handle the direction, I’ll hold off on taking too much issue with the change just yet.

Sweeney explains that she was a sacrifice to get Shadow. He isn’t special, mind you; he’s just “the guy.” Laura figures out that Wednesday must have been the one who ruined their casino robbery (called it), and the Irishman tells her that Wednesday needed Shadow in a position where he had nothing left to lose so that he could take him for himself. In response, Laura wants to know what the con man himself stands to misplace.

Nice. I’m all for Laura’s arc turning into a vengeance quest. But, again, considering that she’s (mostly) invincible and can track Shadow wherever he goes, the writers are either going to have to significantly change how and when she shows up later in the plot to give some kind of plausible reason as to why she doesn’t just confront Wednesday right away, or they’re going to have to fall back on increasingly wild suspensions of disbelief to convince us that she has to wait. Or, she’s just going to have to blow the lid off of everything ASAP, which would completely throw off the direction of the characters and plot to such a degree that I don’t think they’d be able to follow the book much at all going forward.

It’s a lose/lose situation to me. I don’t see how they could handle this in a way that’s faithful to the book going forward while also believably seeing this twist through to a logical conclusion. I trust Fuller a lot, but I really don’t know if he’s going to be able to spin something convincing enough for this.

Back to the action. Media demands to know if Wednesday is in Easter’s home and what he’s trying to get her involved in. Her one Child splits into more, and they have some snazzy choreography to go with their fancy canes and top hats. (This detail seems a lot less random now that I know her persona is from a Fred Astaire musical.)

Easter claims that she dismissed him, because she’s doing just fine. She’s an “old god made new again,” as Media promised to make her, but the New God notices that she seems unsatisfied with her services. Easter complains that she’s being misrepresented to the ppublic, but Media tells her to suck it up. Santa took the same deal, and she should consider herself lucky that she’s had it as good as she has. Easter is intrinsically a Christian holiday now, and people as a whole have turned increasingly atheist; it’s only thanks to her and her colleagues that people believe in anything that isn’t a television screen anymore.

Can you imagine watching this scene without any context? I know what’s happening, and it’s still surreal.

Some good details here. This one conversation does a lot to solidify our understanding of the New Gods and their goals. They pity the older deities and pacify these second-stringers by reproducing them en masse under their own brand. It’s a business to them, not something they do because they genuinely care about their fallen brethren. And we’ve now had several examples of how they do just that — something that I was afraid would be passed over through telling, not showing.

Wednesday steps in, claiming there’s plenty of worship to still go around, but Media points out that they control the delivery and distribution of that praise now. They control the story. (Note: That’s a point they made earlier after slaughtering that station of cops, and nothing has come of that yet. Are they just going to turn Wednesday and Shadow into outlaws next season?) Two of the Children part to reveal the Technical Boy (who is still wearing that grill, and I am going to tear it out of his insipid mouth myself if he keeps it in), who claims that he has nothing anymore. Things will never return to the old ways, no matter how insincere the New Gods’ form of worship is.

Media bluntly tells Wednesday that he no longer matters; she came for Easter, not him (ooooh), and he had his chance to take their offer. Mr. World telegraphs himself through one of the Children and adds that Wednesday is only important in matters of war, and war isn’t something that’s going to come to pass, since they have all of the weapons and will win either way. There’s no point in them fighting.

Oh, wait.

Storm clouds start to gather, and Wednesday dedicates “these deaths” to Ostara before promptly striking the Children down with a lightning bolt. I didn’t know he could do that. Nice.

Wednesday asks Shadow if he has faith, and Shadow demands to know who he is. Finally, in a ridiculously overblown reveal that involves a lot flashing lights and spinning, Wednesday lists his many names, ending with his ace: Odin.

Okay, that was very over-the-top and spectacular and all, but, gods, it just drives home how obtuse Shadow has been this whole time. Of course he’s Odin. Everybody and their mothers know that he’s Odin. That title and several of his other ones have been liberally thrown out by other characters for weeks. Still, I suppose it theoretically works nicely in tying everything together at the end here, which is something a good finale should do. It’s really just a courtesy at this point, though.

But we would have missed out on this needlessly dramatic special effect, otherwise.

Wednesday beseeches Easter to show people who she really is as well. So she marches out to the lawn and makes the clouds part; as the sun reappears, flowers swirl through the air. She, however, isn’t done. From the base of her home, all of the plant life for miles around begins to whither and die. The epidemic spread across the country, fields and trees and forests shrinking back into the earth.

I guess she took Wednesday up on his plan, then. This is going to be a pretty hefty storyline to follow through with next season. I like it, but the writers are going to have to devote a good deal of time to properly demonstrate the depth and breadth of the consequences to this. America is promptly being plunged into a famine, after all, and the scale of that concept is just so big that I’m not sure a television show is going to be able to pull it off.

Still, go big or go home, I guess.

A disappointed World tells Wednesday that he will get his war, who in turn warns the New Gods that the people will have their harvests back once they’ve prayed for them. Wednesday asks a stunned Shadow if he believes. He, by the grace of all the gods in the earth and sea and sky, does. Thank the heavens. We can finally move past this.

Laura and Sweeney show up on the balcony, and the former asks if she can speak with her husband. The two smile at one another.

Our closing sequence: On a bus on its way to the House on the Rock, Bilquis asks a nearby passenger if he knows where the bathroom is. The two head for the back. Let’s hope these transportation agencies haven’t become more astute at keeping track of their customers in the last thirty years.

*

Wrap-Up

Let’s think about this.

So, technically, I guess this episode struck the requisite balance that a good finale needs: a rather even mixture of cliffhangers and resolutions. Shadow’s coming to terms is at a close, we know Wednesday’s identity, and we’re finally poised to get to Wisconsin. Meanwhile, we still have to contend with Easter’s tempering, Bilquis as a mole, Laura’s position to reveal everything to Shadow, and more.

A lot more, apparently.

So, in theory, it’s all good. I just… I don’t know how to feel. My attitude towards our closing chapter really will depend on how the second season handles things, I think.

Is there a believable way to keep Laura from telling Shadow the truth about Wednesday? Considering that they’re literally face to face at present, I don’t know how the writers are going to be able to do so without the delay being a completely forced cop-out. But if she does tell him, how the hell are they going to keep Shadow and Wednesday’s partnership — vital to the rest of the plot — intact?

How will Easter’s actions impact the rest of the story? How will the New Gods respond? Again, there’s a whole lot of potential to this vein, but I feel like there isn’t going to be enough time to explore this idea to the fullest extent while still tackling all of the other characters and arcs.

Ultimately, my feelings about this episode (along with the last several) will hinge on this: How will our sophomore year adapt the book?

*

Seasonal Overview

Here’s where we get into my thoughts about how things worked as a whole. Personally, I think it was a mistake for the writers to take the approach they did: stick to the novel very closely for the first three episodes to get the core details out of the way, then put off the next chronological scene for a full year and fill the rest of the season with entirely new content.

Look, I get why they would want to save Wisconsin until our second go. It will make for a very good framework for the next arc and its direction, which should have a decidedly different flavor than this one as the stakes are heightened and the action picks up — something that your first return season should definitely do. The problem is that I, as a reader, don’t know what to prepare for. While the show hasn’t completely thrown off the course of the book, it’s certainly changed a lot already, introducing a lot of elements much earlier and doing away with pretty much any trace of subtlety. Plenty of the alterations haven’t inherently taken anything away from the text and have simply filled in some of its holes (Laura and Sweeney’s backstories, for instance), but doing away with a lot of the mystique means that the back half of the storyline suddenly feels sort of empty. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that; this is a visual medium, after all, and it’s going to require a lot more time (and money) to get to everything in due time while also ensuring that we’re getting an enjoyable television show. What makes for compelling storytelling on the page doesn’t necessarily work the same on a screen. There’s no reason why the show cannot still follow the rest of the source material fairly closely; I just don’t know if they will or not.

It’s like a bait and switch. The writers used the first few episodes to convince us that this was going to be a very faithful adaptation by using so many word-for-word details, only for them the suddenly cop out and go the exact opposite direction for the final two-thirds of the season.

So I’m in the lurch until we see what next year brings. There’s a lot of ground left to cover in the book, so much so that I don’t think they’ll be able to adequately include everything unless they really bump up the rate at which they’re adapting things, assuming that we only get another two seasons.

That’s the weird thing about comparing the show to the novel, and best explains why I’m wrestling with my reaction to everything now. When you make that correlation between the two, it seems like this season has done nothing but drag its feet with endless filler since episode three, as everything past the bank heist has just been putting off the Wisconsin gathering. If you look at it on its own merits, however, none of this has really been padding at all, because every episode has had important developments for the plot and the cast, whether it’s in introducing new storylines, expanding current ones, or better characterizing the major roles.

Which is why this last review and rating feels a bit off to me. If I hadn’t read the book, I don’t think that I would have a lot of these criticisms. And when I really stop and think about it, most of them seem silly or unneeded on my part — it’s not as though the writers have completely ruined our chances of seeing the rest of book realized properly on screen. And even if these new directions did manage to ‘spoil’ that possibility, what we’ve gotten in return has certainly made for fun, creative, visually stunning television regardless.

But, as always, there’s an unkillable part buried deep down that is filtering everything through the lens of ‘source authenticity,’ and it’s preventing me from really embracing the direction that’s being taken, no matter how much I like it in theory.

To wrap up, then, let’s revisit my introduction. As I mentioned earlier, I’m hoping that this first year was more or less meant to be a long prologue of sorts, dedicated to getting all of the big characters and plots arranged neatly around the source material while also expanding on it. Now that that’s all done (and we’ve finally gotten over the whole ‘Shadow doesn’t know what to think about everything’ bit), the writers will, with any luck, get things rolling in earnest.

I still have a lot of faith in Fuller and company, especially since Gaiman is still on board so far as I know. And, really, this has been a good run. Many of these recent episodes were mixed bags for me only because I wasn’t expecting so much new stuff, and they’ve all grown on me since I got over that knee-jerk ‘it’s different so it must be bad’ reaction that’s annoyingly hard to rid oneself of as a reader. I didn’t rate a single episode lower than four stars, after all, so I’m clearly enjoying things no matter how much I may complain.

Now watch as they somehow manage to put this off for another six episodes.

So. There we go. Our first season of American Gods has come and gone. Thanks for sticking around, and I will see you (assumedly) next year!

Rating

“Come to Jesus” hits all of the right notes required of a finale, striking a solid balance between cliffhangers and resolutions, but is slightly undone by the desire for emotional and narrative bookends making obvious the season’s painstakingly deliberate pacing.

B+

In perhaps the vaguest of terms, I’ve been expecting this episode for a few weeks now. Once the writers made it clear that they were willing to devote an entire hour to exploring some of American Gods’ secondary characters (in addition to punching up their importance to the main storyline), I had the feeling that Mad Sweeney would be on the list for the treatment. And so, ever since “Git Gone” gave us more Laura, I knew that we would eventually get an ode to the leprechaun in our cast.

That’s sort of what “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney” is, I guess. It’s definitely another round of backstory; it just doesn’t present it in the way that I expected it to.

Rather than being entirely focused on everybody’s favorite man of the hills, the penultimate episode of our freshman season is a rather fluid mishmash of a ‘Coming to America’ tale and a continuation of one of the modern-day subplots. Sweeney is certainly involved in all of these things, but he isn’t really the centerpiece; no character really is, in fact. Looking back at it, actually, I’m not really sure what this week’s real purpose is.

I’m not saying that it isn’t a good episode, by any means. It just doesn’t feel like the kind of script that you would use to lead into your show’s first big finale — which, judging by the preview, is going to be bonkers. “Prayer” doesn’t seem to do much setup for things to come, but neither does it strike me as a frivolous or unimportant episode.

In the end, I guess, it’s mostly a gentle nudge to get everything in place. It doesn’t pose any dramatic cliffhangers or questions to see us through to the year’s climax, but it nicely fills out the remaining pieces that we’re (probably) going to need when everything comes to a head.

Episode seven is something of an experiment as a result, but I think that it works. Shadow and Wednesday are completely absent — they don’t even get minor cameos, like they have in the past — and the larger arc of the gods’ war is firmly left in the backseat, so the fact that this week still manages to be as enjoyable and engaging as it is gives testament to the show’s strengths. It also proves that the series is capable of doing exactly what I was hoping it would: expand its source material’s world and cast into something more complex and ensemble-driven without losing sight of the important stuff.

To the episode!

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Present Day

What’s interesting about this week is how, like “Git Gone,” it takes place largely in flashback. Unlike that episode, though, it isn’t entirely new material. Rather, the writers decided to take one of these prequel stories and use it as the framing device for the entire episode, rather than just as a few-minute lead-in to the remaining running time.

The book told the tale of Essie Tregowan (changed here to Essie MacGowan, for some reason) right before Shadow and Wednesday’s bank heist, and wasn’t any longer than the other ‘Coming to America’ shorts. I was sort of bummed when they skipped it earlier in the season, but I’m glad to see it brought back — albeit flushed out and expanded in a pretty notable way. Again, a surprising direction, but it has its payoffs.

Ibis and Jackal spend their evening at their funeral parlor. The former wants to drink, the latter doesn’t have the time as he works to prepare a body for presentation. He explains that he needs to get the man done, because they will have two more coming in the morning. Ibis points out that they haven’t gotten a call about anybody yet, but Jackal assures him that it will come within an hour.

Ibis asks if he wants help, but Jackal waves him off, claiming that he has another story to tell. Ibis isn’t sure about that, but his partner says he can see it “in his fingers.” In his office, Ibis looks at a map of a plantation in old America. He then pulls out his book and begins to write.

I like how they’re using these bits to spend more time with these two. There’s a clever detail here that I never thought about: given Anubis’s other line of work, it would make sense for him to use his knowledge of death in his day job. It also calls into question how Ibis’s stories work. Do they just come to him in visions? If they do, is there some rhyme or reason to them? Does he have to write them down? What happens if he doesn’t? Does he intend to use them for anything?

Anyway, point of note: Ibis narrates most of the rest of the episode from here on out, and most of said narration is straight from the book. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the story, with a few additional details thrown in to stretch it out.

Ibis opens with the note that the concept of America being an open, empty space that was filled with new people is a fiction — it was more a “dumping ground” where people could rid themselves of memories and pasts. (There’s also the fact that people, you know, already lived there. And then we took the land from them. But, hey, we’ll gloss over that tidbit.)

The phone rings and Jackal answers. Sure enough, it’s news that two women have died.

This week comes to you from the inside of a phone, I guess.

*

Coming to America

1721

Ibis describes how, back in the early days, one could be hanged for the smallest offences. As a result, many would jump on the alternative: travel to America, work under a master as an indentured servant to pay off their debt, then start a new life there.

In a field, Mad Sweeney walks up and asks for Essie MacGowan. Ibis pauses. Then he starts at the beginning.

He begins with her childhood: Essie was a free-spirited child in a small seaside town in Cornwall (I assume — that’s where the book placed her, but the show never really specifies). She tended to avoid responsibility and listened to the tales her grandmother (Fionnula Flanagan) told of faeries and púcas, banshees and spirits. Her father was often away at sea, so the two kept one another company as they waited for him to return.

Her grandmother spoke of leprechauns, who have no time for anything but their gold. Essie wants to know why, then, she needs to give them gifts, and learns that such offerings are necessary if one want their blessings. The men of the hill are temperamental folk, after all.

Essie reaches adulthood, and is one of the few in her hometown to keep the practices alive, leaving milk for the creatures at the window every night.

She’s also being played, rather confusingly, by Emily Browning.

Huh.

Let’s talk about this, shall we?

I get what they were going for here, because Laura and Sweeney’s storyline is the other main plot of this week, and I think the writers wanted to draw parallels between the two women’s lives. It’s a good idea in theory, but it doesn’t entirely work for me for two reasons:

First, I’m not sure the pair are similar enough to justify the comparisons. On the surface, it seems that they might have some notable things in common, but said characteristics are quite different when you contextualize them, so having one actress play two roles comes across as a rather gimmicky approach meant to force correlations that aren’t really there.

Second, it robs Essie of her independence. Her autonomy is the entire point of her character arc here, but having Browning in the role steals that away. Because she only gets this one episode as a framing device, she comes across as a shadow of Laura rather than as a fully realized person in her own right. Despite the actress’s best efforts, it ultimately feels like we’re watching Mrs. Moon masquerade as a seventeenth-century immigrant — not that we’re seeing two completely different people who just happen to share some mannerisms.

That being said, I think Emily does a good job with it, and I do appreciate how her pulling double duty helps tie a rather eclectic episode together. I’m not 100% sure of what to think of her accent here, as I really don’t know what a bona fide Irish lilt is supposed to sound like; beyond that, however, she gives a good turn.

Anyway. Essie now works in a rich man’s kitchen, telling her grandmother’s stories to the children to pass the time. She explains that one must give leprechauns the best in your cupboard to receive their kindness, as their empathy can turn to wrath very quickly. She relates a time in which she got lost in a moor (isn’t that a required part of living anywhere in England?): after leaving her bread on a stone, she awoke the next morning to find it gone and the lighthouse she had been seeking miraculously nearby.

Things haven’t changed since then. Though she desires much more from life, Essie saves her meager wages for the fae. She travels to a small hollow in the mountain and leaves behind a slice of fresh bread, wrapped in her hair and with her coin on top. A figure appears in the foggy night once she’s gone.

One evening, Essie is leaving a bowl of milk out at the window when she runs into the master’s son Bartholomew, who has listened to her stories during his meals. They have sex; after, Essie asks him if he will forget her once he goes off to school. He gives her a necklace that once belonged to his grandparents, and promises to marry her once he returns at Christmas.

But, as Ibis notes, the fair folk are a fickle bunch, and will take away as easily as they give. A jealous maid sees Essie admiring her pendant, and alerts the mistress of the house. The woman accuses the girl of stealing it from her son, and the cowardly man goes with the charges rather than reveal the truth. Essie is hauled away.

The judge, taking pity on a young and pretty girl, saves her from hanging by sending her to America for a seven-year debt. During the rocky and miserable journey at sea, Essie still takes pains to leave a portion of her threadbare rations at the shiphold’s shutter.

Her luck changes once again. Captain Clark (Thomas Mitchell) takes a liking to her, and she convinces him to take her to London with him once he has delivered his cargo in the New World. They become (very) close and marry. A few months later, Clark must sail again, but promises to return as quickly as he can. The moment he leaves, however, Essie grabs all of the valuables she can from their home and flees. As she was declared a thief, she has decided to embrace the title with both hands.

Meanwhile, this week’s ‘B’ plot comes to you from the other side of this keyhole.

Nothing much to say just yet. The peaks and valleys seen in Essie’s luck are a great way of demonstrating the leprechaun’s volatile nature, and the historical mise en scene is beautifully recreated. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large chunk of the show’s budget went to this episode alone — not for the same fancy CGI that previous weeks have used so extensively, but for all of the costumes and sets they probably had to make to get these periods looking as good as they do.

*

Present Day

Back in the present, Laura, Sweeney, and Salim stop at a roadside attraction that features a giant statue of Tatanka Ska: a white buffalo that was born on the ranch some years before. Sadly, both it and the owner were killed by a lightning strike a year later. Sweeney remarks that this sort of thing is to be expected when you put a god in a petting zoo.

Such an interesting detail. So the buffalo was a god, but not, I think, because it was legitimately born one or because people actually ‘worshiped’ it in the way we think of when we hear the term. Rather, it simply took on the air of the supernatural thanks to superstition. Does this mean that otherwise mortal beings, animal or otherwise, can become deities if given enough of a mystique?

Salim lays out his rug to pray again. He offers to let Laura (who has accrued a lot of flies at this point) join, but she does not accept. She asks him if he loves — or is in love with — God. Salim is rather vague in reply, saying that he “loves his God.” I think it’s meant to be ambiguous, whether he’s referring to the jinn or not.

Sweeney goes off to pee, and gets cawed at by a raven in a tree. Sweeney tells the bird that he is headed to Wisconsin as Wednesday asked, and that he has held up his end of the bargain. The bird won’t shut up, however, so Sweeney tells it off.

Actually, Sweeney, you’re going to Kentucky. I don’t think Wednesday is going to buy that little lie of yours. You’d better hope you can get Laura her resurrection quickly.

Speaking of whom, Dead Wife corners him and tells him that they should let Salim go — they’re close enough to their destination that they don’t need him. Sweeney refuses, but ends up letting slip that after this detour, he’s headed to the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. Laura promptly tells Salim, who takes the hint and drives off.

Aw, man. I was hoping this would last longer. And Salim basically fleeing (he leaves his prayer rug behind, for goodness’ sake) seems sort of weird. It’s not as though he was actively being held hostage, and I thought that he was sort of bonding with Laura. Eh, whatever. I suppose the arrangement had a prompt expiration date from the start, since the gang should be reaching Wisconsin next week anyway, but I’m still kind of bummed. I suppose all three of them will be heading off for who-knows-where after the whole thing blows over, though — if we’re following the book here, it isn’t exactly going to end well to begin with, but the preview for the finale makes it look like it’s going to be even more explosive — so perhaps season two will give us more.

Laura marches over to an ice cream truck, tells the driver that he’s being robbed, and makes Sweeney give him some money as compensation. The driver, who seems very down with this plan, asks Laura to punch him to make the exchange more believable. Sweeney gives him a hit instead, since Laura would probably kill him.

Ah, these flashes of quirky humor give me such a kick. The whole scene also makes me think of Fuller’s Pushing Daisies: a bit of black humor, some pastels in the sets (it is an ice cream truck, after all), and novelty food.

Ibis starts to write again as Jackal sets out another drink for him. I’d say there’s a 96% that they’re a couple, and I am all about that.

This week comes to you from the inside of an alcoholic beverage, also. Weird scene transitions.

*

17XX

Essie has stopped viewing theft as a crime, so she makes the most of it as she continues to stay in London. At a market, she swipes lace, bows, and more. It isn’t honorable work, admittedly, but it gives her autonomy. She believes that her success comes from the creatures of her homeland, so she continues to make offerings. At night, her window opens as somebody reaches down to pick up the milk she’s left.

Her life is going well, but her fortunes lead her to forget her gifts. Eventually, she gets caught. Charged both for theft and her escaping the terms of her transportation deal, she’s thrown into jail, where she will wait until she’s taken to the gallows.

Her cellmate, as it turns out, is one Sweeney, who’s in for an accidental eye stabbing. They commiserate, and Ellie leaves bread at the window.

He asks after America, which Laura never really got to see, then suggests she bribe the warden. He wishes he could give her some of his gold to do so, but he’s given it to the King. (Which begs more details on Sweeney’s ‘stash.’ Where does he keep his gold? How much does he have? Is this the same king that he’s now in trouble with? Why is he constantly giving it to other figures? Does he run some kind of bank?)

Essie admits that she wouldn’t mind seeing America, because it’s a place where one can start over. She knows that she’d be happy with nothing more than a home, a tree, and somebody to do right by her. Sweeney wonders what he would do there, and she suggests delivering gold to their king. He points out that they don’t have one, but Essie seems sure that they will one day (foreshadowing!). “Everyone needs their king,” she claims. The next morning, she finds him gone from his cell, and the bread gone from her window.

I missed a lot of the important stuff in this conversation until I watched it a second time. It all ties really nicely into the ending of the hour (which we’ll get to), but I’m curious what her suggestion is meant to convey, since it obviously comes true years later. Did Sweeney take her idea to heart and convince somebody to become a king in America? What kind of deal do they have? Who is this royalty, anyway? There are a few crucial details to this subplot that need explaining.

I also appreciate how Sweeney is portrayed here. If nothing else, I give this episode credit for making me like him, which I didn’t really want it to do. He’s still an ass, of course, but we get to see a kinder side to him, and that’s a start. The fact that Essie is being played by Laura’s actress makes me worry, though, since it heightens my suspicion that they’re going to try to pull some kind of romance out of Mrs. Moon and the leprechaun.

Why does he look like Matthew McConaughey?

The warden him comes to Essie’s cell with a meal, and is generally a very creepy fellow. He tells her that it will be several months before her case is heard, that she’s very pretty, and that there might be a way to get out her mess. She takes his offer.

Months later, she shows up to her hearing pregnant. Her sentence is once again transportation, and she is sent to Virginia, where her indenture is bought by a tobacco farmer named John Richardson (Peter Cockett), whose wife has recently died. She becomes his wet nurse and maid.

With her child and his side by side, she tells both the old tales of her homeland.

*

Present Day

Driving along in the ice cream truck, Sweeney complains about the cold, which Laura ignores. Along the side of the road, a rabbit watches them pass. Okay, weird. Strange animals are to be expected in this series, though, so we’ll come back to that.

Laura wonders if his resurrectionist will truly be able to bring her back to life, but Sweeney assures her that he will — for a favor, though, not gold. Sweeney mentions his ‘horde’ and states that he was once a king, but time has robbed him of that distinction. Thanks to religion and consumerism, his people have become fairy tales and pop culture jokes. (And apparently a bird? Why was he a bird?)

Laura asks what Wednesday hopes from his meeting, and Sweeney says that it’s war. He once was meant to go to war, but, on the eve of battle, he looked into the fire and saw his death. Frightened, he fled (‘flew’, apparently), and now he believes he owes a battle. Laura wonders why he’s willing to run errands for Wednesday, but he says that he’s had to do worse.

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to see this in my fire, either.

Interesting. It’s good to see modern Sweeney with a softer side as well, and I’m interested in the details here. Perhaps Wednesday transformed him to allow him to escape his first war, and that’s why Sweeney owes him his loyalty? Despite not being the focus of the episode, I think the script does a great job with the few scenes it gives him to really add some nice depth to the character beyond ‘potty-mouthed drunk.’

Out into the road runs another (or the same?) rabbit, which causes Laura to jerk the wheel and send the truck flipping. In the crash, Laura goes through the window, and doing so rips open her chest and causes her coin to go flying. She lands on the road, once again permanently dead.

Huh. Well, a few things about this.

One: beautifully shot sequence. More gratuitous slow motion and a sort-of-inappropriate-but-it-still-works-somehow jazzy soundtrack, and the whole thing is so unexpected that you have to take a minute to understand what’s happening. I really dig Laura’s bemused look as she’s being flipped upside down, as if she’s thinking “well, great.”

“This is definitely a minor inconvenience.”

Two: interesting twist by having Laura actually lose her coin. I almost find it hard to believe, but I suppose somebody who is technically a rotting corpse being flung through a windshield at high speed is bound to tear some stitching. Lucky for her that she didn’t have her face bashed in or something, too, since that wouldn’t have been quite so easy for Ibis and Jackal to fix up. I’m assuming at this point that Sweeney is able to heal very quickly, since he’s been just fine since Laura beat him up a few episodes ago, and he somehow manages to survive this. Confirming that Dead Wife is infallible is a nice way to contrast the Superman-esque vibe she’s had since she came back, too.

Three: so, I’m assuming the rabbits come from Easter, who I know will be showing up in the finale next week. (Finally. I’ve been waiting for Kristin Chenoweth all season.) If that’s the case, though, why did she try to kill these two? Is she working with the New Gods? Did they give her instructions to take out Wednesday’s helper? I hope that isn’t the case, since she’s pretty clearly on Shadow’s side in the book despite her initial reluctance to get involved. And I feel like I should have thought of this before, but: Is she the one Sweeney is hoping can resurrect Laura? Being the goddess of spring and new growth, I feel like it’s possible, but he’s never specified that his contact is a woman, so I’m not sure.

*

17XX

Back to Essie. The children are older now, and she tells them of Samhain, leprechauns, and the necessity of leaving out part of one’s harvest — she puts an apple on the porch. Richardson one night makes an advance at her, but Essie acts shocked at the move, saying that she can’t possibly return the feelings to a man whom she’s indentured to. He, in response, proposes marriage, and she accepts.

Richardson turns out to be a kind man, and the two are fairly happy together for a decade before he passes from fever. In his place, Essie takes over the running of the farm, which prospers. She continues to leave offerings out in the field for the fae folk.

I can’t tell if Essie is supposed to genuinely like Richardson or not. This is where the parallel between her and Laura is most clear, I think: they both take advantage of the men around them to further their own goals. The problem, however, is that this comparison isn’t a good one once you look past the basic concept. Essie does this in order to survive in a hard world in which she has very little, and so it’s almost necessary. Laura does this in order to fill an emotional emptiness — which is certainly an issue, but nothing life-threatening. Otherwise, she has a fairly nice life (before she died, anyway).

I’m not sure, then, how we’re meant to understand the relationship that Essie finally settles in with Richardson. She’s obviously taking advantage of his feelings to escape her indenture, but it’s unclear if she ever learns to care for him or not. And if she does, how much of that feeling is authentic? Using Laura as a mirror muddies it even more, I think, because I can’t tell who is meant to act as the point of reference to the other. Is it that Essie, like Laura, needs these relationships to gain something that she’s never truly able to have, and so it’s all a front? Or is it that Laura, like Essie, will eventually learn to love truly once she realizes what she needs and most wants?

Perhaps it’s not meant to be clear. If that’s the case, I tip my hat to the writers for the complexity. If it isn’t, though, I’ll say again that using Browning the way they did fudged the concept a bit.

For my part, I’m going to go with the latter, simply because that seems the more optimistic route, and the fact that it really ties this part of Essie’s life to her earlier conversation with Sweeney nicely: she asked for a home, a tree, and a man who does right by her, and that’s exactly what she ends up getting.

Years pass, and the farm continues to flourish as Essie grows older and her children have kids of their own. In another weird casting move, she’s now being played by the same actress (Fionnula Flanagan?) who played her own grandmother at the start of the episode. I suppose it’s understandable, since they are related and all, but it’s still kind of bizarre.

She’s returned! May she never die.

Eventually, she stops telling her stories. Her grandchildren are frightened off by the tales, and nobody is interested in the old ways. She continues to believe in them, however. One night, a certain leprechaun shows up at her porch, returning to that scene from the start of the hour.

*

Present Day

Sweeney wakes up in the ice cream truck, more or less fine. (Again, I assume that he just heals fast.) He finds Laura properly dead again, and his coin in the road. He grabs it and starts to walk off, but stops. He remembers another crash he walked into recently — Laura on the side of the road, dying for the first time. He saw a raven in a tree, and told it to “tell him it’s done.”

Well, that’s interesting. I don’t think the book stated that Sweeney was involved in the crash that killed Mrs. Moon and Robbie, but Wednesday was most certainly implicated, so it’s a natural extension. I’m sort of surprised we’re pulling this reveal — that Wednesday is responsible for Laura’s death — so early in the plot, as it’s something that doesn’t come up until the very end of the novel, but I think it’s understandable. Given the use of ravens during “Git Gone,” it was pretty obvious that the con man played a part, so stretching out a confirmation for another couple of years would have been fairly pointless.

I think it’s a good idea, actually, because now that the audience knows but the primary characters don’t, there’s a potential for new dramatic stakes. Will Sweeney tell Laura? If so, will she tell Shadow? What will Wednesday do to keep the truth from him? Rather than keep it as a last-minute twist, making the connection now gives the writers a tantalizing cliffhanger to pull out and explore whenever they may want to.

A guilty-looking Sweeney returns to Laura and yells a lot of Gaelic at the sky in anger. From what I’ve found poking about online, the translation appears to be: “Haven’t I believed enough in your bullshit? Haven’t I suffered enough? Isn’t that enough itself? I’m not evil! I’m not!” He stuffs Laura’s coin back into her chest, which melts through her bones. Laura comes back and promptly punches Sweeney in the face.

Clearly unphased, she marches over to the ice cream truck and effortlessly tips it back onto its wheels, then tells him to get in, hocking the horn in impatience.

I like this moment a lot. Again, it shows how the script uses smaller moments to really dig into Sweeney’s character. Having him decide to give Laura her life back despite having no actual demand to do so is a hugely defining moment for him and immediately makes me see him much more sympathetically — especially after the reveal of his part in her death. It also reinforces their rather nice chemistry together: him giving a half-smile and shrugging off her rudeness without calling her out or even telling her that he saved her is both funny and almost sweet.

Who knew these things were sturdy enough to just drive away from severe auto accidents?

I’m still not up for the idea of them becoming a couple, but after this, I might — might — entertain the idea.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Though if we’re following the book, it’s not going to last, anyway, so perhaps it’s best not to worry about it too much.

*

17XX

Let’s wrap things up with Essie. She knows that Sweeney is a leprechaun, and appears to remember him from years ago. He admits that America isn’t a great place for his folk, as nobody treats them properly. Neither of them has a quarrel with the other, but Sweeney does admit that it was Essie and a few others like her that brought him and his kind to the New World.

She thanks him for the good he’s brought her, and Sweeney reminds her that he’s given both good and bad. He offers her his hand, and she takes it. The next morning, her family finds her dead.

Never fear. She’ll return once her daughter gets old enough to require recasting.

Ibis finishes his story and closes his book. The camera returns to that initial shot of the English coast, the music swells, and I get weirdly emotional.

Some parting thoughts:

• I liked the use of ‘50s music throughout the episode. The context is fun (Ibis and Jackal playing it on their record player), and the asynchronous feel of it both in the past and present storylines is a nice way to tie them both together. It’s a bit much at times, but I wonder if that’s the goal at this point — when the show isn’t cranking out the really, really weird stuff, it tries to make up for it by cramming the more conventional plots with really over-the-top musical queues. Though I could really have done with the bit where the lyrics “daddy’s home” blare while Essie has sex with an older man. Yeesh.

• The production values are consistently gorgeous, which makes some of the props stand out when they aren’t quite up to the task of authenticity. Could they not find a more convincing wig for Browning to wear?

• Even if it is straight from the book, I feel like dedicating this whole episode to Essie’s story was something of a missed opportunity. Yes, she had a hard life, but using her narrative feels like the theme of the week tiptoes around the fact that there was, you know, actual slavery happening at the time. It may not be intentional, but it feels like the writers are ignoring that much, much worse plight to focus on a safer variant that they consider less demanding or controversial to portray. There’s an entire ‘Coming to America’ story in the novel that focuses on how black men and women put store in their religion while in captivity, so what gives? Was that short opening with Anansi from several weeks back meant to be their way of quickly speeding through the concept as fast as possible? Are we only willing to devote a bunch of time and money to one of these prologues if it deals with white people and their less uncomfortable circumstances? Come now. You could argue that it was necessary to do this one to better explain Sweeney and tie it into the present day story, but seeing as how he doesn’t exactly play a huge role despite the title, I’m going to say that that isn’t an entirely convincing case. It makes me wonder what the lesser of two evils would be: taking the safer route and ignoring an important story entirely, or tackling the more vital one but doing a messy and potentially offensive job with it? The best solution, of course, would to bring black writers onto the show to tell these stories, rather than letting white scriptwriters try to do so, but there you have it.

• I’m calling it now: Bilquis was sort of wasted this year. If they were going to use her, they should have either kept her to her one (book-based) introduction in the pilot and left it at a single ‘Elsewhere in America’ short, or given her a recurring focus most weeks to tell a legitimate story with her. As it stands now, she only had her one extra, fairly pointless bit in the second episode, and that was it. What was the point? I seriously doubt she’s going to get much time (if any) in the finale, either, since there’s going to be so much to cover. It’s like they started on a plot and then forgot to go anywhere with it. Perhaps next season?

*

“A Prayer for Mad Sweeney” is a good episode, and I enjoyed it a lot. The ending hit me emotionally in a way that I wasn’t expecting at all, and everything from the visuals to the acting is top notch.

Its problem isn’t that of standalone merit, but of how the hour fits into the season as a whole. As the penultimate episode of the season, it feels out of place — like one that should have happened around the time of “Git Gone.” Given how short this first year is, I suppose they didn’t have a whole lot of wiggle room to cram all of these plotlines into, but still. The finale looks as though it might suffer from trying to fit far too many big things into a single outing (unless they decide to give the episode an extended running time), so I’m wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to filter some of its content into this one.

It’s funny, but the show’s pacing has sort of thrown my expectations for the rate of adapting the source material for a loop. It’s like it’s simultaneously going too slow (giving side characters whole episodes while the main arc grinds to a halt) and too fast (withholding certain characters like Easter and Nancy until the very last minute).

To be fair, I can see the sense in the approach. Since they wanted to save the meeting at the House on the Rock for the finale (which is a bit early if we’re only getting three of them, but I digress), which is a sensibly big moment to leave off on, the writers jammed all of the important plot points from the book into the first three episodes to get them out of the way. As a result, they’ve had the last four to do whatever they please, and I think they’ve handled that free time well by creating content that balances both retrospective and expansive concepts to really fill out the world. And I suppose the characters delays make sense, too — Nancy doesn’t originally show up until just before the meeting anyway, and Easter isn’t actually introduced until much later.

Still, it’s an odd grab bag. Let’s really take our time on certain underdeveloped aspects of Gaiman’s book and give them room to breathe, but limit others just as they originally were on paper. I’d argue that I’d be much more interested in giving additional time to these sidelined gods than I would to the more normal characters like Laura. Why not give Bilquis or Nancy or Easter their own backstory-centric episode? The gods are the most interesting part of the story, and while I get the desire to more fully develop the humans in the cast for the sake of better grounding the plot and giving the viewer a chance to relate to them, it’s something of a waste.

Ah, well. I’m looking forward to the finale regardless, since it promises to be show’s biggest bit of spectacle yet. Hopefully, they manage to tie Laura and Sweeney into it in such a way that it justifies this week’s placement as the lead-in. And, who knows? Perhaps Fuller and Green plan to shift gears next season and move the spotlight to some of these second-string players.

Regardless, it’s been a fun ride.

Rating

Too slow and too introspective to feel like proper groundwork for what’s shaping up to be a very busy season finale, “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney” nonetheless uses its quieter tone and unusual approach to its source material to provide some important details and beautiful moments, both visually and narratively.

B+

Well, thank goodness for breather episodes.

Not to imply that “A Murder of Gods” is a throwaway week. There’s plenty of good stuff to consider here, and much that will be important in the final two episodes of the season (and perhaps beyond). As a whole, though, episode six is a fairly simple affair, with a lot of self-contained, straightforward plots and developments.

Which is nice, because I’m getting tired (with myself, mostly) for having to write so much about all of the noticeable bits that the writers attempt to cram into each hour. I think I may actually be able to keep things somewhat short this time. Hooray.

Anyway. American Gods got very… unsubtle this week, which I take as a good thing. It’s probably the liveliest episode we’ve had thus far, with a sort of sprightliness to the dialogue and tone that the show hasn’t really shown before. Granted, there’s been plenty of earlier wackiness, but it’s mostly been constrained to individual scenes within the typically slow, deliberate pacing. I don’t mind that, of course, but it’s nice to get a slight change to the approach without completely derailing the continuity.

It’s also pretty shameless in its subject matter, flaunting as it does some political ideology that is very, very, very, very hard to miss. The show has been pretty clear in its willingness to examine certain contemporary issues before, but this outing revels in it. I think the concepts it tackles oh-so-not-delicately are important ones (not to mention fitting, set as it is in a country filled with deities dedicated to what its people consider important), so I’m not complaining, but I’m sure it’s going to rub plenty the wrong way.

If nothing else, “A Murder of Gods” does give us something that I’ve been hoping for since the beginning: a new god (not a New God, mind you) that isn’t in the book. And I think that the writers handled the introduction quite well; he fits in nicely with the rest of the pantheon, and is given a pretty interesting role to boot.

Let’s get to it, then.

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Coming to America

Some Time Ago

No year to date this one, but it appears to be set at a time fairly close to modern day. Mr. Ibis flips open his book (where was that last week, guys?) and begins to write.

A group of illegal immigrants heads for the border. They reach the Rio Grande, and wait for night. One woman prays over the group before they attempt a crossing, and the leader warns them that the river has risen due to the rains; anybody who cannot swim will have to stay behind. One man, with a tattoo of Christ on his forearm, looks worried.

They slip into the water and make their way to the other side. One man falls to his knees and thanks the Lord while everyone else reaches shore. The man with the tattoo has fallen behind and struggles before he starts to drown, but a man reaches down and pulls him up.

On solid ground again, the swimmer sees his rescuer walking across the water. When he asks the stranger who he is, the man claims that he already knows. He’s framed by a halo of light, but it’s coming from the headlights of a group of trucks pulling up.

Men get out and promptly load guns, firing into the crowd. They have Bible verses inscribed on their weapons and rosaries in their hands. A bullet casing flying from one chamber has ‘Vulcan’ stamped on it.

Subtlety? What?

When the drowning man cowers with his family, the savior jumps in front of them, taking a bullet through one hand another through his heart. He collapses to the ground, dead. A tumbleweed rolls across his head, and a crown of thorns appears upon his brow.

Nothing really confusing here, is there? The primary theme is obvious: the contrast of religion as something healing (praying for safe journey) and something deadly (used as a justification for violence). It’s a flagrant juxtaposition, but I like it. Sometimes, messages need to be dropped, and they need to be dropped hard. It’s a straightforward demonstration of how something meant to be supportive and unifying can be twisted in the face of xenophobic violence, and that’s an incredibly important idea to frame these days. Having Jesus (one of him, anyway) die in a manner akin to the crucifixion — not to mention play as a very routine, hands-open-while-walking-on-water caricature  — is pretty on-the-nose, but I think that’s the point. It also relates back to my theory last week that these ‘stereotypical’ embodiments of the gods can be justified by the fact that they are simply taking the form that their believers hold of them, which are oftentimes very much informed by archetypes from media.

I’m also wondering what this means for Jesus. The book reveals (though not until later, if I remember) that a god does not truly die; they eventually come back in some new shape and form if there is enough belief in them. I assume, then, that He will return despite His sacrifice, and I’m sort of hoping that we get to see several of them interact at some point. (There’s another one cast for the season, and the finale is called “Come to Jesus,” so I think our chances are good.) I wonder if the implication is that this particular Jesus has been caught in a cycle — helping those who need assistance crossing and being killed for his trouble — for years now. I seriously doubt this is the first time that somebody has prayed to Him during such a trip, after all. But I imagine he must also live somewhere in America, given the many who have already found a living there. It’s a lot to think about.

Do you get it? Do you?

Anyway, this whole sequence makes me vaguely uncomfortable, if only because I don’t know how appropriate it is. Illegal immigration is, of course, an important thing to discuss, especially in our current political climate, and it’s good to see the script reaching to cover so many different demographics and ideas, but having a trio of white writers be the ones to frame this topic via several latinx actors being brutally murdered on-screen doesn’t seem to me the most tasteful way of doing so. I’d be interested hearing others’ thoughts about it.

*

Present Day

Shadow and Wednesday are still walking away from the police station. Shadow is having a lot of issues coming to terms with what happened. Wednesday explains that the New Gods’ killing of the cops was meant as a warning to him, and sacrifice for them.

“Like for a god?” Shadow asks. Yes, Shadow. Where have you been these last five episodes? Like I’ve said before, I’m glad that they’re making his coming to terms with the situation a lot more visceral and relatable than it was in the book, but I think that the line is starting to wear out its welcome just a bit at this point.

Wednesday tells Shadow that gods and monsters have always existed; people, however, have just been too used to their own lives to look beyond their immediate surroundings and see what’s never been completely out of sight.

“Who are you?” Shadow asks. Buddy, Mr. World straight up told you when he warped reality and plastered a room with video of a rocket clearly labeled ‘ODIN.’ Wednesday claims, however, that he wouldn’t believe him if he told him. Sure, all right. I hope this is the last week we do this, because I think it’s time for Shadow to connect the dots.

Anyway, Shadow admits that Laura came back, but Wednesday isn’t particularly surprised. They return to the motel and find the destruction from her and Sweeney’s fight, along with her ring. Wednesday comments that she must not be used to not getting her way, and asks if she apologized for her actions in life. Shadow says she did, sort of. (Fair.) Wednesday suggests they leave.

As they pile into the car, Wednesday asks if Laura was possibly a ghost, but Shadow mentions their kiss. When he wonders why Wednesday is so calm about everything that’s happened, the con man tells him that he’s been around too long to believe in simple blacks and whites: there’s plenty of shades of grey in between ‘alive’ and ‘dead.’ He claims that Laura has likely returned for some purpose, but Shadow isn’t sure what that is.

As they prepare to leave, ravens caw at Wednesday. As they pull out, Laura shows up, back from the morgue. Wednesday sees her in his rear view mirror, but ignores her, turning up the radio and speeding off.

Despite being slightly repetitive, I do like this dialogue. So long as this concludes this particular angle (“I don’t know what to believe, and you’re going to say some cryptic nonsense.”), I’ll go with it, because this seems like a solid narrative spot to more or less wrap up Shadow’s realization and acceptance: with Wednesday offering him the chance to leave now that he’s seen the extent of the danger, but deciding to stay.

I also dig Wednesday purposefully making sure that Shadow can’t reunite with Laura. It could add an interesting dynamic, the two of them having to deal with one another’s attempts to use their man differently. Wednesday will want to keep him by his side for his war, while Laura will likely try to steal him away so that they can attempt a new life together. Or, at least, use him to give her a chance at returning to the living permanently.

I’ll bet she doesn’t have a key.

Laura is left stranded now that the police have towed her car away. When she demands to know why there aren’t cops at the scene from the desk clerk, Sweeney shows up and tells her that they’ve all been killed. Annoyed, she tells him that she’ll need his car. He, however, doesn’t have one, but he agrees to hotwire a suitable vehicle — on the condition that the two travel together, as he refuses to leave her alone until he gets his property back.

He chooses a taxi (it’s the only one available that he knows how to disable properly), telling Laura that the only way he’s going to get his coin is if Laura no longer needs it, and that will happen if she’s properly resurrected, like his friend Jesus Christ. This leads to Laura giving us another golden bit of dialogue: “Did you just name drop Jesus Christ like you know a guy who knows a guy?”

As it turns out, Sweeney apparently does know somebody who can do bona-fide resurrections. He points out that Laura is only going to win back Shadow if she isn’t rotting away, but also wonders if she genuinely wants that.

Laura Moon: Master of distasteful, ‘done-with-your-nonsense’ looks since 2017.

I love this chemistry between them, and the fact that the show is apparently determined to make it a recurring thing. They’re both obnoxious, but in different ways, and they play off of one another’s own brand of jerk nicely: Sweeney is brash and blunt, Laura is snide and condescending, and the contest they make of trading insults adds some nice levity to a show that tends to be pretty serious.

It’s also a smart move away from the source material. The book’s Sweeney does not do much of anything (that we see, anyway) to actually find his coin, so we never learn much about it or who he as a character is in general. Now, the script has found a smart and believable way to tie two secondary characters into the ongoing plot more strongly, which gives the writers a chance to really expand on their personalities and their own conflicts in one move.

After he alludes to Anubis’s scales, Laura demands to know what he is. He admits to being a leprechaun, but their conversation is interrupted by the owner of the taxi, who cocks a gun at him.

Heeeeeey!

All right! I did hear that Salim and the jinn were going to return at some point, but I wasn’t expecting it to be in this capacity. Sort of a really, really incredible coincidence that they happened to run into each other like this. But who cares, and who knows? The Fates could show up at some point and reveal that they orchestrated these amazing odds. When you have deities of every shade running around, I imagine that it’s pretty easy to handwave lucky breaks.

After overhearing his admission, Salim asks Sweeney if he’s ever met a jinn; he’s been travelling towards Mecca looking for one. Sweeney admits that he knows where jinn — and just about every god and demigod — will soon be, and promises to tell Salim if he takes them to Kentucky, where his contact is. Salim agrees.

Shadow and Wednesday are on the road, and the latter tries to cheer up a grim Shadow, who he says is in a bad place now that he has to deal with his wife after already grieving for her. He knows many types of charms, he claims, and offers to use one on him.

Shadow, however, is having more physical problems: the wound from the tree creature is still bleeding, and now feels like something is moving around in it (gross). Wednesday realizes that it’s infected.

In the car’s headlights, Wednesday examines the wound and puts his finger to it, explaining that, like using electricity to draw worms from soil, he’ll need to apply a bit of power to get “it” out. While doing so, he tells a story: men have always wanted something to pray to, and the first place they turned to for a source of faith was the trees of the earth. Mr. Wood was the god of those things — the trees and the forests — until men began to evolve and industrialize, and so he was forced to adapt and become “something else.” Finally, Wednesday pulls some kind of knotty bundle of living vines out of the wound (really gross), that he tosses away.

Ew.

Well, then. It looks like we’ve made the bona-fide leap, then, from Mr. Wood being a dime-a-dozen mook to an outright god himself. And since he’s been around for a long time, I suppose he doesn’t possess the soul of one of those cops. Perhaps he can just manifest through any type of wood, and showed up at the station on the orders of the New Gods to kill the men there? That would be a great way to update the character into something more visually and dramatically exciting: still a servant of the New Gods, as he is in the book, but one much more powerful and odd, being something ‘divine’ himself. I look forward to seeing what other creative ways they involve him in the story. And I wonder what Mr. Stone and Mr. Town will be able to do.

Elsewhere, Salim talks with Laura and Sweeney as he drives. He admits of being scared of New York when he first arrived there, and Sweeney complains about his incessant talking. He notices that Salim’s ID definitely isn’t him.

Laura asks if he killed the original man in his ID picture, but Salim admits that he never saw him — he imagines that the jinn gave him a new life as well. He gives them his name, but isn’t sure if it fits him anymore. Laura asks what he hopes to do with his old life, and they both agree that the policy of moving on should be one of “fuck those assholes.” Laura ponders her new revelation that she’ll never get to see her family again, but is sort of thankful for it.

Sweeney gets angry with her when she mentions their plan for a resurrection, saying it isn’t a fact that should just be shared with anyone. Laura grabs his mouth and threatens to tear off his lips if he keeps using the ‘C’ word that he’s so fond of. (Thank God. I am so tired of hearing him throw it out every two minutes he’s on screen.) She lights a cigarette.

Just take ’em, Laura.

Salim asks if she’s dead, which she admits to. He asks her about her faith. Laura reminisces that she used to pray in Sunday school, asking God that her family would disappear.

Salim states that he doesn’t pray to God for things, but to thank Him for what he’s given. He does hope, however, that he’ll find the jinn, as he believes he is his “afterlife.” Sweeney laughs about it, making innuendos about their sexual encounter. As they approach a turnoff, Laura quietly steers the car towards Indiana.

I am really appreciating this new direction. Is this going to become a regular parallel plot? I am all for watching more of this Salim/Laura/Sweeney road trip. Salim, bless his heart, adds a lovely, quiet optimism and politeness that helps ground the other two’s more brusque and cynical personalities, but he’s also not afraid to dish out some sarcasm, which keeps him from feeling out-of-place. I also like seeing Laura’s softer side here, as she’s rather understanding towards Salim, though I’m curious what the flashback to her hot-tub-insecticide habit is meant to mean. Does she miss the feeling it gave her? Is she starting to feel trapped by her current condition? I’m not sure.

Elsewhere, in Virginia, Wednesday and Shadow head towards an isolated little town swathed in the smog of a towering manufacturing plant. It’s very Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-esque, but this place makes bullets, not candy. In a really sudden shift in tone, we’re suddenly hit with a jaunty “Get Happy” cover while an overseer there clocks in and strolls past molten metal and fellow employees, every one of whom is weirdly cheery.

While crossing a walkway, however, a handrail gives out, and the man takes the plunge into a vat. He gets converted into a shiny new shipment of Vulcan-brand bullets for his trouble.

Mondays. Am I right?

Man, I always love out-of-nowhere moments like this, if only because of how unexpected they are. It’s a beautifully shot sequence, and the peppiness of it is so ridiculous that it works despite the unbelievable corniness of the whole thing. (And I suppose we now know where the bullets from the opening came from, don’t we?)

As they roll up into town (also called Vulcan), Shadow comments on how empty it is. Wednesday explains that the citizenry here is extraordinarily dedicated to America — its particular version of it, anyway. And that mainly means that they hang a lot of flags and all carry guns. Even if that ideal falls apart under scrutiny, these people will defend the safety that it gives them. They patrol the streets with shotguns and uniforms, and at the center of town is a large mob.

Wednesday explains that the congregation is a “celebration of a sacrifice” — a couple of times each year, an employee ‘accidentally’ falls into a vat thanks to faulty railings, and the insurance company chooses to just settle rather than close down the factory to refurbish it. They pull up to the leader giving a eulogy for the dearly departed while “I Put a Spell on You” plays, because this show is not about subtlety when it comes to its music choices.

The head is — surprise, surprise — one Vulcan (Corbin Bernsen). He and the townsfolk fire their guns into the air, and as the crowd disperses, Wednesday greets him. Shadow sits in the car while the rain of bullets falls from the sky.

Wednesday tells Vulcan that he needs him, and the man reveals that he knows that Wednesday is trying to start a war. He admits that he is doing just fine, but Wednesday informs him that the rest of the gods aren’t nearly as well of.

I hope there weren’t any birds up there.

Another really uncomfortable sequence, but this one is clearly intentional. Again, nothing super subtle: it’s a very, very obvious take on the American nationalists who treat the second amendment as gospel. From the armbands to the fact that every single person in this place is apparently white, the entire setup is reflective of the neo-nazi movement, and it’s really unpleasant to watch unfold. I would say that it’s a bit much, but let’s be honest here — we’ve seen this sort of display time and again in real life. These kinds of people have always been around, and we’ve had some clear demonstrations of their existence quite recently, so it’s nothing to shrug off as dramatic license.

I’m glad that they went this route, really. I think it’s a really important thing that has to be discussed and dismantled — this fanatical concern with carrying arms and the fact that said belief often ties directly into racism, homophobia, and the like. Vulcan’s interaction with Shadow is stiff and outright rude in every scene they share, which really drives the social implications home.

Sweeney wakes up to find that the band has arrived at the bar where he and Shadow first met. Laura is looking very not-good at this point. She orders the stiffest drink she can get, while Salim just gets coffee.

Rollin’ up with the crew.

In their booth together, Sweeney and Laura continue to argue after the former jokes about the latter’s appearance. Laura isn’t overly concerned with it, but Sweeney warns her to keep in the shadows and not draw attention to herself. She accuses him of only caring because he wants the coin inside of her, but Sweeney in turn accuses her of coming back to her home state in order to see her family, despite her earlier, haughty declarations of moving on.

She admits that her heart beat when she kissed Shadow, but Sweeney tells her that, to him, she will always be dead. He’s Wednesday’s man now, not her, and so he advises her to get a new life, just as her husband did. When she insists that she wants Shadow, Sweeney tells her that her love is toxic, because she forces it on people who don’t want it.

It’s nice to see Sweeney call Laura out on her actions, as well as address the futility that is her trying to get back with Shadow, though I could do without the jokes about Salim’s relationship with the jinn. We get that you’re a tactless ass, Sweeney. No need to make jokes about anal sex. They aren’t funny, and Laura’s admission that she likes it after Sweeney claims that women don’t seems a shoddy attempt at making her appear “cool” and “one of the guys.” It’s possible for women to be portrayed as strong without them putting down other women, writers. Keep that in check; especially when Laura’s status as a well-written ‘strong female character’ is definitely debatable. It wouldn’t be quite so irritating if she wasn’t one of the few women in the cast at this point, and I get the feeling that it’s going to be her in a ‘boy’s club’ setting for most of the series, so this could become a regular thing.

More women supporting one another 2k17.

Anyway, this conversation does hint at an intriguing setup for Laura’s arc: will she try to find a new life and start over, or try to reclaim what she had? And how will the possibility of resurrection affect her decision? I’m assuming that said plan is not going to be successful, as it would really screw up with both Laura and Sweeney’s storylines going forward. Still, it could provide some interesting direction.

Shadow cautiously looks at a tree in Vulcan’s yard, in which he sees another phantom noose. Vulcan tells him that it was a hanging tree. A neighbor walks by and greets him and Wednesday, but not Shadow. When Vulcan tells them that they’ll be safe here and can stay so long as they need, Shadow insists that they leave.

Yeah, the racism is strong here. Get out of there, Shadow.

Vulcan insists that everybody loves the town, explaining that people are much more content when they are being watched. Wednesday looks up into the sky and sees a satellite pass by. I’m guessing the Technical Boy (or Mr. World) is on the lookout.

The man’s home is filled with stuffed and mounted kills. He offers Wednesday a drink but tells Shadow that he does not get one, just to make it really clear that he’s a bigoted piece of garbage.

Wednesday is impressed by the opulence of the lifestyle that the town’s devotion affords him, and Vulcan suggests that Wednesday sacrifices himself to get a bit of power back, since the people no longer perform them for him. “You’ve done it before,” he accuses, and Wednesday admits that it was successful then, but likely won’t work out again. Shadow looks out at the tree, and Vulcan asks if he’s ever seen a man hanged, saying that it’s a terrible place for a man to find faith.

Because of that, he’s franchised conviction via a more convenient method to keep himself strong. He is the god of the volcano and metalworking, and so has evolved with the times accordingly. His new volcano is the gun from which a bullet erupts, and every one of them is inscribed with his name. “The power of fire is firepower, not God,” he claims. Every time somebody pulls a trigger, it is an offering to him. He cocks the gun and shoots one of mounted heads.

Wednesday asks Vulcan to come with him to Wisconsin, and Vulcan claims that he has always been with him. Before they can leave, however, Wednesday asks from him a blade fit for a god.

Shadow asks Wednesday if he trusts the man once he leaves, but Wednesday simply states that he knows what Vulcan is and has always been. He also reveals that he didn’t tell Vulcan of Shadow’s lynching, which means the weaponsmith’s little comparison is neither a coincidence nor an understandable admission. Shadow calls it a very big “fuck you,” and Wednesday promises to deliver one of his own, but won’t tell Shadow what it is, as he appears to be distracted.

Man, Vulcan is a terrible character. I mean that in a good way, though. It’s pretty obvious that he’s in line with the New Gods, but I don’t think the show is trying to hide that fact. Clearly, he’s taken up World’s offer of being repackaged and upgraded — the same deal that Wednesday so dramatically turned down last week. The translation of the volcano and metal into guns and weaponry is a smart update, and it does a great job at demonstrating World’s ideas for the Old Gods. Just as he promised, he’s rewriting their domains into something dangerous and destructive, carving out a little world for them to rule over and settle for. But while Wednesday was unwilling to accept a condolence prize in his exiled part of the world, Vulcan has apparently embraced the idea and is perfectly happy with the arrangement. (Of course, his reach at least partially extends to the rest of the country, considering those men during the ‘Coming to America’ bit had his personal brand. I wonder if he has the monopoly over ammo in the United States? It would fit World’s ideology to a ‘T,’ if so, and possibly better explain his power.)

And in the end, the idea of a god of fire and metallurgy taking the form of a super-racist, gun-loving white guy who lords over a super-racist, gun-loving town is an eerily appropriate direction to take things in today’s world.

I’m wondering what the writers intend to do with the “sacrifice yourself” bit, as well. I’m assuming it’s foreshadowing something that happens near the end of the book with Shadow, but I’m not entirely sure.

Us watching Wednesday watching Shadow watching Laura watching her family. There are a lot of layers here.

When Wednesday notes that Shadow is still thinking of Laura, he has Shadow concentrate, which causes him to have a vision of her. She’s outside her mother’s home, where she looks through the window and sees her family. They don’t notice her, however, and Laura leaves. Wednesday asks if he’s willing to let her fade away, but Shadow doesn’t seem certain. Laura, meanwhile, gets back into Salim’s cab and brusquely tells him to drive, reiterating her “fuck those assholes” mantra.

I like this episode’s focus and contrast between Laura and Shadow, demonstrating their new companions’ urging to let the other go. We all know that it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, of course, but it sets the groundwork for some development on their relationship and what may become of it going forward. Props also to the writers for including Laura’s peeking in on her family, which was a throwaway moment in the book but has been turned into a climactic realization for her here. She’s come to terms with the fact that she needs to move on from at least some of the elements of her old life, and that’s going to direct her story from here on out, I imagine. Also, having Shadow frame the scene gives us a chance to see more of his apparent powers at play.

At a forge in his factory, Vulcan crafts a ludicrously large and ornate sword. He laments not being allowed to make Wednesday a gun instead, noting how much more destructive even cheap, mass-produced firearms can be.

He wants to know why Wednesday desires a war, and the con main explains that he wants to make sure that the other Old Gods get the same good deal that Vulcan has now. Vulcan admits that it’s a good idea, but only for Wednesday.

Wednesday asks if he told the New Gods about where they are, which Vulcan confirms (*gasp*). They are coming, and he’s been advised to appear neutral in the conflict. Neutrality, Wednesday admonishes, only takes the side of the oppressor. A very apt message.

Vulcan claims that the New Gods aren’t oppressors, but simply the inescapable future. It feels good to have power again — every bullet shot in a crowded movie theatre is a prayer to him.

Wow, we’re really hitting these contemporary issues hard, aren’t we? I like it. No sugar-coating it.

He asserts that his religion doesn’t need to be a moral one, and Wednesday states that all religions need martyrs regardless. Vulcan in turn accuses Wednesday of wanting to be one as a means of spurning the others to his cause.

Wednesday, however, says that it isn’t him who will be the martyr, but Vulcan; he’s going to claim that the man swore allegiance to him, and was killed by the New Gods in retribution. He slices Vulcan’s throat with his new weapon and pushes him into a vat, then pisses in it as a way to curse “the whole damn thing.”

And once again, somebody gets made into bullets.

This is probably going to impact this month’s overhead.

Good to see Wednesday more manipulative and dangerous. So far, he’s been mostly ominous talk and loopy jokes, so this is a nice way of demonstrating the fact that he has something to back up his bluster. I’m assuming Vulcan won’t be gone too long — given how powerful his town’s (and country’s, really) belief in his craft is, he’s sure to be reincarnated in some new form fairly quickly. I wouldn’t mind an update on this place at some point in a future season, just to find out what effect his death and Wednesday’s curse potentially had.

(How hilarious would it be if this turned into a literal Chekhov’s Gun? I want there to be a moment near the very end of the series where somebody tries to kill Shadow with a bullet, and it ends up backfiring because it was made from this batch.)

On the side of the road, Salim says his prayers as the sun sets (rises?). Laura and Sweeney watch silently, and Sweeney gives Laura a look. Salim tells Laura that God is great, and Laura tells him that life is great, which he agrees with. He and Laura smile as Sweeney gets back into the car.

A nice end. I think it’s incredibly powerful for the show to portray the Islamic faith this way. It bookends the opening’s contrast of religion’s capacity for good and evil again, what with it coming right after Vulcan’s horrendous speech. And given how much Islamophobia runs rampant in our culture right now, I think it’s very important for it to be removed from the violent, fanatical context that Western media typically uses.

Also, it’s nice for Laura and Sweeney — two characters who normally won’t shut up with the insults — to, for once, stay quiet and respectful.

I’m not a big fan of that look Sweeney gives Laura, though, because it makes me think they’re going to try to spark a romance between the two of them. I get the appeal of the idea, given the situation they’re both in and how they’re connected with one another, but I don’t think I want to see it play out. Just let the two be themselves separately, please.

Stop it, Sweeney.

Anyway! Some ending thoughts:

• Wednesday mentioned that there was no way to be completely sure that Shadow’s injury from Mr. Wood was completely healed. Does this mean it’s going to have some sort of impact on Shadow later, or was it just a throwaway piece of dialogue?

• Speaking of Mr. Wood: Do Shadow’s visions of the noose somehow tie into his abilities, seeing as how it always appears in a tree? The version that was seen this week was particularly weird, since it appeared to be made out of bark, rather than rope. Is Mr. Wood haunting Shadow somehow? And does he hold any kind of sway over Shadow’s dreams of the bone orchard?

• What does Wednesday intend to do with Vulcan’s sword, exactly? We’re all in new territory here, so I don’t know what to expect.

• I hope the jinn and Salim get some kind of happy ending. I’d like to think that Fuller would know better than to pull out the old Bury Your Gays trope after going to such pains to make a couple of minor characters a more prominent part of the cast, but I can’t be sure.

*

So while w definitely did have plenty of development here, I’d consider “A Murder of Gods” the lightest episode of the season so far, both in terms of tone and narrative weight. Not a bad thing, though. Sometimes, it’s nice to take a breather, and making sure that the episode still has relevance to character development and overarching plots prevents it from being completely superfluous.

Last note: I really dug the music this week. Very jazzy and striking. It’s almost obnoxious, but it suffuses everything with an artsy vibe without seeming like it’s trying too hard. And though I make fun of it, I do like how obviously the licensed songs tie into whatever scene they’re soundtracking. It keeps things fun.

Only two more episodes left!

Rating

While it feels more like a pit stop than a grand step forward, “A Murder of Gods” doesn’t waste the opportunity to make its small character moments and plot developments count. It’s mostly setup, and that’s what makes its lighter tone and smaller scale worthwhile.

B+

Because I feel the need to make some kind of Point every time I write one of these, I’ll start off this week by making an observation regarding book-to-film adaptations.

It’s funny because, all things considered, my demands for faithfulness to the source material should not be all that hefty with this go-around, seeing as how:

1. I’ve only read the book once, and it wasn’t as though I particularly loved it. I enjoyed it, certainly, but I likely would never have bothered with it if it hadn’t been receiving a screen treatment, so it’s not as though it’s a story I’ve grown up with and read a dozen-plus times.
2. I was fully expecting (and outright hoping) that the show would differ from Gaiman’s text, because my biggest complaint regarding the latter was that there was a lot of potential in the premise that wasn’t fully mined.
3. Thus far, the series has been very, very good at balancing out its old and new elements. So much has already been directly pulled from the pages and retained almost verbatim.
4. And as for the new stuff, it’s all been very agreeable. Most of it has just added to characters and moments that in the text weren’t all that detailed to begin with (and therefore isn’t technically contradicting anything in the story). Or, if it has legitimately changed something, it’s arguably done so for the better, either making more sense for television or simply being more interesting.

I find it very annoying, then, that my reaction for these last two episodes has been the same. No matter how well the show is doing or how capably it’s meeting my expectations, my initial, gut reaction has been “this wasn’t in the book, and therefore sucks.” I’ve had to force myself to think about what I watched because, given a bit of time, I eventually end up really liking what the writers have done.

It just goes to show how strong that idea of ‘faithfulness’ is to reader opinion, context be damned. No matter how ill-advised, unnecessary, or outright impossible it is , we apparently can’t help but view a 100%, shot-by-shot duplication of the text as the Holy Grail of adaptations.

I hope I get over this soon, though, because I’m under the impression that the rest of this season is more or less going to be new. I get the feeling that they’re saving Wednesday’s meeting of the Old Gods for the finale, which, in the novel, takes place right after the bank heist. Had they been sticking to Gaiman, they should have already gotten to that last week.

And I like the idea of saving that particular sequence for our first final episode; it’s a good stopping point and dramatic cliffhanger, so I need to stop complaining.

Anyway, “Lemon Scented You” is, as you’ve guessed, a sort of milestone for the show, as it’s the first episode that really breaks away from the book. Granted, “Git Gone” did as well, but in a different way: because it took place entirely in flashback and focused on a time period that was never a part of the primary plot, it (mostly) didn’t conflict with anything.

Episode five, however, certainly does, as we’re back on Shadow and his journey. As I’ve said, since the writers seem to be saving the next big plot development for week eight, they’ve got a few hours of time to pad out until they get there.

When I say ‘padding,’ by the way, I’m not using it in the negative sense; I think that the direction that the writers are taking is an important step in better developing the cast and world, which is something that they’ll need to do to keep things going smoothly for another few seasons. I use the word instead in context of how they’re doing, well, exactly what I wanted them to do: using the book’s major scenes as milestones to pace out the story year by year, so that they can slip in between them their own ideas without detracting from the core plot.

So, like with “Git Gone,” my initially mixed feelings for “Lemon Scented You” have given way to appreciation. It’s an hour that has really grown on me since I watched it, and I’m now very happy with the results. Aside from the opening ‘Coming to America’ vignette, everything is new, and I think it all pretty much works.

Don’t say your parents never did anything for you, kids.

That’s largely because the episode’s focus is on something that I considered one of the book’s most lacking elements: the New Gods. My complaint there was that they, despite being the primary antagonists, had very little screentime. Despite their fascinating concept, they really didn’t do much except for lurk around the edges of the story, their threat mostly coming from us being told, not shown, their power. While I’m still hoping/waiting for some additional gods to show up, I’m at least pleased that we’ve now gotten much more of the preexisting ones than we ever did before.

As a whole, this episode really helps establish their control, their danger, and the fact that they aren’t completely ignorant of Wednesday’s schemes to stop them. Since they really didn’t bother doing anything about the man’s plans until the last possible moment in the novel, the New Gods ended up coming across as foolishly overconfident, completely naive despite their omnipresence, or both. Thanks to this week, we now have a much clearer and direct opposition to root against, and what passiveness they still continue to show is well explained.

Anyway! Let’s take a look:

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Coming to America

14,000 B.C.

In our only nod to the book, we start with a flashback (narrated by Mr. Ibis) to a very distant past, in which a tribe makes its way to America over an ancient land bridge from Siberia. In an interesting surprise, it’s also animated — and really well, too, using a lovely stop-motion-esque style in which all of the characters appear to be made of wood. It reminds me of a Laika film, or perhaps that equally surprising sequence covering “The Tale of the Three Brothers” in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Atsula leads her people through the bitter cold, forced to bury the child she loses to the harsh elements along the way. They travel with their god Nunyunnini: a mammoth skull that they carry with them. They finally encounter the warmer weather and woodlands of the continent, but the food that they expected to find is absent — only bones scatter the forest floor. One evening, Atsula communes with Nunyunnini, who answers her plea for help with a vision showing her what she must do. During their journey, an enormous buffalo made of ice appears. As per her vision, Astula allows herself to be impaled by the beast and carried away. Another tribe native to the land appears and offers the travelers food, but the other of their elders rejects it. He is killed in response, leaving the children to accept the offering. They leave Nunyunnini behind, and as ages past, his bones — and his name — rot away.

Like I said, it’s a nice surprise to start things. No ‘writing in a book’ shot to lead into it, but I suppose showing that every time would get repetitive, as there are only so many ways to film somebody jotting something down before it gets stale. At least Ibis is narrating as he has been, to keep things thematically consistent.

There’s a metaphor here; I’m sure of it.

I was a bit confused by the storyline here the first time around, so I had to watch it a couple of times to get the tale — it’s a much-abbreviated version of the final ‘Coming to America’ aside from the novel, which was a bit more elaborate involved. Its importance to the plot, however, is the same: gods, as Ibis explains, are powerful, but people are even more so, because gods live and die by those who believe in them. Once that belief wanes and moves on, formerly unstoppable beings are left to dust. Hence the symbolism of Atsula being killed by the buffalo: she (and Nunyunnini) recognized that, in order to survive in a new land, they had to change, and so they both offered themselves to a new god so that their people would find acceptance with those of the foreign land.

It’s a nice tie-in to the main story’s theme, and looks absolutely lovely to boot. I wouldn’t mind more ‘experimental’ sequences like this, but I also find this one in particular a tad disappointing, if only due to matters of representation. The writers explained that the decision to use animation was mainly due to financial constraints, which is understandable — the season was apparently made as short as it is because they went over budget. And while I think that having something like this is possibly preferable to some other alternatives (a really cheap-looking live-action setup, for instance, or just having the scene cut entirely), it also feels like a missed opportunity to get some Native actors involved in the cast. Considering how white the lineup is right now (more on this later), it’s a shame.

(It also makes me worry about how well they’re going to actually handle things when they introduce bona-fide Native characters and beliefs into the plot, which do show up in the middle portions of the book. Considering this bit and the fact that the show has already used other imagery — the totem pole in the credits, a buffalo skull in one of the advertisements — I worry that things are going to turn into appropriation, not appreciation, real fast.)

*

Present Day

We start off — again — in the motel room with Laura Moon, who is waiting for Shadow to return. He shows up, and is understandably upset. He angrily tells her that they have unresolved issues to discuss, which Laura tries to shrug off by pointing out that the fact that she’s alive again is a rather big thing.

Shadow, however, doesn’t find it particularly impossible, given what’s happened recently, and demands that she explain her cheating. Laura tells him that she was legitimate when she said she would wait for him, but knew that the statement had a chance to be a lie. As it turns out, he was only in prison for thirteen months before she slept with Robbie for the first time. She uses the excuse of her cat dying and getting drunk, and when Shadow asks is she intended to leave him, she dismisses the idea, saying that she loves him.

Shadow asks her to describe the night she died, which she does. She mentions her time in the afterlife only as being “somewhere,” and neglects to tell Shadow about her saving him. She then asks for a cigarette, which Shadow agrees to buy from the motel vending machine.

So far, so good. The dialogue is a mishmash of direct quotes from the book and some new stuff, as befitting the more elaborate backstory they gave Laura last week. There’s a lot more emotion involved on both sides, too, which is nice. The novel’s version of this scene was very brief and rather flat, due to Laura’s one-dimensional ‘otherworldly’ portrayal and Shadow’s general apathy, which worked in its own strange way on paper, but probably wouldn’t have been very compelling on screen.

As a result, I’m liking the change the dynamic takes — it’s more believable. Whittle plays Shadow with a perfectly subdued combination of heartbreak and fury, and his immediate acceptance of the situation still keeps him very much in-character despite the other changes. Browning, meanwhile, makes it clear that show-Laura is indeed going to be notably different from book-Laura.

As what happened with her past being expanded on last week, it’s not necessarily a change in the sense that it’s completely contradicting how she was already established. It’s more that the writers filled a rather empty character with a more explicit sense of personality and direction, and I like the direction they chose. As “Git Gone” made clear, Laura is, quite frankly, full of shit. Despite her claim that she has miraculously found a genuine love for her husband since her death, her flippant attitude toward Shadow’s understandable anger and despair makes it clear that she isn’t genuinely remorseful for her actions or cares for her “puppy.” She never actually apologizes once, instead meeting every one of Shadow’s statements with her own pre-planned speeches and justifications that distract from her own fault. None of this particularly clashes with book-Laura, mind you; it’s mostly a ‘sharpening’ of the same offhand way that she spoke and behaved in the text, retaining the elements but removing most of the ambiguity.

Truly the face of somebody genuinely remorseful for her poor life choices.

And Browning plays her beautifully because, despite how terrible she is, you can’t help but want to see more of her. She’s going to be a character that you love to hate, I expect, and I think that’s an excellent way to fill out what was initially such a blasé story element. It may not be the ideal emotion to feel towards her, but at least you’ll be feeling something, and that’s always better than completely disinterest.

(See, filmmakers? This is how you adapt a book. Make changes to the weaker stuff to give it a bit more life and excitement, and leave the really important stuff intact.)

While heading back to his room, Shadow notices a black car in the parking lot. A raven sits on the roadside sign and watches. When he returns to his room, he finds Laura in the tub. She tells him she wants to warm herself up, just in case he wants to touch her. He tells her that people who die usually stay in their graves, but Laura isn’t so sure.

The raven flies down a hallway and taps on Wednesday’s door. When it caws at him, Wednesday tells the bird to “slow down.”

“Sir, have you heard the Good Word? The Good Bird Word?”

Laura complains that she can’t taste her cigarette, and Shadow leaves her wedding ring on the tub. He mentions the last time he called her in prison, saying that he had the feeling that she would die. A storm is rolling across the country, he says, and everything feels wrong.

Laura gets out of the tub and kisses Shadow, saying that their marriage needs to be worked on. Doing so causes her heart to momentarily beat again, and she notes that she felt alive for just a moment. She tells Shadow that dying made her realize how much she loves him, and warns him that he’s gotten himself mixed up in “some weird shit.” She is, however, looking out for him, and she thanks him for his “present” — the coin that he left on her grave. Shadow mentions that Sweeney is looking for it, but she refuses to give it up. She asks Shadow if he’s still her puppy, but he tells her that he is not.

More dialogue straight from the book. I like how they’ve stuck to the original script but interwoven the scene with so much more context now that they’ve fleshed Laura out. The only notable change is Laura’s momentary resurrection, which creates a lot of interesting future implications.

Namely, it suggests the possibility of a redemption arc for her, in which she not only tries to make up her actions to Shadow, but also pursues legitimate life again. This ties in nicely with her new characterization and backstory, because it means that she once again has a reason to use Shadow for her own ends — just as she tried to rely on him to make her feel alive in the past, now she can do so in order to actually be alive. It’s a clever echo of “Git Gone” and could lay the groundwork for a fascinating direction for her development in later seasons: Will she protect Shadow because she wants to legitimately love him, or simply play the charade as she once did to get what she wants?

It’s an excellent idea, I think. With one fell stroke, it gives last week’s episode an entirely new level of importance while creating an entirely self-sustaining narrative for her to pursue. Much better than leaving her to wander in and out of the story at random intervals.

And I hate Browning for this, because no matter how satisfying that “no” from Shadow was when she asked him if he was still her puppy (good for him!), I still sort of felt bad for her. I know, I know.

Wednesday shows up at the door, claiming he can’t sleep and asking Shadow out for a drink. Shadow is understandably uninterested, but won’t tell Wednesday why (another tweak —  he seemed pretty willing to talk about his wife returning in the book, but I suppose this is good for drama). Wednesday suspects that something is up, but they’re interrupted by a crew of police cars pulling up. The lead officer (Tracy Thoms) tells them that they’re being arrested for bank robbery.

Quick aside: The use of the raven is fun, but it takes some of the mystery out of Wednesday, doesn’t it? This shows up a couple of other times in the episode a bit later, and with these moments, the writers have outright skipped the question of who Wednesday actually is, which was something that Gaiman put off completely revealing until the Old Gods’ gathering. It also makes it pretty obvious that he was involved somehow with Laura’s death, considering the reappearance of the birds.

Then again, the show, just as the book did, gives you one of his names right off the bat when Czernobog calls him “Grimnir,” and all it takes is a quick Google search to find out what god that name refers to. And let’s be honest: if they’re going to be delaying the bigger scenes, the writers are probably going to have to throw in some of these revelations earlier so as not to pointlessly string audiences along, especially when half of the viewers already know what they are and the other half are probably going to be able to guess them really early.

Elsewhere, the Technical Boy leaves a very fancy party involving lasers and very loud music, because that’s what a person named the Technical Boy would do. The streetlights in the parking lot go off as he approaches his limo (nice callback to the pilot), only he isn’t the one doing it this time. He spots his VR goggles on the ground nearby, which latch themselves onto his face before he can do anything.

Back in his virtual car, he’s greeted by Media, who’s now rocking a Ziggy Stardust look. She chastises him for his meeting with Shadow — he was only meant to ask him a few questions, and instead ended up hanging him. Lynching a black man looks very bad these days, she points out, and warns him that a very displeased Mr. World demands an apology to try to salvage the situation before it gets any worse. The Technical Boy gives a very insincere one to Media, who tells him that World wants it delivered to Wednesday and Shadow themselves.

♪ “There’s a staaaaaarmaaaaaaaan…” ♪

The Technical Boy complains that Mr. World is letting Wednesday “get away with it,” but Media tells him that things were going just fine until he got involved: the con man’s plan was falling apart, as he isn’t the most persuasive man, but the attack on Shadow lets him play the martyr, which will add a new spark to his campaign. The Technical Boy claims that no apology from him is going to stop Wednesday’s recruitment, which he refers to as a “mass delusion.” Delusion, Media notes, is plenty powerful — it can incite panic and action, and to get that, Wednesday doesn’t even need all of the Old Gods to believe. Just enough. Maybe even just one.

A great addition that finally gives us more of the New Gods. I’m a bit torn on a couple of aspects regarding these two, but I’ll get to those in a bit. Otherwise, it’s a treat to see Gillian Anderson in another get-up. She certainly looks the part, and does a pretty solid Bowie impression, though the fact that her dialogue is sprinkled with the artist’s lyrics is sort of corny. And the Technical Boy is very annoying, as is to be expected, but I appreciate the characterization here:

For Media, it’s important to note that her condemnation of Shadow’s hanging comes not from the fact that it’s a reprehensible crime, but that it looks bad for the New Gods. She doesn’t legitimately care about the emotions and implications behind such a horrific event beyond appearances.

For the Technical Boy, it’s the odd mixture of dismissal and care that he displays towards Wednesday that interests me. He complains about Mr. World’s laxness in addressing the issue, but is simultaneously so haughty that he doesn’t appear to see them as a threat. His dialogue here does a solid job at giving us a clear idea of the New Gods as a whole: they’re too high and mighty to worry too much about any action taken against them, but are also smart enough to know that they have to keep track of things. Such a profile simultaneously retains the book’s ‘above-it-all’ attitude that fits a group in such a lofty position, but also makes them more credible villains by showing that their ego isn’t leaving them completely blind.

Side note: We haven’t really seen Wednesday use Shadow’s hanging as a tool to recruit, though, so I think that the writers are going to need to give us a bit of evidence of that to make Media’s claims credible.

Back in prison, officers are grilling the pair. Shadow’s tells him that they somehow haven’t been able to find any information on Wednesday, but they know plenty about him. Wednesday’s, who wants to know why he was in Chicago, has to deal with the man playing senile.

(The show never actually gives us either of their names, but the credits peg them as ‘Buffer’ and ‘Cambro,’ respectively, so we’ll use those.)

Buffer warns Shadow that he’s getting involved in something bigger and more dangerous than he could know, that Wednesday has pissed of some very big, very powerful people. Shadow asks for a lawyer. Wednesday decides to tell Cambro the truth: he was in Chicago to recruit a god of death.

Buffer understands Shadow’s refusal to talk, but has the feeling that they’re dealing with something unusual, and so wants to delay the case moving forward. She asks if Wednesday has enemies, because the tip that they got wasn’t the usual type — it was a fax sent to a machine that hadn’t been turned on in years and gave an exact GPS location for the pair. Meanwhile, Wednesday talks about Sweeney’s resistance in getting involved in anything, due to the fact that he’s an idiot. Yancy (finally!), meanwhile, is not willing to throw in his lot, as he is one “bitterly dispossessed,” but Wednesday thinks that he understands his friend more now that he’s seen “the rope burns around his friend’s neck.”

Glad to see Yancy getting mentioned, as we haven’t seen him since that ‘Coming to America’ bit a few weeks back. It’s tidy of the writers to tie that sequence, Shadow’s being attacked, and Media’s warning about martyrdom together like this to give him a certain rapport with Shadow before they even meet. It’s something that was sort of there in the book but not really explored from the angle of race, so I hope it’s handled delicately once he actually shows up.

Buffer shows Shadow surveillance camera photos that they were sent of the bank robbery. She asks to know what’s happening, but Shadow doesn’t think she can handle it. He considers the offer of help, though, wanting out as quickly as possible. She tells him that the DA could look at him leniently, given the death of his wife.

Speaking of which….

Back at the motel, Laura sits in the tub and looks at her wedding ring. As she dresses, the door is kicked in by Mad Sweeney, who demands she return his coin. He grabs her and looks down her throat, revealing the coin to be sitting in her stomach. Laura, in response, flicks him and sends him crashing into the wall, telling him that it’s hers now. When he tries to grab her, she breaks his hand.

Sweeney tells her that he gave Shadow the wrong coin, that hers is meant for the King of America. She breaks his finger and pins him to the floor, and asks him how he knows Shadow. Sweeney tells her that he was hired to go to the bar where they first met and test Shadow to see what he was made of by Grimnir — also known as Wednesday — who is a god. (*gasp*) He warns her not to trust him, as Shadow has. He conjures a great many more coins to offer her, but she doesn’t accept them.

I wonder what else she keeps in there. Cash? Her personal journal? A light snack for later?

Laura goads Sweeney, guessing correctly that he can’t take the coin unless she freely gives it to him — something she says will never happen. The leprechaun points out that it probably will — her body is going to continue to rot, and eventually, she won’t be able to do anything at all.

He tackles her into the bathtub and chokes her in frustration when cops burst in and grab him. He tries to claim that she’s okay, but Laura plays dead quite literally in the water as he’s hauled away. She smiles.

Fun scene. I like this idea of the two of them becoming a pair for their respective storylines going forward — as the writers have said, it’s entertaining as hell to see two jerks be jerks to one another, and they both play off one another well. (Also, props to the writers for openly acknowledging that, yes, both of these people are “assholes” — their words — and not meant to be sweet, innocent, immensely likeable cinnamon rolls. Though, from what I’ve seen, some fans would like to pretend that Sweeney is.)They also complement one another’s arcs smartly: Sweeney’s warnings help encourage Laura to keep an eye on Shadow while working to escape her eventual fate, while Laura’s possession of his coin gives us a chance to learn more about his dealings and why he needs it back so desperately — something that was never explained in the book.

So we’ve already been given one new bit of information regarding his predicament: apparently, that coin was for the “King of America.” Who, exactly, is that going to end up being, and why does he want this coin so much? I could hazard a few guesses and which god rules America (Mr. World? White Jesus?), but I’m content with waiting to find out. It’s nice to have some mystery in a story that you already know 97% of, after all.

And I guess I’ll be semi-invested in his storyline for now, then. Laura is an awful person, but like I said, she’s entertaining to dislike, and I’m at least sort of hopeful for some development on her part. Sweeney, however, just annoys the hell out of me — having a character be so constantly hostile and rude gets grating very quickly, and the fact that he feels the need to call somebody the ‘C’ word every time he shows up is starting to drive me up the wall.

But, man, seeing Laura casually flick him across the room was kind of amazing. He seems to recover from his injuries pretty quickly, though. Do leprechauns have healing abilities? I’m going to assume that they do. And I wonder if Laura having swallowed the coin instead of simply wearing it around her neck is going to become a plot point at some point, or if it was simply done to look, uh, cool.

Shadow and Wednesday are left in the same room to talk. The lights flicker. While they’re alone, Wednesday warns them that they’re about to be killed unless they leave. The photos come courtesy of somebody you do not want to encounter before you’re ready. A spider crawls into Wednesday’s cuffs and unlocks one of them, claiming that it comes courtesy of a friend. Shadow grabs him, realizing that he’s afraid, and demands to know who he really is and who’s after him.

Gunshots ring out. The lights go out and the door unlocks to reveal Media, who is now posing as Marilyn Monroe. She floats into the room (literally), taking in with her a spotlight and a breathy discussion about how she’s no longer old black-and-white Lucy, but a glorious Technicolor creation whose death wasn’t quite as straightforward as people claim. Wednesday tells her that they have no business with her, but she insists that they will. Shadow starts to panic, as one probably would.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I know that it wasn’t this.

I think we’re seeing the culmination of Shadow’s recurrent struggles with disbelief, and now seems the perfect opportunity for it to hit its peak. I think the writers have drawn it out just long enough to be believable, but seem to be wrapping it up before it potentially turns into a nuisance.

The cameras in the place go out as Mr. World (Crispin Glover) walks in. He says that his meeting with Wednesday has been long overdue, and that he hasn’t come until now due to how small and unimportant he seemed. Wednesday warns Shadow not to tell World anything, but World reveals that he already knows everything about Shadow; he in fact knows everything about everyone, including Shadow’s blood type, dreams, cheese preference, and mother’s sexual history. That’s what he deals in, you see: all of the information that is recorded, stored, and recalled. “The Book of Life,” he calls it.

I’m pretty sure that Mr. Glover is just playing himself at this point.

I’m glad that he’s finally been introduced, but I’m sort of confused by World. For his part, Glover does him well. Granted, he’s more or less playing the same character he does in every role he gets: the snake-like smooth-talker who’s also clearly unhinged and prone to bursts of yelling. But, hey, it’s a character that works for him, and I think it’s a solid direction for Mr. World, if different. He wasn’t all that present in the book, anyway, so like Laura, this gives him a more definitive characterization and direction for the writers to take him in, rather than leaving him a half-formed, shadowy presence for most of the plot.

What I’m stuck on is his role as the head of the New Gods. I was sort of under the impression that this was what he was in the novel, too. Going back and rereading some of his scenes, however, makes me think that I was wrong about this. Now, I’m thinking that he was actually just a regular man who happened to be the head of the legmen who worked for the New Gods. (Granted, there are… some reveals at the end that contradict this, but up until that point, I think the assumption is that he’s a mook.)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Black Hats — Mr. Wood, Mr. Stone, Mr. Town, and I suppose Mr. World — are just human, right? Mortals who have been roped into doing the dirty work for their country’s immortal overlords? They factor so lightly into the plot that I suppose it’s never made explicit, unless I’m missing something obvious.

If that was the case, though, turning him into a deity who apparently knows everything about everything is a rather big alteration, and one that makes me wonder how they’re going to handle a certain twist or two that shouldn’t be showing up until the final stretch of the series. Still, I asked for more of the New Gods, both via more scenes with the ones we know of and by introducing new characters altogether, so I like it, especially since it prevents the Big Bads from being left a never-seen threat on the horizon who are only encountered via their lackeys, as the novel did. This scene definitely establishes him as somebody to be reckoned with, given that he doesn’t appear to have many limitations, and Glover’s typically oily performance makes him rightly intimidating. I also like his established dominion: globalization and integration. I was wondering what a deity with a name as vague as ‘Mr. World’ would control, but this makes sense.

This also brings up a question as to where the three New Gods and their powers conflict, since all of them seem like they would dabble in the others’ territory. Media can’t simply be the god of television anymore, since so much entertainment is now concentrated on the Internet, which is the Technical Boy’s domain. And his wheelhouse would assumedly include all current machinery, right? But the surveillance photos from the bank came not from him, but from World, whose control would have to extend to most of that sort of thing if he’s so focused on systems.

Maybe that’s the point. If they’re the ‘Big Three’ of the New Gods, perhaps that top-tier status comes from a sharing and blurring of their individual strengths into a shared pool. It would explain why both World and Media showed up briefly on the surveillance camera back in “Head Full of Snow.”

Final note: I’m not super thrilled by the fact that said ‘Big Three’ (and therefore all of the New Gods we’ve seen so far) are white, while the Old Gods are the ones mostly being played by actors of color. Now, there’s potentially a justification for this: Since they are reflections of people’s belief and the industries they represent, I suppose that could justify their appearance. I don’t know if the show is trying to make a point about institutional racism and inequality — white at the top and in control, everyone else at the bottom struggling to survive — via the hierarchy of the gods, or is just becoming typically one-sided in its representation. I’d like to think the former, but if that’s the case, the writers are going to have to do something to address it more clearly.

Back to the plot. A sulky Technical Boy comes in at World’s insistence, and is forced to give an apology for lynching Shadow. He claims that it was in “very poor taste” to do so to a black man, especially now, when America is in a “weird, tense place racially.” World, who apparently isn’t satisfied, slams him on the table and gives Shadow the chance to punch him. Shadow refuses.

Dysfunctional family drama in the middle of our supernatural roadtrip drama? Sure, sure.

Blergh. This whole bit makes me super uncomfortable. I’m not sure how I feel about the Technical Boy at this point. Gaiman’s version was purposefully designed to be a caricature of the ‘Internet user’ that was (and still is, to some degree) popular back when the book was released: the overweight, pimply whiner who can’t socialize well with anyone but believes himself better than everyone else.

Fuller’s version has been updated for the times, but still seems tailored to fit a stereotype. Now, however, it’s of the temper-ridden, egotistical Reddit user who claims not to be racist/sexist while actually being super racist/sexist. He’s even sporting a black hairstyle in this scene, which is a blatant bit of appropriation that I’m mostly sure they did on purpose to drive home the point that his claim that he “doesn’t want to contribute” to the “hate” in the country is blatantly insincere.

I don’t know. I think it’s admirable for the writers to try to address the contemporary political climate, and it seems necessary given the story’s focus on the beliefs and ideologies of a country that’s currently embroiled in a lot of contention, but having it come from a bunch of white writers makes it seem at least partially ham-fisted and tone-deaf. Is it enough that they’re at least trying, or is it all just not working? I’m not sure. I’m also sort of put off by the ‘abusive parent’ dynamic that he has with World and Media. I suppose a god of technology would the be most youthful and rebellious of the three, given how recent its evolution has been, but it’s still unpleasant to see a younger actor get casually slapped around by older ones. Not that he doesn’t deserve a good punching, mind you. I would just prefer it came from Shadow.

Aside from that, I’m wondering where they plan to take the Technical Boy from here. His ‘arc’ in the book was very strange, seemingly implying some larger importance to his character while ultimately not doing anything with it. If he’s going to show up more frequently, I get the sense that they have something more planned for him, but I can’t quite guess what that could be. A redemption story? A ‘growing up’ angle? Is he ultimately going to mess everything up and give Wednesday the advantage he needs?

In general, I’m torn on whether his portrayal as a stereotype is a smart or cheap move. It was what the text did, yes, but I wonder if it legitimately makes sense for a god to be so pigeonholed. Given that they are shaped by belief, it would make sense for him to take this shape if the majority of the country still to some degree put stock in the archetype. But do many people still think that image is a legitimate one? Or would it even matter if they did or not, so long as the thought was a widely prevalent one? And, given what Wednesday mentioned about there being multiple versions of Jesus running about, does that mean that there could be different Technical Boys encompassing other viewpoints somewhere out there?

Bah. Too many questions. I’m thinking too much into this. I blame Gaiman for his ideas, and the writers for taking them even further. I guess my ultimate question is: Does a very on-the-nose embodiment of whatever it rules over make sense for a god’s personification, or play out as a cheap and easy solution for something more complicated?

Anyway! The Technical Boy begrudgingly offers to use his services to help Wednesday evolve, to help him impact opinions, behaviors, and beliefs “like never before.” World, it seems, wants to offer Wednesday a “merger” and upgrade.

And you get a missile! And you get a missile! Everybody gets a missile!

World explains that individualists like Wednesday don’t “work” anymore — everything is global and systematic now. You have to incorporate or get out. Media hits a remote and turns the walls into television screens to demonstrate their idea for Wednesday: launch a missile (called ‘ODIN’) at North Korea and rain lightning on the population. Wednesday’s name will be given new meaning, but remembered, and as a result, he will be new and lasting and forever.

You know, this show is already very weird, and I was fully expecting it to be, but it still manages to slip in a scene or two every week that takes me aback. Last week, it was Laura sticking herself in a hot tub to breathe in insecticide. This week, it’s Marilyn Monroe triumphantly talking about novelty in front of a giant screen displaying both weapons of mass destruction and unicorns.

Granted, I think it’s an excellent sequence. As I mentioned earlier, I like this episode largely because of how it gets the New Gods more involved in the plot, and this moment — them making it clear that they know what Wednesday is up to and trying to offer him a deal — does that perfectly. It’s also a very creative concept, this ‘rebranding’ of Wednesday’s name into a modern weapon as a way of returning him to relevance. It’s another fascinating idea to add to Gaiman’s already clever premise: What would happen to Wednesday’s appearance, personality, and abilities if he was to exploit such a loophole? (And, as you’ll note, his real identity is now completely out there. In case you were still somehow unclear, Wednesday is Odin. Surprise.)

Wednesday, however, refuses, pointing out that they’re only here because he’s a flaw in their perfect system that annoys them. They don’t want to help him; they want to exile him. The New Gods, he says, don’t give meaning like the Old did; they just give people something to waste their time on.

World decides to leave. The Technical Boy is disbelieving in the fact that he’s letting his enemy go even though he has them already, but World claims that he wants to give Wednesday time to consider the offer, as he deserves their respect. “Fuck respect,” the Technical Boy snarls, so Media blows a kiss at him, which is powerful enough to knock out his teeth.

He definitely deserved that.

As they leave, Media informs Shadow that they’ll be telling the story of what happened there, and World cautions them that he is not their enemy.

I like where this is going. Media did hint at her and her kind being able to use their influence to make or break Shadow’s reputation in the book, but it never actually happened. He and Wednesday managed to fly under the radar for most of the plot, and while I don’t want the show to place too much emphasis on the human side of things, it would add a nice touch of drama if their being on the run from the law became a recurring idea, especially since it would let the New Gods flex their powers a bit more. The whole affair is a fitting way to ensure that the protagonists (and the viewers by extension) know that the opposition is real and onto them, not content to sit idly by and scoff at the underdogs who are (to nobody’s surprise) likely to turn their hubris against them.

Also, props to Gillian for another fun impression. Her spouting various well-known Marilyn-isms (including, of course, the bit addressed to “Mr. President”) and sporting a billowing dress are, like the Ziggy shout-out, rather over-the-top, but I think they makes sense. Iconic figures like Monroe and Bowie-as-Stardust, along with stories and ideas in general, tend to get boiled down and simplified into easily remembered soundbites and memes when diluted through our media, after all, so it would make sense for the embodiment of that to do the same with her personas. And while it’s sort of shocking, her kiss to the Technical Boy and the fact that it managed to hurt him is a solid confirmation that she can be a physical threat just as much as she can be a theoretical one.

(Her floating into the room with her spotlight-from-nowhere was one of the most striking things I’ve seen on television in a while. It was funny, creepy, and stylish all at once. I especially like how she drops the dazzle and walks out of the room normally once she realizes there’s no need to put on a show.)

Shadow and Wednesday escape and make for the exit, finding the station riddled with bullet holes and dead cops, including Buffer and Cambro. As they make for the entrance, a knot in back of the wooden chair that Buffer’s body sits in (I think) blinks like an eye.

Outside, officers pull up with Sweeney in tow. Shadow and Wednesday flee to the back exit, only for Shadow to be attacked by the chair, which has grown into a sentient tree with numerous branch-like hands. It stabs its way through Buffer’s body and out into the hallway, but the pair make it outside. As the cops enter in through the front, Sweeney kicks out the cruiser window and runs.

So, according to Fuller, this was our introduction to Mr. Wood. Probably one of the most drastic deviations from the source material, but I like the concept. If Mr. World was ‘upgraded’ from your basic spook to a straight-up god of (mostly) everything, it would follow suit to make the other Black Hats supernatural as well. I’m not sure what we witnessed here, though. Did Buffer’s soul possess the chair? If so, how did that happen, and why? Shouldn’t the character be ‘Ms. Wood’ now, then? Whatever the case is, making the character some kind of creature with a personal connection to Shadow rather than a dispassionate flunkie could make for some interesting storytelling. Perhaps we’ll get to see how the New Gods recruit their help? And it should make their later run-ins with Shadow more exciting, not to mention more credible.

I’m bummed that they killed of Buffer so quickly, though. I liked how Thoms played her — she made a fairly routine role rather likeable despite her few scenes — and it’s rather unfortunate that they decided to immediately discard one of the few women of color that the show has introduced. I suppose her ‘coming back’ could help rectify that issue, but I don’t think her being a CGI tree would really count.

You will be missed. Though I won’t say ‘no’ to you coming back as a plant.

In a morgue late at night, an employee hears pounding coming from one of holding containers. The metal cover bursts out and kills him, and Laura rolls out on the gurney. She breathes on a mirror but sees nothing, and briefly touches the corpse of a woman nearby. She grabs her clothing from the evidence bag and leaves.

Solid way to end the episode. It subtly reinforces Sweeney’s earlier noting that Laura isn’t truly ‘alive,’ given that she’s unable to show signs of life despite her autonomy, and should act as a lead-in to whatever her new plans may be. I feel bad for the man she killed, though. He just wanted to listen to pop music and look at pictures of horses.

I really hope this is meant to be as innocent as it appears to be. Otherwise, I’m concerned.

Final thoughts:

• The writers will have to be careful about how they incorporate Media. As fun as it is to watch Anderson in her various guises, it could become tired and overly gimmicky if they do it too frequently. However, I definitely want her to show up more consistently, given her importance to the story and the fact that she always manages to give an otherwise fairly grim show a nice boost of perky, upbeat oddness whenever she graces the screen.

• This was our first episode not written by Fuller and Green, but nothing really felt off, which is good. Having so many different people sharing the job week to week can turn a show very inconsistent in tone and characterization (I’m looking at you, Glee), so let’s hope they keep it up.

• Where is Bilquis? She hasn’t shown up in several episodes now, and yet was given top billing for the season. I was under the impression she was going to have her own plot arc, but nothing has come of her yet.

*

So, a good episode. Different, but not in a bad way. It felt like a setup hour meant to reaffirm certain ideas already shown while getting new dynamics established for the rest of the season (and the next, probably). Which is sort of odd, because it feels like things are finally getting started, yet our first year is already nearing its end.

Still, “Lemon Scented You” manages to integrate entirely new scenes and developments into the book without feeling out-of-place or wrong, so I can’t complain. Give it another week or two, and I think we’ll have our groove down pat.

Rating

American Gods goes definitively off the beaten track for the first time this week with entirely new stories and ideas, and in doing so proves that it is more than capable of making its own mark on the material while still remaining faithful, entertaining, and weird.

A-

We’re just dropping in to announce a preorder promotion for the anthology we’re part of, Because You Love to Hate Me!

It’s not long now until the book arrives and if you preorder and send proof of purchase here, you can get an exclusive Notebook and Pencil set and book plate!

Steph and I are so proud of our contribution to this anthology and we absolutely can’t wait for people to read it!

This promo is open to anyone in US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and applies to both print and ebook formats.

We’ll be answering questions about the anthology on twitter if you’re interested, in the up coming weeks, and we can’t wait to share this anthology with you guys!

Anyway, fear not! Praimfaya happened and not only is the salt backburnered, but my skin is clear, my crops are watered, my Sims are collecting Pokémon or whatever it is the kids say these days.

WHAT AN EPISODE. How’re you guys doing? Do you need hugs? Chocolate? Booze? Personally I went for the trifecta.

I am so, deeply in love with the choice to do a real time, delinquent focused episode. It ratcheted up the tension immediately and gave the finale room to balance some incredibly moving character work with balls to the wall, unrelenting stress. I’m not going to lie, it was super upsetting to realize we weren’t going to learn Kabby’s fate (Jaha who?), but by cutting off radio contact three minutes in, the show dumped me straight into the delinquents head space of oh shit we’re entirely on our own and that was a neat little trick.

Brace yourselves guys, this is probs going to be a long one because I loved every detail of this episode (except one) and I want to highlight them all. Onward!

You used to be better at pep talks.

The episode starts out with the feelings turned up all the way as Bellamy and Octavia say goodbye over the radio. The newly reunited siblings are also feeling all the things as they grapple with both their upcoming estrangement and the trials before them. Octavia’s pretty understandably freaked out at the idea of leading 1200 people for five years. Bellamy tries to give her a Prometheus metaphor as a pep talk and Octavia points out that it’s crap. I adore the nod to their childhood and Aurora Blake’s influence.

Then, right as they tell each other they love each other (and wow seriously? Am I supposed to take away that this is the first time Octavia’s ever said that to Bellamy? Man their childhood was messed up and tragic), the radio connection drops. While it’s super sad that Octavia didn’t get to hear Bellamy say it back, if only one of them got through I’m so glad it was Octavia. She knows exactly how much Bellamy loves her, it would’ve been nice to hear at the end but she didn’t need it. Bellamy, apparently, has never heard it before from her and he really, really needed to.

How are we less than two minutes in and I’m already a wreck? Witchcraft, clearly.

So, yeah, the radio’s dead. Clarke comes in to take her turn saying goodbye to her mom and when Bellamy tells her the news and her face crumples, he rushes over and pulls her into a hug (first Bellamy initiated hug for anyone keeping score). It’s totally not anything special and I’m definitely not experiencing anything remotely like cardiac arrest at the way she clutches him closer and he rocks her as she cries.

This is fine, I’m fine. (source)

We get one last look at the bunker as Indra comes in to give Octavia a pep talk of her own (have I mentioned how much I love Octavia and Indra’s relationship and how glad I am that they’re together in the bunker? If not, the answer to both is SO MUCH), telling her the times of commanders and flames have passed and it’s Octavia’s time now. But then Octavia steps out to give a Blake Motivational Speech to the awaiting crowd wearing the Commander’s cloak and bindi, so I’m getting a little bit of mixed messaging there. If the time of the commanders has passed, I’m not seeing any good reason for the bindi (that many Desi fans have pointed out the gross cultural appropriation aspects of) to still be in play.

Checking back in with the future spacekru, we get to watch them watch Polis get destroyed. I’ve made no secret of my opposite of attachment to Polis (though the sets are very cool) but seeing everyone’s faces as the tower came down made me feel an unexpected amount of things. Not only are their friends and family now buried under a massive pile of rubble but it drives home that there is absolutely no going back. Sure they already knew that but knowing isn’t the same as seeing and it underscores that it’s space or die time.

Raven powers activate

Luckily, it seems nothing focuses Raven quite like trauma and she snaps into high gear with a list of all of the things they need to get done or they die. It’s one hell of a list and I’m a little hyperventilatey just thinking about it. Also, Lindsey Morgan’s delivery was A+++++. Her frantic energy did more to ramp up the tension than all the flashy visuals and dramatic action strings. I’m not the only one freaking out about Raven’s list but right when everyone’s starting to wig, Bellamy steps into demonstrate that not all Blake Motivational Speeches have to be lengthy. Sometimes all it takes is a confidently spoken sentence to get everyone in gear.

OH MY GOD HOW ARE WE ONLY NOW HITTING THE CREDITS I FEEL LIKE I’VE LOST A YEAR OFF MY LIFE.

Murphy and Monty head off on a side quest through the woods to retrieve the whatever it’s called that’ll make oxygen. Monty reminds us all that he and Murphy haven’t actually spoken since season one, which, wow, right, I forgot, and Murphy makes a suuuuuuuper off color quip about Jasper committing suicide that Monty (reasonably) wigs out about. This scene is mostly just a quick little reminder of how their relationship hasn’t developed at all in three seasons and serves as an amazing platform for some stuff that comes later and really helps it land.

Buuuuuut I’m getting ahead of myself. When they hit the lighthouse, they run into some trouble getting the whatever it’s called unhooked. Monty strips off his gloves to unhook it and while I applaud his heroism, given that he’s one of two engineers in an all engineers on deck or you die situation, personally I would’ve gotten Murphy to do it. Sure, Murphy’s only tentatively experimenting with acknowledging the concept of altruism as a thing that exists for some people, but just remind him SPACE OR YOU DIE and I’m sure he would’ve snapped to it, doing stuff so he doesn’t die is kind of his thing. Ah well, water under the bridge, radiation all over the knuckles.

Back in Becca’s lab, Echo and Emori are prepping the rocket and I both love and have a lot of emotions about the contrast between the two. Echo is so very obviously so far out of her element her element hasn’t even been discovered yet and has been steadily losing more and more of her shit as they get closer to take off. Emori, on the other hand, is just as survival focused as ever and seems almost perky to be surrounded by and working on all of the tech she’s spent her life ferrying around to the island and her most likely doomed to forever remain a mystery other buyers. I love it. She’s totally going to end up being Raven’s assistant up in space.

Meanwhile, Clarke and Bellamy have another totally no big deal, I am 10000000000% fine, moment where they banter about oxymorons and Bellamy wipes sweat off Clarke’s forehead and that wailing sound you may hear is just the sound of me being fine. Things then get serious and Clarke reveals how much she’s been secretly freaking out about Abby’s vision and tries to prepare Bellamy to take over if she dies. Bellamy is a billion percent not trying to hear it but Clarke is nothing if not persistent. She tells him they’ve come along way and she thinks he’s the bees knees and they would’ve been lost without his heart but he’s got to be prepared to use his head. He tells her he’s got her for that and if you’ve noticed the wailing sound has intensified, I told you I’m fine, don’t worry about it.

Sototallyfine. (source)

I just, god, I love these two so much? It frustrates me a bit (a lot) that it seems to be rather difficult to talk about their relationship without people dismissing it as you just want to know when they’ll have sex (*stares into the camera like on the office*).

While watching for the possibility of future canon romantic bellarke is totally legit and god knows I wouldn’t be sad if they smushed their faces together and got naked, I love them exactly as they are and think that sometimes the overwhelming hype around what they could become leads to that getting sort of pushed aside and it’s frustrating. What I’m trying to say is their relationship this season was kind of downplayed and distant after the first few episodes and I get that there was a lot going on but regardless of anything else, they’re each other’s best friends and I struggled a bit with the idea that they wouldn’t lean on each other and check each other at the end of the world. It’s seemed inorganic in the same way Bellamy and Lexa being unable to exist on the same page of the script in season three felt inorganic.

The point is, I’m really glad we got this moment both because it was heartbreaking and mushy and so them (Clarke: I will do this unpleasant thing and no one can stop me, Bellamy: NUH UH) and because I’ve missed them being who they are to each other happening on screen and not just in my greatest hits memory bank.

Unfortunately, because bellarke has been cursed by someone I’m not going to call out to be always interrupted, something blows up on the rocket and whoops turns out they might be even more screwed than they already were. I’d say it’s impressive how many layers of screwed these guys have uncovered but honestly it sounds like a fairly typical engineering project just with a touch more fiery death on the horizon. Or maybe that’s standard too, I don’t know, I’m not an engineer.

Anyway, the comm systems are toast and that’s a problem because they need to somehow remotely power up the Ark to get into it. Raven has a minor meltdown and briefly loses her mind, telling everyone she’s not smart enough which is just, fundamentally wrong. Clarke tries to talk her down with no luck and tags Bellamy in. He reminds Raven that she’s pretty much the key to all plot and they’d have died a whole bunch of times without her and also he believes in her to solve everything.

“What the shit is this? Emotion? Put it back in your pants, Bellamy”

Raven, being Raven, totally ignores all of the really sweet stuff he just told her and latches onto an offhand joke about not needing Alie on the Ark (classic!). She realizes Alie actually is on the Ark and they can use her connection to get in and bonus points, she gets to spacewalk after all (do you think a subconscious part of Raven’s brain was trying to figure out how to logically work a spacewalk into all of this the whole time? I do). The only hitch is it means they’ll have to make a trip to a nearby satellite tower to turn something on. Bravenlarke saddles up and the audience resigns itself to the fact that this will obviously go wrong seeing as we still have 25 min left in the episode.

Back in the woods, Monty’s hands are basically raw hamburger with nerve endings and boy does that seem like it sucks. However, as he is a totally in your face badass, he refuses to let Murphy carry the super heavy magical oxygen making device (SHMOMD) alone and earns a hefty amount of respect from Murphy all in one go. As they stagger back to Becca’s lab, Murphy tries to distract Monty from the pain by asking about Harper and their relationship status and I don’t know if I’ve ever loved the show more. Unfortunately, Murphy has not leveled up enough to unlock girl talk with Monty and Monty passes out to get out of the conversation. Naturally, even though he’s really sorry about it, Murphy leaves him.

He makes it back to the lab just in time to run into bravenlarke heading out for their mission. After handing off the SHMOMD to Raven, Bellamy and Murphy sprint off to get Monty leaving Clarke to make her way to the satellite tower alone. At the point my heart has sunk to round about my knees because something is super a billion percent definitely going to go wrong. Come on, guys! Splitting up guarantees disaster! What is this? Amateur hour? How have none of y’all seen a horror movie before? What did you even do on the Ark?

Everything’s picking up speed now, including the score and the shaky cam, as the clock ticks closer to the point of no return. Raven suits up for her spacewalk as Emori and Harper load the SHMOMD and Echo hides in the office, quietly losing her shit and painting her face to be brave (this is maybe a weird reaction but I love her so much?).

Murphy and Bellamy find Monty staggering through the woods and Monty hugs Murphy with all his might when he realizes Murphy chose the SHMOMD (and therefore Harper’s life) over Monty and Murphy busts into the biggest, most surprised smile and check it out that wailing noise is back. Hats off to Jason for organically catching Monty and Murphy up on four seasons of development in three brief scenes. This is the kind of A+++ character-oriented follow through and emotional payoff that’s only been sporadically present this season and GOD HOW I’VE MISSED IT.

(I cannot believe we’re only halfway through the episode, THIS IS SO MUCH)

Clarke makes it to the tower with a minute and half to accomplish her mission only to discover that the ipad Raven said just needed to be plugged in can’t connect which makes perfect sense because all Apple products break in your hour of need. She starts to panic, hitting the machine and frantically trying to radio Raven. As her timer ticks past the point of no return, she realizes to accomplish her mission she’s going to have to climb the tower. She stops, steels herself and tells Raven and Bellamy if they can hear her, don’t wait.

I’m all wailed out and the crying has started. I’m not fine, none of this is fine. Remember when I totally lost my shit over Clarke taking on the risk herself back in 409? It’s like that but exponentially more (and I love how I was all THIS IS CLARKE’S BUFFY ON THE TOWER MOMENT dramatics and Jason was all oh no, we can be far more literal than that). After four seasons of impossible choices and horrific sacrifices, after a season of dead end after dead end, Clarke plays the only card she has left and gives up her life to get her friends to safety. Clarke Griffin, Buffy Summers reincarnated, climbs the tower to give the people she loves most* the chance to be brave and live.

Don’t look at me, don’t touch me.

*the people she loves most not including Abby and the rest of the people in the bunker, obvs. I was being dramatic and precision would spoil the effect, don’t judge me

Back in the lab, everyone suits up and prepares to board the rocket. Bellamy (after noticing Clarke’s not back yet and Raven assuring him she’s on her way, GOD) realizes Echo’s missing. He finds her up in the office preparing to check out, totally unable to deal with everything that’s happening. I retroactively appreciate a lot of the Echo development this season (while maintaining it could’ve been more smoothly worked in but whatever). We’ve been shown that she’s a deeply traditional person who’s dedicated her life to her people and is deeply entrenched in the world as she understands it. All of that has been stripped away and now she’s facing the complete upheaval of everything she’s ever known and it’s too much for her.

Bellamy bursts in just in the nick of time and tries to talk her down, confessing he’s scared too and telling her they need her in case they need to throw someone overboard to lighten the load. It works and Echo’s back in and I’ll spare y’all my mild becho meltdown and stick it in the additional notes because I know it’s a ~controversial topic.

Alright, who’s ready for the really upsetting stuff? Hahahahaha not me.

This is just rude

As the seconds tick down to zero, Bellamy waits until the absolute last second before accepting Clarke’s not making it back and shutting the rocket door (yes, yes, I see you s1), making the decision with his head, not his heart, like Clarke wanted. Emori, outraged, asks if they can give her another minute and have I mentioned how much I love Emori? I really really really love Emori. Bellamy tells them this is what Clarke would want (the hardest thing in this world is to live in it) and spacekru takes off. We’re then treated to a Clarke POV shot of the rocket launching as she climbs the tower and I didn’t know it was possible to be this upset and this stressed out at the same time.

CAN YOU BELIEVE WE STILL HAVE 15 MINUTES LEFT? THIS EPISODE IS NONSTOP IN ALL THE WAYS.

Somehow the episode is not done with finding new and improved ways to stress me the fuck out and spacekru gets up into orbit to find that the ring is still dark and they’re running out of oxygen. Huzzah!

Suffocating on nothing is a smidge of a phobia for me so this next bit is a tad excruciating and let’s take a second to appreciate Emori and Echo’s faces when Raven takes off on her space walk before I get into it.

I love them so much? Like I knew I liked them before this episode but now I’m at I will fight bears for you levels of devotion.

Okay, back to business. On Earth, Clarke scrambles to align the satellite and connect to the Ark as the death wave (lol) races closer. While she works, the spacekru braces themselves for their looming demise by coupling up (poor Echo all alone) while Bellamy quietly freaks out about leaving Clarke behind only for them to die anyway and speaking of dying that’s where I’m at.

Clarke finally gets the dish in place only for it to die before she can see if it works because see above re: Apple. As spacekru’s oxygen reaches critical levels and RAVEN PULLS THE LEVER (I see you Jason) that lets them into the Ark. Clarke races back to Becca’s lab, cracking her suit on the way. The girl cannot catch a break. She makes it back a hair ahead of the wave and collapses on the floor, covered in blisters and coughing up black blood and we fade to black with her all alone because this show is SO CRUEL.  

In the Ark, Monty and Bellamy scramble to hook up the SHMOMB after Harper shoves them aside and rips the panel out of the wall as she is both the best and totally jacked. Murphy and Emori argue over who gets to give Raven the last of their air because their priorities are ON POINT but everyone’s supplementary tanks run out and they start to pass out, reaching out for their loved ones as Bellamy races to save them all. Obvs, because these are half the fan favorites, they get the air on at the last second but even knowing that was going to happen this was SO STRESSFUL and SO EMOTIONAL and I AM AN UTTER WRECK.

THIS WHOLE SEQUENCE WAS SO MUCH. It managed to be incredibly tense, traumatic, sweet and a tiny bit funny all at once in the span of what? Seven minutes? and I am so impressed with the show for pulling it off. I also extend major kudos to the special effects department because the much touted Praimfaya did not disappoint when it arrived and that’s always hit or miss with lower budget shows.

Then, because we still have 5 minutes left and that’s pleeeeeeeenty of time to pulverize my heart a few hundred more times, we cut to JAHA’S BOTTLE OF BOOZE SITTING ON THE WINDOW OVER EARTH WHERE HE LEFT IT. This was such a great callback that neatly ties in the parallels between Clarke and Jaha this season and highlights that now Bellamy is stepping up (the bottle is literally labeled the baton and now it’s been passed to Bellamy’s, if it weren’t such a tiny detail from such a long time ago I’d say it was heavy handed but instead it totally works)(does it? I don’t know, I’m so emotional right now I can’t believe I’m making words happen)

Right, back to the pulverizing. Bellamy steps up to the window (identically framed to where Octavia stood when she got her first look at Earth) and looks out at the fiery storm engulfing the surface of the Earth. Raven steps up next to him and some delicate piano starts to play and I really don’t know how one episode can be so rude.

So rude.

They wonder if they can do this without Clarke and Bellamy vows to make it work because if not, Clarke died in vain.

*deep breaths*

He asks Raven if she’s with him and she replies always and the curtains close on the spacekru.

*record screech*

Can this show chill for like, 5 seconds? Lmao, stupid question.

That’s right folks, the much speculated time jump is here and I’m entirely too emotional to coherently make sentences so here’s a shrieking bullet list of everything that went through my head while watching:

• CLARKE
• Omg Clarke is SO PRETTY
• CLAAAAAAAARKE
• OMG HER HAIR
• I LOVE IT SO MUCH
• RAIN
• CLEAR RAIN
• SHE LOOKS SO HAPPY AND PEACEFUL
• SHE HAS A SKETCHBOOK SHE’S BEEN DRAWING
• THIS SCORE IS SO BEAUTIFUL
• Y’all, real talk, I don’t know if I’ve ever been so attracted to Clarke and it’s breaking my brain a little
• She looks SO. GOOD.
• RADIO!!!!
• SHE’S TALKING TO BELLAMY
• SHE STILL DOESN’T KNOW IF HE’S ALIVE
• IT’S BEEN 2199 DAYS
• SHE’S TRIED TO TALK TO HIM EVERY DAY
• WITHOUT AN ANSWER
• JFC
• IT KEEPS HER SANE
• (HE CENTERS HER)
• HELP ME
• HEEEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEEEE
• THEY’RE A YEAR LATE
• SHE’S SO WORRIED
• SHE’S TRYING SO HARD NOT TO BE WORRIED
• THE BUNKER’S BURIED
• OMG SHE HASN’T TALKED TO ANYONE
• OH CLAAAAAAAARKE
• WAIT WE?
• SHE STILL HAS HOPE
• (SHE’S STILL BREATHING)
• I SEE YOU
• AHHHHHHHHHHHH
• HER FACE HER FACE HER FACE
• GOD THIS SCORE
• OMG SHE HAS A KID?????
• A NIGHTBLOOD KID????????
• THIS IS SO CUTE?????????
• (AND SHE WASN’T ALOOOOOOOOONE)
• THE KID KNOWS ABOUT HER FRIENDS
• OH GOD SHE’S TOLD HER KID ABOUT ALL OF THEM THIS IS SO MUCH
• LIKE OBVIOUSLY A LOT BECAUSE THE KID IS JUST AS EXCITED AS SHE IS
• WHILE PROBABLY NOT JUST AS BUT YOU GET WHAT I MEAN
• WAIT THAT’S NOT THEM
• GODAMMIT SHOW
• THE MINING COMPANY
• FULL CIRCLE, PRISONERS COMING DOWN AND CLARKE’S A GROUNDER NOW
• YES YES JASON YOU’RE VERY CLEVER
• GODAMMIT I NEED SEASON 5 NOW

Aaaaaaaaand we’re done. My god this episode was all the things. I know I keep saying it but it was. The cast was on fire, the direction was A+, the story was both incredibly cruel and also perfection. This episode was hands down the most solid of the season and I loved it SO MUCH. The characters and the plot found much needed balance and Clarke was finally allowed to be vulnerable for more than a split second which drove home how much I need that to connect with the show.

I also love love LOVE how the time jump has totally reset the show and broken the world open for so many new stories. I can’t lie, one of the issues this show has had as it’s gone on is piling more worldbuilding onto shaky foundations and this was a brilliant way to wipe the board clear and start over. I’m so into it and cannot wait to see where this goes.

Also, no one knows who is alive and they haven’t talk to each other for six years and GOD I AM SO UPSET.

Gratuitous happy Clarke to calm us all down:

Y’all, she doesn’t have her forehead wrinkle for the first time since maybe the pilot. (source)

Additional Notes:

• Octavia telling Bellamy “I’ll be waiting under the floor” fucks me up SO BAD
• Bellamy telling Octavia she did what he and Clarke couldn’t do and gave people hope when there was none fucks me up SO BAD
• The way Octavia’s voice breaks on Bellamy’s name when the radio cuts out FUCKS ME UP SO BAD
• EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SCENE FUCKS ME UP SO BAD
• I’M SO GLAD GAIA IS IN THE BUNKER
• Marper’s low key background casual affection did more than anything else this season to get me aboard this ship
• Sometimes the little unspoken things are infinitely more moving than the Big Prominent Things. Their lack of prominence makes them feel more like part of the tapestry of the characters lives and that makes them feel all the more real.
• Point of order, I feel like Clarke’s line about Alie being right and there wasn’t any solution is supposed to be a nod to the show always following up on its promises and maybe a blink and you missed it attempt to justify the number of failed attempts to find a solution this season has spent all its time on. Assuming that’s true, okay, I get it, except there is a solution, it’s the bunker and space. I know that Clarke doesn’t live on the fourth wall with Jaha and damn I forget who joined him (whatup metastation) and she doesn’t know how this is all going to turn out but as an audience member I’m not satisfied.
• I’m probably making that WAAAAAAY deeper than it actually was but you may have noticed that’s kind of a thing with me
• “Wouldn’t it be easier to walk outside?” I LAUGHED WAY TOO HARD CONSIDERING THE CONTEXT OF THIS LINE
• When Echo tells Bellamy she belongs nowhere I legit shrieked. Y’all I am stupid invested in the idea of Bellamy and Echo being bffs (who maybe bang, whatever, it’s optional) and when she said that my entire brain went OMG SHE’S JUST LIKE OCTAVIA AND HE’S GONNA ADOPT HER AND SHE’S GONNA BE HIS GRIEF DISPLACEMENT PROJECT AND HE’S GOING TO BE HER SECURITY BLANKET AND SHE’S GOING TO FIND A PLACE TO BELONG AND HE’S GOING TO SAVE AND TAKE CARE OF SOMEONE.
• I’m just saying, they both really need those things right now and I am super into seeing what their relationship has developed into
• Idk how many of you have watched The Expanse (though all of you should because it is AMAZING), but Erin from metastation proposed a Naomi/Amos-esque relationship and I want it so bad my teeth hurt
• Anyway, I know everyone’s all ZOMG BECHO/ZOMG BRAVEN but I am team #SpaceOrgy all the way
• I gotta say y’all it’s a true testament to how emotionally overwhelmed I was that I only laughed at how ridiculous people looked running around in their radiation suits like, once. Maybe twice.
• They’re really funny looking suits I’m only human.
• Speaking of clothing, did….did anyone bring a change of clothes to space?
• GoSci’s gonna smell so bad after 6 years of concentrated BO build up
• p.s. did y’all catch that Clarke’s rifle strap is etched with the names of everyone she’s lost?
• But not anyone from the bunker or space crew because she still has hope they’re alive
• I’m fine
• I’M FINE I SAID
• I’m not fine
• I want y’all to know that it took me over four hours to rewatch and write this recap just because I literally watched every scene at least three times
• Some of them a lot more than three times
• Listen I really liked this episode leave me alone

HOW’RE YOU GUYS DOING? What’d you think? Can you think anymore or are your hearts and minds as fried as mine? Who’s ready for hiatus? Hahahahahahahahahaha fuck.

I’d like to be believe that there’s something magical about the first few episodes of a new television series, during which the fans more or less share a consensus: this new thing is great, we love it, we want more. There’s a lovely camaraderie to it as we all get excited over this shiny, fresh plaything.

Of course, that never lasts. People are people. We all have our own sets of expectations, likes, dislikes, and preferences. No matter how short-lived or consistently good a show is, there inevitably comes a time when the fanbase fractures: here comes a something — be it a whole character, an entire episode, or a single scene — that splits opinions down the middle. And it’s all downhill from there, as the longer the show rolls on, the further splintered the viewership becomes.

Which certainly isn’t a bad thing. I love discussion and debate (to a point) on things that aren’t necessarily black and white. Still, I’m going to miss these last few halcyon weeks when everyone just kind of got along.

All of this to say that “Git Gone” is probably going to be remembered as the episode that first divided the fans. Regardless of whether or not you’ve read the book, I can tell that it’s going to be a controversial one. Partially, this is because it’s something of an experiment: though it’s only three episodes deep at this point, the show has already developed its own particular rhythm and feel, and this week definitely changes the format. The other reason is the fact that it’s entirely focused on a very contentious subject, and that subject is one Laura Moon.

You know, this person.

I’m not entirely sure about this, but I’m under the impression that Laura was a fairly divisive character from the start, even when she was regulated to a side role in Gaiman’s novel. Her involvement is sort of tricky to analyze: she doesn’t get much focus, but her few moments have a lot of implications and arguable importance to the overarching storyline, particularly near the end. Given her complicated involvement with Shadow (who has his own issues), it wouldn’t surprise me if many people had fairly strong opinions of her despite her supporting status already — especially because so much of her is left unexplained, which left readers having to come up with their own theories and overall impressions of her. Since the author didn’t tell us a lot of evidence to decide whether or not she is a good or bad person, somebody to like or dislike, we were free to choose our own side without it contradicting canon.

Making her a much more prominent character in the adaptation, then, was a choice just about guaranteed to cause strife. This week’s episode is entirely devoted to Laura, and is told via flashback. It begins with her first meeting with Shadow, and traces their relationship and her place in it — their courtship, their marriage, Shadow’s arrest, her involvement with Robbie, her death — right up to the ending of “Head Full of Snow,” when Shadow finds her waiting for him in the motel. The final scene, in fact, is a recreation of that moment.

But first: an Ocean’s Eleven homage.

You could say, then, that nothing really ‘happened’ this week, because the main plot doesn’t move forward at all. That in and of itself is probably going to rub some people the wrong way, and I can understand why: The writers decided to hit the pause button and spend an entire hour on a character that many aren’t going to like, which will make the whole exercise feel pointless. Considering how short the season (and, likely, the show at large) is going to be, allotting so much time to this may seem something of a waste, when there are plenty of other, arguably much more fascinating characters and storylines that need to be explored.

And if you read the book, having so much new material not found in the original text is probably going to be off-putting, regardless of how you feel about everything else.

Let’s get my opinion out of the way, then: I like Laura. I liked her in the book — I thought her and her relationship with Shadow odd and uncomfortable but also sweet, and consider the conclusion of their story together a highlight of the finale — and I like her here, too. I like what they did with her character, and I think it’s an admirable expansion of her original persona. Make no mistake: I don’t like her as a person, as I did in the novel, and I don’t think that we’re supposed to, at least not at present. But, as an idea, as a concept, as a potential for dramatic potential? I think that she’s great.

I’m also a big fan of unconventional storytelling, so the concept of an episode’s worth of backstory is in and of itself appealing. I do, of course, love Emily Browning, so regardless of what one may think of the part she is playing, I think she acted it well. Personally, I see this week as being something that was needed; no matter what your opinion of Laura is, she plays an important role in both Shadow’s character and the grand scheme of the story, so giving her a big set-up to more fully incorporate her into the plot is, if nothing else, a necessary evil to better prepare viewers for her ongoing involvement. And since the show has more time to explore the book’s secondary material, I don’t think it would have made sense to simply throw her in for a handful of brief scenes here and there, as would have been the case with a more faithful adaptation. Like it or not, she gets first crack at more screen time purely by necessity.

So, yes, I enjoyed this episode. A lot, in fact. Granted, I was very put off the first time I saw it, due to how different it was. Rewatching it, however, has made me appreciate it quite a bit more; so while it’s possibly my least favorite of these first four outings (though only narrowly — this show is too consistently good for that distinction to mean much), I think it’s still very much a worthwhile installment, and an important one that will pay off down the line. The sticking point comes with its subtlety: a lot of the plot relies on little details to make its impact felt, and it’s easy to miss a lot of them if you aren’t looking closely. Given a bit of time and retrospect, though, it stands as an excellent next step for the show, and a great hour of television in general.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what happened a bit closer:

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Some Years Ago

Laura works in an Egypt-themed casino as a card dealer. She is annoyed to discover that she will no longer be able to shuffle her cards by hand, as the house has received new, automatic shufflers.

She comes home after work to a house empty save for her cat (named Dummy). She boils an egg for dinner. When she notices a fly buzzing about the kitchen, she pulls out a spray and viciously applies it to the offending bug until it’s dead. Looking at the can gives her an idea: she gets into the Jacuzzi out back, closes the cover to trap herself inside, then sprays the insecticide around until she’s forced out, choking.

Okay, so we’re starting off weird already. A lot of this episode is hard to wrap my thoughts around, because it’s hard to decide whether or not the characterization is subtly intelligent or simply off-kilter. (Which arguably makes the case that, if nothing else, it’s done well. If it makes you think without any obvious conclusions, that has to count for something, right?) Laura’s preference for hand-shuffling her cards and her willingly breathing in poison, for instance: are they carefully placed establishing moments that come to make more sense in hindsight, or are they just bizarre gimmicks that don’t actually, properly explain her motivations and personality? Do they do a good job at demonstrating her glassy-eyed apathy towards her life and desperate desire to feel (something we’ll see more clearly later), or are they simply ridiculous attempts at uniquely tackling a routine trope? I honestly believe you could argue these either way, and I would fully support both interpretations. For my part, I’m going to with option ‘A’ on both (though with a caveat or two leaning towards ‘B’ — again, it’s a confusing episode).

One night finds her with no takers at her table until Shadow shows up. He’s a smooth talker and charming, but Laura quickly notes that he’s attempting to scam her when he switches out the chips. She calls him out on it, warning him that he’ll be caught and prosecuted, and tells him to cut his losses and leave. He does.

…only to creepily wait for her to get off of work. C’mon, Shadow. You’re better than this.

As she leaves her shift that night, he comes up to her in the parking lot. When he asks her why she helped him, she doesn’t seem sure, first saying that he was sweet, then telling him that he was cocky. (This kind of ambiguity is a recurring thing with her, which is partially what makes her so interesting to me.) He suggests that he would do better with an inside man and propositions her involvement. She considers it, then turns him down. Shadow offers to get her a drink, which she also declines. When he offers to go home with her, however, she agrees. As they begin to make out on her couch, she is unmoved by his foreplay. She slaps him a few times, and he gets rougher as per her wish.

This is probably the most contentious part of the episode for me. This new, not-book-Laura is already notably different from what I’ve been expecting (although only in the sense that she’s getting a lot of brand-new stuff at this point), but Shadow is suddenly off, too: rather than being a quiet man with a clear moral center, he’s a silver-tongued con-man who shows plenty of panache when flirting. It’s jarring, and I don’t particularly like it, but I’m also not terribly upset by it. Why? Thank you for asking, because this segues nicely into my Big Point this week:

No, watching them make out is not the Big Point. Shirtless Ricky Whittle is nice, though.

Just about all of the characterization in this episode — from Laura and Shadow to Robby and Audrey, who we’ll see later — doesn’t strike me as inherently different from what Gaiman did, but just more involved. The problem, I think, is that the book doesn’t really spend a lot of time digging into the details of these people and their personalities beyond what we see on the surface: their shaping is based almost entirely on what they say (and, in Shadow’s case, sometimes think) during the story’s present events. By going back and trying to elaborate on their pasts, the writers aren’t necessarily changing them — they’re just filling in more shades of grey to round the cast out better, using their characterization in the present as the final product of a series of developments and growth.

That sounds confusing, doesn’t it? I’m not explaining this well. Let me put it this way, instead: Rather than the novel’s versions of the characters being the status quo — the way that these people have always been — Fuller and Green seem to have used them as the culmination of years’ worth of gradual evolution. People change as time passes, after all. And that especially holds true when incarceration, death, resurrection, magic, and living gods get tangled into your day-to-day so quickly.

Granted, Shadow is definitely different. He certainly did not originally have a past as a petty criminal — the novel makes it clear that the crime that sent him to prison was a single, stupid mistake — but other than that fact, I’m not sure his overall personality is that out-of-sync in the main, present plot. Who’s to say that he wasn’t so charming when he and Laura met? The novel doesn’t give us much of anything about his past, either, and his hand tricks are a natural extension of his coin shtick; so, while the ‘life of crime’ angle is an undeniable change, it isn’t necessarily sacrilege.

Ultimately, then, while he may be slightly off from his original incarnation, he isn’t by default a different person altogether — he’s simply a more believably complex one. What’s important is the fact that his self in the present rings mostly true — as the honest man who wants a quiet life. Since that’s the only Shadow that the book really gave us, then, I don’t see much wrong with making his past a bit more complicated. It turns his book personality into something he eventually achieved, not something that he’s always had.

(I do wonder at how their flirting would have played out had a woman been the one writing the scene, though, because the whole thing is very obviously done by heterosexual men. Do women actually respond to this kind of talk, or is it absolutely unrealistic? I certainly don’t know.)

Does that make sense? I’ll try to explain this better a bit later.

Back to the episode. Laura wakes up the next morning to find Shadow still there. He shows her a few card tricks, and she asks him to show her how he does them. So begins their relationship, and during a cookout some time later, Audrey — friends with the pair along with her husband Robbie (Dane Cook) — notes how in love Shadow seems to be with her. Laura gives a rather weak smile in response.

One day, while lying in bed, Laura notes that her grandmother believed that cats could see ghosts and warn of thieves. She asks Shadow if he wonders about what will happen if he continues his conning — he believes she’s referring to the afterlife, but she means something more practical, like jail. Laura explains — in between flashbacks of her and Shadow’s eventual wedding — that, though her parents have all manner of beliefs, she does not. As a girl, she was willing to believe in ‘something more,’ be it God or Santa Clause, but eventually, she realized that it was all nonsense; things that try to make the world bigger than it is are just stories. She wants to reclaim that magic of belief, but she cannot. After her speech, she tells Shadow that the look he is giving in response makes him seem like a lost puppy — hence, her nickname for him.

During another get-together, Robbie convinces Shadow to visit his gym, where he begins to take boxing classes and lead a class. A montage follows as the months drag on: Shadow works out, Laura goes to the casino. She comes home to find him asleep most nights. They sometimes have sex, but she simply looks out the window at the hot tub. She asks Shadow to pick up more bug spray.

I can’t believe they own such a voyeuristic hot tub. Gross.

One morning, she sits him down and tells him that she wants to finally take him up on his initial offer: she wants to rob the casino. She explains that she is not happy, despite Shadow’s obvious love for her, and she resents that lack of feeling on her part.

They both work bad jobs and live in her grandma’s old house in the same, small town she grew up in. It feels empty, and she wants more. Pulling off a heist, she believes, will let them get more. When Shadow angrily points out that he would be happy living in a cardboard box so long as he was with her, Laura views that idea as a kind of failure. She entreats him, noting that she knows the ins and outs of the casino, and that he will never get caught.

Surprise. He gets caught.

Oops.

Going back and rewatching these moments makes it clear how important these conversations are to the episode’s whole point and Laura’s entire character. The linchpin in Laura’s personality is her practicality: she takes the world purely at face value, and as a result, her quiet little life ultimately feels hollow. Nothing seems to matter in the long run, and so she does not feel invested in anything.

These sequences play up this angle very well, and I’m really impressed with how Browning acts it out: cold and aloof, but in a way that makes me feel sad for, not angry with, her. She is numb to the world but not completely cut off from it. She wants to be happy, but she just cannot seem to be pull herself from her haze. During sex with Shadow, she stares at the ceiling in apathy. Her grocery request makes it clear that she continues to submerge herself in her Jacuzzi and attempt feeling-by-poison. Several scenes during the montage cut repeatedly to her walking into work again and again, reinforcing the routine of it.

Granted, using Brian Reitzell’s “Queen of the Bored” throughout the scene is a tad on-the-nose, what with lyrics like I lean in but then I check right out / I don’t flinch because it doesn’t hurt / And what is god if it’s no one there / And there’s no proof that you ever cared about me. But in an episode that’s arguably a tad too subtle for its own good, having something so obvious helps. My first time watching “Git Gone,” I was left wondering if I really understood much about Laura at all (as well as what that hot tub thing was about); going back and rewatching it made thing much clearer, and leaves me with a better appreciation for Green and Fuller’s script not being so heavy-handed with its themes (well, aside from the musical choices).

One last note: changing the origin of Shadow’s nickname makes for some interesting analysis. In the book, the moniker stemmed from the pair not being able to adopt a dog in their first apartment, and so Laura decided that her husband was ‘her puppy.’ Sort of cute, right? Here, though, the explanation makes for a darker understanding of her views of her husband. Considering that she named her cat ‘Dummy,’ it’s clear that Laura views Shadow as a pet: a novelty that she adopted in an attempt to experience something new and lively.

Like with Shadow’s earlier personality, it seems to be a distinct change from the novel. Perhaps I didn’t read enough into it, but I was always under the impression that, despite her infidelity, Laura genuinely loves Shadow. Here, however, she’s become a puppeteer: despite his clear devotion to her, Laura ultimately appreciated Shadow only because he was a gimmick that changed her monotony. Once a new routine replaced the first, she falls right back into her disinterest.

Now is a good time to follow up on my earlier point. See, I can’t decide if this is a genuine change from Gaiman’s vision, because, again, we knew so little of her from that. Considering that the source material did make it clear that Laura was the one who talked Shadow into the robbery that put him in jail, this version of her isn’t completely incomprehensible. If anything, she did come off as cold there, too, so it actually seems sensible. The difference comes from the fact that, without much backstory, one was likely to simply assume that Laura’s aloofness came from Gaiman wanting her to be mysterious and otherworldly (she is dead, after all), and therefore wouldn’t think much of her personality, since her involvement in the story is so limited. In consequence, she was more or less a basic plot device (as The Spooky Dead Wife) that was there to either deliver foreshadowing or deus ex machina Shadow out of trouble when needed. By going back and filling in that vague outline of a character with an explicit explanation for why she is like this — that’s there’s a deliberate reason behind it, not simply a general aesthetic — the writers have forced us to examine her actions more closely and accept a particular vision of her as a complicated human being, rather than as a hazy archetype that we were able to ‘fill in’ with our own interpretations based on a handful of clues. With the book, you could read Laura as many things, because you almost had to if you were wanted to take her at something beyond face value. With the show, you can still do that to an extent, but with a great many more canon restrictions and nuances to work around.

Plus, with Gaiman apparently working fairly closely with the crew to adapt his material, I can’t imagine that these new ideas were completely alien to his ideas, if he okay-ed them. I haven’t heard anything about him criticizing the writers’ decisions here, as he did with Shadow’s behavior back in the pilot. Who knows? Considering how much backstory an author creates that ultimately can’t be included in the final product, perhaps this context was something he always planned, but could never actually bring to light.

Here, then, is where the fanbase is going to get messy, beyond simple cries of “This wasn’t in the book!” Is Laura a good or bad person? Should we like her or not? Is she somebody to be sympathized with or hated? Should we even care about her at all? I could see each side argued with equal merit, and so I don’t think it’s a conflict worth having. Rather, I’d like to believe that Laura is, at this point, something of a base for personal interpretation: what you think of her is going to depend largely on your own experiences and beliefs.

You could make the point, for instance, that she likely suffers from depression. Her life may be rather good, despite the routine of it all, but depression certainly doesn’t have to be ‘justified’ by your circumstances to be legitimate. It also, however, doesn’t justify her cheating. Or is she simply selfish and greedy, too self-centered to look beyond her own demands and appreciate the man who loves her? Did she make bad decisions for the right reasons, or the other way around? I’m not going to claim that there is a ‘right’ answer here; only that I think that Laura is too complex of a character to be rigidly defined as a single thing. And I think it’s a disservice to the writers to turn it into a simple complaint of “She cheated on RICKY WHITTLE with DANE COOK?! What an ungrateful b****!” Look, we all know that nobody in their right mind would give up a sensitive and considerate Ricky Whittle, especially not for a comedian who starred in Good Luck Chuck. The point, I think, is that “Git Gone” is ultimately meant to make Laura interesting. Not necessarily likable or sympathetic, mind you; just interesting. Because she’s not going to go away anytime soon (if they follow the novel, she’ll be sticking around to the very end), and so we need to have some kind of solid ground to start her off on.

Laura visits Shadow in prison. You’ll note that we don’t actually see how the heist went down, which makes for a great transition: “You will never get caught” immediately cuts to “How did you get caught?” She is convinced that her plan was flawless, so somebody must have ratted them out. (We never see any indication of who else may have been involved with the plan, so I’m not sure if this a future mystery to be explored or not. My guess, however, would be ‘yes.’ Explaining why would lead to some very big spoilers, however, so I won’t say anything more. I’ll leave it at the fact there’s some greater things afoot during this time in the couple’s life.) She is willing to take their lawyer’s deal to confess her involvement so that they could split the time served between them; no more than three years each, she believes. Shadow refuses to let her take the fall, despite her being the instigator. He asks if she is willing to wait for him, given his six-year sentence. She hesitates, but says that she can.

Time passes. Phone calls from the prison come, and she eventually starts to ignore them. Robbie and Audrey keep her company. She visits Shadow, but they have nothing to say. One night, she comes home to find Dummy dead. She calls Robbie, who comes over and buries the cat. He offers to let her crash on his couch for the night, but she insists on staying home. Drinking, she tells him that she “didn’t even like him.” A sympathetic hug turns into a kiss, and when Robbie apologizes, she asks if he’s truly sorry. They have sex, but Laura once again seems uncaring.

Hm. I wonder if that bird is supposed to mean anything.

When Robbie comes over the next day, Laura tells him that the fling was a one-time thing, and that she’s waiting for Shadow. Then she invites him in.

We see her phone call with Shadow back in the pilot, but from her perspective: she’s at home with Robbie in her bed. As they take a drive that night, Robbie tells Laura that he’ll leave Audrey for her, but she rejects the idea. He accuses her of not loving Shadow, but she claims that she does. She may, he points out, but not the way that he loves her. She confirms that they’re done, but decides to give him a blow job as a goodbye present. As a car approaches, Laura accidentally hits the shifter, and they crash.

Hm. I really wonder if those birds are supposed to mean anything.

In the aftermath, Laura floats in the sky above the wreck and her own body. She appears in a star-filled desert and meets Anubis; because she had no religion, he has been given dominion over her death. (Interesting concept. I want to see what some of the other afterlives look like, then.) He takes her to his scales, but when he attempts to pull out her heart, she slaps him away.

Some pretty significant downsides to having sex while driving.

He explains the need for judgement, but Laura tells him point-blank that the measurement will not be in her favor. In response, he leads her to a hot tub and a can of bug spray: she must “pass through” and return to nothing, because she believed in nothing. Laura asks if there will be peace, but Anubis states that there will be only darkness. When she refuses to get into the tub and asks to “go back,” Anubis tells her that her body has already been prepared and buried. She asks if she gets a say in the decision; Anubis angrily tells her that death is not a debate, and that she is ultimately insignificant to him and his duty. He will very quickly forget her.

She answers with a ‘fuck you,’ but before she can say anything else, she is suddenly yanked into the sky and disappears.

What an enjoyable scene. Beyond it being nice to see Anubis again so soon, I like this bit because of the emotional complexity: on the one hand, there’s something very enjoyable about watching Laura outright refuse to engage in the rituals of the afterlife, to attempt to take some control. (Get him, girl.) On the other, it’s also rather nice to hear Anubis call her out on her attitude — somebody definitely needs to at this point, given how manipulative and callous she’s been with Shadow and Robbie up until now. I get that the whole ‘using sex in attempt to feel’ bit is an extension of her character, but you certainly don’t have to agree with her choices.

(On that note: I don’t like Dane Cook, but he was certainly a good choice for the part. I appreciate the attempt to give him some depth beyond ‘the guy that got Laura killed,’ what with his hesitancy to get involved with Laura and his genuine interest in her once he does. He is still, however, a cheating piece of garbage, and plays the sleazy angle that you get from his character in the book, purely based on his circumstances.)

Laura digs herself out of her grave. In the distance, a golden glow emanates. She follows it as it begins to rain, and finds it coming from Shadow, who has just been lynched by the Children. Hoping to help him, she attacks one, and discovers that she has gained supernatural strength. She leaps up to the rope and severs it, then proceeds to murder the remaining assailants. When Shadow struggles to his feet and wanders off, she hides behind a tree; and thanks to a blow from one of the henchman, her arm promptly falls off.

I was actually surprised by this callback to the pilot. I had sort of figured that the Children’s death was going to come from a manifestation of Shadow’s own abilities, as we saw demonstrated in “Head Full of Snow,” but this makes much more sense. It won’t be the first time that Laura kills to protect her husband, but it’s quite exciting seeing Browning run around in the rain and punch holes through grown men while gratuitous amounts of blood fly around. I’m trying to decide what the implications of the scene are now that we know of Laura’s opinion of Shadow, though. Does she save him out out of genuine care for him? A sense of duty? A supernatural compelling? 

If you’ve ever wanted to see Emily Browning kick a man in the crotch so hard that he splits in half, this is the show for you.

I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the symbolic implications of the scene, what with it being a white woman saving a black man from what is clearly meant to invoke a hate crime and racist murder, but I won’t go too much into that, as it’s not my place to critique.

Laura returns home, which gives us a fantastic shot of her wandering down an idyllic street, covered in gore and holding her severed arm. She showers (more slow-mo!) and changes her clothes, then packs her bag. When she prepares to leave, she sees Shadow about to come in, here to pack up the house. To avoid him, she hides in the now empty hot tub.

It’s been a very long day.

Another great little tie-in to “The Bone Orchard,” as it gives another layer to Shadow’s visit to the house, knowing that his wife was hiding there the entire time. It gives us a lot of complexity, too: it’s not quite clear what Laura is feeling when she encounters her husband twice so soon. Browning is very enigmatic in all of these scenes — I can’t tell whether she’s meant to be frightened, bored, angry, remorseful, or some combination of the bunch. It’s fitting, though, and gives Laura an enticing sense of uncertainty that I think we’ll see explored later. I’m also happy that the crew was sure to make her look genuinely, well, dead, as in addition to the missing arm, she’s clearly beginning to rot. Thanks, makeup team! I’m glad that they’re not being shy about the unpleasant details of being a zombie. (I don’t see Sweeney’s coin, though…)

Laura sneaks into Audrey’s house to use her craft supplies, and she attempts to sew her arm back on. Audrey finds her and flees to her bathroom in terror, but Laura easily breaks the door down, and then uses the toilet as she ejects the embalming fluid inside of her. With her on the toilet and Audrey cowering in the shower, the two have a frank conversation about the situation. Audrey calls Laura out on her infidelity, and admits that she attempted to sleep with Shadow. Robbie, she confesses, was buried with his severed penis stuffed up his ass. When Laura attempts to apologize while having her arm sewed back on, Audrey rejects the sentiment, wondering if the woman truly knows what she did. Laura admits that the affair was a lie to cover up the fact that she could not wait for Shadow, then asks to borrow Audrey’s car.

This scene is a completely unexpected treat. Despite my distaste for her trying to sleep with Shadow, I liked Audrey during her brief appearance in the pilot due to Betty Gilpin’s excellent acting, and she’s even better here. She completely sells a potent cocktail of emotion: anger at her friend’s betrayal, terror at finding her alive again, grief over the entire, ugly thing. Laura gets the verbal lashing that she deserves for her actions, and you really, truly feel for Audrey’s loss. It was a good opportunity to tack on to the book, giving the two the chance to hash things out, and the writers did a solid job with it. It’s also a hilarious scene — the whole thing is played very lightheartedly, and the banter between the pair is very funny, but not in a way that cheapens the emotional weight of it. Audrey only has one other notable scene in the book, and it’s one that probably won’t be happening until next season at the very earliest (if at all), but at this point, I’m definitely on board with her becoming a more prominent character. (I just hope that her other moment, should it be the only one she gets, is changed so as to not make her seem like a near-hysterical shrew. It may have worked with her on-the-page portrayal, but it would definitely clash here, and Gilpin deserves more than that.)

Best friends forever!

Props to Gilpin, too, for flawlessly delivering what may go down as the greatest line this show has yet given us: “Get out of my house, you zombie whore!” Truly iconic.

As Audrey drives Laura towards the beacon once more leading her to Shadow, she asks the dead girl what she plans to do once she reunites with him. Laura believes it will work out, since she loves him, but Audrey calls her out on this, telling her that she never truly loved him — he was like a pet to her. Laura acknowledges the truth in the accusation, but says that she loves him now.

(Nice job, writers, in being self-aware enough to point out that, yes, Laura’s a pretty bad person at this point. It’s comforting to know that they aren’t expecting the audience to just roll with her, which gives me hope that they have a definite plan to develop her more in the future.)

Also, it’s because of this one line — “Well, I love him now.” — that prevents me from taking too much issue with Laura’s personality. Because of it, this whole episode suddenly becomes a prequel mini arc that evolves Laura into the character we know from the book; by the time we catch up to the present, where the novel is almost entirely set, she’s more in-line with her original incarnation. As a result, it’s not as though the script actually changed her for the adaptation; instead, it filled out everything leading up to her appearance to make her more three-dimensional, to give more nuance to what was already there and provide context. Book Laura, consequently, becomes the end result of a journey of self-discovery for TV Laura, not just the end-all, be-all definition of the character. If that is in fact the case, it’s a pretty damned clever move, as it abruptly makes her so much more tragic, if not outright sympathetic: only now that she’s dead has she found the determination to live and love her husband properly. Whether or not this holds depends on how she comes across going forward — if she sticks to canon from here on out, I’d say nothing has been explicitly contradicted.

Anyway! Out onto the road appears a dog and the bespectacled man who we’ve seen writing the ‘Coming to America’ stories. The former transforms into Anubis, who states that he does, in fact, remember Laura.

The boys are back.

She is taken to a funeral home, which the pair own. Their current names are Ibis and Jacquel (finally!), and they’ve been running the business for 200 years. They then prepare her as they would a corpse, re-attaching her arm more thoroughly and airbrushing her pale skin to give it some semblance of life. She needs to be maintained now that she’s dead, but nothing, Anubis/Jacquel notes, will fix the heavy heart she carries. He asks her if what weighed it down was love; it was not, she says, but it is now. Ibis notes that, despite her being dead, Shadow will thank whatever god sent her back to him. Jacquel tells her that, when she “is done,” he will finish his work properly and take her to the darkness.

Another smart addition that incorporates Ibis and Jacquel sooner. Their running a funeral home makes for a perfect tie-in with Laura’s increasingly decaying state, which is something mentioned several times in the book but never really addressed beyond its inescapable progression. I like how it’s used to explain why she looks so alive in the motel, as well, and it will give their eventual meeting with Shadow more significance to boot. I’m definitely intrigued by Ibis’s rather smug remark about Shadow ‘thanking the god’ that returned Laura to him, though. It sounds as though they’re attempting to use her as leverage, which hints at some kind of ulterior motive that wasn’t in the novel. (It could, however, just be a justification for a climactic encounter that the pair have with Shadow much further in the plot. If so, a commendation to the writers for sneaking that bit of foreshadowing in.) I’m sad that Audrey just disappears, though. What happened with her, after? I get the feeling we may find out eventually.

And though it’s become pretty clear at this point, hearing Laura outright confess to not loving shadow is something of a sucker punch. It’s a natural culmination of the less obvious implications that have building up over the course of the hour, though, and the admission that she didn’t but does now nicely summarizes, I think, the entire purpose of the episode.

And, look! Bast is there!

Laura sneaks into Shadow’s motel room. She hangs up flypaper to catch the pests that now seem to plague her, then changes into a dress. Sitting on the bed, motionless, the day passes and night falls as she waits. Shadow eventually walks in, and she greets him.

I imagine the “Hallelujah Chorus” playing at this point.

A beautiful ending. The music and the timelapse as Laura waits is surprisingly emotional, and the fact that the episode ends with the same line and shot — Laura’s face as she says “Hi, Puppy” and briefly smiles — as last week is a very satisfying bookend, despite ramming home the point that nothing has really progressed. Still, the new context and explanation gives the moment a great deal more weight; and, in that sense, a lot in fact has changed. Somehow, despite everything, it’s a moment that makes me feel for Laura, and genuinely hope that things manage to work out for her. She has a long way to go if she’s going to be able to redeem herself, but the implication seems to be that she’s finally found some purpose, and that’s a story that I’m willing to follow.

Final thoughts:

• Tying into the episode’s impressive subtlety is this week’s use of various symbols. For instance, I really like how flies were used as a recurring symbol of the episode. The fact that they follow Laura around when she’s alive is not only ironic given her use of the spray as a way of feeling alive (especially now that they won’t leave her alone as a living corpse), but also reflective of her lack of some inner spark — even when she was breathing, she was dead. And that shot of the flies becoming stuck to the paper in the motel? A representation of her newfound determination to ‘live’ and appreciate Shadow. Clever, or really corny? You decide. (I’m going with a little bit of both. But mostly the former.)

• Then, of course, there are the birds. Did you notice the ravens? The ones that I so subtly pointed out? One shows up outside of Laura’s house when Robbie visits her, and a pair of them follow his car before it crashes. I’m guessing it’s hinting at something else at work. (I’m not guessing; it totally is. What god do we know prominently features ravens in its mythology? Hmm.) I also dug the little Anubis statue that is seen sitting on Laura’s card table at the casino as yet another blink-and-you-miss-it piece of foreshadowing. The set designers are certainly having fun.

• Finally, there’s the fact that Laura constantly has Woody Woodpecker playing for her cat while she’s away. At a guess, I think the cartoon is another nod to her situation: Woody is a character constantly getting into trouble due to his brashness. Like him, Laura continually takes dangerous risks in order to feel. Sneaky, sneaky. (And, along with that, I wonder if her cat and its death are going to be tied to Bast in some way, as we did possibly get another glimpse of her at the funeral home.)

• This is our first episode without David Slade in the director’s chair, but I’m glad to see that the visual style mostly stayed on par. My only complaint is the use of that choppy slow-motion style during Laura’s fight scene — it clashes with the smoother, more stylish variant that the show typically uses, and I’ve always found that it looks silly and cheap. I thought it cool, though, how they used the widescreen format for most of the running time to reinforce the ‘otherness’ of the story’s chronology, just as the other side plots and standalone stories did in previous installments.

*

“Git Gone” takes a risk. It lacks (most of) the supernatural shenanigans and eclectic cast of previous weeks, and has no ‘Coming to America’ or ‘Somewhere in America’ asides to give us a break from the main plot. Which, as I noted, isn’t really the ‘main plot,’ since it’s entirely focused on flashbacks, and is therefore a huge departure from the source material that it has otherwise been following so faithful. Going for such a change this early in the show (though we are, admittedly, already halfway through the season) is a dangerous gambit when you’re still easing viewers into your world, but I think it paid off. It’s definitely better with a rewatch or two, and I’m hoping that further explorations of Laura’s character in future seasons will help vindicate this divisive week.

As I mentioned earlier, I’d say that the point of episode four was to make Laura interesting. Not likable, by any means, but you don’t necessarily have to root for her or her relationship with Shadow to be curious about her story. Just interesting. And in that vein, I think they succeeded — with an hour that unfolds like a puzzle, which requires quite a bit of time and effort to solve. Annoying in some ways, perhaps, but definitely rewarding.

I just hope that the fanbase isn’t too harsh.

Rating

A definite change of pace and focus for the fledgling series, “Git Gone” is at times off-putting, complicated, and frustrating. Given a bit of time and thought, though, it proves that a risky gamble can pay off.

A-

What does this mean for you?

If you win you will get to choose five events to go to on the day of All Day YA.

Who do you get to see? What magical adventures would you get to go on? WHAT ON EARTH ARE THESE FABULOUS OPPORTUNITIES?!

[one_third]

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Sarah Ayoub

Danielle Binks

Sarah Crossan

[/one_third][one_third]

Erin Gough

Bradley James

Bec Kavanagh

Will Kostakis

[/one_third][one_third_last]

Maria Lewis

Amie Kaufman

Jennifer Niven

[/one_third_last]

Lynette Noni

Gabrielle Tozer

Catriona Feeney

Garth Nix

Tamaki Mariko

For more details you can visit the website, the Facebook, the Twitter  and the Instagram of Sydney Writer’s Festival!

The Giveaway!

We’ve teamed up with Sydney Writers Festival to provide two ALL DAY PASSES to the All Day YA event. So, what you need to do:

-Be 13+ in age as per our site policy

-Enter your email address into the rafflecopter link below in order to enter

-Be able to attend the event in Parramatta on the 27th May 2017

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Before we get to anything else, I’d like to note how pleased I am that American Gods has already been confirmed for a second season. Bryan Fuller’s shows have always struggled with ratings no matter how well they are received; if they don’t get outright cancelled after their premier year, they only manage to eke out another at the last minute. Getting renewed after only two episodes definitely bodes well — I think he may finally get to see one of his projects through to his end.

And after this week’s episode, I couldn’t be any happier with that.

It may still be too soon to say, but, at this point, most of the reservations that I had with the pilot have taken the backseat. “Head Full of Snow” is a beautiful hour of television, visually and narratively, and I’m back to having full confidence in Fuller and company going forward.

It’s just so good. I haven’t enjoyed something so wholehearted in a long time.

I feel like this violates some kind of airspace ruling.

By now, you can definitely tell that the writers are slowing things down in order to stretch the book out. This week, they covered the rest of chapter four and only part of chapter five, from Shadow’s remaining time in Chicago to Wednesday’s scamming of a bank for a quick buck.

Now that we’ve had a bit of time to adjust, though, I don’t mind the unhurried pace at all. It’s nice, I think: this lingering on the characters — their motivations, their thoughts, their relationships — and their journey in a way that the novel couldn’t afford to do. It fleshes them out more and really lets the plot breathe. We aren’t in any rush to get to the ‘good stuff,’ because it’s all ‘good stuff,’ whether it be a big twist or a small detail that doesn’t add to the conflict but simply makes the world feel more real.

The new elements that are slowly but surely filling up the running time are so well done because of this. Like I had hoped, they aren’t taking anything away from the source material, but simply adding to what’s already there. It’s as though Gaiman’s book was an outline for the premise, and the adaptation is going back through it to create a bona fide universe to explore.

Let’s dig in:

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Somewhere in America

It seems that we won’t be strictly following the same format every episode, as this week replaced a ‘Coming to America’ prologue with a new modern-day aside instead. As much as I love consistency, I suppose it makes sense. Following the same set formula over long stretches is likely to get repetitive no matter how interesting it is, and I imagine it would impose greater limitations on the writers the longer it was kept.

Anyway, I like how they’re still imposing the titles into the scenes themselves, though as we saw last week, it appears that they won’t be doing it every time one pops up. Perhaps only when it focuses on a new character, and not a returning one like Bilquis (who is absent this go around)?

In a New York apartment, Mrs. Fadil  (Jacqueline Antaramian) prepares a Thanksgiving dinner. She precariously totters on a stool to grab ingredients, then works on her recipe while chatting with her cat.

The doorbell rings. Angry that her family is early, she opens the door to find an unfamiliar man instead. He tells her that she has died, and that she must come with him. Thinking he is a burglar, she lets him inside, only to realize that her body is lying on the floor; as it turns out, her balance on that stool wasn’t quite as good as she thought it was. He tells her that her family will soon find her; they will bury her, mourn her, and move on. Her son will marry and have a child, and he will pass on her name (only as a “bullshit middle name,” though).

Oh no, he’s attractive.

Accepting her fate, Mrs. Fadil asks Anubis (Chris Obi) why he has come when her family is Muslim. He tells her that it is in thanks: she once believed in the Egyptian gods as a child and kept their stories alive.

He leads her to the fire escape, which spirals impossibly upwards into a vast desert filled with stars. There, he pulls out her heart and weighs it on a set of scales to judge her for her deeds in life. The two balance out; as a result, she is allowed eternity in the Du’at. It has many worlds, however, and so she must choose: five doors that lead to different realms. Unsure of which to pick (but knowing that she doesn’t want to end up in the same one as her father), Mrs. Fadil asks Anubis to choose one for her. He chooses the middle one, and before she can second-guess the choice, her cat (who has followed them there) pushes her into the void beyond.

What a gorgeous sequence this is. It’s great to see Mr. Jacquel showing up early like his partner Mr. Ibis has (And neither of them are white! You know, like actual Egyptians! Take notes, Hollywood!), and to see more of his role in the afterlife. It’s something that plays an important role in the book, but not until much later, so I think it’s a treat to get more of him as an actual deity so soon. The show has already proven itself adept at expanding the roles of the gods to make them more significantly supernatural, and I’m really enjoying it. You could argue that it detracts from the novel’s themes, seeing as how the big concern of the Old Gods deals with their waning power and need to ‘get by’ alongside humans as a result, but I’m all for more movie magic if it’s kept from straying into anything too extreme.

I’m really impressed by the effects here, too. Starz certainly gave the producers a good budget to work with, and they’re definitely taking advantage of it. Bonus points to the writers also for making this scene so… kind. Rather than playing it up as a terrifying ordeal that casts some innocuous woman into the fiery inferno (something that would certainly be right at home in an MA-rated show like this), the ‘crossing over’ is portrayed much more gently, and I really like that. I firmly believe that adult media in general needs more optimism, and I’m tired of this belief that ‘good television’ has to focus on bad people doing bad things, or good people being ground into the dirt, to be critically acclaimed. Granted, that literal push at the end here was sort of ominous, but I don’t think it was meant to hint at something terrible.

(I’m curious as to what was up with the cat, though. I’m guessing that it’s meant to be our first glimpse at Bast? It has been established that she can work through the creatures, so having an innocuous house pet traipse its way into the afterlife and knock its owner into the Great Beyond wouldn’t make sense otherwise.)

*

Shadow sleeps on the couch in Czernobog’s apartment, but wakes to find a nearby window open. Climbing the fire escape outside, he meets the third sister who had been sleeping: Zorya Polunochnaya (Erika Kaar), who is watching the stars. She looks through her telescopes at the Big Dipper, which she also calls Odin’s Wain. Chained up in the heavens there is the Great Bear, who is not a god, but nonetheless a great and terrible thing that will swallow everything if it should escape.

That is the sisters’ job, she explains: to watch all day and night to ensure that the world does not end. Her time is the night, while the other two keep their vigils during the day and evening. She reads Shadow’s future in his palm and face, telling him that he believes in nothing, and so has nothing. He is on a path, however, from nothing to everything, and she scolds him for so easily giving his life away to Czernobog.

She offers her help, but requires a kiss first, as she has never had one. She takes the initiative with it; unsure if she likes the sensation but satisfied with the exchange, she reaches into the sky and plucks out the moon, which becomes a silver Liberty coin that she gives Shadow. She warns him to not lose it or throw it away as he did with his previous talisman, which had been “the sun itself.”

There seems to have been surprisingly few repercussions for taking that out of orbit.

Shadow wakes up, back on the couch. He goes to a sleeping Czernobog and requests a rematch. Should Shadow win, Czernobog will have to join Wednesday, but will still get his swing with his hammer once the job is done. Should Czernobog win, he will get two swings at Shadow’s head. Noting his age and loss of strength, Shadow goads the old man, believing that his one swing may only leave him brain damaged but alive. Angry, Czernobog agrees to the proposal.

While the two play, Wednesday visits Zorya Vechernyaya. He notes that she was once lavished upon in the old country with excess and indulgence, and laments the Spartan life that she and her sisters now must live. Vechernyaya reminisces on her past glories: at dusk, she would open the gates for her father when he returned and sleep in satin. Now, she only tells fortunes. Wednesday asks for his; she tells him that he will fail in his mission. In response, Wednesdays asks her on a midnight walk.

Czernobog is losing; Shadow notes that he plays the same way he did the first time. Out on the town, Vechernyaya tells Wednesday that “they” will kill him if he pursues his plan. Wednesday reminisces about when they were young and kisses her. “What have you done?” she asks him, as it starts to rain. She tastes him in the rain, she says, along with something else. “War,” Wednesday responds.

Czernobog admits defeat. He tells Shadow that he will go to Wisconsin. After that, however, he’s going to kill him. Shadow wakes the next morning to find that the stairs outside the window from the night before have disappeared. He still, however, has the Liberty coin. Wednesday appears and tells him to get ready — they’re going to rob a bank.

A nice conclusion to the Chicago scene. Polunochnaya is younger than I pictured her, but the book did describe her as somewhat ageless, “smooth and unlined” in her face. I guess I was just picturing a very well-kept older woman, but the contrast of the three sisters that’s reinforced with the casting — one old (Vechernyaya), one middle-aged (Utrennyaya), one young (Polunochnaya) — is a commendable touch, and reinforces their mythic roots as the Morning, Evening, and Midnight Stars. Her personality has also been tweaked a bit, making her less a wise, quiet enigma and more a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; contrast her request for and immediate acting on a kiss from Shadow with her written counterpart, who explicitly says that she does not need one to help him.

So young.

Still, the meat of the scene is there, and I like the way that Kaar plays her. I’m glad they included her explanation of her and her sisters’ roles in myth, and the coin-plucking scene with the moon is very cool; I had wondered how it was going to look when put to film. I still can’t get over how they’re using so much of the book’s dialogue verbatim, and I’m not at all upset by it; the trend gives me faith that, no matter how much ‘new stuff’ they include to pad things out as time goes by, the heart of the story (the novel) will ultimately remain in place. I’m curious about what the line referencing Sweeney’s lost coin as ‘the sun’ may signify now he’s been given a larger role this week; I feel like the trinket is going to play a much more significant role in the plot than I was expecting it to. In hindsight, I’m also pleased that the production delayed the second checkers game in the manner that it did, as doing so lent it a lot more gravity and importance than I was prepared for.

Really, I just love how the show has managed to strike such a perfect balance between old and new: it’s familiar enough that the magic that comes from seeing a book brought to life on screen is maintained, but it’s also new enough to keep the whole thing from being completely predictable for somebody who’s essentially read the script already. Ultimately, there are still surprises in store, and they should (hopefully) be nothing but good ones.

Anyhow, these implications of a past fling between Vechernyaya and Wednesday are interesting. It’s kind of sweet (if manipulative on Wednesday’s part), and the inclusion gives us a bit more backstory on both characters. It’s not an entirely out-there addition, either. It gives the eldest sister an excuse to throw some cryptic foreshadowing around (always good for drama), and the con man a chance to more thoroughly explain his motivations. I’m curious as to what that final moment (with the camera jumping between Wednesday’s knowing look in the rain and Polunochnaya’s star-gazing) is meant to portend, though. Did the latter see something in the heavens? Is the former scheming to use the sisters in some way? I can’t really tell, so I’m not sure if we can expect some kind of follow-through in the future. Perhaps it was simply meant to demonstrate his (assumed) ability to control the weather, which would tie it nicely with Shadow’s trick later on.

*

In the grungy bathroom of the bar where he and Shadow fought, Mad Sweeney is found by the proprietor passed out drunk on the toilet. She aims a shotgun at him and tells him to leave. Sweeney is dismissive, telling her that the gun won’t fire correctly, but is proven wrong when she destroys the bottle he is holding and lodges a shard of glass in his face.

Walking alongside the highway, a friendly driver slows to offer Sweeney a ride. The man believes that he is an alcoholic, and as a former one himself, feels obliged to help. Sweeney tries to sleep off his hangover, but is rudely awakened when the show suddenly turns into a Final Destination 2 homage: a truck’s tire blows, knocking a metal pole off of its bed, and it spears the Good Samaritan through the head.

The lesson here is: Never help anybody, ever. 

As the police clean up, Sweeney frantically checks his pockets, spilling dozens of coins to the ground. Furious, he realizes that he’s missing something.

The book’s conclusion to Mad Sweeney’s storyline is rather abrupt: after his initial encounter with Shadow, he doesn’t show up again until quite a bit later, and only has another scene or two before he’s out of the picture permanently. I appreciate this attempt, then, at exploring his arc more consistently. It’s never really clear in Gaiman’s version what happens to Sweeney when he can’t get his coin back, or why, so the new details seem to suggest more explanation is coming. Having his luck turn sour is a fun idea (because he’s a leprechaun, of course — nobody said we had to be subtle), and that sudden burst of violence is impressively shocking, given the relative bloodlessness of the last few weeks.

*

Somewhere in America

Two in one episode? How exciting. Note the fact that the transition uses words inscribed in a book this time, as ‘Coming to America’ has done so far. The implication is that Ibis is writing about present events as well as past ones, which is an appealing reveal. It isn’t clear in the book if these sections were his doing as well, but it’s an appropriate inclusion that adds to his particular abilities as the god of letters and writing.

In New York City, a salesman named Salim (Omid Abtahi) waits in an office. His appointment time with the boss comes and goes, his receptionist delivering excuses or indifference as the hours pass. The whole day wasted, Salim gets into a cab to return to his hotel.

The driver is Wednesday’s contact from last week’s episode, sunglasses and all. Realizing that they share a common tongue, Salim and the man speak in Arabic. The driver has been in New York for a decade now, but comes from the city of Ubar — the “Lost City of Towers,” which Salim notes was only recently unearthed after perishing thousands of years ago.

The two commiserate together. The driver has been working for thirty hours straight. Salim tried to sell his merchandise (tourist trinkets) to somebody who would not see him. He has been in America for a week and seems to do nothing but lose money.

While stuck in traffic, the driver falls asleep. When Salim wakes him, his glasses slide and reveal eyes burning with fire. Salim is not entirely shocked, noting that his grandmother had once claimed to see an ifrit, though he hadn’t believed her. There aren’t many jinn in New York (I guess the two terms are interchangeable?), the driver admits, and he is tired of Americans believing that they do nothing but grant wishes. Salim comforts him.

I knew that I was going to see you naked.

When he reaches his hotel, Salim leaves the driver with his room number. The ifrit joins him, and the two have sex. In the morning, the jinn is gone, leaving behind his clothes, wallet, and cab. Looking happy, Salim gets behind the wheel.

I know that a lot of people were looking forward to this scene, and I think that it was handled just about flawlessly (not to mention faithfully). Thank the stars for them not whitewashing either actor, and the visuals are of course wonderful: the ticking clock around Salim to show time passing, the use of Arabic script in the translations of the pair’s conversation (what a lovely way to show appreciation for the culture without appropriating it — I just hope that it was accurately transcribed), and the transformation of the two into burning figures in a desert while together. I wonder why they decided to pull this particular tableau from the pages so early (it’s delayed until chapter seven there) rather than use some other asides (like the one involving a Cornish woman bringing pixies to America in chapter four), but that’s just a trivial observation on my part.

Hooray! Even more healthy emotional expression!

What really makes the whole thing for me is the tenderness of it. Salim’s hand on the ifrit’s shoulder, their holding hands in the elevator (a beautiful little addition), the sex itself: every bit of it is gentle and really very sweet. It means a lot to see a relationship between two men portrayed respectfully and with such emotion. On the rare occasion that these kinds of moments are shown on-screen, it’s with two white guys who look like fitness models in an encounter that’s angry, almost violent. (We have to keep that rigid masculinity intact somehow, after all.) I’m really proud of how the writers handled this, making it so clearly about feeling, rather than titillation or exploitation. Not to mention that they let men, you know, feel things in the first place. Diversity and avoidance of stereotypes makes the world go ’round, kids.

*

Shadow and Wednesday arrive at the bank. Shadow is nervous around all of the security cameras that capture the pair on film, worried that he’s going to end up right back in prison. Wednesday grabs a stack of deposit slips.

Illuminati: confirmed.

Wednesday asks Shadow to imagine snow falling as they drive around town to pick up supplies. Side note: There’s a cute bit of characterization here as Shadow admits to liking marshmallows in his hot chocolate — it’s a throwaway line, but these scraps can go a long way in shaping a fictional person and giving them depth beyond what’s strictly required for the plot. Shadow drifts off in the car while staring meaningfully into his fluffy beverage, which leads to a bizarre little dream straight out of a kitschy holiday special.

♪ “Walkin’ in a winter wonderlaaaaand…” ♪

While at a copy shop to print out fake business cards, Wednesday notes a woman making signs stating that ‘Jesus Christ suffered for your sins.’ He wonders why God should have to deal with man’s mistakes when there is plenty of pain and suffering to go around, though believes that “that White Jesus” could do with a bit more strife, given how easy he has it these days. When Shadow asks about it, the boss notes that there are several Jesuses running around — “There’s a lotta need for Jesus, so there’s a lotta Jesus.”

What a convenient conversation starter. Thank you, random customer.

It’s an intriguing little tidbit. The idea of there being multiple versions of the same deity is a new twist for the premise that hasn’t really been considered before, but one that makes a lot of sense. I’m especially curious as to how they’re going to portray the Big Man Himself once He shows up, as there’s no possible chance of having a show about gods in America without having the head of the Christian faith make an appearance. I believe that a white actor has been cast in the role already, which would normally annoy me (we all know that he wasn’t Caucasian, right?), but given the concept of gods taking the form that believers envision, I’d consider it an acceptable choice. I just hope that Wednesday makes fun of him for it, should they meet; I’m already quite proud of his dig at ‘White Jesus’ and how well-off he is (sign me up for a critique of mainstream Christianity involving the actual personification of it — I’m Christian myself, but good Lord is there a lot about the community that needs to be called out). The novel actually had a removed scene (included in later releases of the book as an extra) in which Shadow meets him; I wonder if the writers plan to use that, or try for something completely different.

(I could have done without the racist remarks about how ‘Brown Mexican Jesus’ came to the country, through. It’s fitting to Wednesdays character, but I’d consider uncalled for.)

As Wednesday completes his order, Shadow continues to imagine snow, which leads to some trippy imagery of blossoming ice crystals and office equipment freezing over. It may be overkill, but gosh, do I love it. Shadow snaps out of his reverie to find that, despite the forecast, a blizzard has started outside.

This scene brought to you by OfficeMax.

As they have dinner, Shadow struggles to explain the weather. He argues with Wednesday about the difference between fantasy and reality, who claims that he suffers from a lack of imagination. Sweeney barges in and demands that Shadow give him the coin that he won back, as he doesn’t think that he’ll make it to Wisconsin with the current state of his luck. Shadow tells him that he left it at Laura’s grave, so the leprechaun marches off.

As much as I like this new subplot of Sweeney’s misfortune being tied to this coin, his character is starting to annoy me. The overabundance of swearing and constant quips about Laura’s death rub me the wrong way. Which is probably the point, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I just don’t know if having him play a larger role is going to be a good thing if he starts to drive me up the wall every time he shows up.

Wednesday (looking dashing in a set of fluffy earmuffs) kicks off his scheme to make a quick buck: posing as a security agent, he leaves an out-of-order sign at the overnight deposit slot and ATM. When people come by for a drop off, he has them leave their money and information with him. A cop shows up to investigate, but Shadow — forced to play along — poses as a coworker to confirm his explanation. This whole moment is a treat, from the unexpectedly chipper soundtrack to the banter (“Who the fuck is this?” “You the fuck is this.”) to Shadow’s playacting. I always like lighthearted moments like these in dramas; using them to break up long stretches of darker, more serious happenings gives the audience a nice breather, and gives the show a chance to show off some variety.

Wednesday divvies up the spoils. As they leave town, Wednesday notes that America is the only country in the world without a sense of identity, a ‘soul.’ He calls Shadow out on pretending that he can’t believe in “impossible things.” Shadow tries to claim that he would be delusional to believe in the supernatural. Their conversation is stopped when a wolf appears in the middle of the road, and Wednesday chuckles as it leaves. Bewildered, Shadow wonders if everything that’s happened to him has been a dream or delusion of some sort, worried that he’s losing his mind. Wednesday admits that the one thing that worries him is the possibility of being forgotten. (Foreshadowing!)

“Hey, guys. I’m your obligatory mysterious animal-friend who appears out of nowhere. How titillating and symbolic of me.”

I really appreciated this conversation and how it adds to how the pair’s development. It’s a sensible followup to last week’s recurring focus on Shadow’s confusion, and further sets him apart from his book counterpart by emphasizing his difficulty in believing. His making it snow is another bit mostly hand-waved in the novel, with Shadow accepting it at face value. While his sheer passivity made him an interesting protagonist to follow, it also made it harder to connect with him. I appreciate how the scripts here are taking additional steps to make him seem more believable. I’m not sure it makes him any more endearing (I really did like him in the novel), but it makes for better television, I’m sure.

In the final moments, Sweeney gets to Laura’s grave and digs up her coffin, finding it empty and a hole burned through the lid. Meanwhile, Shadow enters a motel room to find his wife waiting for him, very much not dead.

Glad to see my belief in the writers paying off. I thought it odd how “The Secret of Spoons” changed Shadow’s reunion with Laura to a brief dream sequence, but figured that they were simply pushing it back, and that seems to be the case. Like with Media’s earlier introduction, I think it’s a good shuffling of the chronology: in this case, it gave the show a couple of episodes to better examine Shadow’s coming to terms with the fantastical before dropping something so shocking right into his lap. Having it occur as it did in the book would have been too early, I think, and would have thrown off the direction of this version of the character, who is so clearly unsure of what’s happening around him. This delay was more sensible for his development, and having it tie into Sweeney’s search for the coin made for a dramatically satisfying sequence as the final minutes jumped between the grave and the motel right before the reveal.

Some final thoughts:

• Given how he’s shown up once before already, I wonder what we can expect from the jinn now that he’s out and about. Will he be showing up again as a recurring character? Also, what was the implication of Salim repeating the line about not granting wishes when he climbed into the cab at the end? It could have just been for the sake of narrative cohesiveness, but the fact that their having sex seemed to involve the jinn (sort of) lighting the guy on fire makes me wonder if there was more to it than that. Is he a little more than human now? It’s a bit that confused me in the book as well.

• How great was that little hint of the New Gods during the bank visit? I didn’t notice it the first time watching, but there’s a silhouette of a man in a top hat reflected in the corner of the surveillance camera’s recording — either the Babadook is making a cameo appearance (what an icon), or we just got our first glimpse of Mr. World. (He seems to be hanging out in a forest, though, which doesn’t strike me as his preferred hang-out spot.) And having Media’s eye appear for a split second at the end was a fun nod at her apparent omnipresence. (Though I’m not sure I would consider security footage ‘media,’ strictly speaking. Does her dominion simply extend to anything with a screen? Are we seeing a recording being watched by somebody else, and not the footage itself as it’s being recorded? If so, how far does her control extend between the different contexts? These are the questions that don’t matter, but keep me up at night.)

• I wonder how the writers intend to conclude Sweeney’s storyline. The book finds him in trouble because the coin he gave Shadow was one he mistakenly ‘plucked’ from some entity or group that he shouldn’t have stolen from while showing off at the bar. The show is tying said coin into his luck (or lack of it), which seems to suggest that it’s been in his possession for some time. Is it meant to be his? Will these ‘others’ show up at all, if that is the case? Will we find out who the people after him are if they do end up coming into play?

• Who could the wolf in the road be? I’m assuming it’s some god or another, but I’m not sure which one it could be.

*

Ultimately, this was a terrific episode. After three weeks, I think that it’s mostly safe to say that we have a handle on the show’s modus operandi, and I have no complaints. Great, great work so far, and I’m nothing but excited for the remainder of the season.

Rating

Though it slows the rate of adaptation down yet further, “Head Full of Snow” boasts a perfect blend of from-the-text developments and new ideas while taking its time to make the most of its world in beautiful and fascinating ways.

A+

The second (and, by extension, third and fourth) episode of a new television series is arguably its most important. The pilot is a sort of teaser, a pitch: “This is our show. This is its world. These are the characters. What do you think?” It’s its own self-contained bubble, making explicit (or implicit) promises of what you can expect going forward.

The episodes immediately following it are the initial fulfillment of those promises. They expand the premier’s foundation and establish how the series is going to work and evolve as a continuing, weekly installation going forward. Was the pilot a fluke or a reliable measure of what to expect every week? Will its strengths and weaknesses be one-offs or routine elements? For people already on board, episodes two through four (roughly) have to prove that their faith has not been misplaced. For people on the fence, they have to sway them to committing. For people already dismissing the idea of getting invested, they have to change their minds.

What I’m saying is that the second episode of a show has a lot to live up to.

Thankfully, “The Secret of Spoons” absolutely nailed the follow-up. I’ve spent the past week mulling over some of my issues with “The Bone Orchard,” and so went into Sunday’s new episode with a bit of trepidation. Obviously, we still have plenty of time for my fears to be realized (and I certainly pray that they don’t), but having such a well-done installment to return to right away has done much to calm my fears.

My expecting the show to gradually drift further from the source novel as it goes seems on track so far, as this installment had some more notable changes than its predecessor. Nothing detrimental to the plot, though. Rather than outright changing things, the writers seem to simply be moving around elements to place them earlier or later in the plot. That will be the key, I think: So long as Gaiman’s core elements are retained and the writers employ a give-and-take compromise — for every deviation, they pull a moment straight from the pages — I don’t have much of an issue with the liberties taken. I’m getting the sense that they’ll be doing what Game of Thrones (sort of) did in its early years before it went completely off the rails, keeping the central narrative thread intact while giving the script freedom to rearrange the order of additional events for the sake of pacing and drama.

And given the fact that the whole plot is essentially one long road trip, the producers should have a very easy time in coming up with new stuff to pad out the length while still keeping the important bits lined up. The book contains a lot of traveling from one locale (as in: big scene) to the next, but understandably glosses over these long journeys to get straight to the important happenings. Consequently, there are plenty of open stretches of unused time already built into the story: ones that are just waiting to be filled. Why not have Shadow and Wednesday make additional stops and have various misadventures in between the climactic confrontations and revelations? It would be the perfect way to include new gods and smaller story arcs without messing with the source, expanding the worldbuilding and the length of the big picture in one swoop.

This, however, is all just guessing on my part. For now, we can only wait and see what happens.

(Side note: Having the same crew from the pilot — David Slade once again directs and creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green write — certainly helped ensure that the overall feel of this episode remained on point with the previous one’s. I worry what to expect once we inevitably get a new group working behind the scenes, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)

As was the case with last week, “The Secret of Spoons” more or less covers two chapters of Neil Gaiman’s novel: the third and fourth in this case, which start with Shadow reuniting with Wednesday after his run-in with the Technical Boy and ending with the pair meeting Czernobog and his sisters. Let’s jump into the recap to explore it further.

Spoiler Warning

Below are spoilers for both the episode and the book, so continue at your own risk. Going forward, I’ll try to avoid too many mentions of later events, so as long as you’ve watched, you should be okay. Hopefully. No hard-and-fast promises, though.

*

Coming to America

1697

I mentioned last week that I had a couple of requests for recurring concepts. One was that these prologues would go beyond the ones in the book and examine the origins of other gods, be they ones who already play a role in the book or new additions to the cast. The other was that the writers would continue to use the story’s premise to further explore our country’s racial identity and struggles. Well, there was a rather quick return on both of those desires, as the opening scene does not mess around.

The scholarly gentleman from before (presumably — we only see his penmanship this time, and he does not narrate the sequence) writes of a slaving ship, bringing men from Ghana to the New World. One of them, in desperation, begs the trickster god Anansi for help, promising him anything and everything that he can give should he be freed.

A man in a well-tailored suit steps into the hold, and it’s none other than Anansi (Orlando Jones) himself. Surprisingly jovial, given the situation (there’s a weird jazz track going during this bit, which I like and think fitting to the character, but it definitely clashes with the rest of the scene), Anansi’s humor quickly turns to anger when he explains to the men exactly what they can expect in America: year upon unending year of servitude, of mistreatment and pain and injustice. And it will all be inflicted upon them because they are black. Seeing the fury that his speech arouses, Anansi frees one of the men with the suggestion that he destroy everything that the white men possess. They are all doomed, anyway, so why not take their deaths into their own hands? The man releases the others’ chains and sets fire to the hold before storming the deck, and the ship burns at sea. Nobody appears to survive, aside from a colorful spider that crawls to shore.

So. Not only do the opening minutes indeed give us more on a secondary character (Mr. Nancy, in this case), but they also do not not even remotely bother beating about the bush when tackling its subject matter. It’s a very big change to Nancy’s character: he’s nowhere near the seemingly harmless, slightly lecherous old man as was described in the book. He’s young, he’s fiery, and he can apparently see into the future. Precognition isn’t something really attributed to any of the gods in the novel, so it’s a shock to hear him straight-up talking about modern-day police brutality while walking around in the 1600s.

Angry Spider Nancy is a Nancy that I can get behind.

In all honesty, though, who cares? This is one change that I can really get behind. Historical context is so important in our media, so this tweak feels not only smart, but absolutely vital. It would be almost irresponsible for a show about religion and immigration to tiptoe around these cultural headlines (especially with several black actors involved with the main cast), and I’m so happy to see this becoming a recurring theme already. Keep it up, guys.

*

Present Day

Shadow goes to an emergency clinic to get stitches. His doctor asks if he’s been shot, because he may need to call the cops. Shadow is adamant that they do not get involved. It seems a rather hasty (and potentially unrealistic) way to move past the serious beating that he just received, but his refusal to get the authorities is both in-character (he did just get out of prison, after all, and was attacked by a gang of faceless robo-men) and seems to be another, subtler nod to current events and matters of racial injustice, so I’ll let it slide.

At a motel, Shadow confronts Wednesday (currently having a fling with a young woman), asking the con artist about the sudden, violent end to the lynching mob. Wednesday claims ignorance, and promises that ‘they’ ‘don’t have a fucking clue’ when he hears the young man’s threat. Feeling unhinged by the surreality of the situation, Shadow demands to know what’s going on, but Wednesday tells him that knowing details wasn’t part of their agreement. He does, however, admit that the confrontation angers him, and doubles Shadow’s pay as compensation.

This scene illustrates nicely what the show has really excelled at so far: seamlessly weaving details straight from the source material with new concepts. In this case, bits of the conversation are word-for-word recreated from the text, but the additional dialogue made necessary by the new context of the lynching is nicely slid in around them.

Shadow washes off, removing his wedding ring as he does so. During the night, Laura appears in his room. When he tells her that everyone has said that she’s dead, she shrugs it off, telling him that he was just having a bad dream. Having just that, he wakes up, and allows himself to cry.

Now, in a complete contrast to that previous conversation, this one is very different from the book and very much abbreviated. Turning his (actual) first reunion with Laura from an extended talk about her affair and being undead to a small dream sequence is an interesting change. They’ve also removed one of his significant, sans-buffalo visions — the one in which he explores an ancient museum filled with the symbols and objects of the Old Gods.

Gosh, I love her as an actress. Give her more to do, writers.

I’m all right with this, though, as I’m assuming that they’re saving these bits for later episodes. In general, “The Secret of Spoons” feels more drawn out in its adapting of its source chapters, spending more time on their scenes than the book did, so suddenly cutting out a significant moment or two feels very out of place. Shouldn’t things be even more faithful to the novel as a result? Because they’re stretching things for the sake of longevity, though, the idea of withholding some pieces for later down the line seems sensible. I won’t complain just yet, though don’t think I won’t if we get to the finale without some payoff.

(And props for including the moment in which Shadow finally cries for his wife. I think Whittle did a good job with it, and I always support men being allowed to, you know, feel things.)

Hooray! Healthy emotional expression!

Shadow returns to his house, finding it filled with decorations for his planned welcome-home party. Envisioning Laura as he prepares to leave for good, he begins to pack everything up, but pointedly avoids opening the box from the coroner’s office. Once he does, he finds Laura’s wedding ring and phone. On the latter, he looks through a text conversation between her and Robbie, which includes a picture of his penis.

After furiously cleaning (to the point of bleeding) and shipping away the last of his furniture, Shadow is found by Wednesday, who awaits with his car. He admits that he doesn’t have any real connection to the town now that Laura is gone, and Wednesday tells him that, given her infidelity, he’s only required to mourn his wife’s death for so long.

Is Laura just going to be a phantom that (sometimes literally) follows Shadow around? I like the idea, but she’s going to have to appear in the (slowly rotting) flesh eventually.

I really like this sequence, which expands a few sentences in the novel into a full-fledged scene. The imagery invoked by the deflated party favors, Laura’s ghostly memories, and fancy time-lapsing effects does a beautiful job at more fully exploring Shadow’s loss of his old life and his emotional state in moving past it — again, something only briefly dealt with in the text. I could have done without the surprise dick pic (How did the producers go about requesting that? What lucky actor got the honor?), but it’s an… understandable way of immediately reinforcing the hurt brought about by Laura’s affair. What haunts me about this is the fact that Dane Cook of all people has been cast as Robbie, which means that these genitals are his, at least by association. There are many things that I would like to avoid when it comes to Dane Cook (namely, everything), but his business down below is pretty high up on the list as a piece of him that I never, ever want to think about, much less see.

Surprise! Here’s somebody’s junk. And it’s going to symbolically replace your wedding photo, just so that we have an excuse to show it again. Look at it. Take it all in.

The pair hit the road, though Wednesday requests that they stay off of highways. (Does this mean that we’ll get to meet the god of interstate travel at some point?) Wednesday tells Shadow that they will be recruiting several individuals — ‘preeminent in their respective fields’ — before rendezvousing at one of the ‘most important places in the entire country.’ First, however, they’ll be going to Chicago to pick up Wednesday’s ‘hammer.’

Then we get a random bit of artsy imagery invoking lightning and oncoming storms as Wednesday decides to blow on a dandelion, because why not? Any excuse for a pretty shot. (Though, in all seriousness, I don’t mind it. I’m such a sucker for slow-mo.)

Briefly stopping in another small town so that Wednesday can meet with another mysterious client, Shadow is asked to do some shopping to pick up some things for their impending visit. He heads to a supermarket (another New God that we could potentially meet!) to grab, among other things, romance novels, road maps, and a bottle of vodka.

While in the electronics section, Shadow is stopped by Lucille Balle (Gillian Anderson) — though she insists on ‘Lucy Ricardo’ — pausing her episode of I Love Lucy to address him by name. She is, she explains, the one to whom people ‘sacrifice’ to when they spend their time and attention in front of a screen, and she wants to offer Shadow a job. Angry at how the young man from earlier (who she calls the Technical Boy) treated him, she hopes that he will join her and her companions, who are not only ‘the future,’ but the unavoidable now. When he refuses, Lucy warns against resistance — he can either join the inevitable, or let it kill him.

Goddamn. One of the things (okay, perhaps the biggest thing) that I was most looking forward to in this adaptation was Media’s portrayal, and that excitement shot through the roof when they cast Gillian Anderson in the role. I was wondering when she was going to show up, and I am just ecstatic with how well they executed her introduction. It’s a bit early for her grand entrance (she doesn’t make an appearance until the seventh chapter in the novel), but it’s handled so well that the change doesn’t much matter. And if this portends her popping up more frequently, sign me the heck up.

And thank you, Fuller, for ensuring that Gillian Anderson gets to flawlessly deliver that ‘You ever wanted to see Lucy’s tits?’ line. It’s probably the most iconic thing that Gaiman has ever written, aside from That One Scene from last week.

Moving the scene from a grimy motel television to a bank of superstore flatscreens is a smart way of upgrading her character’s appearance. As with the Technical Boy’s new look, the tweaks do a beautiful job at ensuring that the New Gods truly feel modern, cutting-edge, and a genuine force to be reckoned with. The elevation is shaping them to be an actual threat, rather than a vague idea that is forever lurking in the wings.

Mostly, though, I just want to gush about Anderson, who absolutely nails the Balle impression. I straight up thought that she was Lucille at first: the look, the voice, the everything is just spot-on. And she does so while capturing Media’s unsettling mix of peppy cheer and underlying menace. I’m so eager to see what other cultural icons she gets to play in the future (though I know that we’ll be getting a Bowie-as-Ziggy at some point). An expanded version of one of the most interesting characters in Gaiman’s cast, combined with an excuse to get Anderson to do impressions? Even if the rest of the show was awful, that alone would make it worth the price of admission.

Has she won an Emmy for this yet? Give her an Emmy. Give her all of the Emmys.

After the encounter, Shadow returns to Wednesday, who is just parting with a man whose eyes glow a fiery red as he leaves. He’s credited as ‘the jinn,’ which makes me wonder if he’s meant to be the taxi driver from a later ‘Coming to America’ segment — one that I suspect we will be getting to see in episode three. (And, if a certain hint on social media is to be believed, it’s going to be… graphic.) Though, if that is the case, he should be an ifrit. Are ifrit and jinn the same thing? Similar? I don’t know.

I will probably see you naked next week, sir.

Shadow wonders if he is losing his mind, but Wednesday advises him to take what’s occurred at face value: if he’s seen it, it must be real. It’s another copy-and-paste of the conversation that the pair have after Media’s appearance in the text, and I think that it may actually work better when done sooner. Moving Media’s introduction forward works really well here because it helps reinforce into the episode’s emphasis on Shadow’s uncertainty. (See, I have another reason for hand-waving changes beyond my undying devotion to Gillian.) Showing him more visibly struggling with his sense of reality at this point makes for a more realistic protagonist, I think, and helps rectify the book’s issue of his character’s aggressive, almost mindless, passiveness.

Shadow and Wednesday return to the road. The latter promptly throws Shadow’s phone (along with the new one that he bought for Wednesday) out the window, declaring a staunch policy against any such devices.

*

Somewhere in America

After a brief conversation about Wednesday’s taste in women (young, pale, thin, and blonde — you know, the American ideal), we’re abruptly thrown into some really trippy (and phallic) imagery, though there is a blink-and-you-miss-it reuse of stormy clouds to mark the transition into our new favorite segment, sans the on-screen script:

Naked men in space! Vagina-shaped nebulas! What is happening!? Is this a Lynch film!?

Surprise! We’ve just witnessed what being inside Bilquis is apparently like. After we emerge from under her sheets (thank you for that journey, Starz), a montage of her various exploits are shown (the fact that they’re all credited as ‘Bilquis Conquests’ brings me joy) as she consumes men and women alike (hooray, bisexuality!). Did the ‘eaten by vagina’ scene from the pilot weird you out? Well, you get even more of that this week. Enjoy.

The Queen of Sheba eventually visits a museum, where she gazes at a statue (presumably dedicated to her) and a jeweled ceremonial outfit. A woman — a vision of herself, I think — appears to wear the treasure before disappearing. Bilquis looks on in what seems to be anger.

I’m glad to get more of her right from the get-go (pretty much everything with Bilquis is going to be new from here on out, as she literally has only one other scene in the novel), even if that means a lot of bizarre nudity and sex. The sequence in and of itself seems sort of pointless, though it does appear to be hinting at an ongoing plotline for her. Is she going to try to regain her former power? Side with the New Gods? Join the Old? I’m not sure, but I’m sensing some intriguing possibilities. Though if they’re going to only give her such short scenes each week, it’s going to take a long time to see it pan out. It’s not a bad approach, though — a sort of show-within-a-show to look forward to. I hope that we get similar bits with some other characters.

*

Shadow and Wednesday arrive in Chicago, where they meet Zorya Vechernyaya (Cloris Leachman), hoping to impose upon her hospitality. She lives with her two sisters, though only Zorya Utrennyaya (Martha Kelly) is there to meet them, as the third is asleep. Hoping to speak with their brother Czernobog (Peter Stormare), Wednesday mollifies the women with gifts (vodka for Vechernyaya, romance novels for Utrennyaya, and a pair of binoculars for the missing sibling) while they wait for him to return from the slaughterhouse.

They look sort of terrifying here, but I promise that they’re actually pretty funny.

The sisters tell fortunes to make money, though Vechernyaya is the most prolific of the three, as she is the only one willing to tell clients pretty lies. In Shadow’s cup of coffee grounds, they see a bird, but, true to her reputation, a grim Vechernyaya claims that it portends a long life and happy marriage. When Shadow asks if his future is really that bad, she notes that his mother died of cancer, and that he will not. No other details are forthcoming.

Czernobog arrives and immediately demands that Wednesday and Shadow leave, threatening to kill them if they don’t. He claims that Wednesday brought madness into his life once before (potential backstory to explore?), and is now again trying to lead him to his death. Wednesday assures him that this isn’t the case, that ‘everybody will be there,’ and that ‘they’ need his power and the respect it commands. When Czernobog refuses, Wednesday attempts to leave, but he is begrudgingly asked to stay for dinner, which the sisters have so kindly prepared.

During dinner, Czernobog gives an uncomfortable speech after noting Shadow’s skin, pointing out that in his home country, everybody is white, so the people need to rely on shades to divide and distinguish themselves. He mentions that his brother’s fair hair led to him being associated with good, while his own, darker looks gave way to an assumption of evil. His brother is gone, but they are both grey now, so their differences no longer matter.

Afterwards, he explains that he has been forgotten in the old country and is no more than a ‘bad memory’ in America, and so had to get a job at a meat processing plant killing the cows with a sledgehammer. He then invites Shadow to play checkers.

He’s a sore loser.

During the game, Czernobog pulls down his old hammer and shows it off, and Shadow has a vision of it dripping with blood. The man then proposes a bet. If he wins the game, he gets to kill Shadow like one of his cows: on his knees at dawn, with a blow between the eyes. If he loses, he will accompany Wednesday. Unsure of what to believe in anymore, Shadow agrees. Unsurprisingly, the younger player loses, and Czernobog laments the fact that he will have to kill ‘his only black friend.’

If I have one complaint about the meeting in Chicago, it’s that it’s noticeably stretched. It takes up the entirety of the episode’s final third and still doesn’t wrap up by the end, leaving the resolution of the checkers game and the moonlight meeting with Zorya Polonochnaya for next week. It’s the first time that you start to become conscious of the show’s slower pacing, and you feel those final twenty minutes as they inch toward the credits.

Despite that, it’s expertly handled. The Zorya sisters (the two that we’ve seen so far, anyway) are done very well and given a bit more to distinguish each from the others, and the additional details — Zoyra Utrennyaya getting flustered after comparing Shadow to the cowboy on her new romance book; the pair reading Shadow’s tea leaves and slipping in some mention of his mother — are great bits of flavor, be they new or pulled from the source. I especially enjoyed their clever take on Vechernyaya’s fortune-telling, having her attempt to use her vague pleasantries (“You will have a long life and many children.”) on Shadow; in the novel, she instead claims that she should have used the very same line on him after he’s doomed by Czernobog’s promise. Leachman, on that note, is a lot of fun in particular: her “learning is beneath me” line is my new favorite thing. Also, her ability to swig vodka like it’s a going out of style.

Chug! Chug! Chug!

Stormare does great work as Czernobog, too. He’s frightening, yet somewhat pathetic; uncomfortable, but intriguing. Like Anderson’s Media, he has both the looks and personality down pat, and I’m so pleased with the show’s as-of-yet unbroken streak of great casting.

The whole sequence, despite its length, is still a treat, shifting smoothly from comedy during its focus on the sisters’ eccentricities to straight suspense throughout Czernobog’s moments. It may be pushing your patience, but at least you’re never bored, and readers will once again be tickled by the fact that they’re getting the various dialogues straight from the page.

And, again, I’m proud of how the writers are taking pains to slip concepts of race into the show whenever the opportunity arises. The topic of skin color is a brilliant way of slyly mentioning Czernobog’s brother (I wonder if he’ll play a larger role later) while also analyzing the harmful practice of equating white and black with notions of good and evil, and the episode’s final line — “A shame. You’re my only black friend.” — in the context of a murder is chilling. Gaiman made the same comparisons of light and dark originally, but not in the context of Shadow’s ethnicity, and doing so was such a savvy way of reinforcing the social implications previously left unspoken.

I’m a tad disappointed that they changed the checkers bet from Shadow’s idea to something that Czernobog volunteers, but it makes sense. While it robs Shadow’s character of his quiet confidence, it also gives the script the excuse to neatly tie up the episode’s arc for him. After emphasizing his struggle to accept his circumstances, Shadow’s ‘fuck it, I don’t know what’s happening’ attitude when agreeing brings him full circle.

Well, that’s about all that I have. Some stray observations:

• You have to love those loving closeups of the sisters’ dinner being made. Fuller has a thing for food, and it feels like a nod to Hannibal, intentional or not.

• The raven is well on its way to becoming a much more prominent symbol here than it was in the novel. You see it twice this week: as a shadow (ha) flying above Wednesday’s car and in coffee grounds. I wonder how they plan to bring the recurrence to a head. (I personally hope it’s with that bit where one says ‘fuck you’ to Shadow. Classic Gaiman moment.)

• Very little violence this week. I like the implication that they won’t be shoving it into every episode just for the sake of having it, and the more subtle uses of it here — smearing across the floor as Shadow cleans, dripping from a god’s hammer — makes its impact more punchy.

• Is Media going to have a new subplot in which she strives for her own goals? Her speech is more or less how it comes in the novel, but I feel like there was a bit more emphasis on what she wants, rather than on the New Gods’ desires as a whole. (Another note: I didn’t notice until I rewatched her scene that the people and characters on the other televisions stop and watch her and Shadow as she talks. Great little detail.)

• A lot of unnecessary but fun imagery from Slade, as we’ve come to expect — storms in slow motion, stars speeding past, locks being opened to synchronized music. He and Fuller work very well together when creating a particular style (so very Hannibal), and I hope that that look remains once he eventually steps down from the director’s chair.

*

All told, a just-about-perfect second chapter, and one that does a lot in assuaging any fears that I may have had after the pilot. Next week, we rob a bank.

Rating

While it’s a bit slower than its predecessor, “The Secret of Spoons” effortlessly meets the high expectations set by the pilot while pushing the series forward. The final stretch is overlong, but some fantastic new characters, smart story additions, and deft mix of humor and drama more than make up for any damage done.

A-