American Gods Episode 2 Reviewed

A Corrupt Pantheon

♦It started on US TV last Sunday, 30 April and 1 May on Amazon Prime in the UK but Tripwire Contributing Writer OLLY MACNAMEE got a sneak peek of the second episode of Starz’s American Gods. Warning: A few spoilers ahead…

American Gods Episode 2
Director: David Slade
Writer: Bryan Fuller
Stars: Ricky Whittle, Pablo Schreiber, Ian McShane, Jonathan Tucker

Warning; thar be spoilers afoot as well as the odd Bad Religion reference too. Gotta catch ‘em all! Can you?

As with the first episode, so too with this second episode and an opening sequence that sees us transported to the past – 1967 to be specific –  and another example of a particular people coming to America. This time, through no choice of their own and a reminder that the melting pot that is modern America was forged by force as much as by free will, for many, many people. Upon the ship with these unfortunate souls? Well, that would be telling for anyone unfamiliar with Gaiman’s American Gods universe, but once again, thanks to the belief of one enslave and enraged man, an ancient trickster god –  all jazz era clothing and equally jazzy brogue; a man out of time, like some sort of Black Dr Who (are you listening, BBC?) –  exists and, like the other once powerful gods peppering proceedings, follows his believers to the ‘New World’ through their beliefs and their prayers. A New World that this supernatural stranger is all too aware of, as if he has stepped back into time, y’know, like Dr Who, and what is in store for these African tribesmen ripped from their families, their homes, their culture. American Gods could not have come at a more appropriate time in modern America’s ongoing horror story. The themes of immigration and displacement (in this case, brutally forced), which I am sure will be further explored in subsequent episodes, loom large over this series, and rightfully so. After all, White America, we didn’t get to rule the USA through negotiation and diplomacy, now did we? The minute the curriculum taught America was ‘discovered’ by an Italian chancer looking for India and trying to dispel the beliefs of a Flat Earth Society, ‘Alternative Facts’ became a standard. No wonder we’’re still swallowing ‘em today too.

But, that’s enough about the impressive opening, with its all fantastical images and my own political bent. Cue the suitably eerie, neon-edged opening credits and we’re back into the present and Shadow’s own brush with death last episode. I hardly find it a spoiler to tell you he survives, but if you are surprised by this revelation, then maybe this show isn’t for you, if you thought the main protagonist would croak it. There are far bigger, more narratively important surprises yet to come. But, those will be for further episodes. Let’s just focus on this one shall we?

Once again, the long, low strings and orchestral moments accompanying each scene, creates a sense of mystery and unease, keeping us on the edge of our seat and grabbing our interest. After the cliffhanger of the first episode, anything could happen in this magically real world. When Shadow (Ricky Whittle) dreams, we have to ask ourselves; is it real? His meeting with a very 21st Century Digital Boy during the pilot episode would suggest that anything is possible and, even when asleep, the realms of the imagined have very thin walls. After all, the concept of tulpa, and the process of belief, grows stronger and strong as we once again meet the sex vampire, Bilquist (Yetide Badaki), and the enigmatic Mr Wednesday (Lovejoy’s Ian McShane) who Shadow now works for. So much for free will then, as it suggests that Shadow has no control over his destiny.

Meanwhile, Shadow starts feeling that all is not as it should be when a trip to a supermarket (and, boy, do American’s put the ‘super’ into supermarkets; they’re like a small country!) sees a bygone stone-cold classic TV star, played wonderfully and impressively by Gillian Anderson, talking to him in surround sound, he either has to believe ‘the world is either crazy, or (he) is’. The battle lines are beginning to be drawn as the Old Age is usurped by the New Information Age and our devotion to the technological, in all its forms. There seems to be a battle brewing from which The New America will emerge. But, at what cost to the past; to culture and identity?  I find it somewhat ironic that I’m watching this at the temple of convenience that is TV, which we all build our living rooms around, and writing this review up on a laptop. And, you’re reading it on the interwebs!

Anyway, I feel that I’ve maybe said far too much already (but then, you were warned in advance) and would rather you watch it for yourselves, next week, when it drops (unlike Amazon’s tax returns), but I do need to mention one particularly outstanding performance from Sweden’s character actor supremo, Peter Stormare, playing the Slavic Czernborg; all rough and, well, rough really. Stormare is fantastic in everything he appears in (remember his star turn as ‘Karl Hungus’ in The Big Lebowski, to name but one!) and so he is here too; an animal executioner – sorry, abattoir worker/farmer –  by trade, he holds a big, bloody (literally) hammer that Mr Wednesday has his eye on. The talent on show in just this episode is something of a statement of intent for the series. And, judging by the American Gods IMBd page , there’s still plenty to come in outstanding performances. Lovejoy’s Ian McShane takes more of a backseat on this one, but he still has the best line in the whole show. All I’ll say is, he’s rather critical of Shadow’s wife’s demise and the circumstances in which she did die, using these circumstances as a reason Shadow should abandon his grief.

The story moves on, more slowly than the first episode, but then it does a good job of revealing the true fight that is brewing. What is at stake, however, is still a mystery, even if the onion is beginning to be peeled away for the more observant. Why, for instance, would Czernborg be calling his old acquaintance, Wotan, for the gods’ sake? Let’s find out together, as we enter into the unknown; a past world that may be gone, but can it afford to be forgotten? Are we all heading, by choice, into a world full of nothing but a gray race and an over reliance on technology and atheist peace? Or, can faith alone save the day?

American Gods started on Sunday 30 April on Starz in the US and on Amazon Prime in the UK from Monday 1 May.

American Gods episode 2 review www.tripwiremagazine.co.uk