Serie - American Gods : Come to Jesus (S1E08), our review

By Mulder, Los Angeles, 18 june 2017

In the season finale of American Gods, we have a few questions addressed but not really answered, and are mostly left with an overall unsatisfied feeling of unfulfillment. It was an informative episode with a lot of backstory starting with Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones) describing Bilquis (Yetide Badaki) at the height of her power, her descent and emergence. It’s a compelling story in itself and definitely deserving of an entire episode being completely dedicated to the origins of Bilquis but not thrown in the beginning of the finale.

Sadly we start off with a back story on Bilquis that stalls any left over momentum we might be moving forward with in relation to Shadow and Wednesday for the first third of the episode. As previously stated the story is intriguing and gives some insight but not to the plot of what season one was appearing to be about, Shadow helping Wednesday with his recruitment for a coming war. The whole season starts so heavily focused on Shadow and what he is going through and then slowly has random introductions of characters that stray away from the main plot like a distractive tangent. These stories have their purpose of filling in the gaps but they unfortunately begin to overshadow Shadow, so to speak. That is not to say that these additional characters do not play key roles or are uninteresting but they are not necessary in what is going on in season one. Perhaps in season two they will bring about a full circle “ah huh” moment of spectacular realization but if this is the case they definitely should have left season one open ended with a half season finale which has become so widely popular in the last decade.

The story picks up a little when Shadow and Wednesday actually start to get back on track to meet with Easter for recruitment. Shadow embodies a semblance of hope for life again and it is possibly the correlation to all the hope that the idol of a divinity figure such as, Jesus (Jeremy Davies) brings about. There is even a lovely dynamic chemistry created between Easter and Shadow that will have audiences smitten but her temper towards Wednesday is subtly suspended beneath the surface and the tension draws us in.

Eventually Laura Moon (Emily Browning) and Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber) crash the party and Easter tries to settle Laura’s desire to be resurrected again. This part once again takes away from the story we want to get to but not for long. Yet it must be mentioned that the arc for Mad Sweeney as he aids Laura is absolutely a thread in the fabric of the American Gods universe that demands to be unraveled and told.

In the end we do get a few minutes of a thrilling altercation and loaded dialogue between Shadow, Wednesday and Easter against Mr. World (Crispin Glover), Media (Gillian Anderson), and Technical Boy (Bruce Langley). It is so short lived however that it does not feel like a finale. If it would have been a mid season finale it could have been justifiable but alas, episode 8 is the end of season one and it does not adequately reach the hopes audiences should want, but settles for being a lackadaisical cliffhanger. We have high hopes for season two and will definitely return back to the landscape of American Gods to reap what time we have invested yet a more concise format should be applied if show creators, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green want to hold the attention of their own believers.

Synopsis:
When Shadow Moon is released from prison, he meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and a storm begins to brew. Little does Shadow know, this storm will change the course of his entire life. Left adrift by the recent, tragic death of his wife, and suddenly hired as Mr. Wednesday’s bodyguard, Shadow finds himself in the center of a world that he struggles to understand. It’s a hidden world where magic is real, where the Old Gods fear both irrelevance and the growing power of the New Gods, like Technology and Media. Mr. Wednesday seeks to build a coalition of Old Gods to defend their existence in this new America, and reclaim some of the influence that they’ve lost. As Shadow travels across the country with Mr. Wednesday, he struggles to accept this new reality, and his place in it.

American Gods
Based on American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Developed by Bryan Fuller, Michael Green
Composer Brian Reitzell
Starring Ricky Whittle (Shadow Moon), Emily Browning (Laura Moon / Essie Tregowan), Crispin Glover (Mr World), Bruce Langley (Technical Boy), Yetide Badaki (Bilquis), Pablo Schreiber (Mad Sweeney), Ian McShane (Mr. Wednesday)

A Whispertone review