Serie - American Gods : our review on Head Full of Snow episod (103)

By Mulder, 13 may 2017

In episode 3 we are given the introduction of the old god of Death, or Anubis (Chris Obi), the Egyptian lord of the death, who in the show is responsible for guiding the safe passage of souls into the afterlife. This encounter displays even more depth and detail into the multi-faceted levels of the American Gods mixture into mythology. The mystical process then follows the recently deceased Mrs. Fadil (Jacqueline Antaramian) as Death weighs her heart on the scales balancing it against the weight of a feather to determine if she led a good or bad life based on her deeds. This is a visually stunning sequence of events to watch unfold but viewers will more than likely ask themselves if these characters will return at any point or will American Gods continue the trend of trying to establish characters from the novel of the same name or take the risk of displeasing original fans of Neil Gaiman’s work to have a more streamlined storytelling experience. The only returning character so far outside of Shadow, Mr. Wednesday and Mad Sweeney Todd has been Bilquis and she only appeared in the first two episodes.

After we pick up with Shadow (Ricky Whittle) as he awakes from a dreamlike state that seemingly was shared with the third Zorya sister, Zorya Polunochnaya (Erika Kaar). In the dream Shadow and Polunochnaya share a brief kiss that helps her to foresee his future. She remarks on him once having the sun but discarding its protection and now she offers him the moon to replace it. When Shadow wakes up he comes to realize a way to beat Czernobog (Peter Stormare) in second game of checkers, but only to temporarily avoid his sledge hammer death sentence. Whether this is due to Polunochnaya giving Shadow the moon or a profound realization is unclear however the cunning and slickness that Shadow has to offer is a remarkable effort on his part as it will not save his head but rather offer aid to Mr. Wednesday’s (Ian McShane) mission.

Shadow is becoming more entwined into the world of American Gods but overall does not seem to feel there is a bright side to this occurrence, that is until Mr. Wednesday ask him to adjust an aspect of the weather so that they may pull of a con job. Inexplicably Shadow succeeds and a new loop of confusion is thrown unveiling the absurdity of power that he may possess that he did not even know about. Shadow takes this all very well and is quite calm about the situation but paralleling his book form counterpart, he is not as tranquil as Gaiman previously presented Shadow’s first incarnation. With every new discovery that Shadow and the audience experience, the intrigue deepens as well as the questions to the reasonings.

Another new character is introduced but he is not a god but an Ifrit or Jinn (Mousa Kraish) who is a cab driver that picks up the weary salesman Salim (Omid Abtahi). Fans of the Neil Gaiman novel will cherish this but as a viewer it leads to more questions and open-ended portions of the world that we may never get an explanation for. Yes the world is quite interesting but if you open a new door to every opportunity or strange idea but never step inside you only get the surface value. Hopefully American Gods will walk us through the entirety of all these characters and we well joyously enter into their open house. If not, then we will have a plethora of new ideas and other worldly beings with peculiar abilities we will not see a second time around. This trend that American Gods is building upon will have complete introductions of characters with half their stories being told. Maybe we can flip Mad Sweeney’s lucky coin and change our luck with American Gods’ secondary characters.

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