Serie - American Gods : our review on A Murder of Gods episod (106)

By Mulder, 04 june 2017

Episode 6 has one of the shortest “Coming to America” vignettes but it still gets the message across that Jesus will help you along the way, yet in “American Gods” that does not necessarily mean you will make it all the way. This introduction by the narrator Mr. Ibis is the least impactful especially in comparison to previous ones like the pilot episode with the slaughtering vikings and the slave ship with Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy/Anansi.

Picking up with Shadow (Ricky Whittle) and Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane) escaping from the butchered police station where all the officers were brutally killed by the new gods, ie; Mr. World, Media, and Technical Boy. We find Shadow and Mr. Wednesday wandering down a darkened highway and for once Shadow appears to be genuinely stunned by the events of the night. All the questions that have been bubbling up to the surface start to implode within Shadow and he begins to wonder about Mr. Wednesday’s world that was previously hidden in the periphery of his vision. Suffering from a nearly fatal wound from a monstrously formed tree in the police station Mr. Wednesday describes the origin of this creature. He calls it a manifestation of an old god named Mr. Wood, and he tells Shadow the story of how Mr. Wood sacrificed all his trees, all his forest to the sawmills in order to ride the tide of the industrial revolution that was swiftly approaching. Mr. Wood is a good example of what the new gods, Mr. World (Crispin Glover) and Media (Gillian Anderson), want from Mr. Wednesday to duplicate. But instead of sacrificing all of his followers Mr. Wednesday cryptically speaks about throwing himself back into an opening of the world that will allow him to reemerge essentially reborn as opposed to being rebranded by the new gods.

When Laura (Emily Browning) arrives back to the hotel it is little too late as Mr. Wednesday speeds off with Shadow in the car in attempt to separate the former couple. Most likely Mr. Wednesday simply wants Shadow to focus on what he needs accomplished at the moment and not the strangely peculiar and impossible return to the living that Laura has achieved. She is an absolute distraction to what Shadow has been experiencing in the world of American Gods and her sudden return may be the very reason that Shadow is no longer behaving passively about all the absurd incidents and characters he is meeting. Laura may represent the only connection Shadow still has to the old ignorant world he knew prior to the American Gods and ironically Laura is embedded in the mysticism of it all.

Mr. Wednesday takes Shadow to rally an old alliance to their side of the war and they meet Vulcan (Corbin Bernsen), a god of the gun, who embraces Wednesday as a brother. Wednesday asks for Vulcan to forge him a sword for which he agrees to do so, but things go sour from here on. Shadow is disturbed by the town's lack of diversity, its sheer number guns to white people ratio and the ominous vibe he feels from a tree planted outside of Vulcans residence. Plagued by the recurring theme of trees in his nightmares as well as when he was lynched by Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) Shadow finds the entire situation unsettling and wants to vacate the area immediately. Wednesday accomplishes his goal of the forged sword and Vulcan’s “allegiance,” unfortunately for Vulcan he had to sacrifice a creator with his own creation to meet these ends.

The idea of sacrifice for power seemed like an outdated form of worship and prayer but as the old gods are thriving in their transition in the world of the New Gods, they don’t seem to mind it one bit. Wednesday proclaims how his idea of sacrifice is a little different then Vulcan’s but fails to describe his thoughts on the matter in any in depth or relevant way for Shadow to understand. Sacrificing believers is one way to gain strength in the world of “American Gods” but it appears to be too barbaric for Wednesday, or perhaps to inefficient. How Mr. Wednesday has survived for so long remains unknown yet it’s the most intriguing mystery of the entire series.

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

Photos: Copyright Starz