Well, here we are; it’s the season finale of American Gods.
This review is a bit late, so my apologies for that. I got sidetracked by life, and I also didn’t know what to say. I’ve been struggling to find words for this review ever since I watched the episode. Though that might be because I watched it immediately after waking up on Monday, which never helps.
“We should start with a story!”
It felt like forever since we’d seen Wednesday and Shadow. Sure, it was only a week but I always feel it passes more time between episodes.
However, they got overshadowed by none other than Mr. Nancy. I had been looking forward to seeing him again ever since his scene in the second episode. If we get technical, he was on another episode but that doesn’t count because it was a spider. This week we get Orlando Jones in all his glory. Give that man an Anansi Boys spinoff already!
Much like episode two, he steals the scene he’s in. Especially with his theatrics, and he also made fun of Shadow! I was looking forward to that. At first I thought the story he’d tell would be about himself – you know, the one he tells in the novel about stealing the tiger’s testicles – but I was pleasantly surprised that it was about Bilquis.
It explains how she ended up in her situation through the years and I especially liked her scene in Tehran because of the music. Brian Reitzell is a great composer, he can go from making music that’ll make you shit your pants to composing the grooviest thing you’ve ever heard.
Still, Mr. Nancy’s story helps set up something else later. I had never imagined Bilquis was in the pocket of the New Gods, but then again it makes sense. She uses a dating app after all and that should’ve been a telltale sign. Fuller and Green have bamboozled me, though it’s not the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.
“She’s something else.”
There’s not much travelling around on this episode. All the plot lines converge at Easter’s house because she’s having a party and all the Jesuses are there.
I lost it when I saw Jeremy Davies approach Shadow, especially because of his halo. It got even worse when I checked the X-Ray on Prime that shows the cast and characters and they credited him as Jesus Prime. As if he were a Transformer or something! While Jesus wasn’t in the book, some of the dialogue here is from a deleted scene from the book where Shadow and Jesus meet. It’s interesting seeing them talk about belief, considering the whole season.
Still, other than the Jesuses (it sounds so weird), the important thing here is Easter. She’s played by Kristin Chenoweth and she’s great. She exudes radiance and that murderous instinct of “If this person doesn’t use a coaster I will disembowel them” and her scenes in this episode are great. Especially because she gets smitten with Shadow.
“A favour, then. You owe me that.”
All the characters are converging here. While I thought that Mad Sweeney was taking Laura to meet one of the Jesuses, I was wrong. He was taking her to Easter, which makes sense.
The cards are on the table for her now; she knows why she’s dead and that she was a sacrifice to set Shadow on his journey. And it seems that Mad Sweeney is on her side now, which is cool because seeing those two interact has been one of my favourite things this season.
But we expect little time with that reveal, because the big one comes after this one.
“What do you believe, Shadow?”
“Everything.”
Over the past few weeks I’ve been mulling over this show. The pace is different and the answers come slowly. But then I realised this was a brilliant thing.
The show is asking you to believe in it. The answers it gives come slowly because you have to go in with blind faith. True, I’ve read the book plenty of times but I still felt surprised and confused by lots of things, especially some of the changes.
Still, the payoff is in this episode. While there are still many unanswered questions (and a cliffhanger that will bother me for a year) we finally get Wednesday revealing himself as Odin. And that scene is incredibly powerful because it comes in the middle of his declaration of war to the New Gods, and making Easter switch sides while he’s at it. That scene is visually stunning, as usual with this show.
The worst part of this episode is that it finishes, because we’ll have to wait a year for season two. I’m quite happy Amazon has the rights for this show! Though if we’re frank, I would be happier if their X-Ray section included interesting tidbits about the mythology, rather than silly facts like “Emily Browning was going to quit acting until Zack Snyder convinced her to be in Sucker Punch” especially when that fact appears in every episode she’s in.
I’ll see you again when season two of American Gods returns in a year. Hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I have enjoyed writing them!
What did you think of the finale? Let me know in the comments!
Angry Spaniard, adoptive Irishman. Writer, reader, tea drinker and video game player/designer.
