Season 1 - 8 episodes (2017)
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Created by: Bryan Fuller, Michael Green
Based on: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Starring: Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, Emily Browning, Crispin Glover, Pablo Schreiber, Gillian Anderson, Cloris Leachman, Peter Stormare, Orlando Jones, Betty Gilpin
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer
Plot
A recently released ex-convict named Shadow Moon meets a mysterious man who calls himself "Wednesday" and who knows more than he first seems about Shadow's life and past.
Verdict
I really enjoyed the first season. It provides intriguing ideas, frequent dark humor, and the question of what's building. I couldn't wait to see the next episode. This takes the concepts of faith and religion and anthropomorphizes them into old and new gods against each other. It's such a strange and intriguing concept in this weird world.
I didn't like season two at all. While a couple of years passed between my watch of the first and second season, a big reason is that the show runner left after the first season. The show just isn't the same. While I've read season three is better, two was such an unwelcome experience that I won't continue.
Watch It.
Review
This has a great style and mood. It's dark in look and content, but it's this strange fantasy that incorporates gods and concepts as people. The question of what's going on and what will happen drives the season.
Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) is an ex-con just out of prison. He encounters Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), after one heck of a day, who offers him a job. From the start we know Wednesday isn't normal. He has a preternatural sense of things. Wednesday is one of the old gods of religion, beliefs, and prayers. He's battling with the new gods of media, influence, and fame. All of this happens in the pilot, and it's a great hook.
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| Ian McShane, Ricky Whittle play Mr. Wednesday, Shadow Moon |
Many episodes include an opening vignette outside of the show in time and place. They help add to the world, providing scale and scope. This world is bigger than Shadow Moon and Wednesday, but these diatribes that sometimes feel like a distraction often connect to the main plot. Even if I wasn't sure how everything fits together, the first season is engrossing and I couldn't wait to see what happens next.
Episode four delves into Shadow's wife Laura's (Emily Browning) backstory. I wasn't sure about this episode and whether I needed to see how Shadow ended up in prison, but this ties Laura's story into Shadow's impressively. That generates more questions in addition to what is Wednesday's interest in Shadow.
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| Pablo Schreiber, Emily Browning play Mad Sweeney, Laura Moon |
Episode five mixes media and broadens the scope of the series as we see how religion and faith extend through time. This episode also has Shadow relay everything that's happened to him in this season and it sounds ridiculous even to the viewer. There's a leprechaun Mad Sweeney (Pable Schreiber). This episode breaks the season wide open. We've danced around what's happening, but gods are real and a war is coming. These beliefs and gods have spanned generations The old gods are older, tired. The new gods are young and powerful because their user base is larger. Power and seemingly conception is tied to belief.
This is an ingenious idea to anthropomorphize concepts of religion, belief, and faith. The war isn't about the people that believe in these concepts, but the concepts themselves. The old religions and beliefs have given way to the new religion of media, society, and technology. While the final episode reveals who Wednesday is, the episode instead becomes a catalyst for what could happen in the next season.
I finally got around to season two. The end of last season revealed Wednesday's identity as well as the fact that he orchestrated events to gain Shadow as a soldier. With the new season he wants to pull the old gods together for an attack, but the new gods preemptively thwart his plans and capture Shadow. As Sweeney and Laura pursue Shadow, we get a glimpse of Shadow's past. Also, why is Shadow important to Wednesday?
This season is scattered. The goal is this nebulous war for which everyone prepares but nothing happens. It's not progressing. I really didn't like this season half way in. Was I wowed by the concepts in season one or willing to give the show time to set up the plot. The answer is that season two got a new show runner. The cast was unhappy with the second season scripts, and they would be rewritten on set with McShane doing a fair amount of improvising. This season seemed different, and it is. The season two show runner was removed before the finale, having turned in several scripts for the final episode that were all rejected. I've read season three is debatably better, but after this season I have no interest.
The highlight of the season is Sweeney's backstory. I didn't expect him to have such a tragic tale.
This season is almost incomprehensible. It's a string of various events that don't even seem connected. I'm nearly rooting against the show. Season two is such a chore. It ends in a fight, teasing the battle the entire season. That fight scatters the characters in an attempt to trick us into watching season three.
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