“How much longer can we afford to wait?”
Like the believers who brought their gods to America, or like the down-at-heel gods themselves, I can’t seem to stop offering up scraps of faith to American Gods. I want it to be good. I want it to reach the heights and breadths of season one. I want it to evoke the ineffable, the ephemeral, the eternal, or even the just plain fun. When it fails, again and again, I feel like Mad Sweeney taking a smack to the face, or a pratfall onto rough road, or a smoldering cigarette butt to the Adam’s apple.
“The Greatest Story Ever Told” drew me in with its opening sequence. These nameless, initially almost silent characters—the boy who loves computers, the father who pressures him to practice his Bach—are as engaging in their stark characterization as any of the better-known characters we’ve been following for three episodes now on their ever more scattered scavenger hunt.
Unfortunately, American Gods has become so fractured that it’s impossible to know which new characters—especially if they be mortal—will stick around to become more than a nameless worshipper, more than a useful prop.
For an example of this tendency at its worst, look to the dispute between Bilquis and Mr. Ibis on one side, and Mr. Nancy on the other. Orlando Jones begins Nancy’s speech in his rich, measured voice, accustomed to spellbinding oratory, and that voice rises until he is roaring his righteous truth—and roaring it in the accent he likely spoke when first he arose in North America. It’s a speech made to be blockquoted:
How much longer can we afford to wait? You keep track of days, numbering the years for scribes that record human history. Do you see progress? I see one, two, three African gods in this room, and two of them want to exercise restraint? And let the donkey work continue while you live your best life? War is upon us! An old white lady is dead. Odin avenges Zorya Vechernyaya. But if it was a dead black lady, like this sweet old soul? Czernobog’s hammer would not swing.
Mr. Nancy speaks of the lifeless figure of Lila Goodchild (Patricia Wright-Domingue), who’s been lying on the mortuary table while the three gods debate the two sides of their great war, and the difficulties of staying on the sidelines. I mention her name not because the show does, but because it doesn’t. Throughout “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” Lila Goodchild’s denuded corpse has been peered at from every angle. She’s introduced as a grim sight gag, the aerial view filling the screen with her heavy breasts, fallen to either side of her ribcage. Her face, covered by a cloth, is a blank, and the camera cuts her up as dispassionately as Mr. Ibis’ blade.
I can believe that Mr. Nancy feels respect as well as sorrow for the dearly departed, however anonymous she remains to him, and that Mr. Ibis and Bilquis do. I cannot believe that the writers and director of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” who cut her into pieces on-screen, can claim to be treating the character with respect. Lila Goodchild is a morbid visual joke and nothing else, up until the moment she is useful to Mr. Nancy’s rhetoric, and to the writers’.
The rest of the scene is just as disingenuous, for different reasons. I’d like to be grateful for a scene of three masterful black actors facing off, carrying the scene without any other voices intruding, and for the chance to see Orlando Jones take a second run at something as inspiring as his “Let the motherfucker burn” speech. But why isn’t the lecture delivered to someone who doesn’t know it, like Wednesday? Why are racial inequities the job only of black people to ponder, and to fight, even when those people are gods?
Ibis assures Nancy that those lost will be remembered: “I hear each voice and I write each name.” Bilquis shrugs off his appeals with the god’s-eye perspective: “We have lived long enough to know these troubles are timeless.” It’s true that human troubles are eternal; there will always be trouble. But Mr. Nancy is speaking of a specific, very American form of oppression faced by descendants of the African people (including, as Mr. Ibis himself specifies, people of the Nile) forcibly brought to the Americas along with their gods. For the writers (speaking through Bilquis) to dismiss that inequity as timeless and universal is cowardly, ignorant, or just a cheap ploy to sidestep discussing the difficulties of American life that weigh disproportionately upon the descendants of these gods’ worshippers.
The most important part of this scene is its three-pointed structure, the camera flicking between these three gods and giving them each equal measure. It’s more than a three-part dialogue; it’s a subtle instruction of how to view the rest of the episode. “The Greatest Story Ever Told” repeatedly presents triangular conversations, often so intercut that it’s hard to capture all three actors in one still photo: Nancy, Ibis, and Bilquis; Ibis, Shadow, and Bast; Ibis, Wednesday, and Shadow; World, Technical Boy, and New Media. But it also presents seeming two-person dialogues that are important not for what’s being said, but for who is observing them. The third, silent person is as important to the conversation as those speaking, whether as an audience or arbitrator.
When Bilquis and Mr. Nancy face off, quoting Lorraine Hansberry and Maya Angelou (ostensibly; see stray observations), they aren’t worried about literature or liberation, only the potential of winning Ruby Goodchild (Mouna Traore) to their worship. When Technical Boy believes he’s alone with his truest friend and first convert (Andrew Koji, star of the upcoming Warrior, his American Gods character IDed in the credits only as CEO), he’s actually observed and judged by Mr. World. When Wednesday and World bicker in the Motel America diner while waiting to see The Bookkeeper (William Sanderson), they’re doing it for an audience of one.
The tabletop map with its little car and miniature landmarks has worn thin as an establishing image, but in “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” it’s used cleverly, along with overhead views of placemats with prominent labels, to reveal that not only are there identical Motel Americas (or is it Motels America, like postmasters general?) across the country, but identical Mama-Jis to run them. It’s an economical move, saving both the cost of a new set and the trouble of introducing characters and audience to a new place. It’s also the funniest gag in the episode.
In the end, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” tells little story, with little verve. “Money, the most influential god in America” walks away from Wednesday and World’s pleas. Shadow has congress with a cat (god). Three excellent actors act at each other over a corpse for many long minutes, and maybe woo a new follower to one or another of them. And American Gods crisscrosses the nation from one identically insipid location to another. Like Technical Boy’s only friend, now the CEO of Xie Comm, I want to be happy to see American Gods return every Sunday. But I can’t be, when it offers so little to believe in.
Stray observations
- I can find many, many Pinterest pages attributing Mr. Nancy’s line to Maya Angelou, and none citing the source.
- There’s another sight gag (I’ve put a screenshot in the grading box above), not nearly as grim, in which Mr. Ibis and Lila Goodchild appear to be two halves of one long body, sitting up on the mortuary table.
- As Mr. World, Crispin Glover is getting that Crispin Glover intensity all over this performance: each word a sentence, each sentence a command. It’s a performance that only works because he’s playing an inhuman force, and because it’s delivered in small doses. I particularly admire how he enters every room like a smooth criminal, hat low over his eyes, coat draped over shoulders, striding with the weary certainty of Christopher Walken in a Fatboy Slim video.
- In a few short episodes, American Gods has transformed from a show boasting artful, exciting, lyrically unexpected sexual scenes to one in which sex scenes are trite and vacant. Bast seducing Shadow is lifted directly from the book, and it feels more like an obligatory insert (I KNOW WHAT I SAID) than anything intended to forward plot, broaden character, or set a mood.
- In an episode revolving around money, the most important revelation is Shadow’s: that he has value to Wednesday.
- I did something tricky in this review, and only those who know the book’s ending will know what it was.
73 Comments
This one felt pointless. Both Technology and New Media are deeply irritating characters. I really missed Gillian Anderson.
Where is Anubis? I was told he was in this season, yet here we are with Thoth, and he is nowhere to be seen.
I was wondering that too, his absence and the fact that he’s not even been mentioned are very notable.
Yeah, what’s up with that? And since when is Thoth the one who weighs souls on the scales in the afterlife?
The fact that Ibis is the one eating bits of the dead (in the book he’s explicitly a vegetarian) and acting as prosector really seems to suggest Mr Jaquel ain’t coming back, and that’s a damn shame.
What, they couldn’t afford the actor? It’s messed up, there’s still the sign “Ibis and Jacquel Funeral Parlor” in plain sight.
Maybe he got another job and wasn’t available?
Gillian Anderson wanting out didn’t stop them from recasting the role.
True. It’s a weird choice to not have Jaquel at all.
Yeah but so did Kristin Chenoweth and now Easters gone.
The cat?
Yeah, agree, Thoth doing Anubis’ job is not very cool either.
I thought this was pretty decent. I can’t believe they gave reviewers the first three episodes ahead of the season while leaving this one, probably the best of the season, out. The open was as good as half of Season 1’s Coming to America sequences, and somehow, it made me care a bit about Technical Boy.
Ricky Whittle and McShane are really doing it for me. I’m looking forward to season 3.
Same, I actually thought this episode was alot stronger than the others, even without Mad Sweeney and Laura in it and who I think have the most interesting plotline. There’s still too much talking in the episodes, I think, and that does drag the pace down, especially when they’re talking portentously, but I really thought this episode was a big improvement. I liked Tech Boy’s “origin” story and then the sad irony of his first believer turning on him because of Tech being “obsolete”. I also enjoyed the Toth, Anansi/Bilquis scenes, although I felt like I was watching a play, and I’m not sure how they can kick things up to get exposition and action rolled into one. The Bast/Shadow scene did nothing for me. It felt like fanservice to the book readers and those who wanted to see Bast, but I don’t know if it needed to be there.That said, I’m really excited for Sweeney and Laura to meet Baron and Brigitte in the next episode!
Nice try show, but I ain’t feelin’ sorry for Technical Boy.E.B. And Al reunited! A little different power dynamic, though.
E.B. wasn’t left out!
Maybe I’m just dense, but the show lost me with whatever happened between World, Technical Boy, and the character whose name I wish I knew. (Calling him CEO is almost like giving him a New God characterization instead of a name, though I think he’s just human. I honestly don’t know.)
Yeah, I was completely lost on what happened there. It felt like World sacrificing Technical Boy in some way, but I don’t know how the CEO played into that.
Mr. World wants a surveillance network. Technical Boy had promised him an update of the Argus one, then Argus was killed, and they’re seeking a replacement. I seems a bit inconsequential. Also, insufferable as he was, I don’t get what Technical Boy was doing so wrong that he had to be killed. Feels like the stereotypical “boss gets angry and kills underling to reaffirm who’s the boss” trope.
Techie’s position on surveillance seemed to be that today’s technology could find out everything already without needing Argus’ eyes. (CCTV is old school. Everyone posts everything online, anyways. Etc.) I thought that Techie was inspiring CEO to do something (I don’t know what, but for some reason, during the ep, my mind went to the idea that Techie was helping CEO with the ultimate predictive algorithm for human behavior) but that CEO didn’t need Techie to do it (because CEO had Mr. World instead? or because CEO already knew how to do it himself without Techie’s help?). Techie indeed became unnecessary, redundant, etc. (just as Techie feared, given the overlap with New Media), so Mr. World “retired” Techie (meaning “killed” him, probably?).
Doesn’t make much sense. Technical Boy is defined as just the incarnation of a concept. If you’re doing technology things, you need Technology; in fact, by doing so, you’re affirming Technology’s very existence and relevance. It’s like saying, “I learned to run fast, so I don’t need Velocity anymore”.
I get that. It’s still confusing. But maybe Technical Boy isn’t Technology; he’s Tech Support. But then why wouldn’t we need Tech Support anymore?
I’m awfully late to the show, but I understood that Tech Boy argued his own redundance by making the argument that everyone posted their lives, photographed and recorded them, that everyone had become eyes, better than any external cameras and drones Argus controlled. But, this posts, pictures, videos, are all part of New Media’s domain really. So what the CEO and Mr. World needed was not him, it was her. And so the CEO, his first and strongest believer, started to worship her instead of him, she kind of absorbed his domain, and he became redundant and disappeared, because we don’t worship technology anymore, we worship New Media, and technology is just a way to her. That’s how I read it.
I thought Money would be a bigger deal.
They really should have done a “hi, my name is Money, and this is my brother, Cash, and my other brother, Cash” bit.
I thought it was a nice segue to go from JS Bach to JF Sebastian.
He’s so fucking Money!
By the way, ten days ago, Google did the exact thing this episode talks about: with a special Google doodle honoring J.S. Bach, any Google user could use AI to create a Bach-inspired piece of music.
So, the cat god basically raped Shadow, no?
In contemplating Jesus Christ the rebel, is Bilquis moving closer to Nancy’s thinking?
I liked that part and being made to think of Jesus in a different way to how people are taught to view him
I did as well.
Do the new writers/showrunner understand that sex is basically worship to gods right? It should be otherwordly, beautiful and revelatory (like the gods themselves) but that was barely one up from Shadow and Laura’s first hookup.On that note, anyone else missing the vivid short stories about other gods we got every week. They really were a highlight.That being said, I appreciate Shadow/Ricky’s backside on full display.
Yeah I miss the short stories too.
I found this the most enjoyable episode of the new season, and the one
that comes closest (though still falling short) of the first. I think a part
of that is due to the opening sequence that echoes the Coming to
America segments of season one. I always found those the best scenes of their respective episodes. They also served to eat a chunk of time, forcing the story of Wednesday and Shadow’s endless wanderings to keep a faster pace than what we’ve had the last 3 episodes.
Emily is already complaining about the fractured story, imagine if they insert a little story in there. She would go bananas.
The Coming to America segments weren’t fractured storytelling. On the contrary, they were complete, self-sustaining narrative units in and of themselves. They weren’t sprinkled throughout the episode by cutting them into tiny bits to cut back and forth to, which is what causes the fractured feeling.
Yes, the short stories set the tone and theme of the ep. Sometimes they gave great insight into the chatacters, like the Mad Sweney w/o in season 1.
Shooting that Bast scene like it’s just some throwaway hookup with another human is inexcusable. Man, this show has turned awful. What a waste.
It would have been immeasurably improved for me if they’d just gone with the cross-cutting locations of the book (the funeral home, Shadow’s prison cell, the bridge over the lake) to emphasise the dream like nature and the sense of past, present and future. Or even just take a moment to emphasise how lost and broken Shadow is before it happens and how healed he is afterwards.
Also, how dumb it was that the scratches on Shadow’s back were suggested as purported proof of the supernatural hookup with a cat? Because humans don’t have nails, of course.
That wasn’t the point of the scratches, it was to prove to Shadow that it happened at all. The small piece of evidence that indicated what the dreamer thought was a dream was not in fact a dream.
It’s quite a common trope.
You know what would be interesting, if they showed us a version of Technical Boy from the past it was him as he was in the book. That would be cool.
I was just wondering the same, even not knowing the book. Why should Technology be represented as a boy? It’s not a new concept, it existed pretty much since humanity existed. Equaling technology with computer era technology seems awfully clichéd and short-sighted. The wheel is technology. The fire is technology. Heck, the freaking bone from 2001: A Space Odyssey is technology!
“I am now longer a boy, now I am a Technical Man!”*Comes back as an old man but still dresses the same.*
“I did something tricky in this review, and only those who know the book’s ending will know what it was.”Stop being such a pretentious cunt. It’s not working. And neither is it a good look, you’re too fat.
I realize that hating on this season is all the rage, but two things:This season isn’t that bad and the first season wasn’t that good.
I’m enjoying the heck out of it.
Glad I’m not the only one who felt that way about the sex scenes this season. In a world of porn I don’t watch regular TV for smut or titillation. If there’s going to be a sex scene it should be important and/or powerful. The first season could grasp that, this season does not.
There was something so mischievous about viewing Season 1. Finally a show for adults who can watch sex on TV and have characters look at religion in creative ways. I miss that show! I enjoyed Bilquis’s take on Jesus, but that was about it.
“American gods is too fractured to inspire faith”“B-”Lolwhat.
I dont get why Emily is so upset by the exchange of the 3 african gods. I dare to say, that if Odin was in the room, there would still be a complaint, that “he shouldnt be there”. I believe was a great scene, and wasnt a speech to convince a white man.
She’s upset because some people love to politicize everything. I guess it should make her upset that the book was written by a white guy and , he *gasp* wrote about people who are not white. Even the most PC person will give NG a pass though cause he’s a cool and sensitive white guy. I don’t understand the problem at all with the scene, it’s a tv show to enjoy escapism that is pure fantasy. It would be amazing if we could just enjoy it like that or if there is a complaint it would be about something that matters to the book , show or overall ideas but Emily’s complaint is that she was personally offended. I honestly don’t care at all, stop watching the show then, put something on that caters to your every idea of how to deal with race in a way that is less offensive to you.
And it would be pretty maddening if that monologue was given to a white actor just to show that racial inequities aren’t “only the job of black people to ponder”.
Dont know how americans call it, but I often hear (as a white male), that I cant occupy the “place of speech”, of a black person. So, the exchange between the 3 gods, was perfect to me.
It’s because she’s racist and sees everything as intersectionality first and not the individual. 3 solid actors applying their craft. That’s what I saw and all I saw.
I completely agree. Really good scene and have Mrs Goodchild dead on the table while they are discussing it all added to it I think.
Yeah, it hit me quite solidly, especially delivered by 3 masterclass Black actors talking about Black issues.
The moment I realized we were in trouble was pretty quick. It was when Mr. World gave the “do you know who I am” speech to the guy at the argus location. And it was like…uhh why doesn’t he know who you are? It sounded like they wanted to try to finally really give Crispin Glover something to do but they couldn’t come up with anything actually clever or scary so they just recycled part of Al Pacino’s Devil’s Advocate speech. This source material deserves better, it deserves Bryan Fuller.
Mr. World hisses. With. Such. Menace. Every. Single. Word. -that it produces an effect more like Anger Management Issues than dangerous entity.I do like his body language tho. He walks into a room with all the appearance of literally carrying the world on his shoulders.How boring can you make a sex scene with Bast? I think we have a winner here… also film it in such tight close up that maybe they’re having sex, maybe it’s just an ancient Egyptian form of twister. I dunno, I found myself scrolling text messages while al the grinding was going on…Bbonus points for showing Ricky Whittle’s butt though. And technical boy? This is the iconic image of the God of technology? A smug, whiney, petulant child? It’s kind of the trite superficial image that people who don’t get technology would have of ‘the young un’s with their hippity-hop video games and social media stuff, why in my day…’ and the power dynamic is all wrong, technology changes the world, he shouldn’t be getting bitch-slapped by Mr. World, and getting edited out in favor of ‘new media’. Thematically makes no sense, or it’s weak sauce themes if it does. Overall the thematic narrative is where American gods fails, we know and understand the old gods because we know all their stories, the new gods so far are cardboard cutouts to hang a concept on, not very engaging overall. There’s a reason Mad Sweeny is the breakout character, he’s the only one that still has the fun and delight that made the first season so good.
I was expecting this to be a single-season mini-series. They’re stretching this beyond the book, which in itself had several different versions on its own.
Also, anyone else bothered by their going straight to the trope of the musicaly brilliant Asian video game playing kid who becomes a CEO of a tech company and his demanding father who makes him practice but doesn’t understand the new technology? Is this what happens when you keep firing writers and show runners?
Just a side observation: This show is really good at lighting African Americans, especially in low light. I juxtapose this to ‘Us’, where I felt too often that Lupita Nyong’o’s dark brown skin tended to get lost into the darker background. In this scene, you can easily see the four actors’ (including the mourner) expression against the lighter background, and their skin looks rich and alive instead of the usual dull and ashy. It’s such a rarity to see that I just had to note it.
I do like the framing of talking about Jesus in a chapel where the chancel screen actually looks like a crown of thorns (screen shot 2 in that little slide show). Of course he’s playing Tetris on a Gameboy. That’s what Gameboys are for. That’s why we always called it “The Tetris” in my house. What was the name of the chat program that always started “Hello, friend?” There’s an obvious reference there (to obsolete tech, sadly).
I really didn’t think Lola Goodchild was being used as a sight gag. Maybe I’m missing something, but I thought she was just there to show the reality of Jaquel and Ibis’ work.I hate to be the guy who laments that the show is not more like the book, but I was really hoping for the interlude where Shadow works at the funeral home for a little while. It’s one of my favourite parts of the story, and it gives him a chance to learn about the gods in a way that’s not associated with danger and flight. I’d certainly have preferred it to the Technical Boy/CEO/Mr World exchange, which I didn’t get at all.Finally – AND HERE BE BOOK SPOILERS, LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT THE SCORE, AFTER THE CAPS END THE SPOILERS COME, LAST WARNING – Emily, was the tricky thing you mentioned talking about Mr World and Mr Wednesday being a two-man show for an audience of one – aka, a two man con, where two people pretend to be on opposite sides for the benefit of a third party when they’re actually working together? That’s the only thing I can think of.
I thought it was the “criminal” bit 🙂
Talky, sophomoric, and inexcusably boring. Too much posing and portentous prattle. I didn’t read the book, so I have no idea what the point of the cat-fucking is, if there is a point. The one or two clever gags don’t make up for the tedium.One things for sure, there will be no Season 3 of this one.
Ugh! Duh! Of course it was Bach. Wendy Carlos!
I don’t think this is a good read on the conversation between Nancy/Ibis/Bilquis. For one thing, I don’t think it makes sense to say that it’s “disingenuous” for it to only be a conversation between black people. I think that’s a deliberate choice they made in order to highlight the issue with racism. The black people are the only ones who care to think about that issue – it’s supporting Nancy’s point. I also don’t think it makes sense to assume that Bilquis is the one expressing the writers’ viewpoint – I think she’s expressing her own viewpoint. Which I read as a simultaneous commentary on A. the gods being selfish pricks in general and B. bourgie black people who’ve figured out how to work the system and use that to get themselves ahead without helping their community.
I dunno. We’ll see what else happens in this vein (and I share the review’s general sense that the show is biffing a lot of the execution so it might still screw this up later), but in general I thought that conversation was a high point of the episode in terms of writing as well as the great acting.
Even though the acting was amazing I thought something felt off about Anasi’s speech. I now realized it was the other gods reactions. They were cowardly.
Is noone gonna address the Deadwood reuinion? Ticked seeing “Al Swearangen” and “EB Farnum” together again