Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to the most fun American Gods has had all season long. “Donar The Great” isn’t quite as, well, great as its burlesque strongman, but it’s nice to see American Gods return to its strengths. Split between the Regius Theater in pre-WWII Chicago and a mall somewhere in America (as the show’s captioning conceit would phrase it), “Donar The Great” tells us about Wednesday’s recent past—for an old god, anything less than a hundred years is very recent indeed—and about his lost son, and about a century of scrambling for relevance and reverence.
As Wednesday—known here and now as Al Grimnir, owner and MC of the Regius—sings, his wide, wicked smile turns to a sneer, then a snarl under the lurid lights. “Donar The Great” tells you everything you need to know about Wednesday, about Odin, about the god who keeps Shadow Moon in his employ. Even on stage, he won’t hide his teeth, or pretend they aren’t sharp.
Directed by Rachel Talalay (director of cult favorite Tank Girl, seven Doctor Who episodes, and let’s not blame her for South Of Hell), “Donar The Great” regains some of the series’ badly missed swagger. Even Ricky Whittle, who’s spent much of this season suspended in torture or sent off on side errands, gets in on the fun, resurrecting his Andy Haddock alias from “Head Full Of Snow” and giving him a heck of a promotion.
When they’re working together, Shadow Moon and Wednesday make one of the most charismatic pairings in American Gods, and it’s a relief to see Shadow doing more than mooning around wondering after his wife, or dashing wordlessly into danger (and off screen), or standing in the background watching gods face off. As he strides in, announcing himself as Secret Service, Whittle’s action-hero assurance is Shadow’s self-assurance, regained in “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
It’s a snappy little scene, translating the novel’s story of the bishop and the necklace into something gruffer and rougher, with simple, efficient staging and self-contained background characters. Everything about the scam to nab Lou Reed’s leather jacket—including the ginned-up motivation for it, to supply the mall’s dwarves with an object of great power so they can heal Gungnir—is tight and tidy, with no explanations or exposition cluttering it up. (Even the smudge Andy Haddock produces from the supposed counterfeit bills is explained with a silent peek inside Shadow’s bag, where he stashed an ink pad.)
Not everything in “Donar The Great” is as well fleshed out as that seamless scam. Back at the Regius (even its name, a variation on the more common theatrical name of Regis, draws attention to Odin’s presumption that he is royalty among gods), all the glitz distracts from the characters’ desperation… and also from the show’s occasional sloppiness.
Laura Bell Bundy plays Columbia, symbol of America long before Uncle Sam or Lady Liberty, with the voice and verve of a Jean Harlow impersonator. “She sings, she dances,” Wednesday—Al Grimnir—tells the audience in his practiced patter, “but don’t be fooled, fellas, she can shoot the balls off a flea at 50 yards!” But for all her appeal, and despite the way Wednesday talks her up, Columbia gets short shrift, her power from a shoehorned-in strip number, her plans outwitted by a word from Wednesday. If we ever see Columbia again, this will have been an adequate (not scintillating) introduction to her. If not, she’s little more than a shiny distraction.
Then there’s the shiniest distraction of all: Donar (Derek Theler), son of Odin, strongman for the Regius and their hottest ticket— “and not just with the ladies in our audience!” Indeed, with the appearance of Donar (an Old High German name for the Norse god of thunder), American Gods enthusiastically rebalances its recent indulgences of the male gaze, and how.
It’s hard to critique Theler’s performance when Thor—I mean Donar, American Gods calls him Donar for, oh, some reason— is so passive and unreflective. Though the camera lavishes attention on his form and performance, Donar himself is barely more detailed than the background characters in the leather-jacket racket. Is that because writer Adria Lang intended to make direct comparison with those unconsidered victims of Odin’s scheme? Or because underserving supporting characters is the habit American Gods has fallen into lately? The answer will come only in future episodes, when we see whether the show (and writers) further probe Wednesday’s sorrow over his lost son, or whether the sacrifice of Donar is just a chance to shed some crocodile tears without killing off another established character.
One thing Donar’s death does without compromise: It establishes a method of death from which there is no returning, even for gods. I expect that Chekhov’s gun (Odin’s spear?) to resurface in later chapters.
When I say American Gods is going full Cabaret, I don’t mean just the singing, the sequins, or even the welcome return of the show’s swagger. I’m talking about fresh-faced young Nazis who walk in mid-show, confidently surveying the dissolution around them. But the Friends Of New Germany, led by Manfred (Douglas Nyback), don’t want to shut down the burlesque. They want its strongman, its moneymaker. They want Odin’s son.
And Odin wants to give his son to them. “Those jackbooted idiots will elevate you to your former glory,” he tells his boy, not caring what harm may come to the world or to Donar’s name—surely the one thing a neglected god must safeguard if he is ever to woo new worshippers—from this compact.
For all its persuasively shabby glamour and undeniable fun, “Donar The Great” isn’t quite as effective as it could be. But more than any episode of the second season, “Donar The Great” shows Wednesday for what he is… and what he is is a gladhanding front man, an MC rousing the crowd’s appetite for glitzy exploits and a glimpse of flesh. What he is is a scammer, a man who’d sell his son to Nazis in exchange for greater worship, a theater owner who lies to his performers, a father who lies to his son, a gambler who would wager his greatest weapon and his son’s love in hopes of winning the big pot.
In this episode, I see a glimmer of the swashbuckling sandbagger of a show that American Gods was in its first episodes, and glimpses of its old sentiment, too. As Wednesday sits alone on the Regius’ stage, warbling “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime” in an aging man’s voice with an aging man’s quaver, American Gods muddles the decades and the wars, but I can’t quibble. “Half a million boots went marching through hell/And I was the boy with the drum” is too fitting a line to lose over a little matter like a world war or two. It’s not divine, but in “Donar The Great,” American Gods has got its swagger back—and if not its spark, at least some of its sparkle.
Stray observations
- Wednesday kneeling in the black alleyway as rain pounds down calls back to Shadow, rain pounding down around him, after Technical Boy’s droogs leave him beaten on the black ground at the end of “The Bone Orchard.”
- Technical Boy, tricked out in pre-war finery complete with an ejector-style cigarette holder, swallows orders issuing from the Regius’ cutting-edge tabletop telephone, while on stage a performer swallows fire and spits it back out.
- I love the idea of “an artifact of great power” revealed to be Lou Reed’s leather jacket. But a typical mall (and everything in “Donar The Great” suggests that this is a large, maybe even legendary, but otherwise typical mall) is full of row after row of identical mass-produced goods, each item indistinguishable from its neighbor, not uniquely sentimental objects of peculiar and well-documented provenance.
58 Comments
This episode survived on Fridge Logic. I liked it while I was watching it, but it confused me enough to create lingering questions. I thought that the CEO “gave birth to” the Technical Boy, but I guess he just gave “rebirth” to him? The Technical Boy is a lot older than I thought. What point was Nancy trying to convey to Donar with the story of how Nancy f*ed over his own people? Does this story track with what we already know about Nancy?Why did Donar kill himself?Whatever happened to Columbia? She was Manifest Destiny but became American Victory, right?What was World whispering about? / What was New Media speaking in a foreign language about?
Technical Boy keeps making zero sense to me. If he’s the embodiment of technology, then he should be old af. Like, as old as humankind itself. I can get behind his looking like a boy because technology is what propels his users into the future, so in some way it’s always “fresh”, but that’d be some seriously ancient boy by now.“What point was Nancy trying to convey to Donar”. I have no freaking idea, that story felt like a story for story’s sake. And the entire presence of Nancy in the episode felt contractual obligation to Orlando Jones.“Why did Donar kill himself?” Also: why was he so hateful of his father, to the point of rather be leaving to die alone rather than at least try and talk to Columbia first?Also: how is Columbia an Old God? She’s a 18th century invention. And again, the New Gods aren’t really that new. There was media in Homer’s time. There was globalization in the Roman Empire’s time.
Technical Boy and Media may only be as old as the worship of those things. If you count simple tools, technology most likely predates man. However,I would say prior to the industrial revolution or maybe the renaissance, there wasn’t this mass reverence for technology and that ramped up considerably in the 20th century. Maybe his youthfulness is a correlation to how much it is worshipped.
Media has only really been “worshipped” since the advent of television or maybe movies.
I disagree (and I think this is where Gaiman’s metaphorical construct crumbles).Fire is technology. Fire was worshiped. They told tales about how fire came to be, celebrating the technological advancement. Hephaestus was a Greek god of technology, and he’s not the only one.Books are media. Book were (and are) worshiped. Fictional characters were worshiped before the advent of mass media.At the height of the Roman Empire, there was great pride in how the Roman way of life and their customs and laws and religion were spreading throughout the known world. They worshiped their globalization.
I was thinking about Fire, which was made by an ancestor of man, but that worship manifested itself in the old gods. And after fire, what was truly worshipped technologically? So there would be a long gap between the old gods invented to explain fire and the new god of technology fetishism. Can you elaborate on examples of book fetishism or worship?
Monks spending a large part of their lives copying texts, maybe?
I don’t think we’re on the same page (pun not intended) about what constitutes worship. And maybe I’m wrong and Gaiman had a perfectly valid foundation with his definition. But it’s not like people nowadays are building altars and making actual sacrifices to Jennifer Lawrence or Minecraft. They’re just consuming those as industrial products; a fraction of those “followers” are obsessing over the object of their mediatic attention, experiencing love for it (this is more likely when it’s a physical person rather than, say, a game).So if that’s the kind of worship that empowers the deity or incarnation, then we should consider how a book, which is definitely media, is the basis of all major monotheistic religions, and that means billions of people consuming it and obsessing over it. Physical copies of such a book are considered sacred relics. And more: the Constitution, the first editions, the writers being idolized since at least the Renaissance, the image of a ruler and military leader held as a religious icon, and so on. That’s all expression of the power of Media, which reproduces and disseminates a message through words and pictures.As for technology, let’s concede its worship doesn’t go back to the dawn of Man (I think all the gods of hunt or metallurgy or agriculture and such are actually expressions of Technology, not distinct entities, just like Marilyn Monroe and David Bowie are expressions of Media, not gods themselves – but things get a bit muddled this way, because then many Old Gods might follow this path). Still, I feel like the more technology became part of our everyday life, the less attention we paid to it. It lost its mystique, whereas, say, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, there was still something sacred and ritualistic associated with it, it was the beacon to illuminate the future. Today, it’s more seen as a servant than worshiped as a god (you could make a case for Science, but it’s a different concept altogether). But even if we maintain Technology is a New God that came to be in the 18th century, which is recent compared to the Cult of Wotan, well, then what is Columbia doing with the Old Gods? The first registered use of the name as a representation of America dates to just 1738.
“Today, [Technology]’s more seen as a servant than worshiped as a god”It may have lost some cachet, but have you ever seen a line for a new Apple product or Listened to a tech bro. Technology has never been more fetishized than it is now. And never before the 20th century did it receive the adulation, or did people attach so much hope to it. Except maybe with fire as you said.
Before the 20th century most people in the Western world couldn’t read. The elites did and some peasants did. The Bible, for one example, was a book representing the Christian God, who is not a modern god.
Not sure that the Apple fanatics are a significant percentage of the Apple consumers.And the “representing something else” is true of all media, but it’s not the way Gaiman applied the concept. In the American Gods universe, if you’re a devout listener of televangelists, are you giving worship points to Christ or Media? I’d say the specific content doesn’t seem to matter (TV and movies don’t share one all-inclusive philosophy after all), and in that case it wouldn’t matter for Bible and Quran, too.
I didn’t intend to get into semiotics. What I meant was the holy books are part and parcel of the worship of the old gods. They aren’t worshipped or revered in the absence of the religious system and god(s) whose tales they tell.
I agree with jmyoung123, even if there was this worship in ancient history, for a long time there wasnt. Enough time for a god to die and rebirth as we are presented now.Even in the industrial time, there was no worship on technology, there was only work, work, work…the worship of tech is new, is 20th century new.
The thing about those aspects of technology and media is they were seen as gifts from the Gods. Fire is often said to come from the gods in early myths (Prometheus is the most famous example), and there are usually patron gods of poetry, music, literature etc. They were not seen as amazing things in themselves but as things that must have divine provenance. Even Rome being proud of spreading across the world would have been seen as a sign that the Gods favoured them.I think what makes technology a god-like thing to people in the modern era is we get to the point where it becomes a mysterious thing and people start using machines that they don’t understand. A hammer or a shovel is a simple thing to understand: you know how it works, you could probably make one yourself even if you didn’t do a great job. But when you get into telephones and later into computers and things like that, it becomes more opaque. I use a computer everyday, and while I’m aware that some people know how they work, I couldn’t explain to you how a bunch of 1s and 0s in sequence means I can type this right now. People react to technology with a mixture of love, fear, awe and gratitude, which are all very worshipful feelings.It’s the same with media. After a while, people moved away from art being a divine gift, to something that we acknowledged people created, and then to something more ephemeral. There’s a reason people talk about “movie magic” – there’s a sense that once cameras came along, stories were transmuted into something both real and unreal at the same time. I think a lot of people understand movie-making even less than technology. They know it’s all made up, and yet there’s some element to it that feels realer than real.
American worship of technology probably begins with Edison in the late 1800s, but the original avatar would be some tinkering, slightly eccentric, inventor not a brash youth.
You’re right about Columbia being new. She is the American god(dess), or she was until Lady Liberty came along, and America itself is pretty new. I wonder if winning over the reigning deity of America would mean something special to the divine warriors (Old Gods and New). I also wonder if there’s a goddess Britannia, etc.
I don’t think it would mean much, considering she was, as stated, being replaced by Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam. So they might as well go after those. In fact, what ever happened with her deal with Technical Boy? They founded Columbia Pictures? (That happened in 1924 though, so it doesn’t track). (But it means there were still lots of people who at least knew of Columbia’s effigy by WWII, even outside the US).
I think Technical Boy looks young because we only worship new technology, while old technology is taken for granted. So, he always looks shiny and new and trendy.
I was under the impression that Colombia became Colombia records and broadcasting.
It was Columbia in the ‘Rosie the Riveter” poster. Looks like she took the deal in the end. Wonder what she’s up to now?
That’s precisely what I thought; Columbia as Rosie the Riveter.
I took Nancy’s story to be a warning from his own existence. He turned on those that had loved and protected him for power, and ended with those that loved him being harmed. Had Donar gone with the Nazis, Nancy is saying, he could expect the same result.
As far as Columbia’s immediate fate, I believe the “We Can Do It!” poster on the wall behind Donar as he’s checking out is there to imply that she becomes Rosie the Riveter. As it’s not the Naomi Parker version but redone to resemble Columbia.
This episode made great use of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
I just want to take a moment to appreciate this shot.
Yeah that scene was something. I’m trying to ascribe meaning from the mirrors and the mannequins but I’m coming up empty.
I was thinking that the mirrors show Wednesday and Shadow at cross purposes, though they seem to be facing each other / working together at the moment. Shadow’s reflection is walking away from Wednesday’s, with borrowed legs that aren’t sure which way to go, while Wednesday’s reflection is scheming, always scheming, with two heads between, one clearly pensive. The dynamic between Shadow and Wednesday seems to matter a great deal since they have so many people paying attention to them, yet these people aren’t the sort to intervene or indeed to react at all.
Well, it’s a good representation of two people who aren’t communicating with each other at all. Considering both are still in their costumes, pretending to be other people, why not have a bunch of fake people there to witness it?
If you’ve read the book, the fact that looking at Wednesday right next to Shadow is a young boy might perhaps make some sense.
Hey, spoilers.
I wish that the episode had spent some more time on the significance of the death of the American mall, besides just having Wednesday recite the Dies irae about the institution’s Judgment Day.To the point about a typical mall’s not having something like Lou Reed’s jacket, I thought that this development actually made sense because a memorabilia store would be the kind of store not so easily replaced by Amazon. A good memorabilia store would be like a museum: people would browse the store just to be in the presence of history, greatness, etc.
I’ve also seen in Midwestern malls small shops like that taking over all the Wet Seals, Rainbows, and Famous Footwears of yore. It rang pretty true to me.
When the end credits rolled, my wife said “that was the saddest episode of this show ever”.
Once we had a Roosevelt
Praise the Lord!
Life had meaning and hope.
Now we’re stuck with Nixon, Agnew, Ford,
Brother, can you spare a rope?
“Kill Your Sons” may have been a bit on-the-nose for the final credit music but it was good to hear some Lou/VU besides Sweet Jane, Rock n’ Roll or Wild Side.
Actually, a dead/dying mall is usually populated by exactly those kind of bizarre, one-off stores.
I thought Columbia was a nod to RHPS…
And there was a character on Now Apocalypse named Magenta.
I had hoped when Wednesday said that Shadow reminded him of his son Shadow had said “Which one?”
This season is almost over? I’ve enjoyed bits of it, but it feels like not much has happened. They spent a couple of episodes explaining away actresses leaving, got Shadow to Cairo, dabbled around for a bit, gave a bit of history, and haven’t done much else.
They declared war in the S1 final, killed an old god in the premier… then nothing for five episodes straight. It’s like a table setting episode spread out over multiple eps.
Its because they are milking the book for every single drop of anticipated action, so that they can dole out more seasons. Its makes for a non-grandios storyline in the short term, but watching the whole thing at once, in line, and its a well thought out and complete imagining.
I’ve worked too much retail to feel anything but dread when I see the $10-an-hour employee get steamrolled like that. Even if he is a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan.Also shouldn’t Pre-War Technical Boy be some rugged, barrel-chested Robert Mitchum type or something? I don’t think the pretty boy look was as revered back then.
Yeah he felt really out of place with that look.
So Orlando Jones is great, but his monologues bore me. Yeah this season was a shit show, but his place in chewing the scenery hasn’t hit me as captivating. It felt like drama major, Yetide Badaki narrating was great and her continued stuff. She has that presence down. It was a great monologue to read.
They really are overusing the slipping-into-an-African-accent gimmick.
He’d be the American version right? I don’t really ask for any consistentcy and I’m cool accepting ridiculous stuff. I guess not figuring him out is the deal. But why so many monologues?
Because that’s what they think he’s about? It’s clear the writers are more interested in bullshit pandering than writing an actual good story.
MUH BLECK IZ BIUTIFUL!
Pandering bullshit monologues. If this is the route they keep going, I’m done. McShane or no McShane.
To me Orlando Jones? When he monologous sounds like he’s slipping into a French accent. Its like he’s splitting his time betwixt American Gods and some French side project we aren’t seeing… yet?I find it funny but distracting.
Just because Odin THINKS Donar is dead by suicide, doesn’t mean he actually You’re as dumb as you are fat, aren’t you?
I liked it – closest episode ever to season 1. Not everything worked (New Gods’ HQ, Nancy’s monologue) but it was a decent character-centric piece for Wednesday, the pacing was snappier and less drudgy, and Shadow got to have some fun. The next showrunner may not be able to imitate the first season but he’d be wise to emulate the pros of this episode.Funny to see Derek Theler as “Thor”. He was on the shortlist for Captain America and will be Mr. Immortal on New Warriors, whenever that will air and most likely on Disney+.
I agree. It definitely didn’t reach the highs of season 1, but for the first time this season, I never once looked at the time to see how much more episode there was. It actually entertained and was even a fun watch (as much as a watch involving a suicide can be called that)—though I would have just cut the brief New Media stuff. American Gods would do well to remember that doing a strip tease to Cole Porter, throwing in some male eye candy, and focusing primarily on just a few characters each episode can do them a lot of good.
And what, no mention in the review of Rachel Talalay’s masterpiece, Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy’s Dead (OK I kid, that’s the only film in the series I honestly have a hard time even sitting through) or her techny Elm Street attempt, Ghost in the Machine? She does seem to be doing a lot of good TV work however (mostly filmed in Vancouver where she teaches a film course at UBC I believe).
Of course the spear will be back; it’s kinda important in the book lol
After a bunch of episodes that just spun their wheels, we finally in the last two episodes seem to have picked up some momentum. The show is finally feeling like the show it was in season one.This season I think will go down like Season Two of The Walking Dead. Too talky and lacking direction. Hopefully, having made its transition, and with a new show runner for season three, we will have a season that will know where it wants to go from day one.
I did not expect to see the Bishop grift adapted into the series (especially as, in the book, Mr Wednesday is adamant it would no longer work), but I’m so thrilled it was. I loved Shadow bringing back Andy Haddock. For all the liberties taken and things I think the series has gotten wrong, both the show and Ricky Whittle’s performance have nailed the idea of Shadow as someone who can just step into new personae like he’s putting on a fresh set of clothes. Here’s hoping we can get a scene of the fiddle game too.
worst episode of the season.
The deceptively named “American Gods” was a British antiAmerican propaganda movie aimed against America about British gods that was never seen or heard of in America except by a few Bwitish comment troll accounts on Twitter. The British bawstawds tried marketing this antiAmerican propaganda revision of America using fake Wikipedia pages. When that failed they had to resort to fake comment trolls on communist media propatainment sites. And when that didn’t work the Bwitish finally shutup their lying commie faggo buttholes. FAILED BOMB DISASTER IS CANCELLED PERMANENTLY!!
Not even a single comment about Wednesday’s alias? For shame! Having people call Ian McShane ‘Al’ made me smile every time.