American Gods 1.02 “The Secret of Spoons”

The Rundown: In this adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s best-selling novel we get to see the wild world of America’s Gods, old and new, up close and personal.

In last week’s episode of American Gods, we continued on Shadow’s road trip with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday. After getting abducted and almost killed by The Technical Boy we see Shadow trying to come to terms with the weirdness and horror that has suddenly infected his life.

While I like some of the tonal shifts the show takes with the source material, I don’t know if I’m completely sold on the immediate upping of stakes the show does from the start. In the novel, the story of Shadow and Wednesday is portrayed as a kind of lazy American road trip gone weird. With some really intimate moments of suspense and surrealness that happen away from the prying eyes of the public. The shift of a scene from a dingy hotel room along one of the forgotten highways of America is very different from the middle of a bustling department store. Still, I don’t know if that kind of in-your-face escalation isn’t what this show needs to captivate a primetime audience. The rising tensions and shroud of mystery make for great television, and I am constantly on the edge of my seat for what happens next.

Once again though, amidst the slight shifts in tone, we get some that original Neil Gaiman feel from the end of the episode. The scene with Czernobog is almost exactly like what I pictured from the books, and it has the feel of a reluctant reunion with old friends with a subtext and history only vaguely hinted at. While the show has not been stingy with its portrayal of gods and the humans who worship them, it still becomes hard to pin down who is what, or who is which deity, or even if what they’re talking about is on a level we can understand at all, let alone if it’s relevant to some kind of bigger picture.

If the last episode left you in suspense, this one will be similarly infuriating. The pacing is great, and when the episode ends all you can do is yearn for more. On to the next episode, and the many gods of America that await us within!