American Gods

Starring: Ricky Whittle (26 episodes), Emily Browning (26 episodes), Ian McShane (26 episodes), Yetide Badaki (26 episodes), Bruce Langley (26 episodes), Omid Abtahi (21 episodes), Crispin Glover (19 episodes), Demore Barnes (16 episodes), Pablo Schreiber (16 episodes), Orlando Jones (10 episodes), Ashley Reyes (10 episodes), Mousa Hussein Kriash (10 episodes), Bridget Ogundipe (8 episodes), Julia Sweeney (7 episodes), Herizen F. Guardiola (7 episodes), Peter Stormare (7 episodes), Karen Glave (7 episodes), Lela Loren (6 episodes), Eric Johnson (6 episodes), Eric Peterson (6 episodes), Kahyun Kim (5 episodes), David Reale (5 episodes), Jane Spidell (5 episodes), Spencer Macpherson (5 episodes), Gillian Anderson (4 episodes), Denis O'Hare (4 episodes), Sakina Jaffrey (4 episodes), Blythe Danner (3 episodes), Cloris Leachman (3 episodes), Chris Obi (3 episodes), Gil Bellows (3 episodes), Iwan Rheon (2 episodes), Marilyn Manson (2 episodes), Betty Gilpin (2 episodes), Graham Greene (2 episodes), Danny Trejo (2 episodes), Jonathan Tucker (1 episode), Corbin Bernsen (1 episode), Jeremy Davies (1 episode), Kristin Chenoweth (1 episode), Dane Cook (1 episode), Dean Winters (1 episode), William Sanderson (1 episode), Glynn Turman (1 episode)
Directed by: David Slade (3 episodes), Adam Kane (2 episodes), Christopher J. Byrne (2 episodes), Vincenzo Natali (1 episode), Deborah Chow (1 episode), Floria Sigismondi (1 episode)
Rating: TV-MA
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
2017-2021

Seasons Seen:
Tim: 1 - 2 - 3

Summary: Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) is released from prison when his ex-wife (Emily Browning) is killed in a car accident. He meets a mysterious man, Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane) who seems to have knowledge and powers that far exceed any mortals.

Review:
Tim: It's hard to summarize a show like American Gods, that had so many ups-and-downs and drama throughout it's three seasons. There were things I loved about the series and there were a lot of disappointments as well. I definitely enjoyed some of this series, but I was ultimately relieved it got cancelled. Let's start at the beginning.

A few years ago, I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I had heard good things and I remembered being so excited about the book. I admit I'm not the biggest Gaiman fan, but I left the book feeling disappointed. I loved the characters and I thought Gaiman's book was filled with big ideas, but the execution felt lacking. I never really cared about the story that much. It felt meandering and unclear to me. So, when I heard Starz was going to adapt it for television, I was ecstatic. This was the chance to build on Gaiman's strengths but to fix many of the issues with the novel. That didn't quite happen here. The series starts out as a painfully close adaptation, even when it shouldn't. As the seasons progress and the series moves away and branches out, that just created a whole host of different issues. The story is still meandering and secondary to the characters themselves. The story still suffers from a lack of clarity, a lack of compelling reason why. It's still too plodding and meandering. Now, I was a big fan of the first season. It was faithful to the novel, yes. It did make some improvements. However, things fell apart in season two and the third season was a slow march to death. This was a series that had huge potential, but like the source material, never quite lives up to it.

As I said, the first season is actually really good. It captures that same excitement of the early parts of the book- you're introduced to these amazing characters like Shadow Moon and Mr. Wednesday. There's mystery and intrigue and it's all great fun to be part of it. I loved the early parts of the book and that translates well on screen. It's helped by some of the greatest visuals I've seen in any television series, ever. Seriously, it had to cost Starz quite a bit because the series is absolutely gorgeous. The visual effects, the dreamlike, phatasmagorphic depiction of the world and the deities, the supernatural, it's all so crisp, vivid, and brilliant. I loved the look of this series. While the first season is the best, the visual approach does continue in seasons two and three and it remains one of the series' best strengths.

The cast is wonderful and they expand on the characters from the book and make them more real. I liked Shadow Moon in the book, but I loved what Ricky Whittle did in the role. Seriously, he is incredible and I loved his performance. He makes Shadow this fascinating human being- one who has experienced incredible pain and trauma, yet retains his heart and his hope. Whittle was fantastic in this role and I'll probably always have a soft spot in my heart for him, based on this performance. Surprisingly, I actually thought Whittle did some of his best work in the otherwise bad third season. Changing his hair was great, but he gives the most heartfelt, dramatic performance yet. As the series got worse, Whittle got better.

Emily Browning was incredible, too. I didn't care that much for Laura Moon in the book, but Browning's performance completely changes that. Laura is fascinating- flawed, yes, but capable of incredible things. I was oftentimes mesmerized by what Browning did. She transforms into this character and she significantly made the film better. She was excellent. Ian McShane was brilliant, too. He took a great character- Wednesday- and made him legendary. I can't even describe how much I loved McShane in this role. Every single thing he did was interesting. Even when the script let him down (which happened frequently), McShane was all in. He was one of the highlights of the series.

I loved Pablo Schreiber, too. Similarly, he made Mad Sweeney so much more interesting than he was in the book. I wish he was in the series more- it was immediately better every time he came on screen. Crispin Glover was decent, appropriately weird, as you would expect. I liked seeing Gillian Anderson during the first season and missed her after that. Similar can be said about Orlando Jones. We got a lot of time with Bruce Langley and it was too much time. Langley was never as good as the series seemed to think he was and the momentum often ground to a halt when he showed up. The same was true for Yetide Badaki. It's hard for me to judge her performance because she was saddled with terrible scripts that felt like her character only wasted our time. I'm not sure why so much time was spent on such an uninteresting character. Omid Abtahi was strong- I wish he had more to do. He was really good, although his character did get whiny as the series progressed. I liked what Demore Barnes did in his small doses. Peter Stormare was solid and always made the episodes more exciting, whenever he showed up on screen. I appreciated what Iwan Rheon did with just a few episodes. The cast was pretty big and a lot of famous faces showed up for short periods of time. That was absolutely fun.

So, I loved the visuals and I loved the cast. The story was as plodding and uninteresting as the book. You have a lot of gods talking about war and conflict and then not much actually happening. The series desperately needed more action, more momentum. I'll give you an example. One of the best parts of the third season was this departure from the main story where Shadow starts building a life in a small town. This was important for Shadow's character development but has so little to do with the main storyline about gods and their conflict. And, that was by far the best part of the third season. The rest of it felt overly complex and not very interesting. Especially in seasons two and three, I was routinely bored by what I saw on screen.

While there's a lot I enjoyed about this series, I ultimately felt relieved it was cancelled. It wasn't going in a good direction. I was discouraged that the series felt much like the book- some incredible aspects but finally falls far short of what it could have been. Still, I'm glad I watched for those strengths. It was worth it, even if it failed to meet expectations.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Series, We Recommend: Game of Thrones, Legion, Preacher