• July 24, 2017
• Leave a Comment on REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 102
• American Gods, Reviews, Starz, Television
• American Gods, review, The Secret Of Soon

REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 102

Like the pilot, “The Secret of Spoon” starts with a little sideline scene, but that still fits completely to the story. A few centuries ago, in a boat full of slaves, a black man prays to his God for help, and in fact a God appears, but probably not the one he was praying for. This way we meet Mr. Nancy, short for Anansi, African trickster God. Like any other God (as we saw in the first moments of the last episode), what Nancy wants is death, sacrifices in his name to keep his belly full. What I like about tricksters in shows and movies (at least in the good ones) is that they usually trick people by telling them the truth, and that is exactly what he does. He tells those soon-to-be slaves all about their not-so-bright future once they get to America. And that makes them burn the ship, killing all those aboard. Pleased, Nancy manages to get back to shore, in a spider form, ready to continue with his tricks.

But Nancy isn’t the only God we meet in this episode. When Shadow goes shopping for Wednesday, he crosses paths with Media who is Mass Media and Entertainment personified. This time she appears as Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy. Even after unplugging all the TV’s in the store, Media is still there and she is focused on hiring Shadow, welcoming him to the “winners team” saying that Wednesday is “old news”. I love when she says that the screen is the altar and what people sacrifice to her is time and attention. There are definitely a lot of differences between old and new Gods, but it is really interesting to think about it and realize that maybe sacrificing attention may be better than sacrificing lives. When you sacrifice a life, it may be a powerful sacrifice, but that’s it. But when you sacrifice attention, you do it today, tomorrow and you also did it yesterday. This may prove that the New Gods may have an upper hand. Or not.

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It was also nice seeing how old-fashioned Wednesday is, which could not be in any other way. It was hilarious when he threw the phone off the car window and when he said they would not be using highways, ever. In this episode we also have one of the first clues to Wednesday’s real identity. When Czernobog gets home, he calls him “Wotan”. I am not going to talk about it here (at least not now) because I don’t want to spoil those people that want to find out who he is in the context of the show, but if you do want to find out about it, just google “Wotan”, and you will find it easily.

We are also introduced in this episode to the mysterious Zorya sisters (who come from Slavic mythology). If you, like me, had never heard of them don’t worry because who they are and what they do is explain in the next episode (pretty close to the beginning if I am not mistaken). Apart from these, we also meet Czernobog, who, as a cow killer, also doesn’t like modern tools very much (the details in the explanation he gives are beyond weird and scary, even for someone whose name can be translated as “Black God”).

Czernobog challenges Shadow to a game of checkers and they eventually make a wager that is only worthy of the “Black God” himself: if Shadow wins, Czernobog will go with Wednesday and help him on his quest, but if Shadow loses, he gets to smash his head and brain with a hammer. I think this is the moment Shadow kind of starts to believe the things around him. After seeing Media he was a bit reluctant about the whole thing, but then he sees Czernobog’s hammer bleeding and he just gives up on trying to find a reasonable explanation for everything, because “The world is either crazy or you are”, like Wednesday said.

I think it is also nice to reflect about the title of this episode, because unlike the premiere’s title, this one is not as much straightforward. While Czernobog and Shadow are playing checkers, the “Black God” starts singing a song and after a little digging I found the lyrics:

My love made the sweetest coffee with no sugar at all

She only stirred with her spoon and it was done

Now my drink is bitter, the secret of spoon forgotten

When my voice breaks on this song, remember all love gone

And drink the bitter coffee

And drink the bitter coffee.

We see earlier that the Zorya sisters can read the future through what stays in the cup after one drinks his coffee, and that is what she does with Shadow. But after saying she will do it, Wednesday gets a spoon and mixes his coffee, maybe making it impossible for Zorya Vechernyaya to read his future, and therefore, that secret is forever lost to the spoon.

Overall, this episode was great. It was nice being introduced to new characters, especially knowing that each one has a meaning of its own. This way, I will give it a 8.3/10 (I don’t want to overrate it, because it is only going to get better and better).

Stay tuned for my next review of episode 103 entitled “Head Full of Snow”.