American Gods Casting Sam Black Crow Character
New Media won’t be the only new character on Season 2 of Starz’s American Gods.
According to TVLine, the Starz drama is looking for a young, Native American actress to play Sam Black Crow in Season 2.
In Neil Gaiman’s novel, Shadow Moon meets Sam Black Crow while she’s hitchhiking. She’s described as a forthright half-Cherokee/half white college student. Sam becomes entwined in Shadow’s journey in an unexpected way.
H/T: TVLine
Production on American Gods: Season 2 Has Commenced
It looks like American Gods has already started production on Season 2.
Ricky Whittle, the star of the Starz hit (See what I did there?), tweeted an image of him with his amazing co-stars saying “season 2 begins work”.
My squad 🔥🔥 AMERICAN GODS season 2 begins work, so blessed I get to work with this incredible family and we can’t wait for you to join us #believe #wariscoming #wowwhatafirstepisode 😱😱🔥🔥 #americangods #season2 pic.twitter.com/kGSAF5r90W
— Ricky Whittle (@MrRickyWhittle) April 6, 2018
Since production just started, I think it’s safe to assume that the series will hit our television screens towards the end of 2018 / beginning of 2019.
As Media would say, “Stay tuned.”
American Gods Announces New Media Role
TVLine reports that the Starz series American Gods will add the role of New Media in the upcoming second season.
The show is looking for a 20-something, Asian woman to play the new series regular, which symbolizes the role of social media in modern American life (the same way that Gillian Anderson’s Media represented television and pop culture in Season 1).
Production on American Gods‘ sophomore season is scheduled to begin in May.
H/T: TVLine
REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 108
American Gods returns with episode 8 of season one, the season finale, entitled “Come to Jesus” and everyone is eager to have a meeting with Ostara.
It was time for Mr. Ibis to take a break and for Mr. Nancy to be the one in the spotlight (quite literally). Nancy tells the story of Bilquis, Goddess of love and character who is not unfamiliar to us viewers. This backstory was definitely something that we needed, we just didn’t know it. We saw that she went from a Queen who had everything she wanted, to a homeless woman who didn’t have a lot more than the clothes she was wearing. We were able to find out that she, like Vulcan, accepted the help of the New Gods in order to rise again, and that is something pretty much everyone would do. Maybe Bilquis isn’t as loyal to them as Vulcan seemed to be, but ultimately the new Gods took her out of poverty and starvation, and so she is in big debt to them. Moral of the story: “You need to get yourself a Queen”.
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Wednesday and Shadow head to Kentucky to do just that. There, they find Ostara, commonly known as Easter, Goddess of Spring, resurrection and rebirth. Ostara was definitely not nearly as happy to see Wednesday as Wednesday was to see her, but she became quite charmed with Shadow and the feeling was clearly mutual. Nowadays, when we think of Easter we think of Jesus and the resurrection, but truth is that Easter existed long before that and, just like Christmas time, Easter celebrated the equinox. Ostara may be, among the Old Gods, one of the few who is doing fine, but, in the end of the day, she is just as forgotten as they all are. Even though people still celebrate Easter (which gives her some power), they don’t do it in her name anymore, and Wednesday makes sure to point that out.
It totally made a lot of sense seeing many Jesuses in this episode. In fact, there are many people who worship him, but everyone has a different tradition, a different interpretation of the bible, and so, without realizing it, people believe, not in one Jesus, but in several ones. And, as it is our belief that creates Gods, apparently it can also create more and more Jesuses.
Meanwhile, Laura and Mad Sweeney arrived to their destination, and who better to bring someone back from the dead than the Goddess of resurrection herself? But not all deaths are the same, and after looking into Laura’s case, Ostara realized she can’t bring her back to life because she was killed by a God (or as Sweeney put it, she was sacrificed to a God). It is this way that Laura finds out that she and Shadow have been manipulated by Wednesday for a while, at least since they came up with the “perfect plan” to rob the casino. For some reason, Wednesday wanted Shadow in a position where he had nothing to lose because he had already lost everything. This definitely proves that Shadow wasn’t the one picked to be Wednesday’s body guard just because he was the first strong guy Wednesday could find. There is clearly a lot more to it and I can’t wait to find out what it is.
It was after this that we got to see that amazing, crazy super scene in which everything was happening at the same time. Media arrived. Unlike the Technical Boy, Media doesn’t want to start a war (I am not really saying the Technical Boy wants to start one, but he probably wouldn’t mind it too much). Media wants to enlist Gods to keep them in check, to make sure they are not going to start a mutiny, but she is not willing to do everything to make this happen. Ostara feels misrepresented by the media and the new Goddess pretty much says that she doesn’t care, and tells her to adapt. This is how it has been and this is how it will continue to be.
After Media, it didn’t take long for the other known New Gods to show up, and I have to say, I always love Media and Technical Boy’s outfits. Media’s outfits are always very modern and fashionable but at the same time, historical and old. Technical Boy’s are always so futuristic and rebel teenage-like. The New Gods couldn’t be more confident they will prevail. As they said, they control everything. The only way the Old Gods would announce themselves would be if they went house by house knocking on doors and, even so, no one would listen to them, no one would care about them. The New Gods are “the flow”; the “platform AND the delivery mechanism”.
But the New Gods weren’t seeing the big picture, they were underestimating Ostara. After having her power increased because of a few deaths in her name, Ostara was able to take the spring away, and so the scene just got better and better. Apparently, the Old Gods didn’t need a delivery mechanism, because they have one that is more effective than any other. If people want to see flowers again, leaves on trees, crops grow, green fields… they are going to have to pray for it. “You give a little, you get a little”. That is how it used to be, and that is how the Old Gods want it to be again.
It makes all the sense in the world that the war between Old Gods and New Gods isn’t a physical one, but a war for everyone’s belief. First of all, because no physical war would live up to the audience’s expectations. Secondly, even if the Old Gods won and killed the New Gods, what good would that do? They would still not be important, and the New Gods would eventually be back because people would continue to believe in them. If the Old Gods want to kill their opponents, they will have to make sure that no one believes in them anymore.
It was also in this overwhelming scene that Wednesday revealed who he really is: his real name is Odin, Germanic God of all Gods. Like everything in this show, the pseudonym “Wednesday” didn’t come out of nowhere. “Wednesday” is derived from the old English “Wodenstaeg”, which means day of Woden (which is one of Odin’s many names).
I am going to apologize in advance for what I am about to say because not a lot of people share my opinion in this, but if I have to pick a team, I will pick the New Gods. Everyone likes their TV, their technologies, social media, oil… and that is what the New Gods represent. The Old Gods had their time of prosperity, now they either need to “adapt and survive” (like Media said), or disappear and die. It is a good thing that the New Gods are making sure some of the old palls still survive and still have some believers. They should be happy with that. It is definitely time to say: Out with the old and in with the new.
This was definitely an awesome episode. Finally Shadow believes, finally the war is on, finally Wednesday revealed his true identity, finally Shadow saw Laura again. There was only a problem with it, a very big one in fact: after watching it, we have to wait almost a year to watch a new one. I am giving this episode a 9.9/10 (I am saving my 10, in case there is a better one coming).
With this, I conclude my reviews of season 1 of this amazing show. It was, like any other, a season with its highs and lows, but overall a really amazing one. Hope it doesn’t take too long for season 2 to start.
REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 107
American Gods continues the season with episode 7, “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney”, which seemed a little like a standalone episode, but a good one nonetheless.
“The American colonies were as much as a dumping ground as they were an escape”. It is like this that we begin a new chapter of Ibis’ “Coming to America” story. America was in fact the land of dreams, but for some to be living the dream, others would have to work for both themselves and for the dreamers, and that was not forgotten in this episode of American Gods.
In this very peculiar chapter, we meet Essie McGowan and a comparison between her and Laura is inevitable, since they were portrayed by the same actress: they both struggle for the life they think they deserve, neither one of them forgets what matters to them (at least they rarely do), and both of them always seem to want more, no matter how much they have. Something that is also inevitable to compare is their beliefs: Essie seems to fully believe in a lot of things, but mostly leprechauns; while Laura doesn’t believe in anything (at least she didn’t use to, but that is probably different now).
What I enjoyed most about Essie’s character was her belief. As I just said, she believes in a lot of things, but, unlike a lot of people, she doesn’t believe as a hobby. Every day (sometimes maybe more than once a day) she would spare some food, put it on a plate and serve to the leprechauns. Of course this was definitely not a very big deal when she had lots of food to eat, but she didn’t always, and she would still remember them. There were in fact a few occasions in which she forgot this, but not because she kept all the food for herself, but because she was busy. It is probably because of Essie that a certain Irish leprechaun found himself in America. Leprechauns have been nothing but a myth for a long long time and so they would have to follow the believers wherever they went. I also even wonder if the coin that Mad Sweeney says to be his lucky coin (the one that is now inside Laura) isn’t the one that Essie gave him. That would be interesting.
But though there were a lot of scenes from the past, the present was not forgotten. We continued to see the trip that Laura, Salim and Mad Sweeney share. But Salim didn’t stay long in this episode because he was given what he wanted sooner than he expected: the location of the Jinn in House of the Rock. I am not yet sure what this is, but we will probably see it next season. I was told this is an amazing part of the story, so I am looking forward to it.
With Salim gone, Laura and Sweeney continued their journey in an ice cream truck, which was probably great for Laura because her body is rotting really fast. But most journeys have detours and this was no different: because of a little bunny (which means they are close to their destination), the truck crashed. Sweeny was fine, but the same can’t be said for Laura, because her body was opened and the coin jumped out of her. Our favorite leprechaun picked it up and was definitely thinking of just going away, when he looks back and starts thinking of what he should do. And this is the moment we find out that he was actually the one who killed Laura in the first place, by Wednesday’s command. That’s right! Even though Wednesday wasn’t physically in this episode, he will always be the one pulling the strings of the other characters.
It was nice seeing the interaction between Laura and Sweeney, both in the present and past. Both actors do in amazing job (all cast does an amazing job in this show actually). It was curious that the writers made this episode to be the penultimate, because those are usually more shocking episodes that set up the season finale. But Americans Gods is now expected to the unexpected, so we shouldn’t really be shocked about something like this. Of course that I don’t have to say that Wednesday and Shadow were both missed. As much as I like Laura and Mad Sweeny’s interactions, I love Wednesday and Shadow’s relationship more.
This was a good episode, but a bad one by comparison. Even among the greatest of the greats there is one which comes as the worst, and that is the case of “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney”. I am giving it a 7.4/10.
Episode 8, “Come to Jesus”, is the season finale and a new battle between old Gods and new will take place, so don’t miss my next review.
REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 106
American Gods returns with episode 106, and looking back now, one may realize that this episode’s title is a bit heavy on spoilers: “A Murder of Gods”.
In another “Coming to America” chapter, we see Mexicans trying to illegally cross the border to get to the new land. To do so, they need to cross a river and, even though no one said anything, not everyone could swim. But in the end this didn’t turn out to be much of a problem: you don’t need to be able to to swim if you have a friend who can walk on water. The real problem appeared when they were all setting foot in America: border guards (at least I think they were border guards of some sort) started shooting everyone. Jesus tried to protect the man he had just saved from drowning and gets shot in the hands and then in the chest in the best Jesus-like way. We didn’t see what happened to the people he was trying to save, but it is likely that they died (I am an optimistic, but also realistic). But none of what I said some far fits the Most Interesting Things category, but here is something that does: the bullets the guards used to kill everyone had the name Vulcan on them. Yeah, that’s right, Vulcan, God of fire and the forge, the God we meet later in this episode. Maybe he wondered why he was a bit more powerful the day that happened, and maybe he didn’t know why, but we do: someone sacrificed a Jesus in his name. The irony in all this (and this also fits into the Most Interesting Things category) is that the guards were also religious, and probably believed in the same God the Mexicans did.
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“What came first: Gods or the people who believe in them?”. This is something Wednesday says early in the episode and definitely something that will allow everyone to think about until their head hurts. In the most “chicken and egg” scenario, this may be as impossible to prove (unless you ask the Gods themselves). If it is people’s belief that creates Gods, then maybe Humanity came first. But if that is so, Humanity got it wrong, because no God created the Universe, let alone Earth.
While we think about this (im)possible situation, Shadow and Wednesday make their way to Virginia, more specifically, a small town named Vulcan. When they arrive they witness a funeral, or, as Wednesday put it, the celebration of a sacrifice. In the lead there is Vulcan. Coincidence that the Mayor’s name is the same that the town’s? The residents might think so, but we know better. Unlike many of the Old Gods, Vulcan is going tremendously well. Every death by those Vulcan bullets (or by the forge itself) is a sacrifice in his name, every bullet shot to the air is a prayer. But of course Vulcan didn’t manage to do this on his own, he had the help of the New Gods. They probably made him a deal similar to the one they made Wednesday, the only difference is that Vulcan took it.
Wednesday definitely goes by many names and in this episode we find out one more: “Grimnir”. This is what Vulcan calls him before Wednesday asks him to join the upcoming war. Putting on a masquerade, Vulcan accepts and even forges Wednesday a blade, but that was the last thing he ever forged because Grimnir cuts his head off with it, after finding out where Vulcan’s loyalties lie.
In the meantime, we see that Laura and Mad Sweeney’s journey continues. They find each other again and also, while trying to steal his taxi, find Salim. With the promise of resurrecting Laura and point Salim towards a Jinn, they go on a road trip. We also saw that the connection between Shadow and Laura was bigger than we thought, because Shadow was able to actually see her in his mind. Maybe what Laura needs isn’t a resurrection from some Jesus, but to be with Shadow for a few minutes.
This was a great episode and a bit of a shocking one too (not as great and shocking as the last, though), and so I am giving it an 8.7/10.
Gods aren’t the only ones who need you, and in next episode we will also see “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney”, so stick around.
REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 105
American Gods continued with episode 105, “Lemon Scented You”, and what an amazing episode this was. For the people who didn’t read the book (like me) and so were a little bit in the dark for the past four episodes, with no idea of what was happening, this was a very enlightening hour.
It started with another chapter of the “Coming to America” story and this time it showed the trip of one of the first tribes that ever travelled there. They suffered a lot of sacrifices along the way, and when they finally set foot in the new land they got very disappointed because there was practically no food. The leader goes to their God for help and later another tribe arrives, willing to take them in. Having faith in their God, the tribe refuses and so they get all killed except the children, who join the new tribe. After a few years they completely forget their old God and so he disappears. “It is in people’s hearts that Gods are born” but when the hearts stop believing (or start believing in something else) the Gods die. This is why Wednesday is so afraid of being forgotten. He will die and completely disappear and no one will care about it.
This first scene, unlike other scenes of the “Coming to America”, was animated and that contributed to change things a bit, giving the audience something new, but at the same time stay focused on the story they are trying to tell. This show definitely has the most incredible screen shots, no wonder it is nominated for Best Picture Editing and Best Special Visual Effects.
After two episodes of waiting, we finally see the scene in which Shadow and Laura talk. Of course Shadow is very shocked at first (who wouldn’t be) but in the end he gets over himself and they have a conversation about Rob and their affair. They even eventually kiss and that is the first time Laura feels something ever since she came back from the dead. Whatever Laura is doing here, whatever her unfinished business is, it definitely involves Shadow. Somehow Wednesday finds out about the fact Laura is alive (a crow told him) and he invites Shadow for some drinks, but the police shows up and they go to jail, because of the bank they robbed.
Meanwhile, we see an amazing scene between Technical boy and Media, who is dressed as David Bowie. I really love Media, first because Gillian Anderson is amazing in everything she does, but especially this role. Second, because every time we see her she is dressed as someone different and totally taking over that person’s character. They talk about a third New God, Mr. World, who is the leader of the New Gods and the personification of globalization. They want technical boy to apologize to Shadow and Wednesday. Another amazing thing in this show is these new Gods. The old Gods are of course physically old. The new Gods however is a different story. Mr. World is the oldest (but not that old), then Media and lastly the technical boy, because first came globalization and information, then the media and ultimately technology. It is hilarious how they treat technical boy as a child. Poor kid!
Media also mentions something really interesting: she says that the Martians invaded in 1938. I didn’t really know what she meant (yes, I am a millennial) but after a little digging I found out it was a radio series that aired on Halloween of that year. It was based on the novel “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells. It became famous because it caused mass panic, since it presented an alien invasion and everyone thought that was true. “They wanted to be real, so it was”. This was maybe the first time that Media started getting power and believers.
Back in the motel, Laura finds the Leprechaun and he desperately wants his coin back, but the coin is what is keeping Laura alive. Since he can’t take the coin (it has to be given), he is out of luck because Laura will never give it to him. In this scene he confirms what I had been thinking about: that Wednesday was manipulating Shadow. Wednesday hired Mad Sweeney to fight with Shadow back in the pilot of the show. The Leprechaun chocks Laura in the bathtub so that her body would rot quicker, and gets caught by the police.
I was saving the best for last, because the most amazing scene in this episode is the one in the police station. As I said before, we finally started to understand what was going on when Wednesday told the police officer the absolute truth (of course he didn’t believe him, but that isn’t Wednesday’s fault). After putting Shadow and Wednesday together, the new Gods start showing up. First Media, this time dressed as Marilyn Monroe, she even says that it was the FBI that killed her. Throughout the years, the media turned Marilyn Monroe into a hero, into a Goddess, and that totally reflects here. After her, Mr. World makes his first appearance in this show, and they are both followed by Technical Boy. After apologizing, they offer Wednesday a chance to “find his own audience” which to him sounds like exile. Wednesday is definitely not wrong about this, it may sound a piece offer, but they simply want him out of the way. It appears that Mr. World genuinely wanted him to take this peace offer, since he is obsessed with information and Wednesday as a lot, since he is very very old.
We know that Old Gods are many and they definitely seem more powerful, but that may not be true. We saw some of Media’s power in the scene at the police station: she sent Technical boy a kiss and that was enough to break some of his teeth. This to say that we definitely didn’t see much of the New Gods and that needs to change, because I love the interactions between them.
With all this said, this was definitely an incredible episode, maybe even the best of the season (except maybe the season finale, but I am not yet sure I will consider it better than this one). I am giving it a totally deserved 9.6.
I will be back soon with my next review of episode 106, “A Murder of Gods”, where we will meet a new (actually old) God.
Ricky Whittle Talks American Gods Season 2 at SDCC
American Gods star Ricky Whittle dropped some interesting spoiler morsels during an interview with TVLine at San Diego Comic-Con a couple of weeks ago.
Is a feline going to be smitten with Shadow Moon? Did Shadow Moon and Bilquis almost meet in Season 1? What about Laura’s great love and physical decaying? What other new characters will we be getting to know in Season Two?
Watch the following video for all the answers to those questions:
REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 104
Unlike all the previous episodes, “Git Gone” follows only one storyline: Laura’s. We see her journey since maybe a few days before she met Shadow, until the moment that ended the last episode (Laura showing up in the motel room where Shadow was staying).
First, we see that the casino where Laura works has a very peculiar theme: Egypt, or even better, old Egypt, when pharaohs were still in charge. In a show about gods where we also got to meet Anubis, in a scene like this there is irony everywhere. And it is in this same place where Laura meets Shadow, in what was a funny scene: Shadow was cheating and Laura warned him to stop or he would suffer the consequences. And this is how a new love was born.
We also saw a glimpse of Laura’s life before Shadow: it was just from work, to home where she did pretty much the same things every day. She was sad all the time, and we even saw a scene in which she tried to kill herself (I am not sure that was her exact goal, but it seemed so). After she met Shadow she started to be happier with him, but eventually she went back to her very strict daily routine, and nothing seemed to please her. She wanted to feel some excitement again and so she asked Shadow for his help to rob the casino (like Shadow had asked before). Apparently it was a perfect plan and could definitely not have failed, but it did, and that is why Shadow was in prison in the beginning of the show. Laura does say a lot of times that the plan was perfect and there was no way he could have been caught, even when he was already in jail, which makes me wonder if there was some God interference. I have been saying, in past reviews, that I think there is something special about Shadow and, if there is, then Wednesday probably had to make sure that Shadow was exactly where he wanted him. He had to make sure that Shadow had nothing to go back to when he got out, otherwise he wouldn’t take the job. So, how long was Wednesday manipulating Shadow’s life (there is if he actually was)?
We also got to see how the relationship between Laura and Rob began and ended, but this time around, Laura didn’t even feel happy again like she did when she stared seeing Shadow. It was also really great to see the parallels between Laura’s scene in “heaven” and Mrs. Fadil’s. In fact, the reason why they showed the Mrs. Fadil scene was probably so that we could “compare” it to Laura’s. Like I said before, both Mrs. Fadil and Anubis were extremely calm during the entire passage, but when it comes to Laura it is a completely different story, and not only because she didn’t pass the heart test. Laura was, as it is to expect, extremely upset and not welcome to any idea of the afterlife (like she had said before in the episode). But Laura’s journey didn’t end with her death. She was pulled back to Earth and she is now on a quest for love. Anubis warned her that this doesn’t mean she is back for good, and when she finishes her task, Anubis will take her back and put her into the darkness.
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There is also something else I enjoyed in this episode. Throughout this hour we saw that there were a lot of flies going around and Laura was obsessed with killing them with her bug spray (she used one called “Git Gone”, like the name of the episode). This is of course just a detail, but it is this kind of details that are able to take a show from “good” to “great”. In my view, this is a metaphor that represents Gods and us humans. We are the flies that are constantly bugging the Gods. When the Gods are sick of us, they use their “bug spray” on us, meaning that they do whatever they want to us, and that definitely does not keep them awake at night, after all, they simply killed a fly.
This was a good episode, but I think maybe it should have been split to other episodes, I mean, show these flashbacks throughout the previous episodes. I understand they wanted to make us wonder if Laura was truly alive and also who had saved Shadow in the pilot, but they could have still shown these scenes in this episode and just divide the ones that happened before Laura’s death, instead of “waste” an entire episode with this. It wasn’t really a waste, but I just feel like it would have been more interesting if they had done things differently.
This was, in my opinion, the worst episode so far. It was good as I said, but compared to the others it felt lacking. We didn’t see Wednesday nor any other Gods (except Anubis but he is not very important). I am giving it a 7.7/10.
Hope you guys stay tuned, because next episode, “Lemon Scented You” is really awesome.
REVIEW: American Gods, Episode 103
American Gods‘ episode 103, “Head Full of Snow”, begins, as usual, with a little sideline scene that reflects mostly the banality and unpredictability of death. Just when one is trying to get something from a high shelf, Anubis comes knocking at your door. Literally. When the woman, Mrs. Fadil, finds out she is dead, a lot of questions go through her mind, but none of them truly matter, because ultimately the little things are important too. “They will find me like this” and “they won’t even taste my meal” are two thoughts that go through her mind. It is also nice to notice how calm both people in this scene are. No bad words, no tempers lost, the conversation just flows naturally (there may not be anything more natural than death). After climbing an almost infinite staircase, Anubis and Mrs. Fadil arrive to what we may refer as heaven, and the cinematography in this scene is beyond incredible. There he weights her heart against a feather. In this moment we see the concern on Mrs. Fadil’s face because she knows that if her heart is heavier, things will probably go wrong. She starts saying all the bad things she did over the years and, because they weren’t so bad, she passed the test and was probably able to find peace.
Before I get into the major storyline, I will talk about another scene also more to the sideline, but that will be more relevant a few episodes from now. Later in the episode, we meet Salim, a guy that waits an entire day for a reunion that didn’t happen. Even though that day sucked and that most people would start a murder spree because of the way they were treated, Salim never once loses his temper. In the end of the day he gets a taxi to go back to the hotel and, because his eyes are in flames, Salim finds out the taxi driver is a Jinn. Even though the Jinn says repeatedly that he does not grant wishes, Salim invites him over to his room, where we see an intense sex scene, and on the next day the Jinn is gone. Turns out the Jinn was wrong, because he granted Salim’s wish to be free of all the things he had to do, to be free of his life. Now has a Jinn, Salim gets the other guy’s clothes, like he was completely taking his identity, and goes to the taxi to start his new job. When he is checking the wallet the other Jinn had left, we see a taxi driver license that doesn’t even belong to the previous Jinn. This could mean that in New York no one will care that Salim isn’t the guy on the picture, just as they didn’t care the other guy wasn’t either. Apparently, New York doesn’t care about anyone.
Back to our main story now, we find out more about the Zorya sisters. Zorya Polunochnyaya tells Shadow that the 3 sisters watch the stars (the constellations Ursa Minor and Odin’s Wain to be specific), day and night to prevent “not a god, but like a god” to escape. This, like the Czernobog, comes from Slavic mythology and the creature they watch is a doomsday hound called Simargl, who is chained in the star Polaris, in the constellation Ursa Minor (Little Bear). If the chain breaks, the hound will devour the constellation and the universe will end. In the original myth, there are only two sisters, who are called the Morning Star and the Evening Star, but Neil Gaiman (author of the book that inspired this show) declared he made up a third sister. This third sister is the Zorya to whom Shadow talks to in this episode, and she is called the Midnight Star. Still in this scene, Zorya Polunochnyaya reads Shadow’s hand and says he believes in nothing but he is now on a path from nothing to everything. She gives him a coin, and Shadow wakes up.
At the same time, in a hilarious scene in which Wednesday flirts with Zorya Vechernyaya, she reads his future through his coffee. She says he will lose the battle, but Wednesday refuses to believe that.
After another game of checkers that ensures Shadow stays alive and Czernobog will join the fight against the new Gods, Wednesday and Shadow go off to rob a bank. This is another hilarious scene in this episode. Now we know how an old God makes money. This is the scene in which Wednesday asks Shadow to think of snow and later on, it does snow, against everything weathermen everywhere had said. This makes, not only Shadow but also us, think if any other person could have done that (we have been seeing what belief can do in this show, so could anyone make that happen by believing hard enough?) or if Shadow is somehow special. I don’t really know the answer to this, but my bet is on the second. I think Wednesday didn’t choose Shadow just because he was the first guy he stumbled into. There is also the fact that in the last episode, Media said Shadow was special. Looks like we will have to wait and see how special he is, and what exactly he can do.
There is also something that has been bugging me since the beginning: in every episode there seems to be a buffalo looming over. We saw or heard about it in every episode so far. In the first one, we saw a buffalo with flames in its eyes (I wonder now if that could be related to the Jinn) in Shadow’s dream when he was still in prison. In the second episode, after getting beaten up, Shadow takes a shirt from the motel he and Wednesday were staying at. The logo of that motel was a buffalo and so there was a big one in Shadow’s T-shirt. In this episode, one of the first things we hear Zorya Polunochnyaya say is: “The buffalo is waning tonight”. I don’t really understand what she meant, but she was probably refereeing to the moon. Aside from this, we can see that there is a buffalo in one of the official posters of the show. And this isn’t just a detail that only fanatic fans see by analyzing every inch of the poster, it is right there, big enough for everyone to notice, hiding in plain sight. I read there is also a buffalo in the book and it is important, so we will find out more about it when the time is right.
Overall this was a great episode, as usual, and it won’t take long now for one of my favorite episodes of the season. I am giving it an 8.5/10.
As I said, there is an amazing episode coming soon, so stay tuned for my next review of episode 104, “Git Gone”.