American Gods Recap: Season 1, Episode 2 “The Secret of Spoon”After gauging the reaction of many TV critics, TV lovers, and TV dilettantes to the new fantasy series American Gods, one clear pattern has emerged. Long- time fans of Neil Gaiman—who wrote the novel the show is adapted from—are excited to see what comes next. Non- book- readers, however, tend to react to the series with confusion. Eichner is joining American Horror Story American Gods hasn’t shied away from political commentary in this first season, but “A Murder of Gods” goes harder in this regard than any of the preceding. American Horror Story season 6 premiere: Where to watch episode 1 live online American Horror Story season 6 theme will be revealed on 14 September on FX. I thought it might be helpful to infuse this article with a little bit of book knowledge, so that everyone can be equally excited about what’s to come. There are no spoilers below, but there are, hopefully, enough bits of added info there to clear up lingering American Gods questions. Don’t say Bilquis didn’t warn you. Are they gone? Nancy: Much like the bloody Viking cold open last week, this sequence, which takes place on a slaver ship headed to the U. S., is what’s called a “Coming to America” vignette. This is how the African (and sometimes arachnid) trickster god Anansi (or “Mr. Nancy”) came to America—carried across the ocean by the fervid belief and terrible blood sacrifice of these slaves. Just like the vikings, Mr. Nancy demands pints and pints from his worshippers. In other words, I wouldn’t trust a god if I were you. Actor Orlando Jonesexplained to Vanity Fair how Nancy’s violent entrance (which deviates significantly from the book) was inspired by the 2. Anyway, they go off in the woods to find Flora, and Elias leads them to where Priscilla likes to play. They’re engaged in some sort of awful game with the two. Only The Gods Are Real; American Gods: Unlocking the 7 Most Baffling Mysteries of “The Secret. The first season of American horror story had great plot, great actors, some interesting twists. It was scary and frightening at some points. The first season of. Donald Trump may not be appearing in American Horror Story ComingSoon.net's American Horror Story Season 6 premiere recap and the official preview for the new season, titled "My Roanoke Nightmare.". Trump rallies. His Wounds: As the god of Media (Gillian Anderson) points out later in the episode, Shadow’s face got severely bashed in last week thanks to the Technical Boy’s henchmen. Shadow calls his hanging a lynching, and calls the ordeal “strange fucking fruit” in reference to the famous Billie Holiday song. American Horror Story is an American anthology horror series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. Described as an anthology series, each season is. Wednesday was giving Shadow a crash course on how to make it snow, he made an offhand comment about the many, many. Wednesday responds by calling him “plucked, plucky fruit.” Not the god’s best retort. But the most significant wound on the battered and bruised Shadow is on his left side, exactly where Jesus was speared on the cross. We see Shadow wincing and nursing his side throughout the episode. Of course, Shadow isn’t just suffering from physical wounds. Our hero goes through the emotional wringer as he packs up the house he shared with Laura and sees that fun photo Robbie sent her. American Gods is all about equal opportunity nudity! But as Shadow curls up in his hotel room and weeps, readers of the book will note that this version of our hero is demonstrating much more emotion than the version in the novel. I think that’s a good thing. Extreme stoicism often reads as two- dimensional in a TV setting. Wednesday’s Plan: O. K., what’s Shadow’s boss up to? Let me quote the man himself: “Meeting with people preeminent in their respective fields. Rendezvous at one of the most important places in the country.” One of the most important places in the country? Opinions vary. That, of course, is a reference to a physical place of great spiritual significance. The importance varies based on what you believe. But given what follows in the episode, it looks like Wednesday (whom we have established is Odin) is rounding up the usual suspects (a. We later see Wednesday briefly meeting in a diner with what’s called an “Ifrit”—you can tell by the flames in his eyes. In this car scene, Wednesday tosses both his and Shadow’s cell phone out the window. This might just be an Old God nervous to be surrounded by the prying eyes of New Technology. But it also might be a convenient way for the show to explain away future scenarios in which Shadow and Wednesday are separated without phones. Being without a cell phone might fly in 2. The recently rebooted X- Files series had to go to similar lengths to make sure Mulder and Scully didn’t have access to their phones. The X- Files doesn’t work at all if Mulder and Scully can capture the aliens they see on camera. What’s odd about this scene is that show seems to be trying to play a little bait and switch with Wednesday’s identity. He tells Shadow they need to go to Chicago so he can get his “hammer,” and then the camera follows Wednesday’s dandelion stem up into the clouds where thunder and lightning take over the screen. That seems like a Thor hint, no? But later in the episode, Czernobog (who we’ll get to next) refers to Odin as “Wotan,” which is Germanic for Woden/Odin. And in that same car scene, we see a raven (traditionally, Odin’s spies) fly overhead. His Hammer: It turns out that Odin’s hammer is actually a man. Or, more accurately, a god. Here we meet Czernobog (Peter Stormare), a Slavic god of the dead, night, and chaos. He is extraordinarily strong and, as the show makes clear, wields a lethal hammer. Czernobog’s awkward dinner table conversation about Shadow and race actually has some foundation in linquistics. Czernobog’s residence in Chicago also makes sense due to the vast number of Russians who immigrated there and the city’s notorious slaughterhouse killing floors at the turn of the century. Czernobog wins a bet with Shadow over a game of checkers and, according to the terms, gets to bash Shadow in the head with his hammer come dawn. Should we worry? Probably not. The Sisters Three: Living with Czernobog (but of no relation to him) are three sisters, all named Zorya. There’s the eldest Zorya Vechernyaya (Cloris Leachman), the middle Zorya Utrennyaya (Martha Kelly), and the youngest Zorya Polunochnaya (Erika Kaar). If it’s too hard to remember all three of those, perhaps it would be more helpful to remember that over and over in mythology, we see women in groups of threes: mother, maiden, crone. These particular Slavic goddesses represent the stars, with Utrennyaya as the morning star and Vechernyaya as the evening star. Gaiman invented the third: Polunochnaya, the midnight star. Their role in Slavic mythology is to guard a chained dog who continually tries to break loose and eat the constellation Ursa Minor—the bear. Their purpose in the show? To give Cloris Leachman plenty of room to chew scenery, swig vodka, and hilariously lie to Shadow about his fortune.“Look On My Work, Ye Mighty, And Despair”: We re- visit Bilquis, who shows she’s an equal opportunity devourer. It doesn’t matter. But while this kind of forced worship may bring Bilquis plenty of afterglow, it brings her no pleasure. The sexual montage ends with her weeping. She comforts herself, however, with a little Throwback Thursday visit to a museum to see a statue of herself, the Queen of Sheba, in an “Artifacts of the Aksumite Empire” exhibit. The Askum was a Jewish Kingdom within Ethiopia. Crooked Media: Last week, we met our first New God in the shape of the Technical Boy. This week, it’s Media’s turn. As Wednesday says at the top of the episode, “an assault on you is an insult to me.” The New Gods are trying to bully or lure Shadow to their side because he is (for some reason) important to Wednesday. Media’s tactics are just a little kinder and gentler than the Technical Boy’s—though no less insidious. As she mentions, Americans (and the rest of the world) pay her homage by staring at her alter, a. But while Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores might technically be the show’s lead character, it’s Thandie Newton’s Maeve who—thanks to very minimal timeline trickery—has its cleanest and most compelling arc. Her awakening, her charming manipulations, and, of course, her very violent ends made for some of the most compulsively watchable moments of this highly addictive show. Photo: Courtesy of HBO. Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey), Game of Thrones. It can be difficult for a newcomer to make a big impression within the already overcrowded cast of Game of Thrones—just ask the poor Sand Snakes. But this pint- size player won the hearts and minds of Thrones fans within her first scene, and continued to steal every other one in which she appeared—whether she was silently scowling in the background or bellowing out one of the most anticipated lines of the season: “The King in the North!”Photo: Courtesy of HBO. King George VI (Jared Harris), The Crown. There are plenty of characters to admire in Netflix’s dazzlingly expensive new series The Crown. The female leads, Claire Foy and Vanessa Kirby, deserve plenty of credit for turning royal sisters Elizabeth and Margaret from stiff icons into fully- fleshed human characters. But the standard for royal pathos in the series is set at the outset by Jared Harris’s George, a ruler tearfully, manfully grappling with the brutal truth of his own mortality. Though he (spoiler alert for history!) dies early on, his legacy looms over the entire series. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Stranger Things. It’s challenging enough for kid actors to turn in a believable performance, let alone one rooted in a science- fiction world that has no basis in our own reality. But the latter is exactly what 1. Millie Bobby Brown was able to pull off in Stranger Things. While her eerie creation, Eleven, might have been based on a number of sci- fi/horror creations like E. T. Maybe we’ll find out when the series returns for Season 2. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix. Cassidy (Joe Gilgun), Preacher. Vampire TV tends to feature two types of bloodsuckers: the mopey and heartsick (see True Blood, The Vampire Diaries), or the creepy and repulsive (The Strain). But when’s the last time a TV vampire had this much fun? Oozing charm from underneath his sunglasses. It takes a special talent to out- maniacally grin a comic- book confection like the one Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon dreamt up, but Gilgun, somehow, pulls it off. Photo: Courtesy of AMC. Samantha Bee (Samantha Bee), Full Frontal. Just like Jon Stewart and, to a more extreme degree, Stephen Colbert before her, Samantha Bee isn’t being precisely herself when she stands up on TBS each Monday night to eloquently rage about the news of the week. There’s a whole team of writers who work hard to make the character of Sam Bee, self- proclaimed Nasty Woman and righteous liberal avenger. It’s not as if Bee disagrees with any of the pointed barbs she launches on Full Frontal—but we’ll call this character the ultimate version of Bee. American Horror Story: Roanoke recap: Season 6, Episode 6. It’s the TV success story of 2. It topped Empire, The Walking Dead, and the Sunday night football. It’s My Roanoke Nightmare, and it’s not just a show anymore. It’s a show within the show, within the show, within the. But it’s the big twist of this season of American Horror Story, and — in short — it’s just damn brilliant. Let’s break it down. Meet Cheyenne Jackson’s Sidney, a visionary reality TV producer who brought a hit to The Network with My Roanoke Nightmare. He’s so visionary, in fact, he’s already selling the corporate suits on his next project: Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell. It’s so sick, it’s genius: He’ll unite everyone who lived in the house with the actors who played them, together again in Roanoke, living in the haunted mansion during the blood moon, a. For optimum Network greenlighting, Sidney’s also tied up some loose ends: He bought the Roanoke house from Matt, and he has a plan in motion to convince the group to relive it all. Plus, given the whole true- crime spree we’re on lately, he also reveals an ulterior motive beyond just making good TV: “I’m gonna be the guy who gets Lee Harris to admit what she did.”So, the Network greenlights Return to Roanoke a few weeks before the blood moon, and Sidney heads up to Ojai with his producer, Diana, to land their first reprising recruit: Shelby! Count that as another surprise twist — the fact that beleaguered, almost- drowned, ankle- smashed Shelby voluntarily opted to head back to Miss Roanoke’s Home for Peculiar Pigs. But there’s a reason she’ll return, and it’s also a doozy: Not only have Matt and Shelby separated, but she’s also been spotted having an affair with Dominic Banks (Cuba Gooding Jr.) — the actor who played Matt on the show! So, naturally, Real. Matt is offended by her relationship with his cheap imitation and hasn’t spoken to Shelby since. That’s why she’s willing to head back to Roanoke, if that’s what it takes to hash things out with her husband again. Yes, if you ever thought Matt and Shelby staying in the house was dumb, get ready to comprehend their inexplicable decision to RETURN to it. Shockingly, they’re not the only ones. NEXT: Inside the actors’ hellhole. American Crime Episode Guide . Promised a job and a place to live, these laborers find themselves forced to live in abject poverty. Required to pay for their own food and other essentials, what little money they make is paid back to their employers, and because they will forever be in debt, they can never leave. Continue Reading.
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