Tonight's American Gods offers a meditation on race in America, from a speech from the future on a slave ship to the aftermath of Shadow's lynching and an old god who has probably never heard of political correctness. Below, 10 moments to note in Episode 2, "The Secret of Spoons."
1) Mr. Nancy incites a slave revolt.
If you thought American Gods would offer a rosy, "This Land Is Your Land," interpretation of the history of the United States, you probably need this show more than anyone. This week's "Coming to America" segment takes us to the hold of slave ship, and just in case you're Dr. Ben Carson, here's your reminder that enslaved people were not immigrants.
It's 1697. A young black man in chains prays to Anansi, a deity from African folklore who takes the shape of a spider. Anansi arrives, but he's certainly not what the praying man—or this viewer—was expecting. Accompanied by a jazz intro and sporting a slick purple suit, Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones), as he's known in the world of American Gods, is flamboyantly modern. He's a storytelling god who knows the future, and breaks down the hideous reality of America's treatment of black people with a rousing speech that is best appreciated in full:
"Once upon a time, a man got fucked. Now how is that for a story? 'Cause that's the story of black people in America. Shit. You all don't know you're black yet. You think you're just people. Let me be the first to tell you that you are all black. The moment these Dutch motherfuckers set foot here, they decided they white and you get to be black, and that's the nice name they call you. Let me paint a picture of what's waiting for you on shore. You arrive in America, land of opportunity, milk and honey and guess what? You all get to be slaves. Split up, sold off and worked to death. The lucky ones get Sunday off to sleep, fuck and make most of the day and all for what? For cotton. Indigo. For a fuckin' purple shirt. The only good news is the tobacco your grandkids are gonna farm for free is gonna give a shitload of these white motherfuckers cancer. And I ain't even started yet. A hundred years later, you're fucked. A hundred years after that, fucked. A hundred years after you get free, you still getting fucked out of jobs and shot at by police... You are staring down the barrel of 300 years of subjugation, racist bullshit and heart disease.”
To answer the young man's prayers, Anansi suggests the enslaved people revolt, setting their ship on fire and killing its crew. And they do. Its wreckage washes up on the shores of America, and a small purple spider crawls off.
It's an electrifying scene, and Twitter is crying Emmys.
2) Wednesday vows revenge.
Following a hospital trip to tend to his post-lynching wounds, Shadow nearly breaks down Wednesday's motel room door in a rage. Wednesday recognizes Shadow's description of Technical Boy as "a toadskin-smoking punk in a virtual fucking limo." He refuses to tell Shadow who, exactly, TB is, but offers to pay him more for this "occupational hazard." Wednesday promises to avenge the attack: "An assault on you is an insult to me. Don't think because I didn't lose my temper I'm not angry, or lacking a plan."
3) Laura's haunting Shadow.
Because Shadow's been subjected to a constant stream of trauma since leaving jail, he's having weird dreams again. In this one, Laura comes to his hotel room, claiming she's alive. "You're just having a bad dream," she says. Oh, the brutal irony.
Shadow returns to the home he shared with Laura to start packing (please note his "Hotel America" t-shirt emblazoned with a buffalo, a subtle nod to his dream from last week's episode.) Shadow gives into temptation and starts going through Laura's phone, which was recovered in the wreck from her car accident. Robbie had been texting Laura pictures of his penis before they died. Shadow channels his rage into cleaning until he bleeds, which is a much smarter way to handle his fury than, say, punching Wednesday in the face.
4) Mr. Wednesday finally hints at his plan.
Our heroes hit the road to a soundtrack of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Up Around the Bend," as Wednesday explains his plan and, thus, the our storyline for Season 1: "We will be meeting with a number of people preeminent in their respective fields, and then we will rendezvous at one of the most important places in the entire country." An Old God convention, perhaps? First stop, Chicago, to pick up Wednesday's "hammer."
5) "You ever wanted to see Lucy’s tits?”
Shadow's simply minding his own business, doing some grocery shopping for Wednesday, when he's summoned by the store's wall of TV screens. This is Media (Gillian Anderson), one of the "New Gods," and she's taken the form of a smooth-talking, hypnotic Lucille Ball to appeal to Shadow.
"The screen’s the altar. I’m the one they sacrifice to. Then 'til now. Golden age to golden age. They sit side by side, ignore each other and give it up to me. Now they hold a smaller screen in their lap or in the palm of their hand, so they don’t get bored watching the bigger one. Time and attention. Better than lamb’s blood.”
Here, finally, is the conflict at the heart of American Gods. On one side, we have the largely forgotten Old Gods, those steeped in history, in tradition, in myth; on the other side, the sleek, clean New Gods, who lurk within shiny VR helmets and television screens, beckoning "worshippers" with pixels and bytes. Apparently, neither side is able—or willing—to exist alongside the other anymore.
Media implores Shadow to join her cause. Naturally, he's alarmed, muttering, "What the fuck is this?" which is an apt impression of our reaction to most of this show. When she can't convince him with words, she tries offering sex, which, as Audrey learned last week, isn't something Shadow is interested in right now.
5) Wednesday's words of wisdom.
Shadow returns to the diner, where Wednesday just finished meeting with a man with burning eyes (you'll see more of him next week). Shadow is panicking, as any normal person who discovers a TV screen is talking to him would. Surprisingly, Wednesday offers some useful advice:
"You may have to consider that you didn't see what you say—or you did. The world is either crazy or you are. They're both solid options; take your pick, and when you decide, come and tell me... There are bigger sacrifices one might be asked to make than going a little mad."
This appeases Shadow enough to get him back in the car, though Wednesday infuriates him again almost immediately, throwing his cell phone out of the car. An Old God has no use for technology of any sort.
Also, your weekly dose of evidence that Wednesday can't be trusted: "Wanna know the secret to my success? Charm." So was Patrick Bateman's.
7) Bilquis is up to her old tricks.
In a two-minute montage, the goddess snuffs out another four lovers. But beyond the orgasms, it doesn't seem like Bilquis is enjoying herself very much; she looks defeated, shedding a single, painful tear.
As an entity desperate to return to her former glory, Bilquis visits a museum where a statue created in her honor is displayed as a relic. A body chain lies under a glass case, and she imagines herself occupying it again. It's been hundreds of years, but she's not coping with the loss of her status very well.
P.S. We're not quite sure who the naked man with the erection floating through space is supposed to be in the prelude to this scene. Perhaps he's one of Bilquis's victims? Unclear.
8) Meet the Zorya.
The first stop on Shadow and Wednesday's Excellent Adventure is the bleak home of the Slavic god Czernobog and his "relatives," the three Polish Zorya sisters. No one is happy to see Wednesday. Chugging vodka, Zorya Vechernyaya (Cloris Leachman) calls him Wednesday the "worst man I have ever seen." Given that she's probably centuries old, that's quite a feat.
ZV reveals just how far these gods have fallen: "We do okay. We pay rent on time, even. He makes some money from the slaughterhouse, my sister and I make a dollar here, a dollar there reading fortunes." She unabashedly admits to being a terrible cook: "When I was young there were servants to make meals... Here there is only us, and learning is beneath me." One thing she is good at is predicting the future; she knows Shadow's mother died from cancer, and assures him he won't. But what else does she know about him?
9) Czernobog is a force to be reckoned with.
Covered in blood and wielding a sledgehammer, Czernobog (Peter Stormare) certainly doesn't look like someone whose house you'd show up to uninvited. And boy, is he unhappy to see Wednesday: "You brought that madness into my life once. Never again." It sounds like Wednesday attempted an Old Gods vs. New Gods showdown before. Czernobog knows all Wednesday really wants is access to his brother, Belobog. Without him, Wednesday admits, "we'll die."
At dinner, Czernobog reveals that before he was consigned to a life toiling in a slaughterhouse, he was a deity of the old country, though considered evil by those who worshipped him: "I was like the black man over there, against my brother, the white," he tells Shadow, like an embarrassing racist uncle at Thanksgiving. He tells his sad tale, an echo of the other gods' woes: "I’m forgotten here. I’m like a bad memory. I had to find work and I found meat business." But even Czernobog's practice is succumbing to the New Gods and their assembly lines.
10) A checkers game for the ages.
Either Czernobog likes a little wager, or he's just desperate to kill something with his sledgehammer. It's probably a mix of both. He challenges Shadow to a checkers game with a catch: if Shadow wins, Czernobog joins Wednesday's cause. If Czernobog wins, he gets to crush Shadow's skull with his hammer. Shadow's the perfect target for this bait: he's got nothing to lose and his loyalty to Wednesday increases with each passing second. A tense game ensues, with Czernobog menacingly singing the lyrics that give this episode its name: “My love made the sweetest coffee with no sugar at all. She only stirred with her spoon…"
Shadow loses, of course. Czernobog delivers a last, ironic zinger to end the episode: "Shame. You’re my only black friend.”
