Shadow gets to the gunman, but hes sucked up into the sky as in an X-Files abduction.Such has been the case with Starzs American Gods, a show that had a critically successful first season but was derailed when showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green were let go and replaced by one of Fullers collaborators, Jesse Alexander.The story went that Fuller and Green wanted more money for an already expensive show, and that Neil Gaiman wanted a little more control.The show still went massively over budget, and the cast and Starz were so dissatisfied with Alexanders work that he didnt finish the season.
Whats the lesson everyone should have learned, especially now that weve seen the season-two premiere They should have just paid Fuller and Green. Both come from the same source material and feature the same characters and plot points. Theres something depressingly hollow about the new American Gods. Yes, the cast is still great, and they are the main reason were all going to keep watching, with the hope that this show finds its footing again, but House on the Rock often feels as dead as Laura Moon (Emily Browning). Its cold and over-expository, lacking the hypnotic tone of the first season and even undermining some of the character development from last season. Gone is the structure in which Fuller and Green would open with parables of Gods, as happened throughout season one. Instead, we open with Mr. World (Crispin Glover) and Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) racing from the scene of the Easter Event that ended season one. With New Goddess Media gone as Gillian Anderson has left the show Mr. World needs to find a new New Media, and he needs the tools of the underground secret ops location known as Black Briar to find them. Theyre headed to the House on the Rock in Wisconsin, where we saw Bilquis (Yetide Badaki) headed in the finale. This is where the great meeting that Mr. Wednesday has been trying to coordinate will go down. We do get a little of a narrated story on the history of the House on the Rock as Bilquis arrives to find Salim (Omid Abtahi) and Jinn (Mousa Kraish) already there. Laura and Mad arent allowed in, as theyre not Gods, and Easter is basically written off the show with a weird line about bunnies Kristen Chenoweth wont be returning either. Mr. Wednesday has a brief encounter with Bilquis, who was not invited, but he allows her in. Its kind of sad to see Bilquis reduced from a mysterious, ultrasexual, man-eating God to the flat character in this scene, even if Badaki remains one of the most interesting actors on the show. ![]() Where House on the Rock really goes off the rails is in the centerpiece meeting scene, which takes place in Mr. Wednesdays head. Bilquis gets a mundane exchange about how true believers passed away or stopped believing, and then the meeting gets underway, complete with fire eyes and dull CGI. Not only does it lack the hypnotic look of anything from season one, but the dialogue here is flat and expository when it needs to be complex and symbolic. It gets worse when Shadow gives a speech about his mother and faith with a line that feels more fit for God Friended Me than American Gods: Take the chance to be worthy of their belief. Somehow, this convinces Wednesday, and everyone retreats to a Wisconsin buffet restaurant to discuss further. Shots ring out and people in the restaurant start getting killed in a mass shooting.
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