"Moon Shadow" - American Gods S02E08 Review

Things finally happen. It's confusing what the heck is happening, at least to me. Okay, the things themselves aren't confusing. But why they're happening, and why they're happening in this episode, is the confusing part.

"Moon Shadow" boils down to Wednesday abandoning Shadow and using him as a distraction. New Media floods the airwaves with reports incriminating Shadow, Wednesday, and Salim in their various activities in the last 15 episodes. The police move in, Shadow is pulled into the World Tree, and he hacks it open and sees himself as a boy playing with a model of the funeral home. The Boy Shadow (Ashton Ayres) sweeps the figures away, and the police disappear. But later Shadow leaves Cairo and gets briefly held anyway before being released thanks to some fake ID shenanigans which tie into the novel.

There's more, of course. Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) is back and does... something. He and the CEO (an uncredited Andrew Koji) have an enigmatic conversation about men wrestling angels and asking for favors. Technical Boy is wearing a Tron-like outfit and finally touches the CEO, doing... something.

Bilquis (Yetide Badaki) gets naked if that's your thing. Nancy and Ibis play chess. Salim and the Djinn kiss and then leave. There's a whole riff on World (Crispin Glover) having started the War of the Worlds/Orson Welles radio broadcast to spread fear, and has been manipulating it ever since. Laura finally gets to Cairo, says she's going to kill Wednesday, then takes Sweeney's body and leaves. And Wednesday slips away and says "his boy" is going to be fine. "His boy" presumably being Shadow. as the various flashbacks and memory flashes and what-not imply.

And we find out why Laura calls Shadow "Puppy".

It's all very interesting to watch. And American Gods has never lacked for things that were interesting to watch. But narratively I'm lost. Which means I suspect the creative team is as well. Why is World having New Media (Kahyun Kim) cause such panic against Wednesday and Shadow (and Salim, although he seems to be tossed in as a secondary thought)? I thought he wanted to destroy Wednesday and quell the "rebellion" of the old gods. Arresting Shadow doesn't appear to do that.

Technical Boy apparently planted the seeds of his digital resurrection with the CEO. But now he's back... so what? He appears briefly at the bunker with World, and World doesn't react. Is World glad to have his underling back? Disappointed? Unhappy? Who knows? Glover is busy giving ominous speeches about spreading fear and panic. Glover is very good at looking scary and ominous, whether he's a movie director in the 50s or a scarecrow in a field during a panicked boy's alien abduction. But being scary and ominous isn't characterization, and it isn't story advancement.

I could speculate on what's going on. But American Gods is a Rorschach test of sorts. Everyone who looks at it sees something different. So what I see isn't what someone else sees. So analyzing it is less about the show and more about me. Yes, most reviews are like that, but American Gods more than most.

For instance, some reviewers thought last week's "Treasure of the Sun" was a return to the show's season one greatness. I can see where they're coming from, but I didn't and still don't think the creative team stuck the landing. Treating Sweeney's memories of different versions of his life as the result of his believers' interpretations is all well and good. But there's nothing I've seen in previous episodes leading up to that. It gave Pablo Schreiber a great acting showcase, but it doesn't mean anything in the big picture. Maybe they'll bring Sweeney back: Laura stealing his body and leaving suggests she'll find a way to bring him back, maybe with the lucky coin in her stomach. But again, that's just my speculation. If the creative team didn't bring him back, it makes just as much sense as if they did. And if they do, all the revelations from last week will either be forgotten or backburnered in the cast of eleven main stars and a number of secondary characters. We know about as much about the CEO as we do about Sweeney at this point.

I've already noted the main story is rather diffuse. That's another problem with "Moon Shadow". It looked like everyone was gathering at the funeral home in Cairo. Great. But this week... they mostly leave again. Shadow is on the run, Wednesday is having French fries and wine, Salim and the Djinn hit the road, Laura takes off with Sweeney's body. Bilquis is doing... whatever the hell she's doing. She was apparently forming a new group of believers, but this week she's stripping down and anointing Shadow's forehead with red liquid. Technical Boy rejoins World but he might as well not be there for all the difference it makes.

Kahyun Kim as New Media seems to be having fun, so there's that. And thinking about it, that's a big part of the problem with American Gods this season. Does anyone seem to be having fun? Kim, yes. Glover, because he always seems to be having fun being creepy. And Orlando Jones, because he's writing most of his own dialogue and just being goofy and wacky and a provocateur just to be mischievous.

But other than Kim and the often-absent Mama-ji (Sakina Jaffrey), there was no one this season on the level of Gillian Anderson, or Kristin Cenoworth, or Corbin Bernsen, from last year. The idea of old gods being among us, adapting to life in America, is interesting enough to provoke thoughts and invoke humor on its own. Everyone else on the show is trying to be... topical. And profound. And that plus the large cast doesn't leave actors like Ian McShane with much to do. That was why "Donar the Great" a few weeks ago was entertaining. It didn't try to be profound or topical: it just gave us a couple of gods (Donar and Columbia) adapting to life in the New World, Wednesday and Nancy just being themselves, and no major significance in the present-day story.

Season two of American Gods reminds me of the nu-Twilight Zone: it's so busy trying to be profound and topical it often forgets to be entertaining. Which is sort of what the message of "The Comedian" was: people don't want to hear topical rants: they want to be entertained. American Gods needs to stick with the entertaining rather than the topicality. Once they do so, the profoundness and topicality will come. I don't want LOL humor every week: just present interesting ideas, creative team.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

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"Moon Shadow" was the Season 2 finale. The show has been renewed, with yet another showrunner. So I'll be back in 44 weeks or so. See you then!