On the road again.
Full spoilers for American Gods continue below.
True to its title, American Gods used "A Murder of Gods" to showcase that gods can indeed perish. While we saw gods can die after being forgotten, as with Nunyunnini's story, this week we saw both Mexican Jesus and Vulcan bite the dust. It's unclear how exactly faith and a god's existence mix here; shouldn't a god still live on, regardless of whether his or her form is killed, because they have followers? Hopefully that will be clarified in future weeks, but for now it's clear that the stakes are pretty high for Wednesday.
Within the world of the show, American Gods is exploring something really interesting in the idea of the gods needing to create new franchises of themselves to appeal to new believers. It's what Media and Mr. World were pitching Wednesday in last week's episode -- an update, a refresh -- and it became immediately apparent that Vulcan was on the New Gods' side when he started parroting the same language. That's a heady concept and ties back to a personal conflict most people have likely found themselves in: do you stay true to your old idea of who you are, or change that about yourself to try to keep up to date with the times and changing expectations?
As for the larger thematic connection of the episode, the execution of both Mexican Jesus's vignette and Vulcan's story in the back half of the episode were fantastic, with Vulcan being a particularly interesting exploration of violence as belief and America's fascination with guns. Both presented engaging ideas of how gods can flourish within these lands and the connective tissue between both was the power of violence, though they didn't go especially heavy handed with the message they were sending, instead letting the imagery presented speak for itself.
Even though Laura, Mad Sweeney and Salim got about as much screentime as Shadow and Wednesday, their storyline wasn't as heavy. Laura's story primarily seems to be about finding her place in a world where she now thinks Shadow doesn't want her around, though we as the audience know that's not entirely the case. Everything tied together with the lovely ending to "A Murder of Gods," though, where we hear Laura and Salim's two key beliefs that are keeping them respectively going. For Salim, it's that "god is great;" for Laura, "life is great." With the gorgeous visuals to add to that idea, it was the perfect way to end what was otherwise a solid episode, and ties back to the exploration of what people invest their time and belief in.
Now that Laura Moon has been reintroduced and resurrected, the show seems to be splitting its story time between her journey with Mad Sweeney and Salim and Shadow's journey with Mr. Wednesday. As much as I enjoyed "Git Gone," Laura's story arc doesn't carry as much weight as Shadow/Wednesday's -- at least as things currently stand. The thematic connection to the idea of belief is compelling, but it remains to be seen how that balance between the two story arcs works for the rest of the season.
There were some excellent moments in "A Murder of Gods," specifically meeting Vulcan and the introduction with Mexican Jesus, but it also retread on some story beats as last week. Arguably the biggest plot revelation is that Mr. World is trying to stop Mr. Wednesday's plans for an uprising, which we already were mostly aware of, considering last week's episode. Fortunately, the style and standalone sequences of American Gods -- like last week's introduction to Mr. World and pretty much everything Media and Bilquis are in -- maintain the great quality of this show, even if this episode wasn't as jam-packed with forward plot movement.
The Verdict
American Gods dealt with some big topics in interesting ways, exploring a larger theme of America's worship of violence in "A Murder of Gods." There were some excellent and effective sequences, particularly with Vulcan and Mexican Jesus, though some of the plot implications retread on familiar material.
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