The season finale sees the long overdue returns of Anansi and Bilquis. While Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones) is tailoring suits for big cheese Wednesday (Ian McShane) and his henchman Shadow (Ricky Whittle), he decides he must tell a story. One of a queen. We get the rundown of Bilquis (Yetide Badaki), watching her status slowly…
At the Ibis and Jacquel funeral home, the bodies are piling up and keeping the godly duo busy. But Jacquel notes Ibis’s fingers are itching to return to writing and excuses his partner to begin another Coming to America, this one beginning in 1721. Ibis writes: “It is fine fiction that America was founded by…
The Coming to America segments have been my personal favorites thus far in the first season of American Gods, so much so that they often steal the show. But what a disappointment this week’s opening turned out to be. Maybe it was the slow-mo action scene that lacked any palpable tension as a group of…
Without exception, the opening vignettes to American Gods are mini-masterpieces destined to be viewed time and again as inquiring minds seek to know more about these nearly forgotten fables—expect lots of YouTube hits. In a compelling animated segment, the very first god comes to America circa 14,000 BC. A tribe of people crosses the land…
Every episode of American Gods has ended with me longing for more. All the Coming to America vignettes have been pitch perfect and the acting top-notch across the board, but if I hadn't read the extraordinary Neil Gaiman novel, I don't believe I would care what comes next and—like my two viewing companions—would have bailed.…
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Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is a masterpiece of early 21st-century works, and a big reason for this triumph is the seemingly disjointed threads that make up the narrative—specifically the Coming to America vignettes that explore how multitudes of cultural immortals like Odin, Anansi, and others arrived on the North American shores. Reading Gods is a…
Another commendable “Coming to America” opening as Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones) makes his appearance, in 1697, in the belly of a Dutch slave ship bound for the New World as Anansi, a trickster god, in the form of a spider crawling in the hull. The spider morphs into Anansi, who doesn’t pull any punches letting…
For many centuries, immigrants to America brought their gods with them. Once upon a time, these immortals were all-powerful, commanding unrivaled veneration. But now, in this modern age where fickle Americans worship media, drugs, technology, celebrity, guns—you name it—the old deities have lost their edge. They now exist in human form, vying for just a…
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