Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel American Gods had been waiting to be adapted for the screen for quite a while. Just when it seemed like the novel would never faithfully be turned into a series, Starz Network and show creators Bryan Fuller (The Hannibal) and Michael Green (co-screenwriter of Logan) pitched to bring the story to life.
What they have created makes for some of the wildest, weirdest television in a very long time. Part one of the eight-episode series premiered on April 30 and is available to watch on Amazon Prime, with one new episode being dropped on the streaming service every Monday.
A bloody, beautiful fantastical road trip across America, the show follows ex-con Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), who has been released from prison only to find out that his wife Laura (Emily Browning) has died in a car crash. Still grieving, Moon gets entangled in the supernatural web of a mysterious hustler, Mr Wednesday (Ian McShane). The two drive across the country in an old car, meeting divinity on the way.
But this isn’t a feelgood story of a trip filled with friendship, adventure and all things nice. The premise is a lot more twisted and bizarre than a panoramic view of off-the-highway Americana. The first four minutes of the first episode tell the story of a group of Vikings who stumbled on these shores hundreds of years ago and found themselves ignored by their gods. They build a small likeness of their god and perform gory and violent but cinematically shot rituals, hoping to get their his attention.
When the gods relent, the men return home from the cursed lonely land, but leave little figures of these old gods behind.
This is the story of American Gods. Everyone who comes to America comes with faith and a history of his or her own. Over time, this personal history and mythology has fused into the reality, obsessions and fluid beliefs of a new multi-cultural land. New gods emerge and old ones fight to regain their place on the pedestal. American Gods is the story of the war between the old gods and the new. Odin, Thor, Anubis, Bilquis, even Jesus – the old divinities are waiting to be worshipped again in a time and land that has been taken over by the new powers of technology, industry and the media.
The gripping show provides a commentary on immigration that has been written by an immigrant – Gaiman wrote the book a few years after he moved to the United States of America. It tells a nuanced story about cultures, races and faiths and of an identity that is constantly in flux in America, making it exceedingly relevant in the current political climate.
Fuller and Green claim that Gaiman was constantly involved in the development of the show. Additions have been made for the screen, such as a new character called Vulcan, and technological upgrades from 2001 to 2017. What has been retained is the lyrical writing. The script is tight and the lyrical prose makes for gorgeous dialogue.
The show is a visual spectacle, as one would expect from the man behind the baroque and beautiful series Hannibal. But it is also the core material that has so much to offer – from fire-eyed buffaloes to tempests of blood, from forests littered with human bones to a surreal and warped sex scene that is breaking the internet.
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