American Gods ’ anthropomorphic deitiesare multidimensional concepts made pulp , but they ’re also flawed , emotional beingness very much like the mortals whose collective beliefs willed them into existence over the millennium . Striking the correct balance between the deity ’ larger - than - life sentence personae and their everyday human lives is the unmanageable task the show successfully set out to do in its first season , but in its second , it ’s been stumbling more often than not .
“ The Greatest Story Ever Told ” is an challenging instalment asking interesting questions about what it means for a god to want and need things in the same way their worshiper need and motivation of them . But those questions get lose in the complicated subtext of the episode , and the story does its players few favors by trying to state us thing rather than them play out in captivating , visual way of life .
Now that both Zorya Vechernyaya and Argus Panoptes have been murdered , both sides of the god war have exhibit their power to hurt one another importantly . Neither Wednesday nor Mr. World are the kind to ever make for total defense , but their various following now have a sharp sense of their mortality rate , which bring in out raw facet of their personalities in “ The Greatest Story Ever Told . ” While Shadow and Wednesday make to make a pilgrimage from Ibis and Jacquel ’s funeral home in Cairo to meet the Bookkeeper ( William Sanderson)—the god of money — all of the other gods have posted up in their corner to make sense of recent development .
Crispin Glover as Mr. World and Bruce Langley as the Technical Boy.Image: (Starz)
Though Bilquis has long - since defected to the New Gods ’ side , she still has respect for the Old Gods and appreciates their dedication to recognizing her as the biblical queen she is . When she comes to meet with Anansi and Ibis in Cairo , the installment telegraphs that it ’s preparing to have anotherstop - and - hear here and now like Anansi ’s speechabout black suffering from season one . But the import of the scene to add up becomes muddled as soon as you begin to think about what each of the gods might have to say to one another in the wake of everything that ’s happened , and how none of them have exactly been a part of it .
From Anansi ’s perspective , the three of them are ancient African gods who ’ve all become caught in the crosshairs of two on the face of it clean gods ’ state of war , and only one of those gods is hoping for an effect that would get out them standing . Because Ibis is Toth , a god responsible for chronicle the lives of the sustenance and then judging them after they ’ve died , he ’s attached to the conception of objectivity and staying out of the war . Bilquis , for her part , believe in survival , which is why she switched sides in the first piazza , but she admits that witnessing Mr. World murder Zorya has give her pause .
There are different ways to see the intention behind the speech Anansi gives standing before Bilquis , Ibis , and the deceased Lila Goodchild ( Patricia Wright - Domingue ) , who lie waiting for her funerary preparation on Ibis ’ examination table . Anansi asks : Had any one of them — one of the black gods died — would Wednesday beat up the troop in the same way he did for Zorya ? What are the three of them doing concerning themselves with Wednesday and World ’s war while their own discounted , disenfranchised truster continue to populate in turmoil in America and beyond ? There ’s power and bosom in what Anansi ’s saying and it ’s all made that much more interesting when you consider that he is a beguiler god — but the view feels too mundane for what it ’s trying to express .
Ibis, Bilquis, and Anansi.Image: (Starz)
American Gods has shown its ability to slue into more trippy , fantastical storytelling styles when it require to show off the god for what they really are , and Anansi ’s speech feels like a missed opportunity to see the stories Anansi ’s relation yield in a grander , more surreal way . What ’s the head of a congregation of African god — in the bearing of a of late dead person who might have something interesting to say , no less — if the scene is n’t almost unbelievable to witness ?
“ The Greatest Story Ever Told ” likewise reflect this new phase of the state of war by emphasize the gods ’ human beings in its handling of the Technical Boy and New Media , who ’ve become both closer and more adversarial following Argus ’ murder . From the moment that New Media materialise out of the divinyl ether in a swarm of glow emojis , the sense has been that the Technical Boy ’s days are numbered ; this incarnation of Media is a strictly digital being , mean that there ’s a degree of redundancy between the two . you’re able to see Technical Boy ’s fear of New Media in the way he tries to fire and downplay the potential that World image in her , but you know he ’s trying to put on a unspoilt facial expression , because the very first thing that New Media seek to do after entering the world was to unify with Argus and render the Technical Boy obsolete .
https://gizmodo.com/american-gods-concepts-about-life-and-death-are-becomin-1833499783
Ibis, Bilquis, and Anansi.Image: (Starz)
New Media ’s power to connect with people on a floor that the Technical Boy can not is the embodiment of what makes a incessantly - updating Supreme Being like him vulnerable . He ’s the cause that modern technology has taken over the domain , but in making applied science such a part of hoi polloi ’s lives , you’re able to debate that he ’s made his specific self obsolete and place the groundwork for someone else to take his position .
That ’s what makes his reunion with the chief operating officer ( Andrew Koji ) of Xie Comm , an Apple - like tech giant , sense like one of the few moments when Technical Boy ’s been his genuine self . Through flashbacks , the episode chronicle the CEO ’s path to greatness that was marked by his father ’s ( Chil Kong ) disapproval of his fondness for coding over meditate definitive music . What the chief operating officer , who ’s never sacrifice a first name , and the Technical Boy understand is that art and stirring last within all forms of technology when you decipher them back far enough to their root . A computer that ’s ascertain to compose in Bach ’s style ca n’t be without the idea for such an invention ever having chance on a creator , and for subsequent flourishes of brilliance force later iterations of the invention further .
Whether inspiration get with a seed implant in human mind by the god themselves is a philosophical question “ The Greatest Story Ever Told ” does n’t hazard too profoundly into . But the episode makes obvious that while the Technical Boy and the Xie CEO have always needed one another in some capacity in the past , for whatever grounds that family relationship ’s begun to shine asunder , mean that World has no need for the Technical Boy , who he promptly decommission .
The Technical Boy ’s “ destruction ” serves small apparent function other than to give Mr. World the necessary requital to experience entry into another Motel of America . It ’s staff by one of many Mama - Jis and is where Wednesday and Shadow are waiting for their meeting with the Bookkeeper — who , like Jesus , is too - worshipped to be at all concerned with whatever the other god are up to .
The money merging , like so many of the other idea at workplace in the episode , is more interesting in theory than it is in execution ; again , it ’s a minute that incorrectly assumes that the philosophic subtext at play is enough to channel the scene . But the fact is that it is n’t in that second , or in any of the others , make it seem like American Gods really might be recede its path the deeper it get into this new season .
American Gods airs Sundays on Starz .
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