American Gods S03E01 is the first episode in the latest season of this supernatural fantasy TV drama. The series is adapted from Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel of the same name. The premise relates to a mythological war between ancient deities who were brought into the U.S.A. by immigrants centuries ago and new gods brought about changes in contemporary society and culture.
American Gods, as a series, has been a massive disappointment thus far, wasting the potential of its intriguing premise. Unfortunately, based on the evidence presented in American Gods S03E01, the series has not has not learned from the lessons of the previous seasons and continues to flounder aimlessly.
Thus it is even a surprise that it continues to get renewed despite the numerous flaws. The main problem lies in the story itself. It never seems to go anywhere. At least the first season managed to keep the story interesting up to the reveal that Mr. Wednesday (the protagonist of the series) was actually the Norse god, Odin (Ian McShane) and he was instigating a war against the new gods viz. Mr World, Technical Boy and Media.
By and large, the storyline of American Gods in the first two seasons has been Odin travelling around the U.S.A. looking for old gods to recruit. However, for some reason it is important for Odin to have a human named Shadow (Ricky Whittle) Moon (yeah, really!) be his right-hand man. But obviously Moon is really a character device for audience identification though ultimately we discover at the end of season 2 that Moon is actually Odin’s son (!)
What about the mythological war, we hear you ask? Never quite gets off the ground. More of a minor skirmish than anything else. Most of the time is spent in introducing new characters (i.e. ancient deities) and listening to these deities denigrating Odin. And guess what, American Gods S03E01 does the exact same thing! Not only that but Mr. World is now Ms. World! Which makes American Gods a colossal albeit clever waste of time. Sigh.
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