Deities of all kinds in a 4-D comic book
nies.
If you know about folk deities, you may be able to figure out something about these characters. By the fourth episode, there’s even more clarity about how the outlier characters relate to Shadow Moon. But what about Media (Gillian Anderson), Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) and perhaps other characters whose roots can’t be traced to folk deities? They, of course, are “American Gods,” the folk idols of contemporary American life.
The series, developed by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, is a three-dimensional comic book — or perhaps fourdimensional is more accurate, because you often feel trapped, however willingly, in a house of mirrors. Like the Wachowskis’ “Sense8,” you are prompted to suspend disbelief not by a convincing narrative but by hypnotic visuals — here augmented by extraordinary performances.
Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday: He’s Mr. Seven Days of the Week, he’s so good — oily, canny, sly, over the top, mysterious, enigmatic. Schreiber more than makes his character live up to the name of Mad Sweeney, Jones is a malevolent cartoon as Mr. Nancy, Stormare wallows in his character’s moral swamp, and Langley is a lethal technobrat as Technical Boy. The cast also includes Emily Browning as Shadow’s wife, Laura, Corbin Bernsen, Crispin Glover, Dane Cook and Kristin Chenoweth.
Whittle has a big challenge with Shadow Moon because the character is more grounded in reality, such as it is in the world of “American Gods.” Whittle meets the challenge convincingly and then some. He may be taciturn, but we feel the roil of his emotions, and the sense of hopelessness that makes him throw his lot in with Mr. Wednesday.
The series will be polarizing for several reasons, including the violence and especially the graphic sexual content, which includes not only full frontal nudity, but aroused male nudity. Down the road, though, other deities will be part of the narrative, including Jesus Christ (Jeremy Davies). Some viewers are likely to be offended by lumping the son of God with folk deities.
All of this is in keeping with the theme of the story, which is that when we invest belief in something, we cause it to exist. As much as people may believe in
God, in the United States, they believe in “American gods,” like technology, media and, as embodied in a new character created by Gaiman for the series, guns.
“The world is either crazy, or you are,” Mr. Wednesday says, with a shrug. “American Gods” has the answer, but there’s little relief in knowing it: It’s the world, of course, but we’re living in it.
The series will be polarizing for many reasons, including the violence and especially the graphic sexual content, which includes full frontal nudity.
David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle and co-host of “The Do List” every Friday morning at 6:22 and 8:22 on KQED FM, 88.5 FM in San Francisco, 89.3 FM in Sacramento. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV