1.1 The Bone Orchard From the opening moments, American Gods is nothing short of a reminder of other loved, lamented television projects from Bryan Fuller. A rich, dark colour palate dominates the cold open, which features Vikings arriving in America a hundred years before Leif Erikson’s famous cross-Atlantic voyage, and over 650 years prior to Christopher Columbus kicking off the colonisation of North and South America. These Vikings, expert sailors and valiant warriors, find this new world quite inhospitable. One man is felled by a comical amount of arrows. The others are vexed by biting insects, hunger, and inhospitable lands. These Vikings eventually return to their homeland, never to sail again, but they leave behind something very important to them: their one-eyed warrior God. This is the first bit of world-building accomplished by the American Gods crew, who have an interesting task ahead of them. Eight episodes to establish characters, create a universe, and somehow turn the dense world of Neil Gaiman into something palatable for television viewers. Fortunately, American Gods has a coin up its sleeve in the form of Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle). This is the first step into a big, weird world, and the viewing audience will be taking the steps right alongside Shadow as he learns just what he’s gotten himself into. Ricky Whittle is spot on as Shadow; he’s confused, he’s careful, he’s stoic, and he’s violent when appropriate. Shadow’s grief and loss is a seething thing, and it’s easy enough for Wednesday, Mad Sweeny (Pablo Schreiber), and Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) to manipulate him for their own purposes, whether it’s assistance, a fight, or information. In many ways, American Gods feels like the synthesis of the career of Bryan Fuller. He co-wrote the pilot episode with Michael Green, he’s the executive producer, and he’s the guiding hand behind the adaptation coming to the screen. The show indulges in everything Fuller’s name represents in the television world. The special effects are seamless and hallucinatory. The violence is over-the-top and bloody. The characters are compelling. The writing is strong out of the gate, barring a few moments that are deliberately cheesy. The mythology is dense, particularly in the first episode, but with a strong grounding character, it’s a manageable feat. Shadow is learning about the world around him; so Fuller and Green use that as a way to provide exposition without doing simple exposition dumps. Wednesday reveals himself in his interactions with Shadow (and the lady at the airport); Technical Boy reveals himself in flashy CGI and a constant stream of obnoxious vape clouds; he’s every YouTube streaming superstar or reality television figure smashed into one obnoxious package, right down to the ridiculous haircut and red skinny jeans (the anonymous cronies with faces like blank Twitter eggs is a very nice touch). Ricky Whittle is a great lead, imposing physically but with an expressive face, but it’s Ian McShane who steals the show upon entry. He’s charming, sleazy, and a fast-talker who baffles with bullshit when he can’t dazzle with intellect. Bilquis (Yetide Bakadi) also has quite an introduction. The episode isn’t perfect. There are some pacing issues, and the musical cues are very much on the nose, but there’s an energy to the thing that propels it. The tonal shifts could also be hard for some viewers to handle, as it veers from comedy to drama to psychedelic horror in turns (Betty Gilpin’s Audrey is a great example of how it can work from a dramatic standpoint). Still, director David Slade handles it confidently, putting all his experience working with Fuller on Hannibal to good use. The comedy bits land. The emotional moments have resonance. The world-building begins quickly and expediently, and it’s handled with the style most viewers associate as part of the Fuller brand. American Gods probably won’t be a disappointment to the fans of Neil Gaiman’s work. It’s crafted with care and precision, and once the world around Shadow is more fleshed out, should find better footing on which to balance comedy, drama, and mystery. The updates, by and large, work, and the stuff taken from Gaiman’s book should speak for itself. If the show can continue to mesh new material with book material, mix comedy and drama, and showcase the incredible performers signed on, it’s going to be a huge success.
title: “American Gods Episode 1 Review The Bone Orchard” ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-26” author: “Vicky Robles”
American Gods Season 1 Episode 1
If Bryan Fuller and Michael Green didn’t call this first American Gods episode “The Bone Orchard,” they could have gone with Shadow Moon and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Shadow’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is the throughline that keeps this story grounded in this first episode and that’s no small task. In reading many of the reviews before American Gods premiered, I saw a sentiment tossed around a lot: American Gods throws its viewers in the deep end and expects them to swim with little to hold on to other than gorgeous visuals and the hope that answers will eventually be given. And it’s true. This show is not for the casual watcher or the narrative faint-of-heart. This is especially true in this first episode, which I would argue is slightly less successful than the subsequent installments and is doubly important because of its role as the series opener. As with the novel, the character of Shadow has to compel and ground the reader. He is our entry point into this mad world and if we don’t care about him, then what’s the point? Vignettes casting gods as contemporary characters are fascinating — and arguably the highlight of both the novel and the TV show — but they don’t make up a cohesive narrative on their own. No, that’s where Shadow comes in. Through this first episode, Shadow manages to mostly keep his stoic, yet empathetic cool through some pretty terrible shit and that tells us more about this character than anything else. The only visible signs of his frustrations: an off-road scream into one of America’s national parks (and who hasn’t done that on a long road trip?) and getting lured into a fight by Mad Sweeney. And what an uncommon protagoist Shadow is, in some ways. It has always seemed important that Shadow is an ex-convict. After all, the prison industrial complex is a major part of contemporary America identity — especially if you are a black man, which Shadow explicitly is in this adaptation. (In the novel, his ethnicity is more ambiguous, though decidedly multicultural.) He also subverts many of the expectations media tends to have about ex-convicts. He is articulate and well-read. He doesn’t revel in violence, explicitly telling Mr. Wednesday that he will not hurt someone for fun or for money when he accepts his job offer. Shadow draws a line in the sand and, though he may get into a fight with Mad Sweeney, it seems more a product of Wednesday and Mad both getting what they want than it does Shadow willingly engaging in combat. Maybe that’s taking too much of Shadow’s agency away from him, but the fight scene is a “Somewhere in America” vignette masquerading as central plot. It is Shadow reluctantly worshipping both Mad and Wednesday in a callback to the “Coming to America” vignette we see in the show’s opening, violent minutes. Wednesday told Shadow when he first met him that he tends to get what he wants and what does he want more than the violent worship he once received so freely? In Fuller’s world (and, notably, in Green’s works, as well — though generally more thematically than visually), violence never as cut-and-dry as guts and glory. Here, much like in Hannibal, violence is a symphony that never loses its sense of stake. It may get abstract, but we never doubt that it is raw and it is real and people are dying because of it. The closest we get to artless glorification is a severed arm that flies across the screen and outside the frame, but it’s so darn cool that its hard to be bothered by it. Besides, unlike so many creators, I trust that Fuller has a point. It is this ability to articulate a subject — violence — that is so common in film and TV, yet so often lazily rendered, into something more that makes Fuller and Slade two of the perfect men for this job. For Wednesday, battle and bloodshed is a form of worship. To be able to render that without the senseless glorification is important. Add a dischordant, emotive soundtrack composed by Hannibal‘s Brian Reitzell. The result? Wednesday’s worship is frustratingly base, but with some form of larger logic — even if we can’t completely see or understand it. A visual and thematic complication that sets the tone for this entire exploration of American identity. Endlessly ambitious, American Gods also takes on another over-represented, but repetitively-articulated subject of the on-screen world: sex. In Bilquis’ “Somewhere in America” vignette (it’s Los Angeles — she’s in L.A.), we meet an Old God whose preferred form of worship is sex. Some creators would take this idea and turn it into a gawdy, scandalous montage of hot flesh and low morals. But that’s not what this character is about. That’s not what sex is often about, though you wouldn’t know it from its representation in most Hollywood fare. Bilquis may literally swallow her worshippers whole, but it’s not a violent act. Unlike Wednesday’s worshippers, Bilquis’ tributes surrender their bodies in pleasure rather than agony. There’s something beautiful about that, and American Gods captures it well, unafraid to use explicitness for something other than salaciousness. Unafraid to show a woman’s body as something powerful and demanding and in total control. There’s something so insightful about Bilquis’ faded power. America has a weird, repressed, uncomfortable relationship with sex. Of course Bilquis has to resort to internet dating to find intimacy in this country. We are briefly introduced to Shadow’s wife Laura in the first episode, but only to the edges of her character. We hear her talking on the phone with Shadow days before she dies. We see her through Shadow’s mind’s eye, wishing him goodnight. We learn about her death from the newspaper and her indiscretions from Audrey. It’s Audrey who has more of a presence in this first episide. Desperately grieving and hilariously open in her emotions and condemnations in only a way that the bereaved can really pull off, Audrey is a standout character in a show that has straight-up deities roaming around. That’s impressive. There’s something intensely likeable about this character. I laughed out loud when she frustratedly yells at Shadow, “I’m trying to get my dignity back here,” as she attempts to give him a blow job on Laura’s grave. On some shows, this scene would have been played simply for laughs or for scandal or for the tragedy of it all. On this TV show, it is all three and more. Endlessly tonally complicated, while still fitting within this weird, wonderful story. I think, for some people, the Technical Boy scene might be the most confusing part of this first episode. This goes doubly if you have never read the book. American Gods throws a lot at you in its first hour, and — as much as I like Technical God’s appearance (and the changes from how he is presented in the novel) — the virtual limo scene might be a step too far for some viewers who are trying to latch on to some sense of story. You think you have a handle on this world, or at least Shadow’s role in it, only to see the main character pulled into some kind of Matrix-like world where he can be injured or even killed. You understand why Wednesday and Mad Sweeney can be reluctant allies. They speak the same language: a poetry of tangible violence and wooly fate. An older form of communication and belief. Technical Boy, on the other hand, moves at a mile a minute. Information is directly connected to his preferred form of worship. He doesn’t have room for signs or dandelions in the wind. Though American Gods may skew in defense of the Old Gods, Technical Boy’s way of moving through the world is not a hard perspective to understand or empathize with. If you are reading this, then you most likely worship at the altar of the internet and of media. You find value in these things, even if you have complicated feelings about it. Character-wise, the Technical Boy scene is also a vital moment for Shadow. It’s the moment we see him truly commit to Wednesday. Before this, sure, he had accepted a job, but that means nothing in this storytelling world if he doesn’t mean it on a level similar to faith. Shadow might not believe in Wednesday yet, but he has committed to him. When his life is threatened, he stays loyal. He chooses Wednesday to follow. This might change over the course of the first season or series, but, in this moment, Shadow has picked a side. And it doesn’t come without a price… The first episode of American Gods may be confusing to some, but that is only because it gives its viewers a lot of credit. And, in a world where adaptations, reboots, and remakes are becoming so commonplace, we could do with a bit more of Bryan Fuller’s brand of adaptation. Which is to say: the kind of adaptation that assumes the viewer’s knowledge and uses that as a jumping off point. The kind of adaptation that attempts to be more than competent or binge-worthy. It attempts to be the kind of art to find answers in. The kind of art we need more than ever in this day and age. If you were confused and frustrated by the first episode by American Gods, that’s OK. You can trust this story.
