American Gods - 'A Murder of Gods'

So... a happy story?

In a very topical Coming to America, we open this week with a group of Mexicans crossing the Rio Grande. One falters in the water, but a long-haired man with a kind face walks on the water to rescue him. "You know my name," he assures the man, and light blossoms behind his head, but the light comes from the headlights of a posse of faceless killers, who clutch crucifixes and write holy slogans on the rifles that they use to gun down men, women, children, and even Mexican Jesus.

Elsewhere, Shadow's world is getting weirder by the day. Even as Wednesday uses the threat of the New Gods to hurry him away from any chance of meeting his wife again, a wound inflicted by some sort of walking treeoid becomes infested with a wooden being. People have always had 'a god shaped hole'(1) inside them, Wednesday explains, and trees were the first things that learned to fill it. He is evasive, however, as to what he and his ilk really are; perhaps, in the end, no-one really knows.

Vulcan, Virginia; where we love guns.

Wednesday takes Shadow to Vulcan, Virginia, to meet one of his potential big guns, as it were. Vulcan, god of the forge, has become a god of guns; the power of fire is now fire power. Industrial accidents and a cult of the gun are his meat and drink, and every shooting with his bullets – including those in the opening scene – a prayer to him. Veteran comic actor Corbin Bernsen plays Vulcan deadly straight, as he menaces Shadow with a hanging tree and revels in the power given him by every movie theatre massacre and NRA rally. He is as menacing as Byelobog, but full of force and vigour, and his talk of franchising his worship comes close to the rebranding offered by the New Gods.

Buddies.

Meanwhile, Laura is left behind at the diner, where Mad Sweeney makes her an offer. He'll find someone to properly resurrect her – in Kentucky – after which she will have no more need of the coin and can return it to him. They try to steal a taxi and thus end up travelling with former salesman Saleem, who is looking for his djinn. Mostly to fuck with Mad Sweeney, but also for her own reasons, Laura detours to Indiana where she looks through her mother's window, but does not stay.

Vulcan forges a blade for Wednesday, who realises that he has been betrayed by this one time comrade for the favour of the New Gods who have helped Vulcan to maintain his power. Vulcan calls Wednesday a martyr, but Wendesday insists that that honour goes to the one who joined his fight, forged him a blade and was then cut down. Shadow's reaction of utter horror as Wednesday first decapitates Vulcan and pushes him into a vat of molten steel to steal his power, before pissing into the vat to curse the entire factory and all it produces(2) is flawless.

As Shadow walks further into darkness, Laura finds a moment of light as she watches Saleem pray. "God is great," he tells her. "Life is great," she returns.

Affable evil to the hilt.

'A Murder of Gods' confirms two things: First, that Wednesday has no interest in surviving if it means adapting to the methods of the New Gods. He doesn't want to tap into the zeitgeist and feed on the attention of mortals directed to some icon or other. He wants the real deal; blood and iron and his name as a holy word, giving purpose as well as receiving veneration. And second, that just because they are modern, the New Gods are no kind of nice. I liken him to a more vital Byelobog, but Vulcan is actually much more sinister with his impersonal, uncaring drive to see weapons used, and that's New God to the hilt. As Wednesday notes, his new cult has nothing personal about it, no craftsmanship. The gun and the sword are the martial expressions of this division: One machined and mass produced, efficient and impersonal; the other hand-forged, very personal, but still a device for making people bleed and die.

In the parallel road trip, Saleem is one of the first to show something entirely new. He has hope; he has joy. He's been handed a new life driving a cab which someone took a shit in the back of, and he's loving it. He's looking for his djinn, but not for wishes or for power, and his outlook seems to be affecting Laura somewhat (Mad Sweeney less so.)

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this episode is that it is basically all new. Vulcan wasn't in the book at all, and neither was Laura's road trip. While recognising the need to expand the text for a TV series, I was concerned that the new material might be jarring, but this is pretty much spot on. I think my only complaint is that the Vulcan, Virginia gun cult seems to be made up, whereas the book content grew out of what was there. And it's not as if Vulcan doesn't have its story(3).

(1) Which any other week would have been title material.

(2) I strongly suspect that the curse on Vulcan's bullets will turn up later in the series.

(3) When the state of Virginia refused to pay to have the only bridge into and out of town repaired, they approached the Soviet Union for international aid. Virginia cut them a cheque.