Series Review

'American Gods' promises more dark laughs in S2

The second season of this fantasy drama sees tensions rise as you get the sense war is on the horizon

24 March 2019 - 00:00 By tymon smith

It wasn't that long ago but it was a very different world when Neil Gaiman published his award-winning fantasy epic American Gods, in 2001.
If the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire was represented by the US then George W Bush seemed to be its Nero - fiddling while the planes flew into the World Trade Center, saying things too stupid to be believed and generally signalling an end to the dominance that his country had held for most of the 20th century.
No-one could have foreseen that the empire had one last trick up its sleeve in the persona of its Caligula - Agent Orange, Donald Trump.
Gaiman's novel imagined a world in which, much like the ancient Greeks and Romans, modern humans were subject to the whims and infighting between the gods who oversaw them. The action was transplanted to modern-day America and the story was told through the eyes of the hapless ex-convict Shadow, released from prison only to learn that his ex-wife has died in a car crash alongside his best friend, with whom she was having an affair.
Battered and beaten by the cruel arrows of fate, Shadow gets a job as a bodyguard and driver for a mysterious man named Mr Wednesday, who it turns out is actually the incarnation of the Norse god Odin, hellbent on a recruitment drive for the old gods who have lost their powers and are being threatened by the rise of newer, younger, more ruthless gods.
In the age of Nero, Gaiman's novel offered an oft-told mythological, heavy tale of the end times brought on by exasperated gods who couldn't take the stupidity and selfishness of humanity any more.
WATCH | The trailer for American Gods Season 2..

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