American Gods Come to Jesus (2017– ) Online

I enjoyed this episode immensely. Many loose ends are connected, and Mr. Wednesday has his great moment, telling Shadow Moon about his real identity. Finally, his conspiracy plays out, of course thanks to his manipulations and lying. I an McShane is even better than in the episodes before, someone has to thank the genius who casted him for that role, but Kristin Chenoweth as Easter is equally fascinating and powerful here. You can literally see how much both actors have fun with their conversations.

Also:

The goddess Bilquis's carnal story is told by Mr. Nancy with an opulent scene sequence, while he is sewing suits for Mr. Wednesday and Shadow Moon. Her role in the next season seems important.

Shadow Moon gets a dreamy meeting with the Tree of Life (and death), and Laura Moon learns why her's and her husband's fates are so twisted. That revelation will have an impact on Shadow's relation to his employer.

The connection between Easter and catholic rites is explained and another incarnation of Jesus is introduced ('Sleepy Hollow' villain Jeremy Davies).

Overall a fascinating, funny and visual impressive conclusion for this season and a promising beginning for the next.

There will be plenty of reviewers that will say that they were disappointed with the season finale. Not me.

Not everything is explained, but plenty is. Not everything is wrapped up good, plenty still to go at next season.

This has been one of the most enjoyable and original TV shows I have seen in a long time. The way numerous mythologies are weaved together with a common theme (not saying what to avoid spoilers) is genius(ly) simple. It's compelling telly.

If you're looking for a nice chronological beginning middle and end, you might not enjoy the structure of the show - it is far from that. But keep with it because even taking the episodes one by one, they beat the hell out of a lot of other middle of the road TV out there.

Bravo to Amazon for this.

I think many viewers like me were waiting for the show from a long time.I didn't know anything about book from the start there were many hater who called it boring but I thought it was good starting to the show but after the third episode all episodes were just normal. Direction was great but the acting was not that great I don't feel connected to the series as I was with the first season of shows like Westworld and Anne with an E,I don't know what went wrong but I think they took so much time to show us a war between old and new gods.

The eighth episode, "Come to Jesus", is far from an ideal season finale. It manages to bring together the disparate and separated cast together for a spring outing, but the show meets none of the usual expectations from a finale: there's no big revelation, nor a setup for the next season, nor even an offer of some closure. Sure, Wednesday finally uttered his real name upon Shadow's insistence, but since the audience has always been so far ahead of our "hero", it didn't come as a surprise to anyone.

While nobody was expecting that the first-season finale of American Gods would wrap everything up in a lovely neat apocalypse (showrunner Bryan Fuller's already said he sees his and Michael Green's adaptation of the novel arcing over "three to four seasons"), we might justifiably have expected something a bit more… well… finale-ish than "Come To Jesus".The big revelation that Wednesday is really Odin can hardly count as a dramatic pay-off, given it was pretty damn obvious from the show's very start. And the official announcement of war between gods Old and New just feels like the characters catching up to where the plot's already gone. Meanwhile, the dramatic tension created by last episode's disclosure that Mad Sweeney offed Laura at Wednesday's behest has now been totally dissolved by her shruggy response. After such an impressive start, it's kinda sad to see the season end so averagely.

Still, there are glimmers of hope for a Season 2 bounce-back. Chenoweth's dainty but powerful Easter is a welcome addition to the supporting pantheon, while the script's maintained its dark and cheekily blasphemous sense of humour; "Jesus Christ," exclaims Laura on arriving at Easter's son-of-God-packed party, "are they all Jesuses?" Plus it was great to see Yetide Badaki back as Bilquis, now revealed as being in the employ of New God Technical Boy (her deadly sex powers have been all fired up by Tinder). The Queen of Sheba's planning something nasty for Shadow, no doubt, in an upcoming instalment…

I've noticed with a good deal of curiosity that there's no mention of Gillian Anderson's episode 8 performance as Judy Garland (1940 "Easter Parade"). As Media to Ostara, on Easter, Anderson's lines are Irving Berlin's, from the song and movie "Easter Parade," (1940). "Never saw you look quite so pretty before;" "I could hardly wait to keep our date on this Easter morning;" "my heart beat fast as I came through the door;" then, as the song goes, (Anderson doesn't go into it) "In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest fellow at the Easter parade . . . "

Why fellow instead of lady? Judy Garland's pulled a gender reversal on Fred Astaire. She's singing the famous song that ends the film to a very retired Fred Astaire, the only film they ever made together!

Anderson wears the same dress except Garland's was white, hers is pink; same long pink gloves; identical Easter bonnet; same shade of light auburn hair as Garland's. too.

The guys with no faces in the tuxedos represent Fred Astaire, with top hat and cane ta boot. Thus, Gillian Anderson steals the series by showing her diversity as an actor who easily plays Lucille Ball, David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe AND Judy Garland!

Anderson delivers some of the most radical lines of the entire script. As Monroe, she's drop-dead gorgeous, as well as a trip delivering those incredulous nuclear lines. A must own Series 1 DVD to be sure. A hot, hot too true for words Starz series erupts in our midsts.

(PS: 91yo Cloris Leachman, with a Russian accent, is such a pro at farce. When she says in episode 2, "Learning is beneath me," I nearly fall off the chair laughing while she's very straight faced)~

Well, a full season of teasing a "big war" and we got no such thing. To be fair, I'm not exactly sure how a war between these obscure gods would actually work, but it would have been something I'd like to see if I'm going to continue with this show. This episode gave us a little bit more context into Wednesday's history (which I thought was already public knowledge), and a strange gathering at Ostar's (Kristen Chenoweth) place, but it wasn't the finale I expected. I guess it's not necessarily the structure of the show that's frustrating, it's more the content. There are a number of shows that I have enjoyed which take their time with storytelling, but perhaps the content just isn't for me. This season did a nice job of exploring each character with depth, this week was specifically Bilquis, but at this point shouldn't there be an overall progression in the story and not just individual characters? I'm not sure if I'll watch season 2, but I was pretty let down after a strong start to this season.

6.7/10

There are a lot of things they've done to extend the story out of a single point-of- view narrative of the book, a necessary act for an hour long, multi season series. I should warn you that I've read the book multiple times and it is probably my favorite of Gaiman's output.

I loved the Mad Sweeney and Laura Moon expansion. I adored what they did with Media and Tech Boy. I even thought the addition of Vulcan was excellent. And I could go all day on how they expanded that one chapter-ending story that featured Bilquis and built her into a major player.

So many things I've loved about this series so far.

"It's religious Darwinism. Adapt or die out."

This episode gives me the first thing I don't like about the series. How Easter changed from the book, a hippie like figure with flowers in her hair who took care of the city children of San Francisco, feeding them, and nurturing them, and made her old wealth, high society lady in Kentucky. Though making Media the deliverer of the take down monologue was an interesting touch; in the book it was Wednesday who tore her down.

In the book, Ostara, or Easter as she was called in the book, was a goddess of the people and was among the people. Which makes sense as Ostara isn't the kind of deity to be invoked by some middle man in a pulpit, she's worshiped as a part of the fertility festivals. In the book, she and Wednesday talk in a diner.

In the series, she's a socialite surrounded by people who are anything but common. There are 14 different Jesus representations including a virgin mother or two with a baby Jesus suckling at her breast. There is not a common person in sight. Even Media, Tech Boy, Mr. World and the Cyber Thug Dancers. She lives in a sprawling estate.

I should back up. There was on "common person" there but Laura Moon doesn't count any more now that she's taken on the title of Dead Wife.

And then there is that wrathful moment where she takes spring away. What the hell?!

I'm glad they expanded her role, like Mad Sweeney and Laura and Bilquis, but did they have to sacrifice the character from the book to get there? I'm curious how they're going to reconcile that temper tantrum in the coming seasons.

The season finally ends about a fifth of the way through the book. It looks like the next stop in Season 2 begins with the House on the Rock and Bilquis is gonna be waiting for them.