WiC Watches: American Gods season 2
By Ariba Bhuvad
EPISODE 203: “MUNINN”
American Gods introduces New Media with a bang in this week’s episode, “Muninn,” and it was interesting.
But before we talk New Media, let’s start at the beginning. After the train wreck, we find Laura in pieces (literally), but hey, at least Mr. Wednesday’s car is okay, right? Even lying in pieces, Laura is concerned with trying to find Shadow, but he’s off to Cairo, Illinois.
Thanks to Mr. Ibis, Laura is slowly stitched back together and faced with a decision. Is she going to go off with Mr. Wednesday or go with Sweeney to New Orleans? And the final verdict is…Mr. Wednesday! Where exactly are they headed? To meet Argus. Now, let’s talk about Argus.
Argus is essentially a being that keeps an eye — or eyes, rather — on the world. He’s creepy AF, and gave me goosebumps as I watched multiple eyes pop out of his body. And while I’m trying to acclimate to this new character, Mr. Wednesday wants Laura to kill him.
And these two aren’t the only ones paying Argus a visit. Technical Boy is there along with New Media, the reformatted version of Gillian Anderson’s character from season 1. This version is very much a millennial and thrives on all the time and energy people expend on social media. She must be unstoppable.
Things get a bit weird (ok, really weird) when New Media has “sex” with Argus. Argus’ wires slip into her and it’s odd. Mid-orgasm, Laura kills Argus per Wednesday’s request and the whole weird techy sex comes to an end. I’m not entirely sure what was happening here but it was hard to look away. American Gods has a way of doing that to me.
Okay, let’s go back to immediately after the train crash. Shadow emerges alive, bruised and beaten up but intact. He starts to hear voices that whisper “Cairo” and “Egyptian”; hopefully that’ll make sense later. Muninn (Wednesday’s crow) assesses Shadow’s condition and reports back to Mr. Wednesday.
While at the gas station, Shadow crosses path with an interesting young woman who gives him a ride to Cairo. Yah, not that Cairo. On their ride there, Shadow is suspicious about who this woman is and I don’t blame him considering the kinds of characters he’s come across by now. But lo and behold, she is human and goes by the name Sam Blackcrow, which is a bit ominous but okay. As they arrived at the funeral home, Shadow limps his way in and runs into a creepy Mr. Wednesday lurking in the shadows.
Elsewhere on American Gods, Salim and Jinn engage with a God at a strip club. They get a seed. I don’t know what for. And then there’s Sweeney, who’s hitches a ride on a tour bus making its way to New Orleans. And that, folks, is the entire episode in a nutshell. How did it compare to the other two episodes of the season?
Honestly, I didn’t quite understand what was going on with Argus. It seems a bit convoluted. Perhaps fans of the book will be able to fill in some of the gaps? I did find New Media intriguing because of what she represents and how it has such a strong connection to the world today. Let’s see where this story takes us in the coming weeks!
