Neil Gaiman: The last season of American Gods was “all over the place”

Neil Gaiman is hopeful about the third season of American Gods on Starz, but even he has some problems with how the second season went.

For a fairly niche show that hasn’t yet aired its third season, Starz’s American Gods has weathered a lot of drama. The first season, which adapted the first leg of Neil Gaiman’s book, was fairly well-received. But the scandals started when original showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green left. Cast members Gillian Anderson (Media) and Kristin Chenoweth (Easter) also didn’t come back for season 2.

Lost’s Jesse Alexander was brought as the new showrunner, but then he left too. Currently the role is filled by Charles Eglee, but I dunno, man, I wouldn’t get too comfortable.

And then, there was a lot of drama when production company Freemantle fired cast member Orlando Jones (Mr. Nancy), and Jones was perfectly willing to say just how that made him feel:

Anyway, that spiraled for awhile, and now, just when things were quiet, Neil Gaiman himself is out there being up front about the shortcomings of the second season. “I thought season 2 was a little bit all over the place,” he told Digital Spy. “But season 3 feels like a return to form. And, in a lot of ways, a return to the book.”

Now, granted, that’s not nearly as damning as the stuff Jones was saying about the production, and it’s not like Gaiman is wrong — season 2 was definitely a bit more discombobulated than season 1, probably because the show was trying to work through all the showrunner and cast turnover.

And it’s good to hear that Gaiman is optimistic about season 3. “This is the story in Lakeside and there is an awful lot of weird stuff going on and a lot of stuff from the book going on.” In Gaiman’s novel, Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) has a stopover in Lakeside in between doing missions for his employer/father/god of thunder Mr. Wednesday, aka Odin. It becomes kind of a home base, which is good, because this show could use some roots.

As for when we’ll see the new episodes, it remains up in the air, but things are looking better. “I don’t know (if it will air this year),” Gaiman said. “I know that we were incredibly lucky in that we had just finished shooting before the world went into lockdown.”

"So, season 3 had been filmed. Then, the world went into lockdown and lots of stuff couldn’t happen, initially. Now, our showrunner has been in Toronto sorting things out and getting it made. I think, now, it’s going to be up to Starz, and up to Amazon, when it screens. It’s really good."

Keep the truth coming, Neil.

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