American GodsIs Coming Down to Earth, for Better or Worse

American Gods ’ time of year two premiereleaned heavy on the fantastical — but the second sequence , “ The Beguiling Man , ” brought us a back down to Earth for a bit .

Forall the overture of warthat the anthropomorphic deities of American Gods have made toward one another since the first time of year , the actual routine of deaths ( Laura ’s notwithstanding ) on both sides of the fight have been fairly minimum . Sure , Jesus died on sieve , but he ’s a Jesus — one of many . Coming back from the numb is their whole matter .

Vulcan , a reimagined god of firearms — who never appeared in Gaiman ’s original novel — also bite the bullet in American Gods ’ first season , but the character ’s death lack any tangible weight to it because we never come a chance to know him . With this week ’s “ The Beguiling Man , ” though , American Gods has its first fatal accident that score you think in the stake both Mr. Wednesday and Mr. World ’s teams are up against , and in doing so , the episode gives each of its character renewed motivations .

“ The Beguiling Man ” puts a authoritative end to the life of Cloris Leachman ’s delightfully sardonic Zorya Vechernyaya , the eldest of the trio of Slavic goddess who ’d align themselves with Wednesday in his crusade against the New Gods . With Zorya ’s death , American Gods sets up an important bit of mythos from Gaiman ’s novel that the show had n’t yet established — mythos that ’s key to apprehension why the gods are struggle .

In the most idealistic circumstances , the death of a god ’s physical physique would only mean that that special incarnation “ died , ” while a new version of the deity would take their piazza soon after . The key to this process bug out is the god in question being gift enough by the belief of their follower . If , like Zorya , the god is on the decline and lacking in the means of faithful believers , there ’s simply no way for them to generate , and they ’ve effectively died for real . As an enraged Czernobog , another Slavic god , explains this to the assembly of old god , you understand why he , in peculiar , would feel the devastation of Zorya ’s death — both because she was his friend and her demise is a reminder that he ’s just as vulnerable .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBykbwr3FYs

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

It ’s interesting to mark , calculate on how you look at things , how most all of the other old gods Wednesday ’s pull together , while wane in mightiness compared to the new deity , are not without their own very firmly found followings in America . American Gods has make that while utter sacrifice is what energizes the divinity most , they also fly high on tending , devotion , and worship that can take on a variety of figure .

While there are over one billion Hindus worldwide , the American Hindu population is relatively small at about 1.5 million , intend that Mama - Ji ( Sakina Jaffrey ) , an avatar of the Hindu goddess Kali , exist , but is nowhere near as hard as her similitude know in the Amerind subcontinent . There ’s enough populace and bulge cultural understanding of mythic digit like Anansi , leprechaun , and the Norse graven image in America that Mr. Nancy , Mad Sweeney , and Wednesday ’s presence all make common sense , but again , you ca n’t aid but inquire how tenuous their ability to feed on that belief are .

As interesting as that all is , none of the Supreme Being stick around to discuss much of it , because there ’s employment to be done . With a lovestruck Salim by his side ( in a sidecar no less ! ) , the Jinn set off on a mission to get over downWednesday ’s fabled lance Gungnir . Wednesday and Nancy force off to capture a train and Sweeney and Laura make their elbow room to find Shadow , who ’s been abducted by Mr. Town ( Dean Winters ) .

William Duplessie

break up its fiber up is a smart move for “ The Beguiling Man ” as an single episode , as it pairs up the show ’s characters in ways that get out new moment and pieces of their relationships and who they are . At the same time , though , it sense very much like a stayed , predictable move that ’s at odds with the frenetic wildness that define so much of the freshman time of year . You might see this as American Gods settling down into familiar tv set district , which could terminate up either work to the show ’s benefit or its detrimentdown the production line .

Through flashback , we see Shadow grew up travel the world with his free - spirited mother , who refused to speak of his father , and only land him to America when he was well into his teen years . Despite having see so much , there ’s a smallness to Shadow ’s world that makes his arriver in the U.S. a jarring one — something which make him have to confront the realities of how raceway and blackness lock differently in America , even though Shadow ’s the same person he ’s always been .

In almost everything about Shadow ’s scenes in this sequence — from the direction he ’s being tortured in the nowadays , to the means his mother insists that she can see a shining light within him that no one will ever understand—“The Beguiling Man ” is building toward something bigger and fascinating for American Gods . But it feels unclear as to how ( and whether ) the show ’s going to be able-bodied to impart that same kind of careful , deft storytelling touch to the rest of the season in an elaborate way .

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