This post contains spoilers for Episode 8, ‘Moon Shadow’ of AMERICAN GODS. The Oracle has warned you…
As I pointed out in a previous post, we might be seeing the emergence of a new Technical Boy soon. So, here we are with the creation of a new one with the same human hands that created the first one. He appears to be onboard with the New Gods now, and has teamed up with New Media for an elaborate mass media scheme to flush out Mr. Wednesday and Shadow Moon. With their faces spread all across every source of information, it would be difficult to hide from the authorities who are hunting them down for murder of policemen and an information dump. Or so we think. It turns out that Mr. Wednesday has no problems hiding in plain sight while Shadow Moon had a deus ex machina with Yggdrasil.
In other news, Laura catches up to Shadow, and it’s pretty awkward between them now that Shadow knows that she slept with a now dead Mad Sweeney. Laura does reveal that she intends to kill Mr. Wednesday, but Shadow tells her to go help herself. It appears that his killing Mad Sweeney with Gungnir last episode has emotionally affected his decision making. Also, Bilquis offers to help Laura kill Mr. Wednesday. Laura just has to call on her when the time comes.
With Mr. Wednesday nowhere around in the funeral parlor, Laura visits Mad Sweeney’s dead body. By episode’s end, she carries with her Mad Sweeney’s body to presumably revive him somewhere…somehow. The details of which aren’t obvious to me at this point.
The last important detail in this episode involves Shadow Moon’s parentage. In a semi-dream state to escape his capture using Yggdrasil, there is a series of visual montages from previous episodes that include his mother and Mr. Wednesday. The images hint quite bluntly that Mr. Wednesday is Shadow’s father. If you read the novel, this will come as no surprise. What he intends to do with this information is unclear. Though his escape from capture leaves him a lot of room to decide what to do. It also appears that part of his powers is the ability to shroud his presence from people. This is seen in the last sequence of the episode wherein a police officer was not able to tell that he was a wanted felon.
‘Moon Shadow’ wraps up some story strands in AMERICAN GODS. It sets up new story arcs as the series goes into deeper territory. The intrigue continues, and there is a lot more story to tell. What direction AMERICAN GODS takes will depend on the elements it chooses to highlight. Hopefully, this will be plot lines that will generate more interest to fans of the novel and the series.
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