American Gods - Lemon Scented You

It seems I have picked up Showtime and Starz at just the right time. I have already perhaps watched Twin Peaks Episode III and IV four times, of course once from start to finish and during the weeks after Sunday here and there, in bits and pieces. I have also taken in “Lemon Scented You” from American Gods a few times as well. I venture to only guess what it was about. The old gods are at war with the new gods although the new gods (led by the incredible Crispin Glover, accompanied by his chief minion, played extraordinarily well by Gillian Anderson) pretend that they want to “form a merger” instead.

Ian McShane is like the Crispin Glover of the old gods, and in future episodes it appears he’ll be out rounding up other old gods to help him combat those new gods wanting to fade them into oblivion. Shadow (Ricky Whittle) is out of prison and returns home to his dead and unfaithful wife who has a gold coin in the center of her body keeping her “powered up” (I’m trying, haha). What I found compelling about Shadow’s exchange with wife, Laura (Emily Browning), is his decision to not “be her puppy”. You can’t really blame him. As far as she goes, the rightful owner of the coin inside her (given to Shadow by mistake) is “Mad Sweeney” (Pablo Schreiber) and he comes calling for it. Meanwhile Shadow is arrested along with McShane’s Mr. Wednesday and taken to police headquarters for a robbery. While handcuffed and held for questioning in an interrogation room, law enforcement are brutally attacked by Glover’s Mr. World, but before he introduces himself, Anderson’s Media shows up as Marilyn Monroe.

Earlier in the episode, Anderson’s Media had a talk with “tech god”, Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) about his outrageous attempt to lynch Shadow. Media is “disguised” as David Bowie (I swear that is what I immediately thought of upon her first appearance) inside a limo, with red hair, sky blue eye shadow and suit. While Technical Boy is out and about, this “spider helmet” (doing the best I can) locks onto his head and takes him into Media’s limo where she informs him that Mr. World wants the kid god to apologize to Shadow. Technical Boy takes offense to this but has no other alternative, carried along with Media and Mr. World to the police headquarters. How I view Media is she’s a “pop culture” god. Those who are fixated and sold to pop culture Media is their god. David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Norma Jean’s Marilyn are kind of like gods to some folks. I wonder if she’ll be Elvis or Michael Jordan next. McShane is trying to recruit Shadow as a type of soldier and he becomes an object of desire it seems. In this episode, it appears McShane is the object of desire, as Mr. World scorns Tech Boy for being so disrespectful to Mr. Wednesday.

While Laura has her fun with Sweeney (he demands the coin and she quite impolitely tells him he can’t have it, in that token smart assy tone that gets under the skin), tossing him about and breaking his fingers, he tells her that eventually the flesh would “liquefy” and putrefy, “falling right off the bone” especially if she continues to bathe in her hot tub or goes out into the hot sun. When that happens he’ll take the coin from behind her ribs. When she least expects it, Sweeney tries to drown her and the police arrive…she plays possum and he is carted off in handcuffs.

McShane is always such glorious fun to watch so my attraction to show will remain if just because he’s involved. But now knowing that Anderson is also heavily involved (and getting to immerse herself into characters so identifiable), this is the icing on the cake. And her as Bowie, speaking in character, while Tech Boy must answer questions and listen to commands, was a blast! The music behind her only adds to the delicious odd that encompasses it all. American Gods is a show that I find difficult to describe but regardless it is quite a wild ride each episode. This and Twin Peaks have given me a lot of esoteric and off-kilter content to take in and reflect on. Quite a time to be alive in the television age.