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After a year off the air and Secret Pleasures (2002) Watch onlinea significant amount of behind-the-scenes struggle, American Godshas returned with its second season. That in itself is good news.

In today’s cancelation-happy television environment, it’s rare that a show as beautifully odd and daring as American Gods’ first season would survive losing two showrunners, two leading actors, and constant, well-publicized rewrites. So really, good on American Godsfor making it to Season 2.

Unfortunately, if the three episodes provided for review are anything to go on, the bulk of the show’s charm and magic was lost at some point in 2018. What remains is a tawdry and tedious shadow (pun not intended) of American GodsSeason 1.

It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly Season 2 gets wrong. Watching the new episodes feels like a very good friend has been suddenly and noticeably replaced with that friend’s identical twin sibling. If anyone asked how one could detect the switch, it would be difficult to point out what exactly felt wrong. It’s just...not your friend. Top to bottom. And anyone who knows them would know.

Part of what makes the opening acts of Season 2 feel so strange is the obvious fact that the climax of Season 1 has been negated by necessity — when Kristin Chenoweth’s character Ostara used her goddess powers to drain the fertility of America’s flora and farmland, it was meant to serve as the first overture of war between the old and new gods. Chenoweth quit the show after former showrunner Bryan Fuller left the project, which meant that Season 2 had to proceed without Ostara and the rest of her planned plotline.

The first episode of Season 2 explains why Ostara is missing with a quick joke, but no quip could disguise the fact that Chenowith’s absence resets the plot significantly. Now, instead of proceeding towards war the old gods are depicted marshalling their forces and somehow still arguing over whether fighting the new gods is worth their time.

That feeling of resetting the plot bleeds into other elements of Season 2. Mister World must again reign the impulsive Technical Boy in and send him on a goddess hunt to keep him out of the way. Mad Sweeney loses his luck, just as he did in Season 1, and is followed by a series of mishaps as he tries to get it back. Most frustratingly, Shadow Moon still has no idea what’s going on around him at any time, which has to get him on a list of the densest television characters ever written.

Seriously, Shadow Moon witnessed a woman steal the entire season of spring, watched his boss’s face appear in the sky like Mufasa, and literally met Jesus, and still his reaction to being asked if he believes in gods is “eh, I don’t know.”

This from the man who is sitting in a car with his wife’s reanimated dead body, a leprechaun who can pull gold from thin air, and a man who can talk to birds. Sir, are you sure?

There are glimpses of American Gods’ former glory in some of Season 2’s grander moments. The carousel scene in the House on the Rock, pulled directly from a fan favorite passage in Gaiman’s book, is an expensive looking and fabulous adaptation of a transcendental experience, but nearly everything that surrounds it is bogged down with godly monologues and hasty verbal recaps of each character’s conflicts and powers.

More sparks of the show’s great premise alight in its quieter moments. Omid Abtahi’s lovelorn cab driver Salim is still hopelessly in love with his fire-eyed Djinn, and their chemistry gives American Gods a romantic pairing to root for. Yetide Badaki is luminous as Bilquis; her subtle, sultry performance as a double agent is difficult to look away from.

More than anything, American GodsSeason 2 suffers from a need to overcontextualize everything that happens. Gods are real and they are at war. That’s it. That’s the show. The pointless theological rambling about the nature of belief fits better on the page than it does on the screen, where the dramatic irony of an audience knowing more than its characters is far less sustainable.

It’s possible that American Godscould course correct in the rest of Season 2 and refocus on the beauty and power of its characters connection with Americana. There is an equal chance that the show’s believability was a direct product of Bryan Fuller’s involvement in the show. Sadly, if American GodsSeason 2 continues in the vein of its first three episodes then that belief is as good as lost. And no god or monster could bring it back.