AMERICAN GODS (S2E6) “Donar the Great”: The Mighty Thor

In last week’s review of American Gods, I mourned the loss of the “coming to America” flashbacks that used to kickoff episodes in season 1. The flashbacks in American Gods have always been put to good use, as this is a show largely about how humanity has always been the way that the show portrays it. It thrives on flashbacks as a way of showing that humans haven’t evolved as much as we give ourselves credit for.

This past episode of American Gods entitled “Donar the Great”, didn’t contain a “coming to America” sequence, but it allowed a flashback to run parallel to the main plot of the episode, which followed Shadow and Wednesday once more, who haven’t had much one-on-one time this season.

So what’s this episode all about? Surprisingly, not very much (and I mean that in a good way)! Shadow and Wednesday visit the modern day dwarves, who have made their home in a rundown shopping mall, so that Wednesday can get his spear ready for battle. Periodically, we’re thrown back in time to a post WWI Wednesday, who runs a burlesque show with his son Donar (AKA Thor, god of thunder)…and that’s it! Sure there’s a bit of Mr. World plotting his nasty ways, but this is a rare occurrence of the show only following a few plots at once, so I’m not gonna ask questions!

Wednesday and Thor

This episode nailed everything that I originally fell for in Season 1 of American Gods. You want magic? Character driven plot? Cutting dialogue? An overarching and impending doom? We got it in this episode. You want Ian McShane singing about his burlesque show like he was plucked right from the 1930s? Oh boy do we got it. There’s so much to love here, but we’ll start with Thor.

No, it’s not the Hemsworthian avenger that we’re used to. Thor is spending his time in America performing in Wednesday’s show. The two are constantly butting heads, as Thor longs to be rid of Wednesday’s puppetry, so that he can take his lady fair out West. These moments in the flashbacks are coupled with moments of grief from Ian McShane, who is caught by Shadow a few times staring longingly into space, thinking of the son that he’s lost.

Do I need Wednesday to have humanity? Well, not technically since he’s a god, but this episode brought some much needed emotion to Wednesday’s character. McShane always gives a fun, all-knowing performance, so seeing Wednesday so put-off by memories from the past was a welcome change. It only strengthened my interest in him as a character, as he feigns apathy toward the experience in front of Shadow. He’s putting up emotional walls that will eventually have to come down.

Shadow questioning Wednesday about his son gave us a dynamic that we rarely get to see on the show: Shadow getting answers to his questions. Sure, they weren’t answers to the larger question of, “What do you actually want with me?” but the simple act of Wednesday giving Shadow some answers relieved some tension for me while watching this episode. We get to see that Wednesday isn’t always sneaking around Shadow. There’s trust, however little, between these two characters.

Oh Yeah, Fantasy!

American Gods finds a lot of its juice in its ability to ground itself in reality. To make itself seem like real America. The dwarves that Wednesday seeks are in a shopping mall, councils with the gods are held in diners, and leprechauns stand at a normal human height. American Gods (and much of Gaiman’s work) hinges itself on the idea that fantasy is just beyond the reality we see. There is a curtain that we can lift if only we’re brave enough to look past it.

However, it’s nice to be reminded at times that this is a fantasy show. The surrealist imagery of technology with New Media is always fun, but “Donar the Great” brought us some sequences of what felt like classic high fantasy. Dvalin the dwarf, hunched over Odin’s spear and muttering to himself as runed blazed themselves upon its surface made me want to call up my DnD friends for a campaign! And Wednesday and Thor facing off in the rain, Thor with his hammer and Wednesday with his spear, was a showdown so epic you’d think it was the final episode of the show. But it wasn’t. It was just American Gods proving to me that it can be a great fantasy.

If they can pull together a few more focused and character driven episodes like this for the final three episodes of the season, they can guarantee me back for season 3 (which is confirmed!). Shadow and Wednesday have a long road ahead of them, but it was nice to have an episode like this where we, along with Shadow, got to know the mysterious Allfather, Odin.

What did you think of this episode? Bored by the flashbacks, or can’t get enough? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll see you next week for episode 7!