Mad Sweeney, Or The Story Of The Most Unlucky Leprechaun​ In The World: American Gods Season 2 Episode 7 recap

Mad Sweeney, the most unlucky Leprechaun in the world, played only a secondary role in Neil Gaiman’s novel, but in its TV adaptation, and mostly thanks to Pablo Schreiber’s magnetic performance, it has become one of its most compelling characters. In this episode, we finally get to know his story as told in the legend of Buile Shuibhne […]

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American Gods Season 2 Episode 5: The Ways of the Dead

If the previous episode, The Greatest Story Ever Told, was about Money, this episode is about Death, or more precisely, about what the dead can teach to the living. In terms of the storylines, Laura and Mad Sweeney travel to New Orleans and meet Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte, Voodoo loas (spirits) in another attempt for Laura to come back from the dead, and for Sweeney to recover his lucky coin. Shadow, still in Cairo, encounters the spirit of Will “Froggie” James, a black man who was lynched in Cairo in 1909 after erroneously being accused of killing a white woman, and who haunts African Americans in town ever since. Finally, we follow Wednesday, Samir and Jinn in their search for a dwarf who can fix and restore to glory his spear Gungnir.

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Introducing New Gods (New Media) and meeting Old Ones (Argus) in American Gods Season 2 Episode 3 Muninn

A discussion of religious themes in American Gods Season 2 Episode 3 Muninn. In this episode, the war between the old and the new gods continues, and we encounter (new) New Gods, like New Media, and we meet an Old God, Argus Panoptes, the God of Surveillance, who still has not chosen sides. We also meet Sam Black Crow, a Native-American girl who helps Shadow get to Cairo, Illinois, where he will meet Mr. Ibis.

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East of West, the Prophecies of Stephen K. Bannon, and the End of Times

Over the summer, I picked up the comic book series East of West, published by Image Comics, and created by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Dragotta. What attracted me to the story was not only Hickman’s great writing and the beautiful art of Dragotta, but how this story of political strife, religious fanaticism, and the end of the world resonated so much with our current troubled times.

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God is Dead, Crowns of Thorns, and The Jerusalem Cross: Religion in Westworld Season 2 Episode 2

Dolores resurrecting the dead, Angela wearing a Jesus-like crown of thorns, references to The Valley of Beyond, and what’s up with that mysterious cross pattern all over Arnold’s house? There are plenty of great recaps (Joanna Robinson at Vanity Fair is my favorite), podcasts (she also does a great job podcasting the show here and […]

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