American Gods Review: Lemon Scented You (Season 1 Episode 5)

At a certain point — unless it happens to be Twin Peaks — a show has to lay its cards down on the table.

That is precisely what happens on American Gods Season 1 Episode 5, “Lemon Scented You” — with the typical American Gods flair thrown in, of course.

The most steady complaint lodged at American Gods by the general/non-book reader audience is that the larger plot has not been laid out in a way that can be picked up on if you’re new to the story.

The show remedies this in an amusing scene between Wednesday (Ian McShane) and the police officer interrogating him, when Wednesday explains exactly what has been happening in the last few episodes.

To the cop, it might seem yet another of Wednesday’s affectations. But to the audience, it’s the cleanest way that the show could spell out the conflict at hand.

This clarification is also accomplished by the series properly introducing the New Gods: Technical Boy (Bruce Langley), Media (Gillian Anderson), and Mr. World (Crispin Glover). As with the rest of American Gods, Shadow (Ricky Whittle) is the audience conduit in this sequence, pivoting back and forth from bewilderment to a sense of final understanding.

Gillian Anderson continues to be the shining bright spot of the series, even in scenes with McShane. While Technical Boy continues to be the little sniveling snot that he was on American Gods Season 1 Episode 1, Anderson’s Media is doing an assortment of wonderfully weird things episode-to-episode.

Whether that includes appearing as Lucy Ricardo, David Bowie, or Marilyn Monroe — all in their most iconic versions — Anderson is absolutely owning the space she inhabits, even (especially) if that space is profoundly strange.

 

Glover, on the other hand, is downright terrifying as Mr. World. Everything from his dirty-looking teeth to the smooth-yet-glitchy way that he talks is unsettling and fills his every moment with an intense energy.

Mr. World is the picture of someone that is too powerful. A hero that’s too powerful is boring and wrought. A villain that’s too powerful, on the other hand, is the perfect type of terrifying, because there’s nothing actually stopping him from killing the good guys of the story (Shadow, Wednesday).

The New Gods’ sequence with Wednesday and Shadow promises future engagements that will be equally as chilling and compelling to watch — there will just be some build-up until that comes about.

Elsewhere, “Lemon Scented You” fulfills some of the build-up from previous episodes, giving us true interactions between Shadow and his not-dead wife Laura (Emily Browning). Just as she did in life, Laura has an unsettling calm in all situations, be that explaining her affair to Shadow or instantly seeing through Sweeney’s (Pablo Schreiber) tricks for getting his magic coin back.

She is an unflappable person and every moment with her is a delight to behold.

As American Gods goes on, it seems to grow more and more confident in itself. While the early episodes were clunky and had good parts, “Git Gone” and “Lemon Scented You” feel like a show that is finally firing on all cylinders and has a very clear sense of what it is. If this continues, great things can be expected.

Some Stray Thoughts:

• Really dug the animation in the cold open. Hopefully they continue to find new, strange ways to tell these types of stories.
• A cold open of people believing aliens into existence in 1938 would be very appreciated, thank you.
• “Now, the leprechaun, he’s been against this from the get-go, but he’s at a disadvantage, being as he is a fucking idiot.” That does seem to describe Mad Sweeney pretty succinctly.

What did you think of this episode of American Gods? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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American Gods airs Sundays at 9/8c on STARZ.

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