Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods is adapted with care, but “The Bone Orchard” takes digressions that just make the series more timely and exciting than imagined.
The first third of the book American Gods is an incredible exercise in world-building. It’s the kind of world-building that lends itself to a television show. It’s what made Game of Thrones such prime source material for HBO. So, as a fan of the book — though I certainly have my issues, I was really looking for the show to breathe life into some of its most iconic characters. And, thanks to its incredible cast, “The Bone Orchard” did that and then some.
“The Bone Orchard” opens on a later chapter in the book where a group of Vikings arrives on the shores of America expecting to find prosperity. Instead, all they find is desolation and pain. It’s a violent and potentially polarizing way to start an already weird series, but I think it was an important decision to the success of this episode and, ultimately, of the series. American Gods is a book that lives in a subtext about why we worship and why we abandon who and what we worship. The Vikings’ plight on American soil tells us thematically what this series is going to be about. This first scene also sets the tone for the series — violent, dark, but also darkly funny. The majority of “The Bone Orchard” feels like a graphic novel. There are shots you can pull out and put onto a comic panel and this scene more than any enhances that.
When we first see the series’ main protagonist Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) — a prisoner just days from release who discovers his wife has died, all I could think is that they nailed the casting. Shadow is one of the weaker elements of the book for me. He feels too defined by the recent events in his life. In this adaptation, Whittle brings some much-needed personality to the character. However, the star of these short prison scenes is Shadow’s fellow inmate Low Key Lyesmith (Jonathan Tucker). Tucker has a single monologue that tells you everything you need to know about the character while giving off a creepy vibe that carries on through the rest of the episode. If the opening scene set the series up thematically, then this scene sets the series up tonally.
Shadow’s interactions with Mr. Wednesday (the perfectly cast Ian McShane) and Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), though iconic in their own right, end up fading into the background of the more exciting elements of the episode. Though, it must be said that The Crocodile Bar scene was meticulously and beautiful realized all the way down to the jukebox. However, what stands out to me in these earlier scenes is Shadow’s interaction with his friend Robbie’s widow Audrey (Betty Gilpin). Although she is a minor character in the book and especially in the funeral scenes, she is larger than life in the series — possibly due to a Klonopin-induced stupor. Gilpin is a standout in an episode full of great performances. Her manic emotional swings are an essential juxtaposition to Shadow’s steely reaction to his wife’s death and revealed infidelity. The extended cemetery scene between Shadow and Audrey bring out the emotional turmoil that Shadow is going through more distinctly than the book. This emotional beat — in addition Gilpin’s performance — help us understand Shadow’s state of mind. He’s a man that is untethered to the world he knew.
Brian Fuller and Michael Green, who created the series and co-wrote “The Bone Orchard”, made the essential decision to tackle two iconic scenes in this episode — the introductions of Bilquis and Technical Boy. So, let’s break it down starting with the Bilquis scene. In the book, this scene is the first interlude from the main story. It’s an incredible exercise in the genre elements of the book and Gaiman tackles it with so much poetic detail that it stands out as one of the more memorable scenes of the novel. Well, director David Slade brings the scene to life with the same finesse. The intimacy and pure sexual energy that were essential to the scene are both present here thanks to the performances by Yetide Badaki as Bilquis and Joel Murray as her suitor. However, David Slade’s lens frames this explicitly sexual scene with reverence for its purpose. It’s our first glimpse into the world of the gods and the idea of worship and it’s done intimately with bold choices that make the scene intense, but still a tender moment.
Technical Boy’s introduction, on the other hand, is an intense and kinetic scene that finds Shadow attacked by a virtual reality helmet (similar to the way the face hugger in Alien attaches itself to its host). This digression from the book — in addition to the small detail of Bilquis finding her suitor on a dating app — updates the series in an essential way. While David Slade is the driving force behind the Bilquis scene, Bruce Langley brings Technical Boy to life in a way that deviates from the book by updating him to become the modern internet troll. Granted the production design has to be lauded. The conceptualization of his limo is somewhere I wouldn’t think to take it, but appropriate for the story and character. The scene ends up being more brutal than the book — Technical Boy’s henchmen The Children beat Shadow and string him up before he finally escapes. However, every change feels necessary, which is often difficult to defend to fans of the source material — just ask The Walking Dead.
★★★½ out of 5
Watch “The Bone Orchard” and the first season of American Gods on Amazon!
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.