Recap / American Gods S 1 E 8 "Come to Jesus"

Season 1, Episode 8 (Season 1 Finale)

Come to Jesus

After a quick stop at Mr. Nancy's tailor shop for some fancy new threads, Shadow and Wednesday are off to a fancy party being thrown by Easter, once known as Ostara, goddess of the spring. It's her day, after all, and the party is filled with lots of bunny rabbits hopping about, jelly beans, all manner of sweets. But Wednesday is here to talk business - namely to swing her to fight with the Old Gods, despite that she's doing just fine thanks to every Christian in America who celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus. In fact, there are quite a few Jesuses (Jesi?) walking about here today - Caucasian Jesus, African Jesus, Asian Jesus, even an infant Jesus nursing from Mary.

As Wednesday has a private chat with Ostara, Shadow has something of a heart-to-heart with a Jesus who's sitting on the top of Ostara's pool, but things get awkward, however, when a certain ice cream truck pulls up, with Laura and Mad Sweeney looking for Ostara's help with a resurrection, as a dead woman tends to clash with the party's theme. It's not much later when who should show up but Media - this time doing her best Judy Garland - looking to woo Ostara's support.

Tropes

• Answer Cut: Wednesday and Ostara are in a private room of the house, with Shadow standing by. Wednesday tells Shadow to leave them alone for a while, and Shadow obliges. They look at each other - and the camera fades out and returns looking at a relief of a man and woman in sexual congress. The shot opens wider and we see it's part of the Persian museum exhibit that Bilquis was looking at in Episode 2, and is back at again. Subversion - it's shown later that they really are just talking about Wednesday's plan.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: When Ostara makes her speech to her guests about the importance of Easter.
  Ostara: I think it's important for us all to remember what this day is really truly about, which is...
  [Ostara sees Wednesday]
  Ostara: ...for Christ's sake.
• Bait-and-Switch: You probably expected the 1979 sequence to take place in Studio 54 or a similar place, not in Tehran, prior to the Iranian Revolution.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ostara is the goddess of spring, dawn and fertility. She is a rather pleasant, cheerful and helpful individual, up to being content to share her holiday with Jesus, despite the fact that it was originally her day and that he (they) is sucking away her worship and power. However, she isn't afraid to stand up to Mr. Wednesday, and after he empowers her by sacrificing minions of the New Gods who attempted to kill her, she responds by taking back the spring—killing all the plants in at least Kentucky, if not a larger area.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Wednesday and Ostara's decision to kill the harvest shows this. Even if they want to work for humanity's own good, they are willing to use rather archaic methods, such as starving them until they appreciate the gods' gifts, to achieve that worship. It's hard to place it into purely Jerkass Gods, since they do have a reciprocal relationship with worshippers.
• Body Horror: Laura's body is closing in on the point of no return - her complexion is blotchy and mottled, her eyes filmy, her skin is starting to tighten against her bones (giving her an emaciated look), and her speech is starting to slur a bit as her tongue decays. She even vomits up a wad of maggots after arriving at Ostara's mansion.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Wednesday calls down lightning to obliterate the New Gods' minions as a sacrifice to Ostara.
• Break the Cutie: In order to get Easter over to his side, Wednesday does everything he can to point out that Jesus is actually co-opting her holiday - and that, despite her protests that she gets enough worship from what people do unknowingly, it's not at all the same as people actually sacrificing to her. You can see that she's clearly having a hard time with this, despite Wednesday being absolutely right, especially after she gets a taste of true worship when Wednesday sacrifices the Children to her with a divine thunderbolt.
• Call-Back: After killing Vulcan in episode 6, Wednesday said he was going to make a martyr out of him by telling the other gods that the New Gods killed him for working for Wednesday, with the sword Vulcan forged as proof. While speaking with Ostara privately, he does exactly that.
• The Cameo: The Virgin Mary is one of the guests at Ostara's residence.
• Casting Gag: Kristin Chenoweth, who played Olive Snook in Pushing Daisies, can now be found in another saccharine sweet setting, again interacting with a Back from the Dead girl, as Easter/Ostara.
• Cliffhanger: Ostara causes a massive drought, Mr. World declares war on Wednesday and the Old Gods, and Laura reveals herself demanding to talk to her husband. Given what she's about to tell him - if she doesn't get a lightning bolt first - Wednesday may well be more worried about this than the other two.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Shadow calls out Wednesday for following up decapitating Vulcan by going to get a suit tailored, Wednesday says he shouldn't be upset: he is getting a suit tailored, too, after all.
• Costume Porn: Nancy, being a tailor of the highest grade, wears a fantastic suit and makes a pair for Wednesday and Shadow. There are plenty of additional fancy clothes at the Easter party.
• Despair Event Horizon: Bilquis reaches this after her followers die off in the AIDS epidemic and decades of sexual restraint leave her powerless and reduced to living on the streets. She reaches her lowest point when she sees on TV that religious fanatics are destroying her old temples and soon she might just be a historical footnote. She is pulled out of it when Technical Boy introduces her to internet dating.
• Distinction Without a Difference: When Ostara refers to the various Jesus's as gods, Wednesday stresses that they aren't. Where this really comes in is that diminished Old Gods like Wednesday are just as close to mortal as everything that Wednesday derides Jesus as.
  Wednesday: They're sons-of. They're men who walk the streets. They shake hands, they take shits.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Ostara isn't shy about giving Shadow a good up-and-down look when they meet (Shadow did the same when he first saw her, seeing her as a literal Gaussian Girl).
  Ostara: And he's pink chocolate! How perfectly wonderful.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played with. The New Gods are horrified when Ostara causes a drought, devastating nearby crops... but given their general disinterest in giving things to humans, they're more concerned with the potential loss of followers and the implications of Ostara turning against them.
• Eye Remember: Easter examines Laura's dead eyes to see the face of her killer.
• Exact Words: Invoked by Wednesday when Shadow tries to quit his employ. Shadow agreed to work for Wednesday until Wednesday did something to piss Shadow off. Wednesday points out that Shadow might be confused and frustrated by Wednesday's actions but he is not actually angry. Shadow examines his feelings on the matter and agrees with Wednesday.
• Fourth Wall Psych: The episode begins with a montage of Nancy doing tailoring work, before announcing to the camera that this is too complicated and he wants to tell a story. The next shot reveals that he's talking to Wednesday and Shadow, who are the ones he's doing the work for.
• Funny Background Event: When Laura arrives at Ostara's house in a damaged, stolen ice cream van, she tosses the keys to a valet, who walks around the vehicle in consternation. You can see him awkwardly climbing into the driver's seat as Laura and Mad Sweeney walk toward the house.
• Groin Attack: As part of her latest No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Sweeney, Laura grabs him by his crotch and holds him in the air.
• Hijacked by Jesus: Ostara's Spring celebration has become the Christian holyday of Easter, and Wednesday even calls-out a Jesus on it. Jesus looks truly sorry about it.
• Holy Halo: Each of the Jesuses has one. The first we see is from a candelabra behind his head, but later we see halos with no possible scientific explanation. Mother Mary has one as well.
• I Have Many Names: Wednesday lists several of his epithets and names as he reveals himself as Odin to Shadow.
• Internal Reveal: Laura finds out that Sweeney killed her on Wednesday's orders.
• Kick the Dog: Poor bunny wabbits, being run over by Wednesday's car. Though they were sentient rabbits trying to deny him access by forming a 'human shield' across the road. Wednesday's destruction of the springtime rabbits, converting their gentle white cuteness to red-stained blood and gore, is symbolically consistent with his tendencies toward deflowering young girls and destroying the flower of nations' youth in war.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A clever variation. Ostara unleashes her full might and takes back the Spring. She is literally ending the season.
• Literal Metaphor: Laura exclaims "Jesus Christ"... just as a collection of Jesuses pass by her.
• Meaningful Name: One of the names that Wednesday gives out during his I Have Many Names-Speech is Glad-of-War, Happy in War. Wednesday has spent the entire season trying to start a war between the Old Gods and the New.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ostara has a lot to lose by joining Wednesday and she is extremely suspicious of him after finding out what happened to Laura. Then the New Gods show up and with their arrogance they give Wednesday the perfect opening to make a Rousing Speech and give Ostara a demonstration of what she could regain if the New Gods are defeated.
• Noodle Incident: Ostara apparently owes a favor to Mad Sweeney, but we're not told how.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Technical Boy, of all people given the stereotypes about what he represents, rejects Bilquis's advances. Although given what he knows about how her sexual partners end up, this may just be pragmatism.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Wednesday uses Ostara to give one to humanity. Humanity either starts worshiping the Old Gods once again or they withdraw the divine blessings that humanity has taken for granted, like spring coming after winter.
• Pragmatic Villainy: With The Reveal that Mr. Wednesday is Odin, Mr. World's insistence that the New Gods and the Old are not at war and that there is no point to one because they've already won makes sense - Odin is a war god and would be empowered by an all-out war between them. With Ostara's defection and resulting drought, Wednesday gets his wish as Mr. World declares that the "peace" between them is over.
• Pre-emptive Declaration: Wednesday dedicates "these" deaths to Ostara, prompting Media to ask which ones. He meant the Children behind the Technical Boy and Media.
• The Resenter: Wednesday appeals to Ostara's resentment for her holiday and festivities having become hijacked by Jesus.

• Self-Duplication: The Children (the New Gods' Faceless Mooks) can duplicate to increase their numbers.
• Skeptic No Longer: Even after an entire season of following Wednesday and seeing impossible things, including his own wife rising from the dead, Shadow confesses to one of the Jesuses at the party that he's finding it difficult to "believe". But seeing Wednesday and Ostara's incredible displays of power in front of the New Gods finally changes all that.
  Wednesday: What do you believe, Shadow?
  Shadow: ...Everything.
• Stepford Smiler: Ostara puts on a happy face to conceal the fact that she's pissed at Christians for hijacking what should be her celebration. Notably, she refuses to be mad at Jesus himself, and comforts one of them when they try to apologize for it.
• The Stinger: Bilquis, supposedly now working on Technical Boy's behalf, takes a man back to the bus bathroom as the bus passes a sign announcing "This Way to House on the Rock."
• This Means War!: After Wednesday summons lightning to sacrifice the Children threatening Ostara (and dedicating the deaths to her, to give her some real power after being starved of it), Mr. World speaks through one of the dying Children to tell him that Wednesday's getting his wish - he shall have war between the Old and New Gods - but it will be the one Wednesday will die in.
• Walk on Water: One of the Jesuses at the Easter party is sitting on the pool, and then apparently forgets this as he puts his drink down, watches it sink, and mutters, "God dammit."
• We Used to Be Friends: Turns out Ostara had adapted into the role of Easter with the aid of Media. That friendship is now shattered after she aligns with Wednesday.