Donar the Great

What is going on? Season one was compelling, Season two is just terrible.

Can't have old Media and Columbia. They could never be in the same room at the same time. All father's silver tongue ends up killing his son. Viking fans in Chicago? Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Al Swearingen saves the world by depriving the Nazis their strength.

. . . It seems a bit disconnected from season 1 and from the book, but it's been years since I read it. I do look forward to this episode, though.

In movie productions, there is a First Unit, which comprises of the Director who shoots all the scenes featuring the lead actors and the Second Unit shoots the scenes that the stars are not in and it shot by a different director. It feels like this whole season was written by lesser writers while the ones who wrote the first season relax or recover. This episode more than any of the second season of American Gods can be skipped and you won't loose anything in the story line. This episode does not advance the plot in any significant way plus, what's worse is that it has Nazis! The whole second season of AG feels like one drawn out Second Act of a play, heavy on character development but low on plot. Except in this case, it feels like we are watching a different show, one without the bite and tang of the first season. We suffer the second act as we wait for the final act where the pace picks up and all the plot lines come together. However, if you consider that this is the second to last episode of season 2 and it's a snoozer. then we fear that American Gods may not have a third season at all. I probably won't watch it, like I didn't watch the last season of Game of Thrones. The producers of these second rate episodes need to learn their lesson. Either go the British way and make fewer episodes or risk bad reviews on IMDB! lol

The sixth episode of the second season of American Gods, titled "Donar the Great" and directed by Rachel Talalay, stands as a turning point in the series, offering a blend of mythic resonance and emotional poignancy that penetrates the Allfather's carefully constructed armor. Drawing from both Neil Gaiman's intricate source material and Talalay's distinctive visual sensibility, the episode unfolds as a tragic tale of power, sacrifice, and the enduring scars of manipulation enacted not between gods and mortals, but between father and son.

"Donar the Great" pivots chiefly on an extended flashback that unspools Mr. Wednesday's (Odin) history in 1930s America, where he operates a burlesque cabaret under the sobriquet "Al Grimnir"-a sly nod to one of Odin's many names and a reference that also evokes Ian McShane's prior role in Deadwood. This cabaret, a swirling locus of American nostalgia, mythic performance, and Depression-era desperation, hosts acts that disguise divine forces behind human spectacle. At the center is Donar, Wednesday's son and a mythic stand-in for Thor, portrayed by Derek Theler with a mixture of weary compassion and suppressed fury. Donar and Columbia (Laura Bell Bundy), the embodiment of pre-Liberty personified America, share not only the stage but a forbidden romance that threatens Wednesday's grander ambitions.

The episode's central plot is propelled by Wednesday's need to repair his Gungnir spear, essential for the coming war. He and Shadow venture to a now-derelict shopping mall to rendezvous with Dvalin, a dwarven smith, and convince him to etch runes of war onto the newly reforged spear. However, this quest is quickly overshadowed by Wednesday's confrontation with his own past, brought forth in vivid, stylized recollections of the cabaret's glory days. Talalay's direction conjures an old-Hollywood aesthetic-rich in shadows, luminous with sepia undertones, punctuated by three cabaret-set musical numbers-that bridges the temporal gap between the Roaring Twenties and the mythic undercurrent pulsing through every scene.

Within this flashback, the show excels at intertwining spectacle with pathos. Wednesday's attempts to secure loyalty, both for himself and the Old Gods, are increasingly desperate as he manipulates Donar and Columbia's fate. The intrigue deepens when Wednesday engineers a rift between the lovers, a manipulation that ultimately propels Donar into a battle with his father. The ensuing confrontation, set in a shadowy alley and echoing contemporary superhero cinema (notably Taika Waititi's "Thor: Ragnarok"), is both brutal and intimate: the clash of spear and hammer leaves Odin's Gungnir shattered and, more lastingly, destroys any remaining trust between father and son. The cathartic violence gives way to a deeper tragedy as Donar, unable to reconcile the world's demands with his own sorrow, takes his own life-a suicide rendered with a blunt emotional force and marked by blood splattering into the phrase "Somewhere in America," a rare and earned visual shock for the series.

This excavation of familial pain stands as one of the finest narrative choices of the season. The writing, credited to Adira Lang, and McShane's performance imbue Wednesday with new layers of vulnerability. The character's usual sleights of hand, verbal gymnastics, and veiled threats are dropped, if only momentarily, exposing the raw void left by Donar's death. Talalay's handling of these revelations, particularly her transitions between past and present, are subtly choreographed, often visually aligning Wednesday's memories with his present-day meditation over the repercussions of his choices.

Aside from the central drama, "Donar the Great" advances the larger series arc by powering the narrative engine forward: with Gungnir repaired, Wednesday is a step closer to cementing his campaign against the New Gods. Yet, this progression feels secondary to the emotional devastation wrought by Donar's fate. The subplot involving New Media's technological scheming is introduced but kept on the periphery, underscoring that, for once, the cosmic struggle is being upstaged by intimate, personal fallout.

Supporting performances also shine amid the period-appropriate costuming and luscious art direction. Laura Bell Bundy's Columbia is poignant and magnetic, embodying both lost Americana and the ache of unrealized dreams. Her arc, culminating as she steps away to become Rosie the Riveter-a move orchestrated by Wednesday-highlights the ephemeral nature of belief and the ways myths continuously reinvent themselves in the American collective consciousness. Derek Theler delivers Donar as a tormented soul forced into impossible choices, while retaining the presence and physical grace befitting a thunder god.

The episode features some of the season's strongest cinematography, with Rachel Talalay and her director of photography bathing the flashbacks in nostalgia and the present timeline with a cold, modern sterility. The technical proficiency extends to editing: fluid transitions mirror the crumbling psychological state of Wednesday, and careful pacing ensures that the script's heavier elements never outstay their welcome. The musical numbers-far from being mere digressions-punctuate the narrative with both wit and grim irony, enhancing mood and character rather than distracting from the unfolding tragedy.

Ritual, performance, and fate are revisited throughout the episode, linking the cabaret's spectacle to the ways gods survive by shaping-and being shaped by-human passions, anxieties, and obsessions. The episode's engagement with American popular mythology, especially through Columbia's character arc, invokes larger questions about national identity and collective forgetting. Talalay leans into theatricality without forgoing intimacy, simultaneously critiquing and celebrating the cultural machinery that produces both gods and celebrities.

There are, however, faults to acknowledge. Some critics note that the episode's narrowing of focus, while emotionally effective, sidelines the ensemble and recenters the conflict on Wednesday's character at the expense of series momentum. The interspersed subplot with Mr. World and New Media, designed to foreshadow apocalyptic escalation, can feel underdeveloped and thematically thin compared to the wrenching father-son story. Yet, the episode's willingness to slow the pace and inhabit pain, grief, and regret stands as a strength, distinguishing it stylistically from its more frenetic predecessors.

Thematically, "Donar the Great" is a meditation on the price of survival-how myth and memory are rewritten, repurposed, and often weaponized in the name of persistence. The episode draws implicit parallels with classic stories of generational conflict from Greek tragedy to Shakespearean drama, as well as contemporary explorations of celebrity and fatherhood. Its verisimilitude is enhanced by historical detail, both in set design and narrative choices, linking the divine to the all-too-mortal failings and ambitions that have defined American cultural history.

Talalay's stewardship of the episode, informed by her experience with other visually ambitious series such as Doctor Who, is evident in her orchestration of mood and visual narrative. Her approach elevates the tragedy, transforming what could have been mere backstory into a mythic parable about the echoes of paternal cruelty-both that which is intentional and that which arises from the inability to let go.

By the episode's end, Wednesday's sorrow lingers in the air, a stark reminder that the greatest wounds gods bear are sometimes self-inflicted. The reforged spear, a tool for war, cannot mend the spiritual or emotional chasms left in Donar's wake, signaling a war that will carry the weight of personal grief as well as cosmic rivalry. The viewer is left to ponder whether the cycle of sacrifice, manipulation, and loss is truly the destiny of gods-or merely the legacy of those who mistake control for love.

Ultimately, "Donar the Great" stands as one of the most affecting episodes of American Gods' second season-a carefully composed tragedy that eschews easy spectacle for a study of mythic heartbreak. Talalay's direction and strong performances anchor the episode, offering a self-contained drama with ramifications that reverberate far beyond its running time. In its insistence on the sorrow and ambiguity of power, it urges viewers to reflect on the stories we inherit and the costs of keeping them alive.