At long last, at New York Comic Con recently we finally got our first look at ‘American Gods’ Season 2, which comes at the end of a bit of a PR nightmare for the show after the departure of the original showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, plus a replacement showrunner, Jesse Alexander, all of which was somewhat public, especially when Gillian Anderson also left the show due to the showrunner issues. However, the 2nd season trailer, which you can check out below, looks to maintain what was built in Season 1, thanks in large part, according to a recent EW article, by the actors involved and the remaining crew.
The trailer looks just as dark, edgy and fun as Season 1 with a similar look and style. This definitely got me excited to see the new season when it premieres. When author and executive producer Neil Gaiman was asked by EW about the rumors surrounding all the showrunner departures, his response was as follows:
“It was bullsh—, a Machiavellian figure taking out showrunners. I was offered the showrunner job several times, and I can’t. It doesn’t work that way. I’m doing Good Omens. It’s a full-time thing. So for me, I wanted Bryan and Michael to succeed. I wanted Jesse to succeed and I think Jesse did an amazing job of taking a show that didn’t have a showrunner, suddenly and surprisingly, and didn’t have scripts and putting together a writers’ room, putting together a show. It was amazing…Sometimes people write scripts and the scripts don’t always work. And at that point, somebody else in the writers’ room takes a crack at it.”
Which is not to say that Gaiman did not appreciate the work that Alexander did for the series, especially in keeping Mr. Wednesday and Shadow central to the story, stating:
“We have a huge show. It’s a huge budget, it’s an enormous cast, and you need scripts that service all of the cast. You need a vision of a certain amount of madness, you need to keep the plot going. It would be very easy with a cast of outstanding actors like this to lose Shadow, possibly to lose Wednesday, and we need to make them front and center. I think one of the things that Jesse did that I really liked so much was to get them front and center.”
Star Emily Browning went on to talk about how the show’s look and continuity were maintained by Chris Byrne, who had worked with the original showrunners (Bryan Fuller and Michael Green) on ‘Hannibal‘ before and was committed to maintaining the show they had created:
“We hit a giant road bump and I think we’ve managed to correct course. If you had spoken to me a few months ago, I was feeling not very confident at all. Always confident in the cast and in Chris Bryne, who didn’t come here [to NYCC] because, a) he’s working on the show as we speak, and, b) he just doesn’t want his face to be all over everything. He just wants to remain in the background. It needs to be in print that he’s the f—ing hero of this show. … He is American Gods to me. He doesn’t get enough praise and I want to shout his name from the rooftops because saved us and he’s incredible.”
Make sure to check out the trailer for yourself below, and share your own thoughts int he comments on how the second season is shaping up, whether the series can survive without the vision of Bryan Fuller and Michael Green who got the project off the ground in the first place, or whether you think things are looking just fine without the original showrunners.