It’s time for the series to push beyond thematic foreplay and embrace the flawed and terrifying present tense.
In the midst of its social outrage, American Gods has made room for a warped and modern romantic comedy.
In American Gods, deities work in a fashion similar to that of politicians, as both bedazzle the public.
The episode satirically equates exposition to sales as necessary binding agents of contemporary life.
The episode tells a story of a relationship tragically governed by imbalance of power.
The notion of transcendence runs through the latest episode of American Gods as a thematic thread.
The episode is deeply critical of America, yet offers a glance toward the possibility of salvation.
Like many pilot episodes, the premiere of American Gods mows through a wealth of exposition.
NBC’s Hannibal ran for three seasons, but its concept called for at least twice as many.
Hannibal’s wildly variant, ambitious, possibly final season is sent off in style with a surprisingly thorough home-video package.
Like Lynch before him, Fuller has shined a light over TV’s capacity for eccentric, follow-thy-master poignancy.
The dialogue is as polished, overheated, and savory as one can routinely expect from creator Bryan Fuller.
The romantic subtext is the central emotional motor of the series, what keeps it from collapsing into absurdity.
The episode is taken by “reality” as a terrifyingly fluid and elastic realm, dictated by the conditions of the fragile mind.
There’s quite a bit of accomplished, bitchy verbal game-playing in this marvelous high point of an episode.
Francis is imprisoned like most of us within a version of life produced by his mind.
The episode is bug-fuck baroque even by Bryan Fuller’s incredibly accommodating standards, and the title is telling and apropos.
This is an unusually plot-driven episode of Hannibal that nevertheless maintains its surreal, mood-centric aura of erotic dread.
Repetition has inescapably set into this season’s Italian sojourn, which partially accounts for why last week’s superb American flashback episode felt so sharp.
Riffing on early portions of Thomas Harris’s novel of the same name, Hannibal is similarly liberated by its protagonist’s unmasking.