American Gods proved it was a show worth watching in the opening minutes of its second episode, with a scene that had fire in its veins and a bone to pick, taking dead aim at our broken culture.

"Let me paint a picture of what's waiting for you on the shore," says Mr. Nancy, the show's immaculately dressed take on Anansi, the trickster spider-god of West African and Caribbean folklore, as he struts onto the holding deck of a slave ship bound for America. He then tells the formerly free men about the horrors of enslavement that await them in America, the poverty that will be imposed on them the next hundred years, and the police that will shoot them a hundred years after that. (You can, and should, watch an excerpt of it here.) Toward the end of his monologue, a man in chains quakes with fury. "This guy gets it," Mr. Nancy says. "He's gettin' angry. Angry is good. Angry gets. Shit. Done."

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In its first season, American Gods—which aired its first season finale last night—wasn't terribly concerned with plot. Instead, its central narrative of recently released convict Shadow Moon's road trip with the mysterious god Mr. Wednesday was merely a backdrop, a running thread woven between vignettes about immigrants and the gods they brought with them. While this could at times frustrate as the show began to explicitly lay out its endgame of the coming war between the old gods and new ones—personified by modern obsessions like Media, the Internet, or guns—it ultimately had to first tell a story about belief. About Shadow Moon, a man without belief, finally caving to faith. Hence scenes like Mr. Nancy's, which doubles as a thesis statement for the episode it takes place in, and one for the entire show.

The story of American Gods season one is the story of a man being awoken from apathy, the slow journey from believing in nothing to believing in something.

Mr. Nancy returns in American Gods' first season finale. In his scene, he has a question for Shadow Moon: When is he going to get angry? His story starts with him ending five years of incarceration only to find out his wife died in the midst of an affair with his friend. On his long journey with Mr. Wednesday, Shadow has met old forgotten gods and been hunted by new ones, haunted by his resurrected ex-wife and hanged from a tree, all the while steadfastly refusing to acknowledge he has any skin in the game. The story of American Gods season one is the story of a man being awoken from apathy, the slow journey from believing in nothing to believing in something. In the end, he gets angry. Angry enough to demand an answer from those around him. Angry enough to get one.

American Gods strives to reassert the plurality of what it means to be American against a rising tide of resentment toward diversity and the demonization of immigrants. It's an ode to the complicated patchwork of our heritage, one that exists as a monument to the idea that there is no one true America, not in language or culture or faith. It's a world made by those who were here before us and those who will come after and, most importantly, those who are not like us. But if there is one thing that American Gods asserts is wholly American, it is taking action, seizing one's fate. And few things inspire action better than fury: at your circumstances, at injustice, at those who can see other Americans dying in the streets and do nothing. To be American is to be angry. So take a look around. We can't afford to not be angry anymore. Angry gets shit done.

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