The season finale of Starz’s American Gods opens with the story of a queen. Bilquis (Yetide Badaki), who was introduced to audiences in the pilot through a particularly memorable sex scene, is given a full back story courtesy of the impeccable storyteller Mr Nancy (Orlando Jones) as he weaves suits for Shadow (Ricky Whittle) and Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane). The love goddess, known historically as the Queen of Sheba, was worshiped in droves by the people of her time, who happily sacrificed themselves for her power and satisfaction. While this orgy scene, which doesn’t skimp on the nudity, explains her origins, it also shows her downfall, as the Kings and men of power throughout history seek to starve her of her feminine strength and co-opt it for themselves.
Time passes to Tehran in the 70s, then to modern day California, where Bilquis has become homeless and destitute. Her salvation comes in the form of Technical Boy (Bruce Langley), offering a modern solution to her hunger for worship, and sealing a pact between the pair that she must pay back one day. For Mr. Nancy, this story is a clear sign for his old god counterpart: If they are to compete with the new kids, he must procure himself a queen.
The goddess Ostara, also known as Easter, has been one of the show’s most anticipated arrivals from the fanbase, partly due to the actress Kristen Chenoweth, a favorite of show-runner Bryan Fuller. Chenoweth previously starred in his ABC comedy Pushing Daisies and is to date the only actor to win an Emmy for appearing on one of his shows.
Mr. Wednesday and Shadow drive to Kentucky to recruit Ostara before the old gods get to her, but from the outside, it seems as though she’s doing well. Bunnies frolic freely through the lush greenery surrounding her large estate, feasts of candy and colored eggs fill tables for guests to feast on, and even Jesus showed up for the party. Well, all the Jesuses showed up. As mentioned in an earlier episode, there is a Jesus for every denomination and occasion, as Christians tend to imagine different things when they pray to him: Some see him as the white surfer dude, others see the baby suckling on the Virgin Mary, and some see different races (episode six showed the untimely fate of Mexican Jesus).
The usually stoic Shadow can’t help but be charmed by the whole scene, admitting to Mr. Wednesday that he loves Easter. For Mr. Wednesday, denizen of the old ways, Ostara’s celebration is nothing but shoddy theatricalities, a mere charade she has adopted to cling to relevance after her own festivals of fertility and Spring were co-opted by all the Jesuses eating her buffet.
Ostara has mixed feelings about seeing Mr. Wednesday, but is open to hearing his case after he rants to all the Jesuses about them taking her day away from her through the sheer coincidence of timing (to his credit, one Jesus, played by Jeremy Davis, is really upset about it). Ostara admits to him that her day isn't what it once was, and many Christians don't even celebrate Easter for much beyond the excuse to eat chocolate and roll eggs, but compromise is key for the old gods. Bilquis played the game, as did St. Nick, mentioned in the episode, and Ostara cut a deal to stay alive. It’s worth it, even if none of her bastardized worshippers know her real name.
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Ostara, also known as Ēostre, is a Germanic goddess of the Spring Equinox. There is debate as to whether she was really worshiped, with some scholars attesting that she was an invention of Saint Bede, an English Monk whose 8th-century treatise The Reckoning of Time, is the sole historical source of Ostara. Whatever the case, as noted by Mr. Wednesday, all it takes for a god to be born is for them to collect faithful followers.
For the modern Ostara, in her flowing floral dress and Easter bonnet, the beliefs of old that used to nourish her had to blend with more modern sensibilities to keep her going. In theology, the blending of multiple religious belief systems to form a new one is known as "religious syncretism". We have already seen this in American Gods with Vulcan, and it is the compromise the new gods offered to Mr. Wednesday, which he turned down. Now, he wants Ostara on his side for the war, and he isn’t above lying to her about the fate of Vulcan to get her on his side. He flatters her with stories of her immense strength and how it could return to her if she joined in his plan: To wake up an apathetic population to their existence and force them into worship.
Before the battle can commence, Ostara has to deal with a few more gate-crashers. Laura Moon (Emily Browning), now more decomposed than ever, has arrived with Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber) in tow, seeking Shadow and a solution to her small death problem. Ostara can return life to those who seek it, but unfortunately, Laura's fate is beyond her abilities. She informs Laura that she cannot be fixed as she was killed by a god, and even other gods cannot meddle in those affairs.
More gate-crashers turn up (as informed to Ostara by her helper bunny), and Media (Gillian Anderson), dressed as Judy Garland in Easter Parade, drops by. This is where the dealings between the gods of old and new become clearer, as it is revealed that Ostara also took the compromise offered and latched onto Christianity and non-theistic celebrations to reclaim her relevance.
This isn’t a totally happy deal, as Ostara feels she has been “misrepresented in the media” to the point where nobody even knows her name. She is celebrated, but with no real dedication or understanding, it’s just not the same, and Mr. Wednesday is only too happy to play into those vulnerabilities. He believes he can offer her, and all the Old Gods, a return to the good old days, but they must be willing to demand it, and cause a little pain in the process.
Mr. Wednesday calls up his powers of thunder and lightning to make a sacrifice to Ostara, toasting the New Gods’ faceless goons, finally revealing his true nature to Shadow as the Norse god Odin. Empowered, Ostara shows exactly what she’s capable of, summoning the sunrise before taking back the life she gave to Spring. All around her, trees lose their greenery, the grass turns gray, and crops shrivel into dust. The war has been declared: If humanity wants Spring back, they’d best start praying for it to the Queen herself.
Viewers will have to wait a while for the second season to see how the epic war plays out, and show-runners Fuller and Michael Green have promised characters like Ostara and Bilquis will play more prominent roles in the series than they do in the book (in terms of how much the show has covered so far, we’re about a third of the way through the novel).
For now, the diminutive Ostara has provided the ultimate wake-up call to the Old Gods and a world that forgot them, so American Gods has much to give us in the coming years, because now, both sides of the battle have a Queen on their side.