American Gods, Season 2

Mr. Nancy/Anansi:
Time for a story! 'Cause sometimes, people need reminding of things. We have been fighting since the Portuguese invaded the Gold Coast of Ghana! We stay at war. And just because we are few and they are many, does not mean that we are lost!

Mr. Wednesday/Odin:
When people first came to America, they brought us with them. Me, Loki, Thor, Nancy, Lion-God, all of you. We rode in their minds and took root. But gradually they abandoned us for a better deal, a new life in a new land. Our true believers passed away, or stopped believing. Left us to fend for ourselves, to get by on what little smidgens of belief or worship we could find. And that's what we've done, we've gotten by. We live in cracks at the edges of society. Old, forgotten gods, in a land without gods. But there are New Gods growing in America. They've already replaced us. Now they want to destroy us completely, and if you think otherwise, you are fooling yourselves.

Mama-Ji/Kali:
You want us to go to war? You called everyone here for this nonsense? Most of us have lived in peace in this country for a long time. I have seen the New Gods rise, I have seen them fall! I say we wait.

Mr. Wednesday/Odin:
Czernobog is with us. He has brought his hammer to the fight.

Czernobog:
Yeah, when the time is right, my hammer will swing. [glances pointedly at Shadow]

Mr. Wednesday/Odin:
And we will need it. Believe me, these New Gods are not going anywhere soon.

Mama-Ji/Kali:
From one god of war to another: when I look out my window, I see no battlefields. I hear no war cries.

Mr. Wednesday/Odin:
Then you are not looking hard enough, Mama-Ji.

Bilquis:
Odin's right. These New Gods have more followers, more attention, more power than we ever did. Where he is wrong... is in thinking this is a bad thing. They showed me how to use their tools. Now I can bring my message directly to my people. I accept my worship, my way, and I grow in power. The choice is yours. Evolve or die.

Technical Boy:
Media! Oh, Media! Come out, come out, wherever you are. All this normy noise is making me itch. [looks at neon sign for Xie Comm] Hey! I see you. Come on, Mr. World wants you. [reading signs] "We can't drive into the future using only our rearview mirror." No shit. Come on, get in the car.

[Another sign reads "Advertising is the Greatest Art Form of the 20th Century"]

Technical Boy:
The twentieth century is ancient history. Like the faces you wear! Bowie and Marilyn and I Love Lucy - they are so fucking retro! And art? Art is irrelevant!

Media:
[as a voice on Technical Boy's iPhone] Art is the most valuable means of insight into the direction of our collective purpose.

Technical Boy:
You're looking for insight.

Media:
The appetite for distraction is infinite.

Technical Boy:
You're looking for insight.

Media:
[as a voice on a TV commercial in a shop window] I can choke them with trivia, drown them in passive pleasures, and devastate their spirituality with baby talk.

Technical Boy:
Wednesday scared the shit outta you, so now you're back in school.

Media:
There is no distinction between education and entertainment. I am adapting, learning to survive.

Technical Boy:
If I go back emptyhanded, he'll downvote my ass to obsolete!

Media:
I will not launch before I'm prepared.

Technical Boy:
World needs you back, right now! Get your incomprehensively aggravat--

Media:
[on iPhone] Goodbye.

Technical Boy:
Fatal flaw. Underestimating me. You think you can ghost in my machine? I am mankind's greatest achievement. I am the compass rose. I am fucking binary! Without me, shit don't spin. You can't hide. So lick your wounds, strap on whichever do makes you feel the most-est, put your face on, and come out! Come on! Mr. World needs you. Do not make me hunt you. Out of respect, I'm gonna give you a minute. Good talk. [takes off his virtual reality goggles and walks away] Fuck!

Mr. Nancy:
You old as dirt, bird-beak. Why the fuck you didn't ride the carousel?

Mr. Ibis:
I choose peace.

Mr. Nancy:
[scoffs] Egyptians told tales of the sacred Book of Thoth, which contains the secrets of the gods and brings misery, pain, and suffering to anyone who reads it.

Mr. Ibis:
And grants a bird's-eye view to he who writes it. I am old as dirt, and I have seen things as you have. Why do you bring this... rage to my doorstep?

Mr. Nancy:
You ever notice how traveling makes your mind roll thunder, like a train moving down the track? Except you don't know where the fuck that mind train is headed. And then all of a sudden, plop! An idea shits in your head, and you think that shit smells good. Peace is a beautiful but shitty idea. Only a goddess can adorn the sarcophagus of a god. So help me understand what these New Gods giveth... and what they taketh away.

Bilquis:
Your thirst does not inspire our confidence, only our curiosity.

Mr. Nancy:
[chuckles] I am not a god... in the sense that I can tolerate exploitation, oppression, and repression. My worshippers know freedom ain't free. They know the most potent weapon of control for the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. They know slavery is not a condition. Slavery is a cult! Human trafficking is a cult! Slavery got a rebrand, like mutherfuckin' the alt-right! And snatched - another one gone. Every thirty seconds, another chocolate-brown/caramel/yellow/high-yellow/redbone refugee girl with melanin in her skin gets snatched. Every. Thirty. Seconds. And to make matters worse, these dazzling new plantation owners built a pipeline to take our children from school to prison quicker than a cut can bleed. And the lucky ones go from school to the NFL, where they don't even let them niggers take a knee. They've been programmed from birth with shitty food options, contaminated drinking water, gun violence, police brutality, and trauma after trauma after trauma. PTSD? No therapy. Missing? No Amber Alert. Alone? Vulnerable. Snatched - another one gone.

Mr. Ibis:
I hear you, brother. And I hear them. I hear each voice, and I write each name.

Bilquis:
We have lived long enough to know these troubles are timeless. Suffering is not sacred, and moral law is final.

Mr. Ibis:
And sooner or later, they all lay before me. War need not be the answer.

Mr. Nancy:
[chuckles again and turns to Bilquis] My queen. The world assumes white people are naturally good. So when something bad happens, it's a good person doing a bad thing. They assume black people are naturally bad, so when something good happens, it's only a matter of time before that animal's true nature rears its ugly head. How much longer can we afford to wait? You keep track of days, numbering the years for scribes that record human history - do you see progress? I count one, two, three African gods in this room! And two of them want to exercise restraint?! And let the donkey-work continue, while you live your best life?! War is upon us! An old white lady is dead. Wednesday avenges Zorya Vechernyaya, but if it was a dead black lady, like this sweet old soul, Czernobog's hammer... [clicks tongue and wiggles finger] would not swing.