Behold, It’s Time for Us to Talk About American Gods’ Milestone Episode

Last night’s American Gods covered a lot of ground: starry-eyed lessons in Slavic mythos, angry leprechauns, low-key bank robberies, your own personal Jesus, how to make snow happen, and what happens when your wife may not be quite dead. But what we’ll likely long remember about “The Secret of Snow” is that it features what is to date the most explicit gay sex scene in television history. And it’s beautiful.

Spoilers for American Gods Episode 3 ahead.

Before we get to That Scene, what else was on hand? I’ve now seen “The Secret of Snow” three times and apart from individual stand-out scenes like Shadow defeating Czernobog in their second go at chess, Shadow’s eerily beautiful, dreamlike encounter with the fair Zorja Polunochnaya on the the roof, the glorious Cloris Leachman schooling Ian McShane, and the absolutely dazzling opening sequence with Anubis leading a dead woman from Queens to ascend to the afterlife, this isn’t my favorite episode.

It’s more about the strength of individual scenes and set pieces than a compelling overarching narrative, and though Shadow and Mr. Wednesday’s “bank robbery” is amusing, by the time you’ve seen it for the second time you’re twiddling your thumbs and waiting for them to get on with it. (An intriguing fact I learned at the American Gods junket: originally, this episode’s opening scene with Anubis weighing Mrs. Fadil’s heart against a feather was meant to open to the whole series, but they ended up switching it for the viking warriors. This one feels more emotional and the visuals are breathtaking, but I think the choice makes sense once you’ve seen next week’s episode.)

This is one episode, however, where the parts are much stronger than the whole, and those parts are stunningly rendered and ground-breaking. In terms of representations of LGBTQIA sexuality on-screen, American Gods just re-wrote the rulebook. When I first watched the love scene between Salim and the Jinn unfurl, then escalate, then pull out every stop in the history of stops, I shrieked to no one (maybe my cat was in the room), “They fucking did it!” The second time I watched, a friend was watching with me. “The way they filmed that, no one can deny that it was beautiful,” he said. “From your lips to the average American TV-watcher’s ears, please,” I said.

I think that’s my primary takeaway from That Scene. Yes, it’s explicit in that we get to see a lot of things your average TV-goer isn’t accustomed to: full-frontal male nudity, intense gay lovemaking choreographed like nothing on Queer as Folk, a transcendent climax that sets the participants literally on fire. But the stage is set so well and the scene is done so carefully and so tenderly that this never feels like cheap exploitation or boundary-pushing just because they can.

Of all of the sex scenes we’ve witnessed so far on American Gods, this one contained the most emotion and mutual regard. That is stars two Muslim men who precede the scene by reminiscing to each other in Arabic makes this a moment in TV history that I hope will serve as a turning point. Salim and the Jinn have a real, crucial connection prior to heading to their hotel room, and that makes their coming together all the more poignant.

Next week’s episode is my absolute favorite in the current run of American Gods that I’ve seen, a tour-de-force from actress Emily Browning that just might change what you think of Laura Moon. But last night’s episode stands a good chance of changing minds, perceptions, and altering the boundaries of how we can show love and sex on television. That’s the power of storytelling to improve upon reality.

So what did you think? I’m dying (but not quite dead) to know.

(image: Starz)

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