Syfy Insider Exclusive

Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!

Sign Up For Free to View
SYFY WIRE Original Video

WATCH: Ricky Whittle breaks down American Gods Season 2

By Tara Bennett

Shadow Moon isn't completely in the shadows now that Season 2 of American Gods has revealed all sorts of deities in their true form (because that trippy carousel scene was no hallucination), but does he really believe?

"Shadow's journey in Season 1 was cynic to believer," Ricky Whittle told SYFY WIRE about his alter ego. "[In] Season 2, just because he believes, doesn't mean he understands yet."

He's obviously starting to pick up on something. Wednesday is more than just some random fraud in a white suit who really loves his mead, though he really takes his time to admit who he is in this pantheon even after Shadow has seen everything from a leprechaun pulling coins out of thin air to his dead wife acting not so dead. Now the Odin thing is out — but Shadow still has so many questions.

Whittle realized that Shadow is more of an observer than a talker as old gods face off against the shiny new deities that spawned from the human obsession with technology and media. He is not just a shadow of the man he was before all these strange phenomena, but a shadow man who watches and waits as he tries to mentally sort out who exactly is on whose side and what is happening. The doubt hasn't faded yet. He goes from having moments of understanding to being totally mystified.

So why are the gods still treating Shadow as if he is, as Whittle put it, "a petulant child"? He's still too human. The character is still purposely left in the dark about many of Wednesday's shady deals at this point in Gaiman's novel, and while there are things he can't even begin to comprehend, it doesn't help that supernatural beings who have been around for thousands and thousands of years are talking down to him.

You know things are really going to start unraveling in Season 3. Watch on to get Whittle’s take on where Shadow is going as he ventures further into the relam of gods and monsters.