A scene from American Gods

5.19 "Hammer of the Gods"

I was a little concerned that this episode was going to give away the plot of American Gods, which I'm only about 1/4 of the way through reading. The room full of deities is remarkably similar to a scene I just read. At least Kripke has always been up front about the fact that American Gods and Sandman are big influences on the show.

Anyway, Gabriel's dead. I'm super disappointed because he's always a lot of fun, but the show's kind of going through a whole cleansing thing, I guess. Killing off anyone who's ever been important. Makes sense if they're planning to start relatively fresh at the beginning of next season. I do like how he went out basically on Sam and Dean's side. I also wonder if those angel sword things are really permanent deaths for the angels or if God can resurrect them if he wants to. If so, it definitely seems like Gabriel deserves resurrection.

However, now Kali might be a person in play. Now that Lucifer has killed the rest of the non-Judeo-Christian gods it's unclear whether she's just going to disappear into hiding, or if she'll show up to try to face Lucifer again. It's also just fun to see Rekha Sharma again. I kept wanting to yell "Don't trust her! She's a Cylon! A particularly bitchy one!" at the other gods in the room. Speaking of the gods, Zao Shen yelling "Don't mock my world turtle" was kind of incredibly hilarious.

Also, Pestilence! He's Max Headroom! He's also grosser than Famine! Like, seriously, magnitudes grosser. Although it looks like he's spreading a deadly flu and not the Croatoan virus. But I could be wrong.

And finally, the Horsemen's rings! I was almost right about the horcrux thing. Apparently the boys can use the rings of the Horsemen to unlock Hell and put Lucifer back in it...or something like that. And they've already got War and Famine, so now they're looking for Pestilence and Death. Open a door to Hell with the rings of the Horsemen! Collect all 4!