American Gods Episode 2: The Secret of Spoons Sneak Preview

The series premiere of American Gods, a television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel of the same name, aired on Starz last night, and within its first five-minutes, it grabbed everyone's attention.

The ultra-violent opening vignette shows Vikings setting foot in the New World and immediately regretted making the long journey to the insect-and-disease-infected land. And after one Viking is brutally killed when a plethora of arrows -- from unseen Native Americans -- rain down upon him, the rest of them want to head home. But the wind isn't cooperating. So to get some help from their god, each of them sacrifice an eye. But still no wind. So they have a massive and bloody battle to the death on the beach. This pleases their god, the wind picks up, and they head home ... never to speak of the New World again.

And that's just a small example of how crazy the first episode gets. For those of you that want to see what's to come next, check out the trailer for Sunday's "The Secret of Spoons" episode in the video above. Plus, its official synopsis can be found directly below.

The episode's description reads: "Mr. Wednesday beings recruitment for the coming battle; Shadow Moon travels to Chicago with Mr. Wednesday and agrees to a high-stakes game of checkers with the old Slavic deity Czernobog."

American Gods has been translated into over 30 languages and earned numerous accolades including Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel. The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society's modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.

American Gods is produced by FremantleMedia North America. Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Heroes) and Michael Green (The River, Kings, Heroes) are writers and showrunners. David Slade (Hannibal, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) is directing the pilot and additional episodes. FMNA's Craig Cegielski and Stefanie Berk are executive producing the series along with Fuller, Green, Slade and Neil Gaiman.

The cast features Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday, Emily Browning as Laura Moon, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, Jonathan Tucker as Low Key Lyesmith, Gillian Anderson as Media, Peter Stormare as Czernobog, Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy, Demore Barnes as Mr. Ibis, Kristin Chenoweth as Easter, and Cloris Leachman as Zorya Vechernyaya.

American Gods will premiere on Starz in April 2017.