American Gods (STARZ)

[unlurking]

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Maybe it's different if you haven't read the book. What do those of you who have not read the book think of the series so far?

To be honest I was a bigger fan of the idea than what the comix gave me. Great premise then slowly lost me...

[old_geezer]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Maybe it's different if you haven't read the book. What do those of you who have not read the book think of the series so far?

I haven't read the book and after 4 episodes I have zero interest in watching the rest. The only reason I have STARZ in the first place is to watch "The White Princess" (based on The War of the Roses). After this series is over in two more weeks I will drop STARZ . American Gods isn't worth the price of admission. Boring, plodding story line IMO.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Rausch

To be honest I was a bigger fan of the idea than what the comix gave me. Great premise then slowly lost me...

Originally Posted by old_geezer

I haven't read the book and after 4 episodes I have zero interest in watching the rest. The only reason I have STARZ in the first place is to watch "The White Princess" (based on The War of the Roses). After this series is over in two more weeks I will drop STARZ . American Gods isn't worth the price of admission. Boring, plodding story line IMO.

Thanks. I couldn't tell if the series seemed so uninteresting up to this point because I knew what the story line was supposed to be or if it was generally bad viewing whether you'd read the book or not.

You can't tell by the show but the book is a rather good read.

[hometeam]

Originally Posted by vailpass

I watched 4. Worst episode of an already not-so-good season. SOOOO slow. I fas forwarded through 15 minutes of the first half hour of needless, boring, Shadow and Laura tripe.
I won't even touch on Laura being at Audrey's where she inexplicably needs an arm sewn back on.
It's called "American Gods", not "American Stiffs". An entire episode without showing any of the interesting characters was a horrible idea.

They've been losing viewership each week. If they want to reverse that they'd better show a whole lot more Odin and Mad Sweeney and bring in some other interesting characters or soon nobody will believe in this show and it will die.

Maybe it's different if you haven't read the book. What do those of you who have not read the book think of the series so far?

I havent read the book, but we where remarking last night how they where deliberately stretching out shots, scenes, and an entire epsiode on how ol girl showed up a dead zombie slut at the hotel room.

[Discuss Thrower]

So, perhaps by incident or by intention, Episode 5 was structured in a way that made Episode 4 totally skippable since the end of Ep.3 would flow seamlessly into Ep.5.

Spoiler!

The only thing that's lost by skipping the Laura episode is seeing Anubis deal with a nonbeliever (which may or may not have relevance to the narrative or to the mythos), the explanation as to why Laura can find Shadow seeing that he's her source of light and the detailed explanation as to why Shadow was locked up in the first place.

If this was intentional... then Green / Fuller should kick themselves in the dick for an episode that can be written off as chaff outside of some comical moments between two characters and some backstory.

If it were done by incident, then people who are still on the fence about the show after the first two can be told to skip the Laura-centric episode and continue on with #5.

All of that aside, tonight brought us some action and some further revelation as to what's playing out in the world of American Gods and I think it was enjoyable.

Spoiler!

Green and Fuller went off-book again with creating the Laura and Mad Sweeney scene at the motel; the intent was solely to have fun with the characters and to showcase how much those two are dickheads to each other as well as to anyone they come across. As much as the pratfalls are pretty hilarious, it almost feels like a waste of Pablo to have him get racked in the nuts escaping a cop car instead of snarling wise ass remarks to Shadow or Wednesday.

Credit to Emily Browning for being naked for a large part of the episode and to, at least in my mind, successfully pull off some sort of cinematic uncanny valley of being a revenant corpse that's trying to pass off as being normal and alive but failing to do so with her mannerisms as well as being pretty blase about the whole being dead thing. Also the fact she killed an innocent mortician but couldn't care less about that whole event.

But the important part is the Shadow and Wednesday storyline and the continuing arc of the show in pitting the old gods versus the new. Media is trippy and disjointed which fits. Technical Boy is a prick that still has to kowtow to Media and Mr. World. Mr. World is... ****ing out there. But I like it.

[Miles]

While I guess you could have skipped it I actually though episode 4 was fairly solid for a number of things going on. Also for the amusing note of the cheating husband being Dane Cook (who I don't hate as an actor) being burred with his dick in that place.

[old_geezer]

Originally Posted by old_geezer

I haven't read the book and after 4 episodes I have zero interest in watching the rest. The only reason I have STARZ in the first place is to watch "The White Princess" (based on The War of the Roses). After this series is over in two more weeks I will drop STARZ . American Gods isn't worth the price of admission. Boring, plodding story line IMO.

Episode 5 did nothing to change my mind about this show. Maybe if I had read the book (or comic or whatever) it would make more sense and I could see what they were building up to. It's the old gods vs the new gods but with so many characters and a plot line seemingly going nowhere slowly, it's just an incoherent mess IMO. Next week is the last week of "The White Princess" mini-series and I doubt I'll even watch American Gods afterwards.

[Discuss Thrower]

Best episode so far, but I guarantee there will be bitching about the "Coming to America" sequence at the beginning.

[KC_Lee]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

Best episode so far, but I guarantee there will be bitching about the "Coming to America" sequence at the beginning.

Spoiling just in case...

Spoiler!

Looked like white America Jesus shooting Mexican Jesus too me.

[Bowser]

I've got the last four episodes sitting on the DVR, and I'm having a hard time getting motivated to watch them. Worth it, or nah?

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Bowser

I've got the last four episodes sitting on the DVR, and I'm having a hard time getting motivated to watch them. Worth it, or nah?

Dive on in. Would like to hear your feedback. Have you read the book?

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Dive on in. Would like to hear your feedback. Have you read the book?

Yes, a long time ago. It was taking me seeing it on screen to remember that I had read about it previously.

I haven't hated what I've seen so far, but I haven't been drawn to it, either. I'll have to block out some time and get caught up with it.

[Discuss Thrower]

90% of tonight's episode is a "Coming to America" sidestep so that'll probably bore / aggravate a lot of folk.

Spoiler!

Green and Fuller confirm it in the post-credits, but Elsie Tregowan's story from the novel was pretty key to understanding what Gaiman was getting at through the whole novel. Apparently the decision to dual cast Browning as both Laura and Essie came after work had started on the show and worked because Browning has a mouth for accents (not that I could personally know when an Irish accent is convincing or not. Either way, Essie's story was a nice detour in showing how many American's ancestors came here and what they brought along with them. The episode itself spells everything out in that regard and I'm not going to unpack that.

As for the 10% that wasn't the Coming to America vignette, we see that Sweeney was responsible for Laura and Robbie's accident, Sweeney inadvertently gets Salim to bugger off and Laura, while dead and is willing to kill living people, is unwilling to accidentally kill white bunnies and nearly destroys the more appropriate means of conveyance for a a mobile rotting corpse. Sweeney, tying back in to the story of Essie, shows that the gods (or at least leprechauns) aren't unilaterally good or bad and uses his briefly recovered special coin to re-revenant Laura.

All of that being said, tonight is one episode that is totally devoid of Wednesday and Shadow (likely for dramatic reasons related to the end of episode 6 and the upcoming finale) so we lose there which is disappointing, but hopefully will be rewarded with an exciting finale.

[unlurking]

I just finished reading the book a few weeks ago, and finished catching up on the show yesterday. Personally I think both are great, but the show is definitely much different than the book. I don't really have many problems with most of the additions (the Anansi scene on the slaver ship was fantastic and I really like the added storyline for Laura). What bothers me the most though is probably the overall change in tone of the "magical" world. It was much more subtle in the book. It's very in your face in the show. In the book you can understand Shadow's problems coming to terms with things.

The book was a very slow burn, much like the show. The whole book could have been condensed into a few chapters. Considering how stretched the book was, I can see why people are getting bored with the show. It is getting super stretched. I am enjoying it though. The Essie Macgowan episode was a perfect example of the stretch in both the book and the show. I enjoyed the story in both mediums though.

The gay scene, while something I fast forwarded through, is not nearly as bad as portrayed in this thread. It was twice as long in the book, and overly detailed. If anything, they shortened it in the show. In the book I couldn't tell (and didn't really want to know) if it was supposed to be torture or sex. Regardless, I disliked the shorter show version (except having to see it part) less.

I also loved Mad Sweeney in the book. His role was disappointingly short. I'm enjoying his role being expanded, and since they are greatly Laura's role, I'm more than happy that the two are together so far. They're both assholes, and they playoff well together.

They've also done a much better job explaining the role of the coin in Mad Sweeney's life. The book was incredibly vague on that, and to be honest, I had no idea why the coin was so important in the book. In the show, it is much clearer. The bathroom stall at the bar shows the reversal in how Mad Sweeney used to be protected by those wishing to do him harm (no more bad luck to his enemies). It's also shown by the reversal in luck to those wishing to help him (the AA guy getting his head spiked). Racking his nuts on the cop car was just an hilarious exclamation point on that for me. Now he's with Laura, and I'm guessing his proximity to the coin is keeping things a little more neutral.

Curious to see how they end the season. I'm guessing they try to stretch this out into 3 seasons (24 episodes). I can see that much stretch becoming draining though. Hopefully they just finish it up next season.

[unlurking]

OK, I'm sure many will complain about the finale not moving the story along much and having too much non-book material, but I enjoyed it. Bilquis on Tinder was hilarious. Looking forward to meeting Hinzelman next season!