American Gods (STARZ)

[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!

[Discuss Thrower]

Thus ends Season 1.

Spoiler!

Shadow finds faith (gulp), Laura figures shit out, Bilqis is given more plot relevance, Mr. Wednesday finally threw the gauntlet down and Kristin Chenoweth gets to get testy with her religious icon of choice on screen.

A lot to like tonight, (especially the visual of a house full of Jesuses... that was great) though tonight I finally noticed what reddit posters have been vexed by for the first seven episodes in that the audio mix washes out dialogue with special effects or music. I hadn't a damn clue what Mr. World said during the confrontation with Mr. Wednesday.

[vailpass]

Ugh.

[vailpass]

Season 2 hasn’t been too bad so far.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Season 2 hasn’t been too bad so far.

Technical Boy has been surprisingly enjoyable. Dunno how they can go for four seasons..

[ThaVirus]

Did anyone else think the book was massively overrated?

[Discuss Thrower]

Well. Spoke too soon about Technical Boy.

[vailpass]

The last episode was like an naacp meeting. Mad Sweeney and dead wife didn’t even appear. Hoping they get back on track this week. Oh, and bring back Gillian Anderson as Media.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by vailpass

The last episode was like an naacp meeting. Mad Sweeney and dead wife didn’t even appear. Hoping they get back on track this week. Oh, and bring back Gillian Anderson as Media.

Gillian ain't coming back.

And yeah. The Mr. Nancy sermon was his introduction tirade on the slaver ship with 2019's ripped-from-the-headlines topics sprinkled in.

Orlando is charismatic enough to make it sizzle but on a meta level rings hollow considering he married and knocked up a white woman.

[Discuss Thrower]

I officially haven't the slightest ****ing clue what's going on now beside the fact they are still following the overall larger New Gods vs Old Gods plotline.

Shadow being possessed (?) by the scourge that was the self-hating victim of white on black racism? Yet another version of Laura Moon existing? Ruby Goodchild's existential crisis?

At least Salim is still providing some great dialogue.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

I officially haven't the slightest ****ing clue what's going on now beside the fact they are still following the overall larger New Gods vs Old Gods plotline.

Shadow being possessed (?) by the scourge that was the self-hating victim of white on black racism? Yet another version of Laura Moon existing? Ruby Goodchild's existential crisis?

At least Salim is still providing some great dialogue.

Yeah they lost me there. All I know is that the white man is very bad and I wish I had a sweet motorcycle with sidehack that followed me wherever I wanted.
They need to get back to the interesting characters/storyline before they lose it.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Yeah they lost me there. All I know is that the white man is very bad and I wish I had a sweet motorcycle with sidehack that followed me wherever I wanted.
They need to get back to the interesting characters/storyline before they lose it.

I think giving the showrunners the benefit of the doubt is the whole point of the Will James bit is demonstrating the power mortals have in giving power to the "gods".

Basically, if we accept the premise that the Old Gods required blood sacrifice in order to exist and thrive and the new gods are being sacrificed to in the form of our time and attention (Media as Lucy Ricardo's spiel) that there's a basic underlying power that the people have in the aggregate.

Belief creates reality.

With that framework, it does make sense that Will James has become some sort of demigod that thrives upon the violent ends and acts of black Americans because, recall what Ibis was saying, he leveled the blame toward them and not the white people lynching him because his people didn't try to save him.

Then consider what the Will James flaming head told Shadow: he exists to give relief to black folk since death is the way to peace. His existence symbolizes death by cop due to lawbreaking and (I think by implication) death due to short sighted gang related bullshit because it rises from self-fulfilling prophecies of defeat. Black people are always gonna be ****ed (Anansi's lecture on the slaver ship) by white people so it doesn't really matter that they wind up dead from getting drugs from traphouses in broad daylight (Ruby's brother's death).

Will James thus exists to haunt Shadow and get ritualized (in a way) by the cops that use corpses as target practice (Ruby's brother has the same wounds as Will James even though the latter died from swallowing the drugs he purchased from the traphouse) which perpetuates the cycle of violence which, in turn, satisfies Ibis and Jacquel's existence as morticians.

Anansi points this out but notice he's not really doing anything about it since he's a trickster god that lives to mock people.

How Bilquis factors into this I have no idea.

And, as I'm pained to say, this all could actually be the showrunners folding in the Hinzelmann plot from the book as has been speculated by at least one reddit commentor.