American Gods: The Good, The Bad and the Awesome

Ever since it was announced that Neil Gaiman’s American Gods was going to be made into a television adaptation, there was a vast amount of hype about it.

I’ll admit, we weren’t the ones overly hyping it. On the whole while the book was interesting and original in some ways, we weren’t huge fans and, we’ll further admit, there was a whole lot of chuntering between us about how utterly overhyped this was and how it was going to be painful to watch. We sat down to the first episode, faces set to frown and all prepared to take on the world and tell you all how wrong you were.

We were ready. You were all going to be told. Oh yes.

Sometimes it’s good to be wrong (novel experience though it is)

For awesome as American Gods is, like everything else on television, it’s not perfect.  Given that we live in a White supremacist world, it’s hardly surprising that the Gods which got the most attention were Norse and or white. Sure, we had two episodes of Bilquis snacking on people with her forever hungry vagina, a Jinn, Mr. Nancy, Anubis, Mr. Ibis and of course brown Jesus, but it would be fair to say that they didn’t feature heavily in the story. The Gods originating from cultures of colour were each given moments of complete awesome, like Mr. Nancy’s speech on the slave ship explaining to the slaves what to expect for generations once they landed.  The problem is that they were additives and this belies the importance that each God has in their specific culture.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the absence of Gods like Kali or Ganesha. Where is Buddha? Where is Muhammad? Where is Hachiman or Omoikane?  There is supposedly a war between old Gods and New Gods and yet somehow, the older Gods who still have power because they continue to be worshipped are somehow absent?   The Gods from Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, and Hinduism are all respectively old Gods and all of them to this day still have a sizeable portion of the earths population praying to them and giving offerings. The writers might have been able to reduce Jesus to a peace loving hippy, who posed no legitimate threat to the current celestial unrest but no such storyline would have been possible with Hachiman or Kali. The centering of Eurocentric Gods in the face of this once again sets up a hierarchal order of what religious beliefs matter and what can simply be dismissed and or ignored because the people who are devout are of colour. Odin, for all of his wisdom and power could not and would not be such a singular symbol of power without the exclusion of the aforementioned deities.

It’s further telling that when Odin did reach out to older Gods to form an alliance he chose Czernobog and Vulcan; two God who are clearly lesser in strength than him. Wouldn’t Hachiman, as a God of war be a far more fitting ally? Europeans have no more claim on North America than people of colour. Just as Europeans brought their beliefs and or Gods, as Mr. Nancy explained, the Gods of people colour also travelled to the so-called new world.

When these Gods arrived, just like European colonisers they didn’t simply erase the people and their beliefs who were present for centuries before.  Why is there no mention of Gitche Manitou for instance? Each Native American tribe had their set of Gods and religious beliefs and what did American Gods offer us? They gave us a white buffalo which died when its people stopped believing in its divinity. For Native American Gods to have disappeared so completely, Indigenous people themselves would have had to disappear.  Given the holocaust brought upon by European settlers and the ongoing resiliency of Aboriginal people in the face of this, their erasure from American Gods, even if not intentional, is quite certainly harmful and definitely myopic.  

There’s also Salem and the Djinn; as beautiful as their scene was (and it was), equally the LGBTQ inclusion on this show was a bisexual woman who literally ate people with her vagina and two gay men who had one amazing scene and then never really took part of the plot in any meaningful way. If it weren’t for that beautiful scene, we would probably call these characters tokens.

But really, compared to, well, so many of the other shows we watch (nearly all) it covered inclusion and social justice themes and minority characters with astonishing skill and tact.

American Gods, Season 1, Episode 8: Come to Jesus

It is time for the dramatic finale of this very very dramatic series - and this show goes all in for the closing episode - and it just leaves us hungering desperately for more.

We open with Nancy making a suit for Wednesday and Shadow and telling them a story - the story of Belquis, the Queen of Sheba, the avatar of female power, life and rebirth. A great, amazing, powerful figure

A woman who was at the height of her power having huge orgies of people nommed by her vagina. And a woman who has seen a general decline of her power and influence, age after age men have hated this powerful woman and what she represented, they have undermined what she is, what she represented. From attacking and repressing women and female sexuality, from appropriating the feminine ideal of rebirth through to non-man-made but definitely exacerbated crisises like AIDS. Belquis is reduced from the goddess, to a broken homeless woman watching her temple be destroyed through the window a restaurant.

At this lowest point, this goddess, this queen was approached by the Technical Boy with dating apps and a way out of the hole

And Anansi harshly stomps on the idea that she should be judged for that - because you can’t build a society tt does everything it can to break a woman down to utter powerlessness and then judge her for what she does to survive (and thi is clearly, in the way of this show, an equal judgement on people attacking low income women, sex workers, etc).

To add to all this he says that Wednesday needs a Queen. Which is on Wednesday’s agenda

Also Anansi totally doesn’t buy Wednesday’s claim that the New Gods killed Vulcan for pledging allegiance. Shadow doesn’t even try to maintain the fiction. He’s stunned and angry over what he’s just seen - Wednesday basically being a murderous mob boss.

But Wednesday points out he isn’t pissed off - he’s confused. Utterly confused by what he’s seen. Though Nancy is aiming for pissed off - because angry gets things done.

Which is the next stop on the road trip - Kentucky and a party for Easter, run by Ostara herself, surrounded by eggs and chocolate and lots and lots of bunnies and a large collection of Jesuses. Many many Jesues, Jesi? And I have to love the imagery of this, the Easter party with all the sugar and sweets and chocolate and bunnies with Jesus thrown in, almost jarring with their presence, one of them even bleeding sweets from their stigmata. There’s Mary on one of the sofas suckling a baby Jesus.  It shows just how hodge podge and confused this holiday actually is. Wednesday helpfully explains to Shadow exactly who Ostara is - or was - and Shadow is completely enraptured by the Goddess of Spring. He’s also beginning to see the gods around him and beginning to believe. He even asks Wednesday who he is.

Side point - Sweeney and Laura also arrive at the party (And Easter isn’t thrilled to see a dead woman at her celebrations). Ostara, goddess of spring and rebirth has the power to resurrect Laura and is willing to do so because she owes Sweeney… but she can’t, because a god killed Laura. And she can’t undo god work.

American Gods: Season 1 Episode 7: A Prayer for Mad Sweeny

This episode is a bit of an odd one – and feels a little bit like a break in the main plot. That’s not inherently bad – especially given how packed the last 2 episodes have been. At the same time, this is an eight episode season. Really, eight. That’s a tiny amount – every second this show has matters.

So spending an entire episode telling Mad Sweeney’s back story seems.. excessive. I mean, his story isn’t that hugely different from the others that have come over to America, albeit with a more personal and intense slant. Believers come to America, they carry their beliefs with them and lo the new god is now in a country which doesn’t entirely welcome them and in which they don’t entirely fit

This story is told by Thoth (Mr. Ibis) and we have a nice little scene of him and Anubis in their funeral home.

So back to 1721 in which we’re introduced to Indentured Servitude where criminals – even very petty criminals – could be transported to America to serve a period of “indenture”

We have Essie McGowen, an Irish woman who has been raised on the old tales of fairies and, in particular, capricious and dangerous leprechauns. She works as a maid and her beauty caught the eye of the young master of the house who gave her jewellery and promised to marry her. When confronted by his mother, he takes it all back and instead accuses her of theft.

As a poor Irish girl, no-one believes her and she’s deported and transported.

Along the way she catches the eye of the captain of the ship who takes her back to London to make her his wife. And, accused as a thief, when he goes off on his next voyage Essie decides she might as well become a thief that she’s been accused of

She manages to make a living for herself, beholden to no-one, living off theft for some time… but up until this point she always remembered her old stories, always left bread and cream etc to the fairies – and especially the leprechaun. And even gold when she could afford it

American Gods, Season 1, Episode 6: A Murder of Gods

While last week was full of magical realisations, awesome effects and the big clash of powers as the shape of the world was laid out and the war is prepared.

This week we don’t have the magic – but in many ways it was far more powerful, far deeper and in some ways more horrific than that.

Starting with a gut wrenching opening with Mexican immigrants swimming into America and one of them nearly drowning – only to be saved by Mexican Jesus (as Wednesday said, there are many Jesus’s)

And this was clear when the immigrants reach the other shore and are attacked and shot by a group of men with guns – with holy verse on the barrels and carrying crucifixes. One of the people they shoot is Jesus – once in the hand, stigmata-like and once in the heart – falling back in the shape of a crucifix. Christians haters shooting a Mexican Jesus – damn there’s some powerful gut wrenching symbolism for you. This show does not pull its punches.

To Shadow and Wednesday and Shadow has finally had a bit of a snap – after the events of last week he is kind of broken and demands to know what just happened. Wednesday responds with lots of crypticness, calling the dead cops “a sacrifice” and raising the idea of gods and sacrifice and what gods even are, throwing in the staples of this universe: belief creating the gods. But mainly Wednesday wants to get them out of there – while Shadow talks about Laura Wednesday is casually able to swallow the idea of the undead but equally presents the fact that it’s not something they need to wait for: that Laura came back to say goodbye

In case anyone actually believes the old con man, as they drive away he turns up the radio so Shadow can’t hear Laura chasing after the car and calling. Wednesday has plans, Laura isn’t part of them

On the road we have another god moment with Wednesday alluding more to the whole story: this time talking about the oldest of gods, the god of the woods, the first god that entered humanity’s minds. But when the world turned industrial god changes – sacrificed his trees for something else. Which is related to the deadly tree we saw in the police station, a chunk of which Wednesday has to pull out of Shadow’s stomach – again, belief, change and sacrifice

The one question Wednesday still won’t answer is who he is. But on gods:

“Religion inspires in people who fear nothing fear of the gods – and using that fear requires a certain element of fucked up.”

There’s a lot of deep, awesome and disturbing lines this episode.

American Gods, Season 1, Episode 5: Lemon Scented You

Well it all happened this episode, the lines are drawn, supernatural open and clear and the battles ready

The introduction was ideal showing us an old god, Nanunini, god of the people who crossed the land bridge from Siberia to North America. Like pretty much every god we’ve seen, he was empowered/created by sacrifice, human sacrifice. But, as the narration is clear, humans hold the true power. Gods are born in the hearts of men – and when mankind forgets a god, the god dies

And lo, we have the whole core of what Wednesday and his fellow much reduced gods are facing – being forgotten and dying.

Before we get to the war we have the very heavy and very awesomely acted and highly emotional moment of Shadow reuniting with his dead wife. There’s a lot of excellent emotion from Shadow here – anger and grief and shock and just plain on-the-edge-of-breaking trying to understand everything. Laura seems to try and hold up the idea that hey-miracle-I’m-back-let’s-focus-on-this but Shadow isn’t as quick to run with it. After the last few days, coming back from the dead isn’t going to distract him. Or, maybe, after the last few days coming back from the dead is just something else he can’t even absorb at the moment. There’s a definite sense of Shadow reaching a breaking point.

He’s not exactly ready to let go of the whole cheating on him even as she describes her mindset and assures him that she does truly love him. She tries to seduce him but I’s all faintly surreal with her doing things like bathing in hot water to raise her body temperature for him – it’s all faintly surreal, slightly creepy. When she kisses him, her heart beats – pointing to him giving her some sense of life. Laura is confident and certain about what she wants but Shadow just feels kind of lost, needing time to just absorb everything. I can’t say enough how good this scene is with all the emotion and eerie feel and poor Shadow just being kind of lost in the middle of it.

Though he’s interrupted by Wednesday who has just been woken up by one of his ravens – Hugnin or Munin (and this episode is definitely the one where all of the could-be-maybe-is-it-magic becomes Oh yes, magic and gods clearly on display) warning him about the police arriving; who promptly arrest Wednesday and Shadow for bank robbery. Oops.

At the police station Wednesday pulls out his full dementia act and then doubles down on it by telling them the truth – that he was recruiting and ancient terrifying god which even the new gods are afraid of. He’s duly confused his police officer while Shadow is wisely stonewalling his, demanding a lawyer repeatedly. She ominously tells them about the dangerous enemies Wednesday has – someone sent them a fax detailing exactly where they were, to actual map grid references and the vin number of the car. And the fax machine wasn’t even plugged in.

Putting them both in the same room, presumably to record their conversation Wednesday warns Shadow they need to get out quickly before they’re seen – and killed. Wednesday is eerily afraid but thankfully Nancy is there to open the cuffs.

American Gods, Season 1, Episode 4: Git Gone

This episode is all about Laura Moon – and I think this is a definite improvement and was definitely needed to add some flesh on the flawed and slightly more complex character we see here. It would be easy to just have demonised her – had her be the cheating wife who betrayed Shadow so thoroughly, had the last words about her be from Audrey lavishly bathing her memory in the most exquisite venom. But instead we get this, from her eyes

As is often the case with American Gods, it’s less the individual scenes, the details of Laura’s daily life that make up the story so much as the collected images and scenes together that tell the full story. I love the artistry of this, how we can see Laura’s personality and life build in all these little scenes. Even things like her work getting automatic card shufflers when she preferred to shuffle them. Through grim repetition and her excellent acting we see Laura’s life – a life she clearly finds dull, boring, lonely, unchallenging and pretty much hellish up to her openly considering suicide.

And then Shadow walks into her life when he tries to rob her casino. And she warns him off, saving him from being caught with his very bad plan. She takes him home and they have sex

We see a real difference here between Laura’s view of their relationship and Shadow’s – from the very beginning Shadow has put her on a pedestal – his love for her is all consuming. He is happy, super super happy just being with her. He tells her he would be super happy with Laura even if they were living in cardboard box

But from the beginning this is clearly not enough for Laura. Even his sweet, gentle sex with her bores her and she pushes for something harder, rougher. Laura was clearly intrigued by the danger represented by Shadow the thief – but they quickly fall into the same domestic routine, boring jobs, boring lives, sex which doesn’t really do it for her and again we see Laura flirting with suicide.

She tries to explain this to Shadow but he just doesn’t get it – he takes her unhappiness as a personal insult, confused and lost with the idea that love is not enough. And I love this message – I love the idea presented in media that you can love someone deeply and passionately but still need more from life for it to be fulfilling – that love isn’t always enough for happiness and that doesn’t mean the love is lacking or inferior; it’s just that there’s more to life.

I can’t stress enough how really well done Laura’s boredom is, how much her life is a prison to her. And from that we see her motive to encourage Shadow to rob he casino – with a better plan. Not for the money but for SOMETHING, something different. Something to give her life meaning, something exciting, interesting, something other than the agonising hellish routine she lives.

And it all goes wrong

American Gods, Season 1, Episode 3: Head Full of Snow

Shadow is facing the prospect of Czernoborg beating in his head with a hammer in the morning – when he’s called to the roof by the third sister Zorya Polunochnaya, the midnight star. She is cryptic and vague, telling beautiful, ominous stories of a bear in the stars which will end the world with a strong hint that she and her sisters have a job of guarding against it. In exchange for a kiss she also has a present for Shadow – the moon (and her claiming the moon is really well done and pretty) – since he already gave up the sun. She also comments on Shadow’s death wish, his fatalism and how he doesn’t seem to care whether he lives or dies as well as comments on how lost he is without belief in his life. I think this is a nice moment to address Shadow’s character – how he’s kind of lost and coasting without his wife and the sheer shock of her death and learning about her infidelity – that’s enough to knock him off balance and then on top of that Wednesday has been keeping him off balance constantly since then. Really Wednesday did an excellent job of swooping on Shadow when he was vulnerable and then plunging him in the unknown so deeply with lots of violence and uncertainty to keep Shadow constantly off balance. Which in turn kind of explains why Shadow has kind of rolled with everything so fat

Shadow can dismiss this as just another dream, but when he wakes up he has a silver coin. Whether it’s the coin or just luck or skill (or Czernoborg’s habit of playing the same game over and over) this time when he challenges Czernoborg to checkers, double or nothing (with lots of crafty taunting), he wins. Czernoborg agrees to go with Wednesday.

Wednesday continues to be spooky and foreshadow-y, talking to Zorya Vechernyaya about the past, how much they’ve lost and ominous talk of the wars to come

Mad Sweeney also drops in after having an extremely bad run of luck – including hitchhiking and having the annoying driver die in a horrible accident. For a man who relies on his luck, he’s not amused. He angrily tracks down Shadow to learn what happened to his lucky coin – the Sun. After much poking from Shadow and Wednesday and nearly another fight, Shadow tells him he dropped the coin on his wife’s grave.

Wednesday announces his new plan – to rob a bank, much to Shadow’s consternation since he’s just been released from prison. To help with that he wants Shadow to concentrate on snow, think of snow.

And after a nap he wakes up to find the city blanketed in thick snow. Completely against the weather forecast. He’s aghast and Wednesday asks him how believing a tiny figure on TV can predict the weather is ok but believing he can make it snow is unreasonable

American Gods, Season One, Episode Two: The Secret of Spoon

This episode with an introduction to Mr. Nancy, otherwise known as the trickster god Anansi. We meet him aboard a slave ship bound for the Americas.  He appears after a slave prays to him to be saved from his impending fate. Mr. Nancy appears all suited up and dapper but because he's a trickster God, the freedom he ends up offering isn't freedom in any sense that most people would want; it's freedom from life. My Nancy tells the slaves about the dehumanisation of slavery, and how this transitions to Jim Crow, and how even after a civil rights movement, Black people are still institutionally discriminated against and willfully killed by the cops. Mr. Nancy actively encourages the anger of the slaves and suggests that they destroy the ship because for them, once the ship docks, they will never know freedom again. They will learn that because of White supremacy that they are no longer understood to be people. The only freedom that these people will ever know is the freedom death provides. Even though this means their death as well, the slaves set fire to the ship and kill the Dutchmen who are treating them like human cattle. Later, we see Mr. Nancy in his spider form land safely on the shore.

In series premiere, Shadow got the piss beat right out of him and was almost lynched.  His body is so battered he's forced to seek medical attention. It's only the beginning of the trials that he will go through in this episode.  Shadow returns to the home he shared with his wife to pack up their belongings. On one hand, his mind is filled with warm memories of her but on the other, the evidence of his wife's betrayal in the form of a dick pic on her phone weighs heavily upon Shadow. Shadow scrubs the floor in the bathroom until his hands start to bleed.

With Shadow's former life all packed up it's time to move on.  The first stop is a diner where Wednesday has a meeting with an Ifrit while Shadow is sent shopping to pick up a few items. Wednesday makes sure to inform Shadow that he's low on cash and therefore Shadow can only take a certain percentage off the top.  Shadow is shocked that Wednesday would think that he would steal from him whereas; Wednesday suggests that Shadow will never get anywhere if he doesn't learn to take care of himself.

Shadow walks through the aisles picking up the items that Wednesday asked for. He stops when he comes to a group of televisions for sale because suddenly Lucille Ball has come to life and she's talking directly to him.  I actually had to pause this scene to make sure of who I was seeing and yes, it was indeed Gillian Anderson playing the hell out of this part.  The I Love Lucy lady wants something from Shadow - she wants him to join sides with her because she's identified how strong he really is.  Of course the I Love Lucy lady is actually Media, and she has a dire warning, guys like Shadow end up dead by suicide.  At this point however, Shadow doesn't want to end his partnership with Wednesday and he turns down the offer.

When Shadow returns to the diner to meet Wednesday, he's quite concerned that he's losing his mind.  Wednesday points out that Shadow has the choice whether or not to believe whether what he's seen is real or not, or if he's going crazy. Wednesday adds that maybe going crazy isn't such a bad thing.  This is the moment when Shadow is clearly being offered a red pill and a blue pill.  Shadow can either run or stay and see just how far the rabbit hole goes.

American Gods, Season 1, Episode 1: The Bone Orchard

There has been so much anticipation for this series and it’s finally here! I admit this was a book that really divided Renee and I. While the world setting was amazing, it was just a bit long winded and rambly, the pacing just a bit drawn out. But that’s the kind of flaw that is really easily addressed in a television format

Except… except…

If I hadn’t read the book I think this first episode would frustrate me immensely. Because there’s that pacing issue. This actually reminds me of The Leftovers, in that so much time and energy is spent on awesomely setting tone and theme with some really awesome CGI and some excellently chosen music and Shadow’s very powerful but understated acting carrying so much emotion with his body language.

But it’s also kind of rambly and more than a little convoluted and bizarre to push those themes. I think I’d definitely be intrigued by all of the imagery of this episode – but if I hadn’t read the book I wonder if I’d be more frustrated, more confused and more lost in the sheer random bombardment of imagery and emotion.

It starts well with a nice Viking recap – the Vikings arriving in North America and being greeted by a truly comical number of arrows. Deciding that this is maybe not for them they plan to sail home – except the wind is not co-operating. They need Odin to step in and make it right. Odin isn’t listening so they begin a series of terrible sacrifices before the wind picks up and the can finally leave. And lo, the voice over says, when Leif arrives later he finds his god is already there.

So this extra gory (super super gory to an almost comic degree) intro is basically to say Odin is in North America

And now to the present where we join Shadow Moon, soon to be released from prison only to tragically have his release speeded up – because his wife has died. He’s released and he begins one of the most difficult journeys across America anyone has faced (who doesn’t fly United Airlines anyway) involving storms, awkward airline staff and general discomfort

Fangs for the Fantasy Episode 81

This week we discuss True Blood and the season finally picking up! We also discuss the awesome Teen Wolf finale! But we also discuss how awful the treatment of women has been as well as the constant attempt to prevent and Evil Argent as a “Good One”.

We discuss Grimm starting up again and utterly shocking us with the sudden meta and plot! We are shocked! We are awed! We are amazed!

We also discuss our ideal season length

 Our book of the week is American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

20/8-27/8: Nightshifted by Cassie Alexander

27/8-3/9: Storm Dancer by Jay Kristoff
3/9-10/9: Constantine Affliction by T Aaron Payton
10/9-17/9: Tempest Rising: Tracy Deebs
17/9-24/9: Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman