American Gods S1, Epis 1–4
I typically don’t care for writing on each individual episode of a show; I usually prefer to wait at least until the mid-season finale to reflect on the narrative on a macro level. But this show just has so much going on that I’m compelled to unpack each episode. I livetweeted the show on airing, which you can find here. There, you’ll find my more minute thoughts and observations over the course of the episode.
Quick disclaimer before I get started: this is not a review. Merely a reflection. And yes, there are spoilers. Like…hella spoilers.
So, here we go.
The first episode starts with vikings stranded on an island offering tribute to their god in the form of blood spilled from combat so that it will provide wind for them so they can leave. It establishes quite a few things that I think helped me settle into the very non-linear narrative structure of the show. Mostly thematic and tonal things —we’ll be exploring concepts of gods and spirits; the show will be graphically violent — but it also established that we are not going to be limited to our protagonist’s perspective. In other words, it sets the stage for the vignettes that are scattered throughout Shadow’s ongoing arc.
The first three episodes mostly function to introduce us to the world, and to the gods, while establishing belief as a major undercurrent of the show; several gods have mentioned up to this point that belief and tribute is important to them. Media, in the brief moment we meet her, says something along the lines of “watching TV sure beats lamb’s blood”; Mr. Wednesday eventually reveals that being forgotten is his biggest fear; the Jinn bemoans being forgotten and displaced in a culture riddled with misconceptions about him (“I do not grant wishes”); Bilquis begs her sexual partners to worship her before she consumes them. Meanwhile, Shadow is gradually being confronted with strange, otherwordly things, and meeting them with skepticism and doubt, and it seems Mr. Wednesday is trying to get him to believe.
There also seems to be a developing theme of Old World vs New World; by episode 4, it’s still not completely clear what it is Mr. Wednesday has hired Shadow for, or what he’s planning exactly, though we’ve gotten hints (some less subtle than others) that there’s a war coming. Many of the gods and deities we’ve met — Bilquis, Anansi, Czernobog, Anubis, the Jinn, and a very tall leprechaun — are rooted in ancient lore from a variety of cultures. But the two gods we’ve met that seem to be directly at odds with Mr. Wednesday— Tron Boy* and Media — represent modernity, so I’m thinking it’s a matter of ancient gods versus newer ones. This is pure speculation on my part, though, so we’ll see.
*I know that’s not his name, but he’s a shitty little white boy nerdbro who had his goons lynch a Black man, so Ima call him Tron Boy. Fuck Tron Boy.
Last thing before I delve into episode 4 in detail: the visuals and cinematography on this show are PHENOMENAL. It’s blending surrealism and film noir in gorgeous ways that really set the off-kilter tone of the world.
Episode 4 — Git Gone
We finally meet Laura Moon.
This episode is the first linear-structured episode thus far. It’s basically a deep character study on Laura, and how she ended up going from dead to sitting on Shadow’s motel room bed. It’s more attention than even Shadow has been given thus far, and it did its job for me — she’s far more interesting than Shadow.
My main concern, though, is how the narrative will be treating her choices. It feels like it’s demonizing her for cheating on Shadow with their best friend while he’s in prison, even though both Shadow and Robbie prioritize their own feelings over hers when she tries to express herself.
Shadow takes it personally that she’s still unsatisfied in their marriage, even though she makes it clear that it’s about her still living the same life she did before she met him. “I’d be happy living out of a cardboard box, as long as I was with you,” he says. That’s cute but you’re missing the point: she’s bored out of her mind. One could even infer that her major draw to him was that he was a thief, recruiting her into robbing a casino: the kind of excitement her life had been missing. But alas…despite her emphasizing working the same shitty job and living in the same shitty house for 8 years, his takeaway reduces her feelings to materialism.
When she broaches the subject of them both doing a year-and-a-half in prison versus the six if Shadow does it alone, he again puts his feelings first. He doesn’t want her to do time for him, even though it was her idea and she explained that she wanted to so that they could spend less time apart and get the whole thing behind them. She’s pushing to do something that will benefit them both, but he puts an arbitrary sense of honor, a desire for martyrdom, ahead of that. “I can do six years…if I know I have you waiting on the other side for me.” Okkkk….but what about her needs and feelings in the meantime? He’d rather stay apart for 3 years (he knows he can get out early for good behavior) and maintain his sense of honor than cut that time in half for both of their sakes.
And then Robbie develops feelings for Laura over the course of their affair that she does not share; she makes it clear from jump that the affair is temporary, and that she does not love him. Again, she goes back to the “fun” of having had an affair. When she tells Robbie that it should just be a happy memory to look back on and say, “I did something with my life.”, it’s pretty clear she’s really talking about herself as well. But again, he prioritizes his own feelings: “so that’s all this was for you?” Yes! She said so in the first place! Duh! Men don’t be listening, then play the victim when the shit comes back to bite ’em in the ass.
So, when she dies and Anubis goes to weigh her heart against the feather, she slaps his hand away cause she already knows her actions will be judged negatively. I appreciate that she’s given the space to challenge her fate and judgment, but I don’t like that she’s condemned to live in “darkness”. Why? She’s condemned to a life in darkness because her painfully mundane life led to an erosion of her faith, and she made some “questionable” choices in her search for excitement? “You believe in nothing, so in death, there will be nothing.” I mean, I guess but like…is it really that serious? It’s that cut-and-dry? I know gods can be drama queens, but geesh. If you wanted her to believe, give her something to believe in.
But, again, the theme of belief crops up here, which is what really ties this episode in with what we’ve established prior. That’s the brilliance in the writing thus far: everything is connected. There are little things, like the fly she kills at the beginning of the episode and her telling Shadow, “after death, you rot”, both foreshadowing her later re-emergence as a rotting corpse. But then there are also major things, like the visual use of light and shadow throughout the episode to further characterize her and the role Shadow plays in her life.
The first half of the episode is very dimly lit. Laura is constantly drenched in shadows as she meanders through her humdrum life. She’s already washed in darkness; she’s depressed and turning to weird things like getting high (???) off bug spray. Her job is a drag, and only gets worse; right when we meet her, they bring in an automated card-shuffling machine to reduce turnaround time:
“I like to shuffle.”
“But you don’t have to.”
After her and Shadow begin their romance, however, we start getting shots like this:
Numerous shots are scattered throughout this sequence that utilize lighting differently than previously: lens flares (I may be misusing that term…hopefully you know what I mean), natural lighting in outdoors scenes, fully lit indoor scenes. Even though Shadow himself was half-covered in darkness when they met, he brings a light into her life. It sounds corny, until she explicitly confirms later that he is the “light of her life”. And if they couldn’t have made it any more clearer, the first time we see him after she’s returned from the grave, he looks like this:
The visuals are gorgeous, and function not just aesthetically but thematically…but my problem is that it’s all working together to position Shadow as a sort of redeemer for her, and I don’t understand what she’s being redeemed from? She’s committed no great evil, last I checked. Cheating on a spouse is extremely painful, but when we’re dealing with gods…I don’t know, I just think it’d be a minor pittance when seated next to things like mass genocide or something. I mean, you got tyrants out here wreaking havoc on entire civilizations, but y’all worried about an unsatisfied woman’s marital infidelity? So I just can’t understand how this might play out on a cosmic level. I can understand that Anubis feels slighted, because she’s prevented him from fulfilling his task, but I’m just hoping she gets a bigger story arc than simply being redeemed for cheating on her husband, and that “lighting” the path to her return to some kind of faith and belief.
Another thing that confused me is why she’s depicted as cold and loveless. Two characters tell her that she doesn’t love Shadow, not romantically anyway, and while she does eventually agree that she “loves him now” (implying romantically), it doesn’t add up to me. It’s not unfathomable to be in romantic love with a spouse, and still be unsatisfied with one’s life, nor to harm that person. And the narrative never seems to really confront the fact that she may have been depressed, or seem to acknowledge that merely finding love isn’t always enough to make an otherwise boring life more fruitful. Especially given the circumstances of how they met. He promised a kind of excitement she craved, and yet when they got together, he settled right into her mundane routine with her, rather than bring the change she was hoping for. Doesn’t matter if she loved him or not; she was unsatisfied with her life before they met, and unfortunately marrying him did little to resolve that. It sucks, but it’s also clear that he doesn’t listen to her or truly take her feelings into consideration without prioritizing his own, so I don’t understand why it seems she’s being punished for it?
Even if she didn’t love him romantically before death — if he just served as a tool to bring excitement into her life — what changed after her return, and to such a degree that she can see him wherever he is because he shines with a holy light? What changed in her that he’s become so significant, if she didn’t already love him before? I really hope this gets answered by the narrative in a way that curbs my many concerns, because right now it’s all just looking like a sexist trope. She’s a bad woman for being unsatisfied with her life, and a bad wife for being unsatisfied with what her husband provided and seeking fulfillment elsewhere, and now she must seek cosmic redemption for her “betrayal”. I get that the show is pulling a lot of influence from film noir, but we could’ve left the sexist policing characteristic of the style in the past.
I want to be wrong, but I also recognize themes and patterns that exist historically in film and storytelling. Either way, I’m really fascinated with Laura’s character development and story arc, and this episode seems to mark a gear shift in the narrative, so I’m really looking forward to next week’s episode!
