American Gods Confessional

Published March 17, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hello, gentleman!

In high school, I had to read a book for class, as many of us have to. I don’t remember what it was called, but I remember the first chapter was filled with very clunky exposition. Chapter two, however, seemed like it was written by a different author, an author who knew how to write and develop both the plot and characters. What made me hate the book, however, was that chapters three thru eleven were even worse than chapter one. What bothered me the most is that chapter two showed me the author knew how to write well, but for some reason just only put in the effort for part of the novel.

I feel as though American Gods has become eerily similar to that novel from high school. There are parts that I love, certainly: the ice forming in the copy machine as Shadow thinks of snow in Episode 3, the scenes involving Mad Sweeney, the majority of the scene with Anubis, etc. These scenes show me that the actors and writers have it in them to make an amazing, wonderful, thought-provoking show, but then there’s a car driving over marshmallows or a scene that takes far too long to reach the conclusion.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to stick with the show and you guys until the end, and I will come back for seasons 2 and 3 (and 4 and 5, if the rumors are correct), but I have to agree with the two comments Jez Bell made: “[it] Feels more like shock value and over-stylising instead of heavy symbolism and using the weight of Gaiman’s prose,” and “my generosity for #AmericanGods is diminishing each week.”

-Niko

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