American Gods Source Material

Published July 15, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Fellas,

Gotta call a time out for a sec. The way you guys nitpicked this episode had me somewhat confused and (based on my “know the source material” bias) a little angry.

First

If you don’t know the source material, at least know the source. I had never read any of Gaiman’s material before AG was announced but I had heard enough about his most popular work (Sandman), to know his material is not “easy reading”. This prompted me to listen to the audio book before the AG debut to at least know what I was in for. Because I did that, I am enjoying the show so much more. I loved the focus on Laura this episode and I think the fact that many people didn’t like her by the end of the episode was the whole point. In the book, she describes what it was like right before she died and she is very honest and apathetic. She even describes the fellatio to Shadow but her attitude is very “it doesn’t matter now”. The conversation between Shadow and Laura in the beginning of the show is the only pre-death conversation with Laura we get in the book so again, I like where they went with this episode.

Second

I thought about the zombie walk thru the suburbs as well. Why didn’t anyone else see? Answer, Wednesday. Whenever you see the ravens hanging around you can bet Mr. W has something to do with it. It DOES NOT say this in the book but i’m putting my money on the thought that Wednesday set all of this up. Shadow in jail, Laura’s death, everything. He IS a con man lest we forget.

Lastly

Don’t forget the fact that Gaiman wrote this in the 90’s. Some of the happenings in the book don’t really translate to today’s societal norms. So you can’t always try and compare today’s common sense to this story. That’s what they were doing almost 20 years ago! You’re applying MacBook logic on a story that was written with Windows 95!

You guys are still the best

Coach Markus

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