A Jaded Opinion of American Gods Episode 4

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Hey Guys,

I don’t even know where to begin after watching episode 4. The writers did something that I didn’t think was possible and they made me absolutely hate Laura. They went out of their way to make her a horrible person just to make Shadow come off as a more sympathetic character. Yes, we knew she had an affair with Robbie while Shadow was in prison, but that could be looked at as she was lonely and felt abandoned. we were still able to see her as a redeemable character in the book. To have her be the one responsible for the robbery that got Shadow thrown in jail and be a horrible person in general takes that away. I was watching and actually rooting for the car accident as Robbie and Laura were such douchebags. The best parts of the episode were the scenes with Mr. Jackel, although they fucked up continuity by introducing Mr. Ibis because they needed to repair zombie Laura…WTF!!!! I also thought the scenes with Audrey were good. I did laugh at many of her lines.

Overall I’m going to stick with the show out of a sense of duty for starting it and getting half way through, but at this point I have lost all hope that the writers are going to tell a story that is at least respectful of the source material. I know the book and the show are two different things, but they had more than enough source material to tell a great story, even making some changes for TV without totally changing the way characters are portrayed or how and when plot points are introduced.

Just my jaded book reading opinion.

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts,

Tom ( TCurran)

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2 Responses

  1. John says:

    Never read the book, but that episode was total shit and unnecessary. Wish I had known before hand, would have skipped it completely.

  2. Melissa says:

    Hi Tim & Hi ShatonTV guys,

    I have to disagree with your assessment that this episode is not respectful to Gaiman’s source material. Neil said in an interview with Johanna Robinson (found here: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/american-gods-season-1-episode-4-git-gone-laura-neil-gaiman-recap), that this is his favorite episode of the Season 1 because it specifically has broken free of the book while being completely faithful to it.

    I also don’t believe they went out of their way to make her a “horrible person”. She’s not a horrible person, she just is a person. She’s deeply depressed and you can see her struggle with that before and after she meets Shadow. In my personal opinion, I find her more redeemable thus far in the TV adaptation than I ever did in the novel.

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