American Gods 2.04

Apr 01, 2019 17:20



This episode's bit from the novel: Shadow has sex with Bastet but believes he's dreamt it (though he's not sure). Also Thoth/Ibis' matter of fact dissection of a human body while talking to him in the funeral home. Everything else: show-invented.

This was one of those episodes where the time gap between the publicatoin of American Gods and our present and thus the updating of the show is incredibly obvious, to wit: Nancy's frontal attack on Slavery being resurrected as the "Alt-Right", as well as his pointing out that the death of Zorya the white skinned goddess would be treated differently if it had been a dark-skinned goddess instead, Thoth/Ibis' comment to Shadow re: the term "African-Americans" and the point where Egyptians started to be treated as poc by the white Americans (the Civil War) - this is very much writing informed by the last two decades of (not just) US developments. (BTW, I mean this not as a criticism, but as a compliment.) I also appreciate we see Thoth, Bilquis and Anansi interact, which never happens in the novel, and that Anansi's more enraged perspective partly comes from him being younger and partly from him being a trickster god, whereas Thoth is not just millennia older (Bilquis isn't, but she's still far older than Nancy) but also used to be very high on his pantheon.

Thoth/Ibis' matter-of-fact skinning managed to somehow catch the way it happens in the novel, something that ought to be gruesome but isn't because of the way he does it (and the way it is filmed).

This episode is the first time we see the origin story (of sorts) of one of the New Gods, as well as his retirement. In the novel, Shadow at one point realises that Technological Boy is at heart scared and pathetic because he, too, will be obsolete at one point, just as the gods of the railways and other past technology already are. But to me, that sequence seemed to be driving at another point, to wit, he can't provide inspiration for something new to his worshipper because he was the one feeding from the later's imagination, and thus he's abandoned and replaced. Conversely, the point of origin happens when our human pov character from the opening sequence is able to develop a computer to the point it can compose something a human Bach lover sees as a beautiful composition, and I take it the father's death thereafter was the human sacrifice that sealed the emergence of the deity.

In non-fictional terms, have another Brexit link, because someone channelling an anger this particular reader feels herself can be cathartic: This article is as good a summary of the current state of affairs as any.

This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1336190.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.

brexit, episode review, american gods

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