Since finishing our massive Running Man marathon, we’ve been catching up on a fair amount of American television. Most of it has been stuff I haven’t felt a particular need to write about. You know, the usual network sitcoms and procedurals, and occasional sitcom procedurals (shout out to Brooklyn Nine-Nine!). But then we started watching the eight-episode American Gods, and oh man I knew I was going to have to write about it (ps: how much am I loving eight-episode seasons? a whole bunch, you guys). But this one’s a bit weird because it’s based on a book that I thoroughly love, which itself references much, much older stories that I also thoroughly love. Other shows I’ve written about have also been based on or referenced pre-existing things (like every Netflix Marvel show and Stranger Things, for example), but myths and legends have been a part of my life for even longer than comics and 80s films have. So strap yourselves in because this one’s going to be a bit more personal than usual.
Major spoilers for the first season of the show and minor spoilers for the novel it’s based on, which possibly means minor spoilers for upcoming seasons of the show (plus, some spoilers for some myths and legends, but those have existed for literally thousands of years, so if I spoil those for you, that's on you, not me).
1. I encountered the gods and myths and stories of the world for the first time thanks to my mom. My mom was Catholic, which meant I was Catholic, so I grew up on Bible stories and the stories of various saints. My favorite story by far, however, is the story of la Virgen de Guadalupe, who appeared to Mexican peasant Juan Diego a total of four times. During her final appearance, she uttered her famous question when Juan Diego tells her he was going to get help for his dying uncle: “¿No estoy yo aquí que soy tu madre?” (Am I not here, I who am your mother?). The image of la Virgen de Guadalupe is enshrined in Mexico City, and is revered by Mexican Catholics everywhere (even a lapsed Catholic like myself has the image in his wallet and in his home, that's how ingrained and important this story is). This myth is why it sometimes seems like Mexican Catholics pray to the Virgin Mary instead of Jesus Christ or even God Himself (though really she is prayed to only as an intercessionary; to go to Jesus and God with the prayer and lend it more weight). But this version of the Virgin is only one of so, so many around the world. And this is something that the show highlights very well, especially where Christian mythology is concerned. In one of the later Coming to America vignettes, we encounter a group of Mexicans trying to cross into the US illegally, and Mexican Jesus is with them (the irony that he’s killed by a white American militia who have Christian iconography on their weapons and clothing and vehicles is hopefully not lost on anyone). This is the first Jesus we encounter, but certainly not the last. In the final episode (which I will be revisiting multiple times because of how amazing it is), Wednesday and Shadow crash an Easter party at Ostara’s home, and it seems like all the Jesuses in the world are there, including Jesus Prime (who is white, presumably because white Jesus is the most popular version). “So that’s Jesus Christ?” Shadow asks. “A Jesus Christ. Some Jesus Christ,” Wednesday responds. “For every belief, every branch, every denomination. They each see a different face when they close their eyes to pray.” This is probably the most powerful idea in the whole show, and it’s delivered in almost a throwaway fashion. Every god, every story, every myth, even the really big, important ones that we think are sacrosanct and only exist in one form, is different for every person experiencing it. Gaiman only briefly touches on this idea in the novel, once when Mr Jacquel mentions it, and then again at the very end. And I’m calling it now, this is going to be the thesis of the show going forward: stories are always going to be different depending on who’s experiencing them.
Damn, that first thought was really long. Told you this was going to be a bit different.
2. How does Crispin Glover, as great as he is, get top billing over Gillian Anderson? He only appears in two episodes (as mostly a digital construct in the second one) while Anderson cosplays Lucy Ricardo, David Bowie, Marylin Monroe, and Judy Garland. I hope Glover gets more to do in the second season, and that Anderson gets to cosplay more famous people (though that Bowie scene in the fifth episode is going to be really hard to top). The whole show has a really good cast beyond the top-billed folks, actually. I mean, we got Corbin Bernsen, Cloris Leachman, Peter Stormare, Orlando Jones, Omid Abtahi, Kristin Chenoweth, Demore Barnes, Mousa Kraish, Yetide Badaki, and so many more. A lot of them show up for an episode or two, and then are gone, and we can only hope they’ll come back next season (except for poor Corbin Bernsen).
3. Laura Moon’s role is much expanded in the TV show, and made all the better for it. In the book, she only shows up periodically to push Shadow to do or not do something. She doesn’t really have any agency of her own, and is used almost like a prop (I don’t even think she gets to tell her side of the story like she does in episode four). But on the show, she is very much a main character with goals and feelings beyond “I love Shadow and need to get to him”. The fact that she’s so mean makes her an even better character. Her road trip buddies, Mad Sweeney and Salim, also get majorly expanded stories on the show, again to excellent overall effect.
4. Speaking of Mad Sweeney, does he steal the show? Pablo Schreiber (aka Pornstache from Orange is the New Black) does a fantastic job as an insane leprechaun from the old country, and I am almost more invested in him and Laura and Salim than I am in Shadow and Wednesday. And speaking of Salim, that sex scene with the djinn is one of the most tender and erotic sex scenes I’ve ever seen. “I do not grant wishes,” the djinn says. “Oh but you do,” Salim replies. It was pretty amazing, you guys.
5. I encountered the gods and myths and stories of the world a second time when I found a short book on Egyptian gods in my school library in first or second grade. I can’t remember the title, but I was captivated by these animal-headed gods. Horus the Hawk, Bast the Cat, Sekhmet the Lioness, Tawaret the Hippo, Sobek the Crocodile, Set the Whatever He Was, and of course, Anubis the Jackal and Thoth the Ibis. Thanks to this book that was more image than text, I looked for more books on Egyptian mythology and discovered that Thoth was the god of writing and knowledge, with his scribe’s pen and piece of papyrus. He held a special place in my heart even back then, when I was only telling stories to my brother and myself. And so I was thrilled to see Thoth as Mr Ibis in the novel, and now in the show. In both incarnations, he writes and tells us, the audience, the Coming to America vignettes (with one important exception). This means that Mr Ibis gets to tell some of the best stories in the whole show. Thanks to him, we get the first Viking landing on the North American continent, the amazing Mr Nancy on a slave ship (more on this in a bit), the awesome claymation short featuring Atsula and her people crossing the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age, and the story of Essie and her love of the fair folk, which takes up most of episode seven. Related, but apart from Mr Ibis, the Somewhere in America vignettes are also excellent, and they are where we first meet Bilquis, Anubis, Salim and the djinn, and Mexican Jesus. Honestly, I could watch an entire show that were just Coming to American and Somewhere in America vignettes, that’s how good they are.
6. Actually, forget about Mad Sweeney; it's very clearly Mr Nancy who steals the show, and with only two appearances. He first shows up in the Coming to America vignette of the second episode, in which he gives a forceful and heartbreaking history of living in America while black to a ship full of African slaves. "You are staring down the barrel of three-hundred years of subjugation, racist bullshit, and heart disease" (if you haven't seen it yet, and maybe have no intention of watching the show at all, you should definitely watch this speech; you can see part of it here). He attempts to incite the slaves to burn the ship down when one of them correctly points out that they'll die too. "You already dead, asshole. At least die a sacrifice for something worthwhile." His second appearance is in "real time" in the last episode, as he makes suits for Wednesday and Shadow (because of course Mr Nancy is a tailor), and he tells the only Coming to America vignette that Mr Ibis doesn't: Bilquis' story. It's an awesome story that also ends in despair for the once great goddess who starts out as a queen and ends up homeless.
I'm going to pause my gushing about Mr Nancy here for a second and gush about how expertly staged and crafted the scene before Bilquis’ meeting with the Technical Boy is. Bilquis is homeless in Hollywood, when she is drawn to an Ethiopian restaurant. Inside the restaurant, she sees a television set depicting the destruction of her temple of Ba'ran in Yemen by ISIS forces (not a thing that has happened in real life, thankfully, though totally a thing ISIS would do since they’ve already done it in Iraq and Syria; that said, these ruins almost were destroyed during the Yemeni civil war that we’re all not paying attention to). The temple of course belonged to Bilquis, and it’s the one we see at the beginning of her story. The temple is located in the city of Marib, which just so happens to also be the name of the Ethiopian restaurant Bilquis is standing outside of, which just so happens to also have Bilquis’ face in their logo, reminding her of what she used to be just in time to see what she used to be physically destroyed. “But wait,” I hear you asking. “If Bilquis is a god from Yemen, and her temple was in Yemen, and the city’s name is Yemeni, why is all this taking place in an Ethiopian restaurant?” Because the Sabaean kingdom, which built the city of Marib and the temple of Ba’ran, had influence and a population in the northeast African kingdom of D’mt, which was across the Red Sea in modern-day Eritrea and--say it with me--Ethiopia. Booms.
My favorite line in the whole show comes from Mr Nancy’s two appearances: “Angry gets shit done” (which I initially misheard as “anger gets shit done”). He first says it on the ship in the second episode, and then he says it while describing the Islamic revolution busting into an amazing disco dance scene in Tehran. Also, Mr Nancy’s suits are awesomesauce.
So yeah, Mr Nancy steals the show, and there better be A LOT MORE Mr Nancy in the second season.
7. Speaking of the second season, I cannot wait to see what this show does with some of the other characters in Gaiman’s novel. Mama-ji, Sam Black Crow, Mama Zouzou, Whiskey Jack, and Hinzelmann come immediately to mind, and I would love to see all of them. But since the show has already veered wildly away from the novel, why not some gods and stories that weren’t originally there? Just off the top of my head, I’d love to see Kukulcan and/or Quetzalcoatl (they are possibly the same god; hey, more multiple versions!), the Monkey King, Stagger Lee (who might give Mr Nancy some competition for flashiest suit), Athena, and Ishtar (who may or may not be Ostara, depending on who you ask; more multiple versions?). And yes, I know the Monkey King and Stagger Lee aren’t gods, but you know what, neither are Mad Sweeney or the djinn. And anyway, the story is more important than the level of godliness.
8. The ages and hierarchy of the new gods totally makes sense to me. The systems of the world existed first, which is why Mr World is in charge. Then came media, and Media. Finally, the digital world and the Internet, and so the Technical Boy is the youngest. Further, each aspect is dependent on the ones that came before: while the digital world certainly has things that only it can do, it could not exist without media. Likewise, media has its own things, but it could not exist without the systems of the world in place first.
I read an article somewhere that there should be a) old New Gods, and b) new New Gods. The title sequence (which is amazing, FYI), certainly features a lot of what some old New Gods might have represented, including medicine/drugs, cars, gambling, and space travel. This was explored briefly, I think, with the appearance of Vulcan (aka Hephasteus) and his reinvention of himself as a god of guns. New New Gods could include social media (a subset of, yet wholly different thing from, the Internet), though the Technical Boy does seem to represent this when he talks to Bilquis at the end of the Ethiopian restaurant scene. Politics could be another possible new New God, though Mr World, as the representative of the systems of the world, could also represent this. It gets a bit difficult with New Gods because how far do you really want to drill down, you know?
9. Near the end of the last episode (the last time I will talk about this episode, I promise), Ostara, Wednesday, and Media (as Judy Garland) have a great verbal sparring match.
Media: You’re an Old God made new. That’s what we offer. That’s what we represent. You feel you’ve been treated unfairly.
Ostara: I feel like I’ve been misrepresented in the media.
Media: Put a pillow over that feeling and bear down until it stops kicking. St. Nick took the same deal you did. The only reason you’re relevant today is because Easter is a Christian holiday. It’s religious Darwinism. Adapt and survive. What we have achieved together, you and I, is no small feat now that we’re living in an atheist world.
And then:
Media: What happens if they all decide God doesn’t exist?
Wednesday: What if they decide God does exist?
Media: Whose God? They’re not all going to choose just one.
Wednesday: Well, it doesn’t matter who they worship once the worship gets redistributed.
Media: We are the distributors, the platform, and the delivery mechanism. We control the story. We control the flow.
Technical Boy: We are the flow.
Worship as an economic transaction is not a new idea, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it stated down quite so clearly. And I love these lines almost as much as I love “Angry gets shit done.”
10. I encountered the gods and myths and stories of the world a third time when I checked out a beat-up copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology from my school library in fourth grade. Having graduated from books that were mostly images, I devoured that small tome, and all its distilled stories from Greek and Roman epics, as well as a few at the very end from the Norse Eddas. If I hadn’t been hooked on mythology before, I sure as shit was now. I willingly stepped through that portal and threw myself at the seemingly unending sea of story. I wanted to know every god and every myth and every legend and every fable. I wanted to know every variant and every reinterpretation. I craved all of that knowledge, and have since attempted to read every text on gods, myths, legends, and fables that I could get my hands on. I loved that copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology so much, I stole it from the school library and still have it to this today. I’m sorry, Strathmore Elementary School. I will give you a new copy the next time I am there, so that another kid can step through the portal and get lost in these wondrous stories.
And yet, with all the love for the source material, with friends on two different continents recommending it to me and telling me it was amazing and totally up my alley, it took me a ridiculously long time to finally read Gaiman's American Gods. 15 years after its initial publication. Why? A simple reason, really. Once, I thought I would write American Gods. Or at least something very much like it. A story in which all the stories of our past existed alongside us, and loved with us and warred with us and simply were with us. And I didn’t want to read American Gods in case it turned out to be that exact thing. In case Gaiman had written my story. This is, of course, a silly idea to have. No one can write my story but me, after all. But this idea terrified me anyway, and I did not read American Gods for 15 years. When I finally did, I loved it. Of course I loved it. Of course I still love it. This was never in doubt. I love it like I love that beat-up, stolen copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I love it like I love that book on Egyptian gods and goddesses that was more image than text. I love it like I love the story of Juan Diego and la Virgen de Guadalupe, and her question so full of love, it makes me ache. It is an amazing work of art, an amazing story, and the show is so far doing it justice, and in some ways even improving on it. But I was also sad when I read it. This wasn’t my story, of course not, but I was damn certain it was leagues better than my story ever would have been. So I shelved my story. It will likely never be told. But that’s okay, because American Gods exists. And The Wicked + The Divine exists. And Hellboy exists. And Gargoyles exists. And many other books and shows and movies and video games and comics exist that play with mythologies, constantly reinventing and reinterpreting them. And I am going to love discovering them all.
Recommendations are welcome.
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