I tried watching the first episode the other day and it was a thorough turn-off. Should I have watched it after a pint or three?
Who was Gillian Anderson supposed to be in this last episode? I caught Lucy and Marilyn no problem, but this persona has eluded me.
It’s Judy Garland from Easter Parade. Not the most accessible choice, as how many people know 70-year old musicals?
Thank you! Judy Garland did cross my mind (Gillian’s fast-talking reminded me of her at one point), but I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen her in The Wizard of Oz.
But certainly appropriate for the setting.
An eventful season finale all around. Laura’s “death-by-god” is confirmed as was the suspected interference in the robbery, and it looks like she’s going to continue to rot for the time being. The multitude of Jesuses provided an assortment of rather disturbing comedy moments (the inability to hold candy, the drink in the pool, the general nice-but-dimness). Easter is a proper badass. The war is on.
And we got some major cliffhangers to go on - Laura is about to spill the beans on Wednesday to Shadow, and Easter has pretty much just drawn attention to the existence of gods on a big scale. We’re definitely well off the book’s storyline now.
By the by, I admit I had my doubts about the casting of Kristin Chenoweth and Orlando Jones, but the characters are so different from the ones in the book that the casting works well for what they’ve done.
At this point I don’t give a damn about the differences between 16 year old book and the series. The world has changed a lot since then. I’m loving the show.
I’d also like to see a totally different ending, since at this point I disagree with the conclusions made in the book and such an ending would fly in the face of Wednesday’s explanation for the existence of Gods and how they are created.
The endless complaining I see about how “IT’S DIFFERENT FROM THE BOOK ONOZ!!!” simply baffles me. Neil Gaiman is writing this show (in large part) and he’s not being steamrolled by some evil entity to make everything different. He’s adapting his own book to a completely different medium and making sensible and overwhelmingly positive changes to a work he made many years ago. Man, I reread Facebook rants from a year ago and think of better ways I could have phrased things–Gaiman has had a lot of time to think about changes he wished he’d made to the story and added depth and color he could have used. Now he has this larger scope in which to expand his work and he’s doing it brilliantly. Anyone who feels the need to bitch because it’s not exactly like the book really ought to just read a graphic novel and be done with it.
Thus endeth the rant.
Oh, and I really love this show. Like, a LOT.
I don’t see any endless complaining, simply commenting on a fact.
This is not the only internet site that discusses tv shows.
Both sides have validity. Many people who read books want to see that book played out like it did in their minds eye. Others may want a little surprise in their life.
I like the series so far. Ian McShane is so fantastic I am willing to forgive a few quibble.
I don’t mind that it diverges from the book at all. There will always be the odd disappointment when a favorite scene from the book isn’t used in the show but on the whole it’s all good, man.
What a great show that was! I went in completely blind. I haven’t read the book and I didn’t know what the show was about. By the name I assumed it was some American mob type show. I put it on to play as I was dozing off but I’d finished all eight episodes and all the recaps and theory videos I could find by the next evening. There was not one a single thing I disliked. I really want to read the whole story now. I’m also glad I didn’t read it first.
I’ve watched episode 8 three times now. Damn, this thing is gorgeous.
I’d say it’s his best performance ever. pretty damn flawless.
To continue with the Tregowan/McGowan question, it seemed clear to me that Fuller changed the book’s Essie Tregowan (as noted, a Cornishwoman who set out milk for the piskies, Cornwall’s version of the fae) to an Irishwoman named McGowan, specifically to show how Mad Sweeney came to America. In the book, neither Essie nor the piskie are seen after their “Coming to America” story.
Wow, that’s high praise indeed.
I like Chenoweth as Eoster, and her casting was pretty likely after the work she did with Fuller on Pushing Daisies. I missed seeing her in San Francisco, though.
And I thought I’d like Orlando Jones as Anansi, but I’m a little taken aback at the rage his character is showing. I pictured Anansi as a trickster and a storyteller who was more narcissistic and amused by the human predicament than particularly interested in any kind of justice, much less pissed off.
Maybe I’m just thinking more of Mr. Nancy from Anansi Boys than American Gods, which is admittedly much darker.
Anansi came over on a slave ship and has lived through hundreds of years in America as a black man. The attitude is understandable.
Well, the main problem I had was that Eoster/Ostara/whatever is a fertility goddess and hence you’d expect someone with bigger boobs and wider hips for the part, which is how I pictured the character in the book. But as noted they’ve given her a lot more 'tude, which Chenoweth excels at.
I was hoping for Danny John-Jules, who I think would have done the book-Anansi proud but would not have pulled off the seething cauldron of rage we’ve been presented with here as well as Jones has.
Also interesting that they’ve made him a tailor, which follows nicely from the web-spinning thing.
You don’t think, possibly, there might have been a perceived change in the situation of American Blacks, or a difference in public awareness by non-AA writers at least, between 2001 and now, that might make for an angrier African-American-centric God to be written?