Death comes for us all, but for some, it’s only the beginning. The fourth episode of American Gods sets aside the travels and travails of Shadow and Wednesday to watch the slow motion train wreck that is Laura Moon.
We’ve talked a lot about how American Gods differs between book and television show, about things that work, things that don’t, and how the changes alter the meaning of the story. “Git Gone” is the show’s greatest departure yet from the novel, and also one of the strongest. Gaiman’s story was remarkable, but it lacked depth when it came to race and women. While Bryan Fuller and Michael Green haven’t entirely succeeded in the former, they’ve done stellar work on the latter.
Book Laura doesn’t have much of a personality. We don’t meet her when she’s alive, and death has drained her of emotion. She can’t feel or taste, she just exists, appearing when Shadow needs her help and disappearing when he wants her to stay. TV Laura is a different beast entirely. In the novel, Shadow is the follower, the one who makes no choices and has no ambitions beyond doing whatever anyone tells him to do. Laura calls him “Puppy” because he follows her around like one. Yet in the show Shadow is much more involved and contrary—he challenges Wednesday, stands up to Czernobog, and resists magic.
If anything, the version of Laura we meet here is closer to Book Shadow than Shadow is. She’s dead before she’s even dead. We don’t learn Laura’s maiden name, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Laura is alive, but she doesn’t live. Her past is as lifeless as her present, as barren as her future. It doesn’t matter where she came from or where she’s going (with or without Shadow) because the answers to both are “nowhere.” Their house was a hand-me-down, their jobs are meaningless and dead-end. There is no movement forward or backward.
Shadow offers romance, but Laura wants fire. He’s not supposed to stick around. Laura never asks him to stay…but she also never tells him to leave. Shadow tells her she makes him happy, but what Shadow can’t see is how much pressure that puts on her. She can’t manage to make herself happy but now she’s expected to be responsible for the entirety of Shadow’s happiness. He derives all his joy in life from Laura without realizing how draining that must be for her. He never asks her why she’s unhappy or what he could do to help her through it. She tells him to rob the casino and he agrees because of course he will. That she might be unhappy never occurs to him until it’s already too late. Laura was in stasis before she met Shadow, and all he brought was more stasis. A larger cage.
If you suffer from depression like I do, Laura’s flat-lining probably looks familiar. Depression can be like living in a fog, trapped in a world of emptiness—no pain, no desires, no nothing. Nothing pleasing can penetrate that fog, at least not for long, and the thought of living like that forever is crushing. Suicide becomes less a cry for help and more a means to an end, a way to get that emptiness to stop. Laura didn’t really want to die, she only wanted to feel again.
Laura’s frustration with Shadow’s submissiveness goes deeper than her marital problems. She picks Robbie (Dane Cook) because he bends just as easily. Laura pushes Shadow to be rough with her in bed and gets Robbie to seduce her because they’re easy conquests. She doesn’t have to offer anything of herself and gets everything in return, whether she wants it or not. But she also changes them in the process. Shadow isn’t by nature a rough sex kinda guy, and Robbie would’ve probably gone the rest of his life being faithful to Audrey. If Laura can change them, maybe she can change herself. Maybe they can change her.
Moreover, Robbie is (literally) a pale imitation of Shadow, but he has something her husband can’t offer: presence. Robbie is there and Shadow isn’t. Laura uses others to feel, albeit fleetingly, and without Shadow or the lure of crime, all that’s left is her best friend’s meathead hubby.
Audrey, in the season premiere, seeks sex with Shadow not just to feel, but to feel something else. Audrey is consumed by her grief, Laura is hollow. For Audrey, sex is a bandaid over that agonizing wound, yet for Laura it’s a bump of coke as she free falls into the howling void. But what unites them—other than Audrey’s craft supplies, car, and dead husband—is their mutual desolation. Laura had everything but valued nothing and lost it all. Audrey had everything and valued it so much she ignored the blistering flaws and lost it all anyway. What Audrey needs now isn’t an apology or closure or a reason why, but a connection.
Every pair of besties have had that one fight, that all-out, knockdown drag-out verbal brawl that stretches the bonds of friendship. The real test isn’t the battle itself but the resolution. If the friendship is strong enough to survive embalming fluid bowel movements and sewing arms back on, it can outlast an affair.
Consider what we knew of Laura before “Git Gone.” All we’re told is that she was Shadow’s lovely wifey who went inexplicably awry. From Shadow’s perspective, that last prison phone call had Laura keeping him grounded and calm and easing his worries with a soothing tone. But from Laura’s angle, it takes a darker tone. She’s placating him, giving him just enough to get him off the phone and not enough to reveal any truths to Robbie. Laura isn’t interested in making Robbie jealous or announcing her indiscretions. She simply doesn’t care about Shadow or Robbie’s feelings. She isn’t heartless or cruel, just chronically depressed and devastatingly lonely.
When we see the Moon house in the second episode, it looks like a family home full of life and hope. But in Laura’s episode, it’s dull and gray. Director Craig Zobel and cinematographer Darran Tiernan shoot her home life scenes in a world of muted tones. Outside the Moon house the world is lush and bright, but inside is dreary and dark. Red is the only color to break through: used in Woody Woodpecker, Git Gone bug spray, the kitchen curtain, the deck of cards, Shadow’s shirt when he’s asleep on the couch, the red wine, Robbie’s shirt when he first kisses her, Laura’s cardigan when she agrees to continue the affair, Robbie’s car, the blood from the fight with the Children. By the time she reunites with her true love, Shadow’s room is awash in red. When Laura reanimates, she literally can only see the world through saturated, dull tones—save Shadow, her golden, glowing sun.
Not until Anubis tries to take her heart does Laura finally react. And again, this time in Audrey’s car she practically vibrates with energy as she reads her lackluster obituary. But rather than triggering some introspection about how she lived her life, she tells herself a fairy tale about her death. She mimics the cloying romance Shadow used on her when they were married. Peek back at the feature image for this review. See how they’re framed, Laura bathed in golden light as Shadow looks at her like she’s the most incredible thing he’s ever seen. Now, for Laura, Shadow is the light of her life, her sunshine, her everything. After Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jacquel collect her from Audrey, they patch her up enough to appear human. But this too shall pass. Her fairy tale is fading fast. Not even death can cure depression.
Does she really believe all that sugary sweetness? It’s too early to tell, but it’s worrying that she has to keep repeating that she loves him. And note that even after she comes back to life and declares her undying love for Shadow, she still doesn’t say she’s happy. In un-death Laura gets everything she couldn’t have in life, but is it real? Does it matter if it is? Does it matter if it isn’t?
Music
- “Queen of the Bored”—Shirley Manson
- “The Weight”—The Band
- Anyone know the song playing in the first half of the car scene with Robbie and Laura? Don’t know enough contemporary country music to hazard a guess.
- “Stupid Girl” (remix)—Garbage: In the screener version, this was the placeholder song for “Queen of the Bored,” and I kinda liked it there. But hey, I’ll take any and all iterations of Shirley Manson.
Final Thoughts
- “The weak spot—all you need is one—is usually people’s attention.”
- “All I know is there’s more than I know.”
- “Yes, I see that you’re happy. From this side of this, from the wrong side of it. And I think that maybe I resent not being happy. Not resent you, just resent.”
- “I didn’t even like him.” A vague enough statement that she could mean Shadow or the cat.
- “Well, you had a shitty obituary because you had a shitty life. You were shitty…How could you live with yourself when you were actually living?”
- Unlike the other episodes, this was shot in 2:40 aspect ratio with anamorphic lenses, which gives it that cinematic, closed-in feel.
- Zobel directed “Git Gone;” he also did some of the best episodes of The Leftovers, including the bonkers “International Assassin.”
- Zombie Laura hiding from Shadow in the hot tub was such an eerie contrast to her previous visits. Took her a while to get there, but she still ended up dead in the hot tub.
- I can’t tell, does Laura have the sun coin or not? It wasn’t in the grave when Mad Sweeney went rummaging, but she doesn’t appear to be carrying it around, either. Is she the sun coin?
- Anubis chooses the animal form of a black dog rather than a jackal. This plays into both the Egyptian illustration of Anubis and the legends of black dogs as portents of death. The dog form he chooses looks a lot like a black Pharaoh Hound. Like the Sphynx cat from Episode 3, Pharaoh dogs didn’t exist in ancient Egypt, despite the name association.
- Mythology tidbit, part 1: Odin’s crows, Huginn and Muninn, were watching the Moons.
- Mythology tidbit, part 2: There’s a story about Loki turning into a black fly to interfere with Brokk and Eitri as they forged Thor’s hammer…
Alex Brown is a teen librarian, writer, geeknerdloserweirdo, and all-around pop culture obsessive who watches entirely too much TV. Keep up with her every move on Twitter and Instagram, or get lost in the rabbit warren of ships and fandoms on her Tumblr.
I wonder if the sun coin is in her chest or something. It dug itself all the way down there. Maybe it’s in her heart now, which would explain her instinctive reaction to protect it. That may change future plot points, though.
So far I’ve been watching the show not because I like it but because I like the book. So as you can guess last nights episode in which pretty much nothing was from the book did not excite me. I liked the Laura character in the book, she was mysterious, we didn’t really know anything about her. I wish that show Laura was the same because I do not like show Laura at all.
You know, it really bugs me when someone is doing an adaption and they are asked what their favorite part of it was and they answer something like: “That part that wasn’t in the book because we got to do our own stuff!” If you want to do your own stuff, then do your own stuff and not an adaption. But maybe that’s just me.
And I don’t like that Audrey knows that Laura came back. I mean, the scenes between the two actresses were good and all but I don’t like how it changes the story. Isn’t Audrey meeting Laura and knowing she is a walking corpse and that other weird shit is going on going to change how some things play out later on in the story?
And yeah, just where the fuck is the sun coin? Does she have it? Is it inside her or part of her now? I guess maybe we’ll find out next week?
I guess I’ll keep watching the show, its not like there’s anything else on Sunday night right now. At least not until GoT starts again and since I don’t have Shotime and can’t watch Twin peaks right now.
Does Laura’s perception after death of Shadow as a bright, shining pillar of light foreshadow his real identity? Don’t remember if anything like that was in the book. The show made Wednesday’s identity explicit when Czernobog called him Votan. Maybe they are foregrounding Shadow’s, more glaringly and more subtly at the same time.
Ok. So I really liked the book. Though I will admit the book left me with many unanswered questions. Now the show, I’m still up in the air about. I expected changes. You never get a show that follows the book its based on perfectly. Especially when the book is stand alone and not a series. I mean, how else could they make the show stretch for multiple seasons when the original medium is so short by comparison? I don’t really like the Laura they are giving us in the show so far. Not because she is an overall crappy person, but because she is seemingly more alive now that she is dead than she ever was in life. The books portrayal of her is better in my opinion because she is very obviously dead. Not only on the outside where everyone can see, but inside as well. Her state of life after death makes her perceive the world in shades of grey. Food has no taste, the little joys of life are dull and meaningless, even the cigarettes she smokes hold no gratification for her. She never shows any real emotion and she loses all inhibitions she would have held in life. Much like she is when we meet her while she is living and breathing in the show. All of that being said, I have a couple of questions about this episode that I would like answers to.
One, how did her cat die? When she found him she said “You fucking idiot.” implying that either her or the cat did something dumb to bring about its demise.
Two, what made her arm come off the second time? Audrey helps her sew it back on. Then, in the scene where they are driving down the road and meet Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jaquel it is still attached to her, but as they enter the funeral parlor it has seemingly fallen off again.
And three, and I know this was mentioned already, but where is the coin? It is a very important item in the book, and it seems like it is in the show as well. I kept expecting to see it as she was crawling out of the grave, but it never showed. I like the one suggestion that was made, that maybe its in her heart, but it seems like this will make later plot points difficult to depict. I dunno. I guess we will see.
I liked the second half of this week’s episode, not the first. The first half seemed like a waste, and actually weakened Shadow’s character in my mind: He’s really nothing but a two-bit con artist, and not a very good one apparently. It’s going to be harder to move forward believing that he will have some major role in the war between the gods (he’ll probably get caught doing that and wind up in jail again as well).
I liken this episode to the Morgan episode in Walking Dead a couple season’s back: A full episode of backstory to better understand and appreciate the character. But it worked with Morgan; it doesn’t work here. It worked with Morgan because we had already met Morgan in season one, and then once again later, and then he disappeared for a long time. We wanted to know at that point why he essentially becomes a staff wielding monk (he had clearly “changed” in the interim and we wanted to know why).
All we know about Laura is that she died in a car accident giving a guy head. We never met her prior to that event and so, our reasons for wondering why are already past the point of commission IMO. That damage is already done. Best thing to do now is to just move forward. The show is already pretty slow as it is.
And indeed, where the hell is the sun coin?
@5: Shadow is a great actor. He isn’t a fast-talking con man, he’s *playing* a fast-talking con man (which is why he sucks as the actual *being* a fast-talking con man). Same with him getting into the character of Andy Haddock. The show hasn’t really explored that, only vague hinting. The Shadow that Laura meet-cutes isn’t the same Shadow who chats her up in the parking lot. His demeanor is different at the second meeting, more relaxed, more willing to go along with whatever Laura wants. Sure, he’s flirty, but he doesn’t push the issue until Laura flirts back.
I loved LOVED this episode, and what I’m gathering here and on Facebook is that I loved this episode because I never read the book.
I enjoyed seeing everything that lead up to where we are now from Laura’s side, getting to know who she is/was as a person, her brokenness, seeing the flaws in the Moon marriage, the details of the affair that lead to her death, and the answers to a couple of questions that had been lingering in my mind. We didn’t know how Shadow escaped the lynching, or how Laura got to his motel room, or the details of her reanimation (my wife and I were bouncing around zombie or spirit).
As for some questions in the thread, her arm coming off again, I figured it was removed off-camera so it could be attached properly. The funeral parlor scene had a wonderful “Death Becomes Her” vibe, all the way down to Mr. Ibis’s glasses, and I adore that movie, so points scored there.
Her calling her cat an idiot for dying was most likely just her saying something insulting because she was angry and upset at the fact that she was now truly alone. Something else I get very well.
Lastly, I don’t see why the location of the coin is such a mystery. We saw it drill into the ground, and when Mad Sweeny dug up the coffin there was a hole punched in the lid with no coin or corpse inside. The coin must be inside her body acting as a battery, if not directly inside her heart then somewhere slithered in through the Y incision done for autopsy.
In the end, great episode of a tv show. Using the original book as a framework to elaborate on the backstories and universe is a great thing to do if it’s done well, and that’s what they did here.
I also thought from the beginning that Laura was calling Shadow “Papi” but then this episode made it clear it was “Puppy” and I was like “Oh! Oh. Ohhhh…” So I appreciated that too.
@7: I’ve read the book multiple times and I LOVE the show. A lot of the distaste seems to stem from the personality shifts for Shadow and Laura from page to screen. I don’t mind it, but a lot of people do. The heart of the characters is the same, but is couched in different reactions. I’m not one for adaptations adhering closely to the source material – that’s the whole point of an adaptation! If I want Gaiman’s American Gods I’ll just go back and read the book again. I want to see what Fuller and Green will do with it, and so far I like the tweaks.
As far as the sun coin, for a non-book viewer, what you suggest makes sense. For a book viewer, Laura *being* the sun coin causes a whole host of problems later down the line. Hence the confusion.
@ALL: What I find really interesting is that for the most part the people complaining about TV!Laura tend to be dudes. A lot of dudes think Book!Laura was a well-defined character, even though in reality she exists only as a plot device for Shadow’s benefit. She has no personality, no interests, no “life” outside Shadow. At one point she even heads to warmer climes to try to have her own life only to be pulled back by Shadow getting into trouble. On the show, however, she’s given dimension and depth. She exists beyond Shadow; Shadow is a part-time player in her life. Not only that, but Laura (and Audrey, for that matter) is a female character that we don’t often see on TV. She lives in her depression, doesn’t question her questionable choices, and her life isn’t altered by the love of a good man. I highly recommend this interview with Browning for more on TV!Laura.
I’m not making any direct accusations here, so please don’t NotAllMen me. In my anecdotal experience the general tendency for Laura complaints, especially after “Git Gone,” are from bros. And I think it’s worth thinking about why that is…
edited for clarification: From what I’ve seen, the insistence on adherence to the book and complaints that the show is veering too far afield has been across the gender spectrum. Regardless of gender, lots of people are annoyed at the deviations and lots of people aren’t. The “Laura sucks now” thing is what I’ve noticed specifically coming from mostly guys.
@10: See, my experience has been completely different in my Facebook threads. Bro or chick, the determining factor has been “show must adhere to book religiously” or “not.” And while I am sorely tempted, I will respect your wishes and not turn this into a gender politics pissing match. I will only say that I have been Laura in a previous relationship, feeling like the emotional burden was all on my shoulders and putting in a lot more than I got, and while I loved my ex-wife and was happy with her, I wasn’t Happy. That sort of emotional divorce from life when things should be cupcakes and rainbows is not gender-exclusive, so I get what Laura is, and maybe that’s why I appreciated the episode beyond not having the book to compare it to. Hell, my current wife used to keep a copy of one of the Sookie Stackhouse books next to the bed while watching True Blood and would throw it at the screen whenever they got something that was too “wrong.” I thought she would tear a rotator cuff. It’s a matter of divorcing the written from the visual, and male or female, a lot of folks have a hard time doing that, myself included, especially if it’s something I have a deep connection to.
@10: Why does Laura have to be a fully fleshed out character? There are many, many characters in this show that are being fleshed out, and I presume in the novel as well though I’ve not read it. Sometimes, it’s okay for characters to just be plot devices, especially in a narrative that has so many characters as this one has. Is this Shadow’s story, or Laura’s story? If Shadows, then I think it’s okay for Laura to be a plot device (and apparently Gaiman thought so as well based on your comment). If it’s Laura’s story, then Shadow can be the plot device. If Laura starts coming off as a more interesting and deeper character than Shadow, then why do we need him? We have been set up from the beginning to assume that Shadow is the focal point, but right now, he’s looking pretty weak compared to his dead ex-wife, who seems to have more confidence in death than Shadow has in life. That’s fine for now, but for the long term, Shadow’s got to step up. I’m assuming he will, but I guess I’d like to see the transition faster.
My not liking what the show did with Laura has nothing to do with me being a guy. My complaining (if that’s what you want to call it) is not that they fleshed out Laura’s character but the way that she was fleshed out. It made both her and Shadow weaker in my opinion (just like I felt the con that Wednesday played to get a first class seat in the first episode made his character look weaker).
Look, I will try not to get too much into the differences between the book and the show, but there is nothing in the books about a casino. Laura was not a dealer in a casino, she was a travel agent (that’s how Shadow got his plane ticket home after being released). Shadow was not some two bit con man trying to take down casinos, he worked in Robbie’s gym. These changes to the story make both these characters, in my opinion, weaker.
Shadow goes from being a normal guy who made a mistake to being an incompetent two bit con man. Laura on the other hand becomes a depressed, suicidal mess who doesn’t even love Shadow while she was still alive. Some people might find these changes interesting but I do not.
And I do not like that they made it Laura’s fault that Shadow ends up in jail. It basically puts all the blame on her shoulders. I’m actually surprised that there aren’t more people complaining about how that makes Shadow look better (he was just doing for love after all) and makes her look worse (its all her fault Shadow was in jail).
If you get the impression that I have a low regard for con men then you would be correct. I absolutely cannot stand people who try to take advantage of or cheat other people. So I am not drawn to stories where the protagonist is a con man. I’m just not, your mileage may vary of course.
One last thing, it was outright stated in the book that Shadow learned coin tricks while in prison because he was bored and needed something to do. Not because he was a low life hood who needed to be good at sleight of hand to pull the wool over his mark’s eyes during his cons.
But like I said in my earlier comment I am one of those who prefer a faithful adaption. If you want to do your own thing then do your own thing.
I have not read the book (books?). The first three episodes were interesting but I was not yet fully committed. After this one consider me HOOKED. The scene with the two women was priceless.
@14: Just the one book, but there are two versions, the original and the 10th anniversary author’s preferred text. Highly rec the 10th anniversary one, but the original print is shorter and dense.
@10 Alex Brown
In the spirit of (hopefully pleasant) exception and not of contradiction I do want to say that as your average, like, white hetero basic dudebro, I LOVED this episode, too.
2quick points no preachy:
1: Recent genre adaptations for small screen (see: Magicians and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, others) have devoured material at a breakneck pace and elided a lot of my favorite flavors from their sources. I want more character development and interludes and new povs. With so much that doesn’t have to be made explicit because of the medium change, and without a hard 120 min cap, idk why more shows don’t do this. Maybe it’s renewal anxiety; get as much in for the fans as you can lest you not get picked up and be universally reviled.
2: re:Book!Laura is not fleshed out
I do think the bit about her trying to go have a life somewhere sunny and getting pulled back in is Gaiman’s way of acknowledging her peripheral status. I took it as him saying “Hey, this person exists outside of the bounds of this story.” It’s a trick I admire, implying depth without derailing your main action.
I don’t know Mr. Gaiman and, close as it may be, am not quite ready to Canonize him. For now he is first among mere mortals. If you feel this choice (Laura’s lack of personhood) has anything to do with bias for the gender he and I are generally attributed, I cannot gainsay you. If it’s there then I share it enough to be admittedly blind to it at times. My sisters generally help me recognize when I’m being especially thick on gender issues (if anybody finds themselves lost when traversing the mountains of Not Your Life Experience, I can’t recommend enough having a guide.)
(…and remaining silent when in doubt.)
(…yes, I see the irony in the above sentence.) Parenthetical Finally Over*
tl;dr: I am painfully aware that I use seventeen words when four will do. I liked this episode.
One thing I wonder about: Shadow and Laura lived in Indiana, right? Presumably she worked at a casino in Indiana, and that was the one Shadow robbbed. So then why was he in prison in Oklahoma?
I went and re-read the scene with the checkers games in the book, and Czernobog uses the name “Votan” there, so making that explicit isn’t a deviation. Using the ravens maybe makes things more obvious in the show, but only if you knew enough mythology to recognize what was going on anyway.
@3 – Sunspear: The show made Wednesday identity explicit when he said Wednesday was his day (and we know the show/book is about old gods and new gods). And please be careful when discussing book stuff (like Shadow’s true identity) here, this is about the show, and some of us have not read the book.
@17: Prisoners are often shipped around depending on a lot of factors, mostly having to do with overcrowding in private prisons. There’s a whole cottage industry for for-profit prisoner transportation, and abuse is rampant.
Regarding Laura’s job, as the TV series is set in the modern day, and the book was set in it’s time of publishing (2001), and in that time, “small town travel agent” has stopped being a job.
Personally I appreciated this look at Laura’s story pre-Shadow. It made me realise how little plot she gets in the book (she’s basically there to die, then come back and occasionally advance Shadow’s plot along), and in the same way that Shadow never realises how depressed Laura is, the book also glosses over her and her feelings in the same way.
18. MaGnUs: There were no spoilers in my post. Just a hint. It’s also not a huge leap to make, even if you haven’t read the novel or follow-up novella.