Serie - American Gods : our review on Git Gone episod (104)

By Mulder, 20 may 2017

Finally, with the release of episode 4 of American Gods we make our way through the looking glass and uncover the closely guarded origin story of Laura Moon (Emily Browning), Shadow’s deceased wife. Veering off, far, far off from the normal course of storytelling in previous episodes we get a microcosm look into the life of Laura within the macrocosm of Shadow’s all encompassing world of American Gods. Before she meets Shadow she is detached, despondent and seemingly defeated from having any ambitions outside of her daily routine. She works a dead end job at a casino, comes home to her pet cat (Dummy) and contemplates her continued existence.

When Shadow makes his presence known to her in the casino for which she is employed she reads him as the thief he is quite easily but takes a shine to him by allowing Shadow to walk away from his path of crime. There not so immediate connection is sparked by Shadow’s interest in Laura for having spared him. It can be determined from this point that she does take kindly to Shadow’s flirtatious nature yet after a time she grows tired of even this, her happy little life and reverts back to her disassociation.

She admits to loving Shadow but not to being in love with him which is the key difference in all her dialogue. In her unfulfilled life she did not appreciate the man that was so utterly willing to sacrifice all he was for anything she desired. Not to say that Shadow as a character was a pushover prior to his five year stretch in prison but in the least to acknowledge that his fortitude to stand by Laura was unwavering, no matter the consequences. Sadly, as anyone keeping up with American Gods should know, Laura could not keep herself faithful to Shadow while he was serving his time in jail and ended up sleeping with their best friend Robbie played by comedian Dane Cook. Dane Cook has a minor role but his character wrecks major repercussions for the marriage of Laura and Shadow, and he performs his part well.

At the end of episode 3 “Head Full of Snow”, Laura is found waiting for Shadow in his hotel room and as episode 4 continues we unravel the path that lead to Laura’s unpredicted revival from the grave. Maybe not completely unpredictable as Mad Sweeney’s coin was dropped on her graveyard at the end of episode 1 and how can there not be an effect to this. Murphy’s Law.

Continuing on, as the story catches up to Laura’s fiery demise in the car crash with Robbie we are reconnected with the new addition of Chris Obi as the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis, or Mr. Jacquel. Anubis, introduced in “Head Full of Snow” returns this time to guide Laura into her version of the afterlife. She is rebellious to follow and defiant to the bitter end, which seems useless and irrelevant for how can one argue with the concept of death. As Anubis is going to weigh her heart, she stops him in another act of revolt as well as admittance that she knows her deeds are awful and unforgivable. However as Anubis begins to sentence her, she is plucked from this purgatory between worlds dessert that she had been brought to for the weighing of her heart and is taken away into the starry sky. Laura’s entire persona is transformed, from her life to her death, everything for her has changed and now she appears to have a semblance of purpose and happiness that she cannot abandon and will not give up without a fight, Shadow.

Emily Browning’s portrayal of Laura has gone from a vague transparent character to a thoroughly layered woman searching for a reason to live. Only after her momentary death it seems that she has finally found it. American Gods has told the story of Shadow and Mr. Wednesday and how they were brought together by the death of Shadow’s promiscuous wife. But now we have creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s vision astoundingly conceptualized by director Craig Zobel to tell the tale from Laura’s point of view. “American Gods: Episode 4 Git Gone” is nothing short of a riveting account of how Laura felt emptiness in her life, how she dealt with Shadow’s imprisonment, her trip to the brink of oblivion, and all of it in desperate hope to simply return back to the comforting arms of her love.

Synopsis:
When Shadow Moon is released from prison, he meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and a storm begins to brew. Little does Shadow know, this storm will change the course of his entire life. Left adrift by the recent, tragic death of his wife, and suddenly hired as Mr. Wednesday’s bodyguard, Shadow finds himself in the center of a world that he struggles to understand. It’s a hidden world where magic is real, where the Old Gods fear both irrelevance and the growing power of the New Gods, like Technology and Media. Mr. Wednesday seeks to build a coalition of Old Gods to defend their existence in this new America, and reclaim some of the influence that they’ve lost. As Shadow travels across the country with Mr. Wednesday, he struggles to accept this new reality, and his place in it.

American Gods
Based on American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Developed by Bryan Fuller, Michael Green
Composer Brian Reitzell
Starring Ricky Whittle (Shadow Moon), Emily Browning (Laura Moon / Essie Tregowan), Crispin Glover (Mr World), Bruce Langley (Technical Boy), Yetide Badaki (Bilquis), Pablo Schreiber (Mad Sweeney), Ian McShane (Mr. Wednesday)

A Whispertone review