#zilla recaps

[charliemack]

American Gods, Episode 7 | A Prayer for Mad Sweeney

Rating: 2 WTFOL

Hmm … commercials before I get to watch my show. Really, Starz? It’s not enough that I had to buy a subscription, now I get advertisements as well?

I do all my best corpse prep to jaunty jazz records, played on my victrola.

I also do my best indentured servitude to groovy California-style elevator music

Where is this bonnie Irish isle? I must go.

I’m not feeling Ms Browning’s irish accent. Or her fake freckles. Or her wig. Pablo Schreiber is a much more convincing ginger.

Being a savvy consumer of modern entertainment media, I predict that young man listening to Essie’s story from the other room is going to be bad news. (Lemony-Snickett voice: he was)

I do all my best ill-advised candlelit scullery sex to doo-wop love songs from the 50’s.

That sea-captain gonna die. (Lemony-Snickett voice: The captain was not actually that important to the story, and so if he died at sea, we don’t know about it.)

Props to the makeup department for making Laura look just a little bit more dead in each episode.

You tell ‘em, Salim, you adorable thing. And come back soon!

That young Essie pulls down an impressive volume of olde timey dick, even with the terrible wig.

Dead mother and dead infant being tossed out the porthole might win most disturbing sight in a very disturbing show.

Oh, Laura Moon and her love of risky behavior. Flipping an ice cream truck isn’t quite the same as huffing bug spray in a hot tub, but based on the blissed-out smile on her face, it’ll do.

Some kinda Scheherazade thing going on here with our Essie. Apparently olde timey dudes just can’t resist a girl telling stories.

What’s this, American Gods? A happy ending for Essie McGowan?

Wow. Wow! In a fascinating development, Mr Wednesday may have just crossed his moral event horizon a bit earlier than expected. And Mad Sweeney became a sympathetic character avant he drinks himself to death. Out of all the deviations from the book so far, I like this one the most.

Is anybody else excited to see where Mr Schreiber’s career goes from here? Because he’s doing some spectacular work on this show.

The Essie McGowan story is the first Coming to America that feels like modern American storytelling. Probably because it’s the first one about a white character. I feel like I read it in a short story compilation or saw it at some museum exhibit dedicated to American history. Got a bit of a pioneer, wagons ho kinda smell about it. Familiar, and American, and not as challenging as the other material we’ve seen from this show. Grudgingly, I’ll allow it.

Did anyone else notice that neither Ricky Whittle nor Ian McShane showed up at all in this episode? This show is going places the book didn’t take us.

[charliemack]

American Gods, Ep 6 “A Murder of Gods”

Rating: 4 WTFOL

Watching the opening segment, it occurs to me that I haven’t seen any think pieces or articles calling out the show for being “unamerican”. Now, I probably don’t get my entertainment news from the websites that would write said articles. But I wonder, are the people who feel that immigrants and LGBT people and people of color are somehow ruining their America even *aware* of this show? I feel like content that I see as “from a refreshingly different perspective” might illicit a different reaction in my conservative countrymen.

Oh yay. I was thinking just last week that all I wanted from this show was a roadtrip scene with Ginger Minge and Asshole Dead Wife. But I never thought I’d get one with Salim in the cab searching for his djinn boyfriend. This is delightful.

Hahahah Laura’s face during the djinn speech.

Hold the phone. When did Shadow get sliced open? And JESUS that tree spore is terrifying.

Eyes on the road, Salim darling. I know you’re in the middle of nowhere but you’re making me very nervous.

“He is my afterlife” is the most romantic thing I’ve heard since “I don’t need luck, I have you.”

Oooh I knew that music cue was bad news. I don’t care how unlikely it is, falling into a vat of something acidic or toxic or molten is one of my deep dark fears.

Disclosure: Zilla really, really does not like guns.

I get the feeling that Vulcan, VA is not a good place to be a black man. 

Speaking as a white woman, large groups of white people make me very nervous, even when they don’t all have assault rifles

Nooo! Betty!

Yay the gator bar! I hoped it would show up again, they spent way too much on that set to only use it once.

Here’s hoping Salim kicks the shit out of this homophobic leprechaun

Again, show? Again with the lynching?

Disclosure: Zilla isn’t much for hunting or taxidermy either. This show is doing a bang-up job of creating scenes that make me really, really uneasy.

“Not for you” -> ex-fucking-cuse me?

I think I need to go read my Ovid again. When I think of Vulcan, and Hephaestus, I think of the crippled son of Zeus and Hera, married to Aphrodite. I always envisioned him in my head as quiet and shy, more artisan than weapons smith. In other words, not at all like this really scary old white man while a mansion full of dead things and the guns that killed them.

I’m really confused about what Laura’s up to. The scene with her family was sad and poignant, but I don’t understand how seeing them again was enough to divert her away from following Shadow.

Wait a second … what? There’s no way molten metal would kill the gold of volcanos.

Wait a second, what do you MEAN there’s only two episodes left? 

[charliemack]

American Gods, Episode 3

Rating: Just one 1 WTFOL this week

- Somebody bring that poor cat a jumper. - It is a crime that I can't think of another piece of media, in any format, where the protagonist a middle-aged Muslim woman. I very much want to know the rest of that woman's story, including what she was cooking. - I liked it better when Zorya Polunochnaya was an old lady instead of a predatory Millennial with Pinterest hair. - Mr Wednesday you smooth motherf##*@er. I can't remember the last time I heard a line that good. - Zorya Vechernyaya, bringing the coat porn - I think that bottle is CGI, but I'm not sure. If it's not, well done effects team. - Eww. - That is exactly what I thought that waiting room would look like. - This poor boy is tragic. I'm glad he gets to have some nice sex. - My goodness, Mr Ifrit. - I laughed. I don't think that's what they were going for, but I did. - Salim actually rocks that sweater-and-wayfarerslook better than the Ifrit did. - "Have a little faith, son" -> LOLOLOLOL - Oh look. Shadow Moon is expressing emotion and has become interesting for half a minute. Ricky Whittle is a far better anxious sidekick than he is a straight-man. - Have Wednesday's eyes been two colors this whole time and I just didn't notice until now? - To recall an old @cleolinda classic: Shadow doesn't realize he's in an American Gods adaptation. - Every time Shadow and Mad Sweeney are in the same scene, I feel like I need to take a shower to get all the fanfic off. - DAMN, Mad Sweeney. - Those earmuffs are not pink. This whole adaptation is BS. Chuck it in the bin and start over. - Somebody bring that poor wolf a jumper. - Laura looks pretty good. That shouldn't last.  

[charliemack]

American Gods, Ep 5

Rating: 4 WTFOL

- Oooo a previously-on. We’re in deep now, kids - Wow. The animation in the opening segment is gorgeous. - The most perfunctory goring I’ve seen all day - Yay, Laura is still The Worst. *nods in satisfaction - I have never heard the saying about cemeteries and motels before, but it makes sense.  - Is it just me or is this a terribly awkward conversation? The cinematography is awkward, the dialogue is awkward. The subject matter, also a bit uncomfy. - Somebody come up for a headcanon about why a dead girl in her 30′s would smoke Virginia slims. Is it because of the job in the casino? Did her mom smoke them? I can’t figure. - Ian McShane has more chemistry with that CGI bird than this supposedly married couple. - Don’t do it don’t do it .... ewww. - Oh wait. Interesting. Hello, fairy-tale concept.  - “Are you still my puppy?” “No.” GOOD BOY! Oh, well done Shadow. - SHRIEK! Deadwood reference! Oh, I am a happy Zilla. - They are doing some very cool things with the golden-Shadow-light effect. I am digging it. - “You have an image problem. You hung a black man from a tree.” <- not good enough, American Gods. Not even close. - Ms Anderson sold her Bowie-sona with aplomb. Well done. - Character describes what they’re doing with perfect honestly and no one believes them -> one of my favorite tropes. - I could watch Asshole Dead Wife and the Smoldering Leprechaun all day :D - Shadow has no problem with Dead Wife or synthetic toad skins, but he jumps out his chair at Floating Marilyn. Funny where the suspension of disbelief breaks down. - This episode is talky as hell - WOAH. That is fucking terrifying. Jesus, I take it back! - More horror please, AG? And less awkward conversations between married folk?