American Gods Recap: 1.04 ‘Git Gone’

Although we received a new episode, we remain at the exact same point where Episode 3 left off as American Gods took quite the significant detour. ‘Git Gone’ is only told from the one perspective, which is also a new one for the show, and perhaps this contributed to feeling somewhat dissatisfied after viewing the episode.

‘Git Gone’ sees the entire episode recounting Laura Moon’s past after the show surprised us with her return from the grave. Unfortunately this also means we don’t get to see any of the interesting ‘Coming From America’ or ‘Somewhere in America’ segments that help break up the very intense show.

Meet Laura

We open with a mysterious Egyptian setting until we realise it’s merely a Egyptian-themed casino, so perhaps they were just setting us up for disappointment right from the start. Laura works as a blackjack dealer and you can quite easily tell she’s not pleased with her life. This becomes quite obvious when she heads home, grabs a can of Git Gone fly spray and proceeds to spray it while she’s inside the hot tub with the cover closed and ends up gasping for air.

Day in, day out, Laura’s life has become routine until she meets a ridiculously handsome man who knows how to smooth talk and goes by the name Shadow Moon. The two don’t get off to the best start since she catches Shadow cheating and tells him to head out before he gets caught, but he hangs around to suggest they work together to pull of a heist. Hell of a pick-up line if you ask me, and it works because the two head back to hers and that’s where it all begins.

A Not-So Happy Life

The two going through the motions from dates to happy moments and marriage, it seems as though they’re doing alright, but the scenes also show an insight into how Laura is feeling. She seems quite withdrawn and dissatisfied with her life until she speaks to Shadow about revisiting his initial plan to rob the casino. With her so-called perfect plan, Shadow reluctantly agrees except the next minute he is in jail and accepting the full sentence rather than splitting the time between the two of them.

Without Shadow, Laura reverts even further back into her structure life until one day her best friend’s husband Robbie is helping her out and the two share a steamy kiss, and a little more. Using the affair in order to feel something, they continue on for over two years and we begin to see the other side of past scenes. Laura speaks to Shadow in what would be his last phone call to his wife when Laura heads off with Robbie who suggests he will leave his wife. Laura is appalled by the idea and suggests she gives him a ‘parting gift’ to end their affair. Unfortunately that ‘gift’ causes a car accident and Laura is left floating over her dead body.

Death Isn’t Always Forever Apparently

Thankfully this episode wasn’t entirely devoid of deities as Laura somehow finds herself in the desert facing Anubis. When he attempts to take her heart she denies him as she already knows her heart is heavy with misdeeds. This denial means she must accept the darkness and her trusty can of Git Gone and hot tub appear. Like many, Laura’s not to keen on accepting death and just as she denies Anubis once again, she is pulled into the sky and leaves behind a slack-jawed god.

Laura returns to Earth and claws her way out of her grave. She then decides to head for the pulsing gold light—which is definitely an homage to the whole ‘go towards the light’.

The light turns out to be Shadow because he’s quite literally the light of her life and he’s surrounded by Technical Boy’s henchman just as we saw back in the first episode. Shadow’s mysterious saviour turns out not be a deity, but his very own wife whom now possesses some killer strength. Running into the fray, she rips their heads off and pulls hearts out with her bare hands causing some some very bloody and gruesome, but yet cool, visuals. She then leaps up to pull Shadow done from the tree and kills off the rest of the henchman, but not without losing a limb of her own. We should also mention that somehow Laura is invisible and that’s why Shadow couldn’t see his saviour since the first episode was told from his perspective. Hopefully we can learn more about that in next week’s episode.

The Repercussions of Coming Back From The Dead

Not ready to face Shadow, Laura picks up her arm and heads back home to clean herself off, pack up some things and figure out what’s next. When her golden beau turns up at the house, as seen in Episode 2, she quickly hides out in what must be her safe haven—also known as a hot tub. Next thing we know, Laura suffering from stomach pains attempting to stitch her arm back on with some regular thread when her best friend Audrey turns up.

Apparently Laura headed to Audrey’s house to use her sewing supplies and she ended up giving her ex-best friend quite the scare. The natural reaction is to get to safety so Audrey runs into the bathroom but Laura desperately needs to use the toilet because embalming fluid doesn’t tend to agree with a live person.

After Audrey’s somewhat calmed down but remains still freaked out, she helps Laura stitch her arm back on and they hit the road in a car much less cooler than Wednesday’s. Laura wants to see her ‘puppy’, but before she can reach the golden light, Audrey almost hits a man and a jackal, which turns out to be Thoth and Anubis. The two Egyptian gods take Laura with them to their workplace, Ibis and Jacquel Funeral Parlor, because you know, mummification and the afterlife.

The two properly stitch Laura’s arm back on and give her a back-from-the-dead makeover which involves make-up and applying some seriously needed colour to her white-grey skin. In this scene, probably the only standout line is delivered and that is Laura being told, “Don’t move, you’re still tacky”. Anubis then warns her that when she is done, he will then deliver her into darkness. Laura then heads to Shadow’s latest motel and patiently awaits for him to return and we come full circle when Shadow walks in.

Is That It?

So, we learned more about Laura, but was it really essential? I personally was not expecting Laura’s story to take the entire episode and thought perhaps it might be a similar length to Salim and the Jinn’s or even a back-and-forth between her past and Shadow’s present. It feels strange to end the episode exactly in the same place as the previous episode ended and it seems as if it was just a filler. Sure we got to know more about Laura and Shadow’s past, but how does it help the upcoming war? The two briefly spoke about beliefs and that might contribute to the overall arc, but other than that, this episode may have caused a few viewers to drop off just like the many flies surrounding Laura. Hopefully next week brings it up a few more notches especially with Gillian Anderson’s Media channelling the brilliant David Bowie.

American Gods returns next week with ‘Lemon Scented You’.

What did you think of the episode? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!

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