Con SuiteThe Reactor

Recap: American Gods – Git Gone

By Miclpea
SPOILER ALERT-Do not read if you have not seen episode four of American Gods.

Quote of the Week- “Get out of my house, you zombie whore!”

This episode, Git Gone, really should be called Laura’s Lament. It is about who Laura Moon is, as well as her history with Shadow. It also explains how she came to be sitting on his bed in the motel after dying in a car crash.

Git Gone opens in an Egyptian themed casino called 26th Dynasty Casino, where Laura is a blackjack dealer. Throughout the casino there are statues of Thoth, an Egyptian God who is usually depicted with the head of an ibis. Laura is clearly going through the motions of being alive as her body language speaks of an intense ennui. At home, she sits in her jacuzzi with the top on and she sprays bug insecticide under the jacuzzi cover until she can barely breath before she opens the top. The bug spray is called Git Gone.

During one of her shifts, Shadow arrives to play at her table. He attempts to cheat by changing the chips. Laura catches him and tells him not to try as he will be caught by the cameras and/or the casino security in plainclothes. It is interesting to note that the cards used at the casino have Anubis by Steve Minty as their ace of spades.

Laura’s directness, as well as her spotting his con but not busting him, interests Shadow. Later that night, after her shift, he approaches her in the parking lot. He proposes that they cheat together. Although she turns him down, she is intrigued by the offer. Eventually Shadow, through persistence and charm, invites himself to her home. At her home, they begin to make love, but Laura signals that she likes it rough by slapping Shadow. He indulges her.

The next morning Shadow shows her how to cheat at cards, which is the beginning of their relationship. As Laura becomes more adept at manipulating the cards, Shadow falls in love with her. For a little time, she starts to enjoy life with Shadow and their friends. Audrey, her best friend, actually remarks to Laura how Audrey’s husband Robbie never once looked in ten years at her the way Shadow looks at Laura. Of course, these moments of happiness do not last.

While in bed one day, Laura and Shadow have an interesting conversation about the afterlife. Shadow does not believe in it, although his mother did. Laura believes that bodies rot because physics rule and there is nothing after death. Laura believes in nothing since she learned that the promises of magic (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, etc.) in the world were lies. Her sense of ennui comes from her intense disillusionment of the world, one where magic does not exist.

As they begin their wedded life, Laura’s sense of boredom returns while Shadow is totally happy. Finally, Laura tells Shadow that she wants to rob the casino. She tells him that she loves him but that she is not happy. She believes robbing the casino will make her happy. What Laura and Shadow do not understand is that Laura is one of those rare people whose default setting is unhappy. She is a life junkie who feels that life should be an hour-long drama with constant excitement. If life is not exciting or magical, she becomes increasingly bored and withdrawn. Unfortunately for Shadow, he is in love with her.

Laura believes that she has the perfect plan to rob the casino. Of course, when they execute this plan, Shadow is caught but it is not absolutely clear whether or not the plan was flawed, as Laura had studied the casino for eight years. A quick note here may shed some light as to how Shadow was caught. There was at least one raven and at times two ravens watching Shadow and Laura. In Norse mythology Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, that he sent all over the world to gather information. Laura believes someone affected their plans. She might be right.

Shadow takes the full blame for the failed robbery. He asks Laura if she will wait for him. She answers yes, but she is lying.

Shadow has been imprisoned for months when Laura’s cat dies. Robbie, Shadow’s best friend and husband to Audrey, comes over to help her bury the cat. In a moment of weakness, they kiss, which is the beginning of their affair. The affair lasts until Shadow is about to be released from prison. Robbie wants to leave his wife for Laura but she tells him it was always temporary until Shadow returned home from prison. Laura has no intention of carrying on the affair with Robbie.

During their last conversation in the car, Laurie reiterates that they have been really sweet to each but the affair is done. She wants to be sweet to Robbie one last time, which is why she is engaging in oral sex with him when their car crashes. It appears that Laura’s elbow hit the gear shift handle and pushed it into a different gear, which caused Robbie to lose control and crash.

After the crash, Laura is looking down on the scene of twisted metal and bodies before she is transported to the afterlife where Anubis awaits her. Anubis leads Laura to the scale where he attempts to take her heart to weigh it against the feather. Laura slaps away his hand and tells Anubis that she can tell him which one “wins.” She then places her hand on the scale and pushes it down. She explains to Anubis that she is unapologetic about her life and the choices she has made.

Anubis walks away and Laura follows as she questions him about where is she going. As he turns to answer, she sees her jacuzzi with a can of Git Gone sitting on it. Anubis explains to her that she believed in nothing in life and she will go to nothing. Laura is finally afraid and she tells Anubis that she wants to go back. He tells her that her body has already started to decompose and it has been buried. As Laura starts to curse at Anubis, she is flung into the heavens before she disappears as a golden point of light! This clearly surprises Anubis.

A moment later Laura climbs from her grave. In the distance, she sees a pulsating golden light which beckons her. She starts walking towards it. When she reaches the source of the light, she sees that it is Shadow from whom the pulsating, golden light is emanating. He is hanging from the tree surrounded by Technical Boys minions. This energizes Laura, who runs to save him. Somehow, her rebirth has made her immensely powerful as she rips and punches Tech Boy’s minions. She jumps to the rope and rips it apart to drop Shadow to the ground. As she finishes killing the minions, one lands a lucky blow with a crowbar to her arm, which rips it from her body. He gets a well-deserved kick, which knocks his skull and spine out of his body. As Shadow recovers and walks away, Laura hides behind a tree.

The next morning Laura walks to her house carrying her arm. At home, she showers and puts on different clothes. As she is about to walk out the door, she hears a car door slam and she sees a blazing golden light. She knows it is Shadow, so she hides until he leaves.

Later, Laura is among a great deal of sewing equipment where she is trying to sew her arm back onto her body. Oddly, we as viewers do not know that Laura has gone to Audrey’s home to sew her arm back onto her shoulder until Audrey appears. Laura is unable to sew her arm back on with only one operational arm. Also, her body is still trying to get rid of the embalming fluid, so she heads to the bathroom. On the way, she sees a beautiful scrap book made as tribute to Shadow. As she turns to the bathroom, Audrey sees her and calls her name.

Laura answers, and Audrey loses her mind as she screams hysterically! This moment is seriously drop dead funny. Audrey’s reaction is the only true reaction a rational person should have to a truly impossible situation. It is hilariously funny because Audrey’s actions are spot on perfect! As she runs to the bathroom and locks the door, she screams, “Get out of my house, you zombie whore!”

Laura follows Audrey to the bathroom. Laura breaks open the door and tries to calm Audrey as she tells Audrey that she really needs to use the toilet to finish voiding the embalming fluid. As Laura uses the toilet, Audrey is absolutely flabbergasted by what is happening to her. Again, the incredible absurdity of the situation is absolutely hysterical!

Eventually, Audrey calms down enough to talk to Laura. After questioning Laura about what she is, Audrey asks Laura if she remembers the last thing she was doing before she died. Even though she is one of the returned dead, Laura has the decency to be embarrassed as she remembers her last earthly act. As they talk, Audrey explains to Laura that everyone, including Shadow, knows how she died. In a very strange conversation, Audrey relates how she felt both anger and grief when she heard the news of Robbie’s and Laura’s deaths.

After she has totally calmed down, Audrey sews Laura’s arm onto her body. While she is engaged in this task, Audrey is venting her anger, disappointment, and sense of betrayal for what Laura did to her. Laura admits that she did tell one big lie: that she told Shadow that she could wait for him when she knew that she could not do so. Also, she reluctantly admits that she did not love Shadow when she was alive but she loves him now that she is dead.

Later, Audrey is driving Laura down the road while Laura reads a very sanitized obituary of her life. In the distance, Laura can see the golden, blazing light that tells her where she can find Shadow. They are driving toward that place in the distance when a dog and a man cross the road in front of them. The dog turns into Anubis and the man is Mr. Ibis.

They take Laura to their funeral home where they make her presentable by restitching her arm and coloring her skin. They tell her they are doing this as her decaying body is incapable of taking care itself now that she is dead. Anubis tells her that when she is done with her task, he will complete his task and deliver her to darkness.

Later, in the motel room, Laura hangs fly paper to capture the flies that are drawn to her dead body. Laura has brought her welcome home dress with her to the motel. She puts it on and sits on the bed waiting for Shadow. She sits all day until finally she sees the glowing, golden light that is Shadow. He opens the door and she greets him with “Hi puppy.”

Without a doubt, this is clearly the funniest episode thus far in the season. Audrey’s reaction to seeing Laura in her home is priceless. Yet the episode is not only funny but immensely informative. We learn an incredible amount about Laura. She is unapologetic about her life and her death. She has been granted a second chance, but it is not clear that Mad Sweeney’s lucky coin by itself should have given her a new “life.” Was it a combination of Shadow’s tears and the coin? Shadow is now literally the light of her life.

Click here to join the American Gods conversation on the FoCC forum. 

Miclpea

I love going to conventions around the US and Canada. I'm an ardent fan of all things science fiction and especially The Expanse. I'm a senior writer for Friends of CC and I have co-written a science-fiction script called Punctuated Equilibrium.