History YMMV / AmericanGods2017

** Mr. Nancy, who was beloved by many audiences for his [[SharpDressedMan style]] and his absolutely ''fantastic'' speech to the captive slaves in episode 2 of the first season.

* OvershadowedByControversy: Forgive the accidental pun, but between season two and season three, there was a massive TroubledProduction issue between the actors and the new show runner. Originally, Orlando Jones, the actor portraying Anansi, was possibly the most well-received character of season one, so Neil Gaiman, the author of the book who has some consultation with the show, encouraged him to write his own lines for his appearance in season two. It also was incredibly well-received, but the rest of the season was not, which then resulted in a new show runner being hired yet again. This showrunner decided that Anansi would not be in season three and fired Orlando Jones, who posted a video on social media outlining that he had been waiting on a call back only to be fired with little to no explanation. He was visibly upset about it, as were his fans and many fans of the show, and the only official word that came down was that (paraphrasing) "his character was not part of the story in the book and that's why he wasn't asked to return." The only problem with that explanation is Laura Moon and the leprechaun, who it bears mentioning are white, both were not featured anywhere near as much in the book as they are in the show, so the explanation came across as an excuse to push a person of color with a prominent role out of the show to replace his screentime with the white characters' instead. Soon after this news broke, Ricky Whittle, the actor portraying Shadow, also went into Orlando Jones' DMs on Twitter and begged him not to keep calling out the show runner for firing him as well as several other actors of color from season three, which was the last straw for many fans. Season three went on to be the worst reviewed and least watched season, ending with the show's cancellation as many viewers were angered by the removal of Jones as well as the other actors of color and so unfortunately, the show's legacy has been tainted ever since.

** Media. The idea that every time you sit down to watch one of your favorite shows, you are unwittingly making a sacrifice to a modern day goddess, is pretty terrifying, especially when the series shows that sacrifices to gods generally end in death.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: One of the main problems of the series. Due to the showrunner being changed with each season, numerous actors either left the show or were not asked to come back, which led to some key characters disappearing or being replaced. The most infamous example is with Media: to face the absence of Gillian Anderson in season 2, the writers decided to have the character evolve into New Media, played by Kahyun Kim. On paper it sounded like a good idea and great concept, but most viewers agree that the execution of the character was done very poorly, and New Media paled next to Media's original incarnation... and so came season 3, where the writers decided to change Media yet again, and this time into a whole group of minor social media deities, but without any explanation as to why this change happened (in fact you could miss the link between the characters if it wasn't for a few clues). On top of all that Media in the novel AND the first season of the show is known to be a shapeshifter with a thousand faces, and so an easy solution to Gillian Anderson's absence could have been to just give Media another actress.
** Due to once again the constant changes in showrunners, several characters invented by each of them appears just one time before vanishing and never be seen again (such as Mr. Wood from season 1). Even more complicated is the fact that some of those OneSceneWonder characters, while being excellent ideas, do not actually fit within the worldbuilding. Case in point: Money from season 2. Everything in him screams the New God (he is the literal embodiment of money, banks and modern currencies, with no correspondence or link to any mythological or legendary figures) and yet Mr. Wednesday considers making him an ally in his war, as if he was an Old God (and it is not as if Mr. Wednesday could be chummy with the New Gods).[[note]]Though a possible explanation would be that exchanging coins for stuff is a concept as old as organized civilization itself, and we already have Mr. Wood, a god older than most of the Old Gods who isn't tied to a specific mythology. As for his domain being modern financial concepts, we know from Vulcan that Old Gods can adapt their domains to the modern day and continue their worship.[[/note]]

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Bilquis's backstory as told by Mr. Nancy is framed as though she's on fallen fortunes because of men being threatened by a powerful woman. Which is indeed shown to be true throughout... except for the part that her followers [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome died because of HIV]]. There's also the whole "swallowing people whole through her vagina" thing. Especially since her unwitting victims include people on dating apps, or just random strangers with the misfortune of sitting next to her on a plane or a bus. The first on-screen sacrifice in her name is a lonely man whose kids convinced him to start dating again.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The first episode of season two has the meeting between the Old Gods at the House on the Rock. The actual meeting takes place inside [[spoiler:Odin's]] head, where everyone has forms that are exaggerated, glowing versions of themselves. Special mention to the triple-headed Zorya sisters and Mama-ji's multiple, weapon-wielding arms.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Laura Moon. Half the fans can't stand her because of her selfishness and Jerkass behavior toward Shadow during the time she was alive, while the other half loves her ''because'' of those qualities. Another portion doesn't mind her, but is up in arms about her AscendedExtra status on the show and feels that she steals screentime from other more likable characters. The fact that she is Shadow's wife also made her an easy target for DieForOurShip.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: One of the main problems of the series. Due to the showrunner being changed with each season, numerous actors either left the show or were not asked to come back, which led to some key characters disappearing or being replaced. The most infamous example is with Media: the face the absence of Gillian Anderson in season 2, the writers decided to have the character evolve into New Media, played by Kahyun Kim. On paper it sounded like a good idea and great concept, but most viewers agree that the execution of the character was done very poorly, and New Media paled next to Media's original incarnation... and so came season 3, where the writers decided to change Media yet again, and this time into a whole group of minor social media deities, but without any explanation as to why this change happened (in fact you could miss the link between the characters if it wasn't for a few clues). On top of all that Media in the novel AND the first season of the show is known to be a shapeshifter with a thousand faces, and so an easy solution to Gillian Anderson's absence could have been to just give Media another actress.

** The show shares a time slot with ''Series/TwinPeaks'', another show featuring [[NamesTheSame a dead girl named Laura, and another girl named Audrey]]. Additionally, ''Twin Peaks'' stars Creator/DavidDuchovny, while ''American Gods'' stars Creator/GillianAnderson, both best known for co-starring on ''Series/TheXFiles''.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: A lot of signs point Laura having suffered from depression before her death. She's apathetic to life, full of self loathing, and suicidal (which she expresses as a means to find peace); all signs of clinical depression. Most of her actions in life were driven by the need to drive away the emptiness for even a moment, no matter how terrible the consequences.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** The Technical Boy was supposed to just ask Shadow a few questions, but instead wound up hanging him, which just drove him closer to Mr. Wednesday. "You tried to put out a spark by pouring gasoline on it." On top of that, it honestly didn't occur to him that trying to ''lynch a black man'' could be seen as racist. The other New Gods like Media berate him for this and force him to apologize to Shadow for it.
** Tsk tsk tsk, [[spoiler: Vulcan.]] You really screwed it up. So Vulcan [[spoiler:sold Wednesday and Shadow out to the New Gods.]] He has just finished forging the BigFreakingSword that Wednesday asked for while Shadow and Wednesday put two and two together.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Vulcan to remove the sword from the room in this case. Revealing [[spoiler:that you've betrayed people to their sworn enemies is going to probably piss them off.]] Or he could just stand near it, to make sure that [[spoiler:Wednesday]] doesn't use it [[spoiler:in a betrayal-induced rage.]] Or, failing either of those, he could use the sword on [[spoiler: Wednesday and Shadow.]] And the [[spoiler: Old Gods]] would never have to know. After all, he could just pin the deaths on the [[spoiler:New Gods.]]\\
'''Instead''': He walks away from the sword, and gloats about how [[spoiler: Wednesday is to be the martyr of his religion.]] Meanwhile, Wednesday is walking towards [[spoiler:the sword.]]\\
'''You'd Never Guess What Happens Next''': [[spoiler: Wednesday [[OffWithHisHead decapitates Vulcan]], takes the sword and Shadow and leaves.]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: While the story is chock full of Old World gods and mythical creatures to build the lore, many found it disappointing that there weren't that many New Gods in comparison. While Technical Boy, Media and Mr. World had plenty of time to be established and were entertaining in their own right, every other example either only makes brief appearances (like the Bookkeeper and his Girl Scouts) or had very little development (Mr. Town and the Director), with the rest of the pantheon having been modernized Old Gods or their Faceless children acting as generic mooks. The book alludes to various New Gods they could have used (gods of trains, planes, junkies, etc.) but chose not to. [[spoiler:The season 3 finale revealing that Technical Boy and Mr. World are ''also'' just Old Gods with a new modern look just compounds the problem further.]]
** This is considered to be one of the main reason behind the SeasonalRot. Given each season had a new showrunner, causing each time changes in the creating team and acting cast, the television series is filled with abandoned plots and character arcs either heavily rewritten or just cut short with not much of an explanation.

* CreepyAwesome: Mr. World is the incredibly [[UncannyValley unsettling]] leader of the New Gods who freaks out even Mr. Wednesday... but he does it all with [[SharpDressedMan so]] [[BadassInANiceSuit much]] [[EvilIsCool style]] that it leaves the fans begging for more of him.

** Another clue is when he says that Wednesday is "my day", for those who know what Wednesday means.

** Shadow and Jesus talking in "Come to Jesus" about a journey to [[YouCantFightFate a pre-destined end]] became this when the actor, Creator/JeremyDavies, got cast as Baldur in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'', a completely different god with a destined death. [[spoiler:And considering he's saying this to Shadow, who is revealed to be Baldur in the book, the irony is compounded.]]

** The scenes with Vulcan and his followers were already a pretty harsh commentary on aspects of American culture in 2017, but the events surrounding the rally held by white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 make them even more uncomfortable to watch in retrospect. It doesn't help that Vulcan's town is located in Virginia.

** Due to once again the constant changes in showrunners, several characters invented by each of them appears just one time before vanishing and never be seen again (such as Mr. Wood from season 1). Even more complicated is the fact that some of those OneSceneWonder characters, while being excellent ideas, do not actually fit within the worldbuilding. Case in point: Money from season 2. Everything in him screams the New God (he is the literal embodiment of money, banks and modern currencies, with no correspondence or link to any mythological or legendary figures) and yet Mr. Wednesday considers making him an ally in his war, as if he was an Old God (and it is not as if Mr. Wednesday could be chummy with the New Gods).

* BrokenBase: The decision to adapt the novel as a multi-season TV series rather than a simple miniseries. Some fans think it gives the story some additional depth and dimension, while giving the central war story an appropriately epic scope and giving the book's [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters many]] [[OneSceneWonder minor-but-memorable]] characters a chance to shine. Others feel that it just fills the show with gratuitous {{padding}}, and that it's an unnecessary AdaptationExpansion for a novel that--for all its complex themes--boils down to a fairly simple RoadTripPlot with a FinalBattle at the end.

* ActorShipping: Pablo Schreiber (Sweeney) and Ricky Whittle (Shadow) have this trope, which plays a major factor in shippers of their characters.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Laura Moon. Half the fans can't stand her because of her selfishness and Jerkass behavior toward Shadow during the time she was alive while the other half loves her ''because'' of those qualities. Another portion don't mind her but is up in arm on her AscendedExtra status on the show and feels that she steals screentime from other more likable characters. The fact that she is Shadow's wife also made her an easy target for DieForOurShip.

* CatharsisFactor: Wednesday's treatment of Jesus may be this for viewers who worship "the old gods" and may have to dig through christianization, or outright suppression, of the gods they worship/follow/revere.

* FanPreferredCouple: Laura and Mad Sweeney are the most popular ship in the fandom, having twice the amount of fan works about them than the next most popular couple Shadow/Mad Sweeney. They even have a PortmanteauCoupleName - [=MadWife=]. Fans were ''not'' pleased when [[spoiler:Mad Sweeney died and Creator/PabloSchreiber was confirmed to have exited the show.]] Both Larua/Mad Sweeney and Shadow/Mad Sweeney are easily more popular than the canon Shadow/Laura.

** Shadow and Jesus talking in "Come To Jesus" about a journey to [[YouCantFightFate a pre-destined end]] became this when the actor, Creator/JeremyDavies, got cast as Baldur in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'', a completely different god with a destined death. [[spoiler:And considering he's saying this to Shadow, who is revealed to be Baldur in the book, the irony is compounded.]]

* MemeticMutation: Fans have taken to calling Mr. World's Creator/DannyTrejo form "Senior Mundo", which is just Spanish for "Mr. World."

** The start of the television series first episode has a boat of Vikings come to the New World. As they set out to explore it, all of a sudden the man in front -- and ''only'' the man in front -- is given the HumanPincushion treatment and filled full of dozens of arrows in the span of seconds.

** At the end of the episode, the Technical Boy's goons just arbitrarily explode into LudicrousGibs while trying to murder Shadow. The blood is no less obviously fake and the whole scene is completely out of nowhere.

** The sex scene between the Jinn and Salim starts with the Jinn appearing with a flaccid, comically large, CGI penis but the tenderness and love in the scene managed to overcome it.

** The protagonist's name is Shadow Moon, which bounds to either this trope or just Narm.

* OneSceneWonder: More like two scenes wonder: The bartender appeared in episode 1 and 3 for her hilarious interaction with Shadow and Sweeney.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Book counterparts of Laura and Audrey are hated for respectively being annoying and having little characterization. The show's portrayal of them receives much warmer reception.

** From the first episode, Bilquis swallows the man she was on a date with through her vagina.
** From the second episode, Mr. Nancy's speech to a new world-bound ship hold full of slaves, telling them of the future that awaits them and their descendants in America.

* SeasonalRot: Many critics have been disappointed by Season Two, citing it has potential but it's wasted and that Fuller and Green leaving the show was to its detriment as the direction of the new showrunner, Jesse Alexander (who incidentally was fired from the show during production), just doesn't have that same spark. Indeed, viewership for the show fell rapidly from the first episode of season two, ending at 0.272 million viewers for the finale (compare that with the 0.774 from the first season's finale). [[FromBadToWorse Reception only got worse]] with season three, where viewer numbers declined to the point where the show only broke 0.200 million twice - at one point viewership dipped to 0.110 - and the season finished out at a positively anemic 0.182 million viewers.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: One of the main problems of the series. Due to the showrunner being changed with each season, numerous actors either left the show or were not asked to come back, which led to some key characters disappearing or being replaced. The most unfamous example is with Media: the face the absence of Gillian Anderson in season 2, the writers decided to have the character evolve into New Media, played by Kahyun Kim. On paper it sounded like a good idea and great concept, but most viewers agree that the execution of the character was done very poorly, and New Media paled next to Media's original incarnation... and so came season 3, where the writers decided to change Media yet again, and this time into a whole group of minor social media deities, but without any explanation as to why this change happened (in fact you could miss the link between the characters if it wasn't for a few clues). On top of all that Media in the novel AND the first season of the show os known to be a shapeshifter with a thousand faces, and so an easy solution to Gillian Anderson's absence could have been to just give Media another actress.
** Due to once again the constant changes in showrunners, several characters invented by each of them appears just one time before vanishing and never be seen again (such as Mr. Wood from season 1). Even more complicated is the fact that some of those OneSceneWonder characters, while being excellent ideas, do not actually fit within the worldbuilding. Case in point: Money from season 2. Everything in him screams the New God (he is the literal embodiment of money, banks and modern currencies, with no correspondance or link to any mythological or legendary figures) and yet Mr. Wednesday considers making him an ally in his war, as if he was an Old God (and it is not like if Mr. Wednesday could be chummy with the New Gods).
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: While the story is chock full of Old World gods and mythical creatures to build the lore, many found it disappointing that there weren't that many New Gods in comparison. While Technical Boy, Media and Mr. World had plenty of time to be established and were entertaining in their own right, every other example either only make brief appearances (like the Bookkeeper and his girl-scouts) or had very little development (Mr. Town and the Director), with the rest of the pantheon having been modernized Old Gods or their Faceless children acting as generic mooks. The book alludes to various New Gods they could have used (gods of trains, planes, junkies, etc.) but chose not to. [[spoiler:The season 3 finale revealing that Technical Boy and Mr. World are ''also'' just Old Gods with a new modern look just compounds the problem further.]]

* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The first episode of season two has the meeting between the Old Gods at the House On The Rock, while the actual meeting takes place inside [[spoiler:Odin's]] head, where everyone has forms that are exaggerated, glowing versions of themselves. Special mention to the triple-headed Zorya sisters and Mama-ji's multiple, weapon-wielding arms.
* WhatAnIdiot: The Technical Boy was supposed to just ask Shadow a few questions, but instead wound up hanging him, which just drove him closer to Mr. Wednesday. "You tried to put out a spark by pouring gasoline on it." On top of that, it honestly didn't occur to him that trying to ''lynch a black man'' could be seen as racist. The other New Gods like Media berate him for this and force him to apologize to Shadow for it.

* FanPreferredCouple: Laura and Mad Sweeney are the most popular ship in the fandom, having twice the amount of fan works about them than the next most popular couple Shadow/Mad Sweeney. They even have a PortmanteauCoupleName - [=MadWife=]. Fans were ''not'' pleased when [[spoiler:Mad Sweeney died and Pablo Schreiber was confirmed to have exited the show.]] Both Larua/Mad Sweeney and Shadow/Mad Sweeney are easily more popular than the canon Shadow/Laura.

* FanPreferredCouple: Laura and Mad Sweeney by ''far'', having twice the amount of fan works about them than the next most popular couple (Shadow/Mad Sweeney). They even have a PortmanteauCoupleName - [=MadWife=]. Fans were ''not'' pleased when [[spoiler:Mad Sweeney died and Pablo Schreiber was confirmed to have exited the show.]]

** Bilquis swallows the man she was on a date with through her vagina in the first episode.
** Mr. Wednesday revealing his true identity to Shadow in the final episode of Season 1, listing the names and epithets he's known by, along with his ravens and wolves, while thunderstorms brew around them.

%%* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: The scene with the violent Christian group in the open for "A Murder of Gods" shows that any belief system can lead to violence. Similar to the scene in the opening with the Vikings.

%%* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: The scene with the violent Christian group in the open for "A Murder of Gods" shows that any belief system can lead to violence. [[NotSoDifferent Similar to the scene in the opening with the Vikings]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Bilquis's backstory as told by Mr. Nancy is framed as though she's on fallen fortunes because of men being threatened by a powerful woman. Which is indeed shown to be true throughout... except for the part that her followers [[RealityEnsues died because of HIV]]. There's also the whole "swallowing people whole through her vagina" thing. Especially since her unwitting victims include people on dating apps, or just random strangers with the misfortune of sitting next to her on a plane or a bus. The first on-screen sacrifice in her name is a lonely man whose kids convinced him to start dating again.

* SophomoreSlump: Many critics have been disappointed by Season Two, citing it has potential but it's wasted and that Fuller and Green leaving the show was to its detriment as the direction of the new showrunner, Jesse Alexander (who incidentally was fired from the show during production), just doesn't have that same spark. Indeed, viewership for the show fell rapidly from the first episode of season two, ending at 0.272 million viewers for the finale (compare that with the 0.774 from the first season's finale).
** ItGotWorse in season three, where viewer numbers declined to the point where the show only broke 0.200 million twice - at one point viewership dipped to 0.110 - and the season finished out at a positively anemic 0.182 million viewers.