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Nightmare Fuel / American Gods (2017)

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    Season One 
Episode 1 - The Bone Orchard
  • In the prologue, the Vikings have sailed to the point where they have very little food or water. When they make it to the beach, they have no time to restock, because if they step off of the beach, they will be pin-cushioned by a flurry of arrows. They cannot set sail because there is no wind. In order to ask for Odin's favor to help leave, they willingly let their captain stab an eye out with a red-hot knife, they burn a member of their crew alive on a pyre, and they kill each other in a senseless battle. When the wind picks up they leave before they could give their dead proper funerary rights. Given that they have no food or water, it is very likely that almost all of the men died trying to ration their supplies on the way back to home, (very likely cannibalized after dying from the wounds they had no time to dress). We know that the captain lived to not tell the tale of what they experienced, but the same cannot be said for the rest of the crew.
  • Shadow's recurring nightmare of an enormous pile of skulls.
  • As a show of just how absurdly high on the totem pole the New Gods really are, the Technical Boy (who is portrayed as something of an obnoxious, rich, white brat) has Shadow lynched for for the crime of not respecting him enough, Shadow being in the dark as to who the Technical Boy is or what he is being lynched for.

Episode 4 - Git Gone

  • When Laura fails Anubis' judgement (or rather impatiently flunks it), he explains that her afterlife is "darkness". He implies that it will not be the peaceful experience that she hoped it would be due to her lack of belief.

Episode 5 - Lemon Scented You

  • The female cop that has Shadow and Mr. Wednesday arrested is immediately suspicious of the Orgy of Evidence they used to arrest them was just dumped in their lap, which just makes you wonder how long the New Gods have been watching them.
  • When Media floats into the interrogation room a few feet off of the ground, accompanied by the dramatic score, it's equal parts amusing and unsettling.
  • Mr. World. Just Mr. World. From his Kubrick Stare to his utter failure to look charming and approachable, his repeat Glamour Failure, his Cold Ham sermon of salsa and the illusion of free will, the way he bullies Technical Boy like an abusive dad would "discipline" their son and the implications of his invasive omniscience allowing him to know Shadow's dreams, the face he makes when he masturbates (presumably when in private) and various other facts. And this was his introduction!
  • The New Gods try bribing Wednesday with a position among them and a pittance of sacrifices in his name. The pittance? Naming a missile system after him and carpet bombing North Korea!
  • Mr. Wood massacred the entirety of a police station both to leave no witnesses and as a warning to Shadow and Wednesday.
  • Mr. Wood (having once been an animistic tree god) is a Botanical Abomination that disguised himself as a desk in the station before erupting as a monstrous killer tree.

Episode 6 - A Murder of God

Episode 8 - Come to Jesus

  • While waiting for Ostara, Laura coughs up a visceral ball of maggots in the sink.
  • While she may act as sweet as a late-40's American Musical, it is clear that Media is there to intimidate Ostara into complacency, veiled in a manner similar to other abusive relationships. It did not help that her faceless minion was standing there next to them.
  • It is shown here that the Children are capable of multiplying like germs, one minion becoming a group instantly, with Technical Boy and Mr. World taking possession of two of them to join the conflict.

    Season Two 
Episode 1 - House on the Rock
  • When the Caretaker tries denying Mr. World access to the Eyes of Argus, Mr. World gives a Screw the Rules, I Make Them! speech that only someone like Crispin Glover can make unsettling.
    Mr. World: The President is a cardboard cutout. I am the man, behind the man, behind the man. Operation Paperclip, the Moon-Landing, Roswell, the Compton Crack-Wars; you work for me. You have always worked for me. So when I say "I need to see through the Eyes of Argus", you make the connection.

Episode 2 - The Beguiling Man

  • Shadow's mother asks him to leave their apartment to socialize. When he tries, he is immediately beaten to the ground by a gang for "talking funny" (speaking perfect English, i.e. "like a white boy") and accidentally coming across as condescending ("you think I'm stupid, white boy? You think you're better than me?"). When he tries escaping, he is then grabbed and accosted by a police officer, presumably because of his skin color. He is made a victim for both being black and not being black enough.

Episode 4 - The Greatest Story Ever Told

  • When Mr. World grows impatient with Technical Boy, he punishes him by grabbing his head and shoving his thumbs into his eyes.

Episode 5 - The Ways of the Dead

  • William James' death is horrific enough on its own. The fact that his spirit is not only out for blood, but has it out for the lives for the marginalized Black population (no matter how mercifully he spins it) sucks majorly.
  • The last we see of Jamar Goodchild is him being tackled to the ground and handcuffed by a cop. The next scene we find him dead in Ibis' morgue. We can only assume that the police had him killed (unarmed, no less), or at least he died in their custody.
    • Jamar's body is found covered in burns and other sort of wounds that Ibis claims were inflicted post-mortem. He then explains that this is common to black bodies in Cairo. How exactly do these wounds end up on their bodies? Do they just appear as a mark of Froggie's curse, or does something find the bodies and inflict the wounds after they're dead? Did the police inflict those wounds?
  • William James' spirit manifests as his disembodied head, on fire and stuck on a pike. When Jamar sees it in broad daylight, it's scary as hell, especially when his eyes follow Jamar.

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