Entertainment
Canceled And Disgraced Author’s Most Raunchy, Graphic Work Now Streaming Free, If You Can Stomach It
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Last year, beloved fantasy writer Neil Gaiman was very thoroughly canceled after a series of disturbing sexual assault allegations from multiple women, resulting in the shutdown of several major projects. All of this hit fans particularly hard because Gaiman had spent decades crafting amazing comics like The Sandman and books like Coraline.
Fans who can separate the art from the artist are still enjoying those works, and if you’d like to watch an Emmy-winning adaptation of his greatest work, you can now stream American Gods for free on Tubi.
The Gods Must Be Crazy
The premise of American Gods is that after an ex-con loses his wife and the job waiting for him, he takes a new gig as a personal assistant to a mysterious man named Wednesday. Soon, he finds himself caught up in an ancient struggle between the Old Gods and the New Gods, one in which mortals are merely pawns in the oldest game of all time. Unless he can figure out how to win that game, the entire human race may pay the price for his failure.
The cast of American Gods is simply divine, starting with Ricky Whittle (best known for Austenland) as Shadow Moon, who embodies both bottled anger and hidden potential as our protagonist and audience surrogate. Ian McShane (best known for Deadwood) is all seduction and charm as Wednesday, a new employer who is clearly much more than he seems. Meanwhile, Crispin Glover (best known for the title role in Willard) is chillingly perfect as Mr. World, a god who seems like he might have gleaned a few scary notes from the Old Testament.
Now, Ziggy Played Guitar
Even the supporting cast of American Gods really cooks, including Orlando Jones (best known for Evolution) as Mr. Nancy, a trickster-turned-tailor. Peter Stormare (best known for Fargo) is captivating as Czernobog, an ancient Slavic god with the mien of your quirkiest apartment neighbor. Finally, Gillian Anderson (best known for The X-Files) plays the god Media, who (in my favorite gimmick in the whole show) often speaks to characters through the appearance of pop culture icons such as David Bowie (in the Ziggy Stardust makeup, no less!).
When American Gods came out, critics were blown away by the quality of this ambitious literary adaptation. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a rating of 92 percent, with reviewers praising the show for being a visual feast full of narrative twists and turns that were generally engrossing. While later seasons fell short of Season 1’s rapturous glory, critics generally maintained that this was one of their best genre shows to ever grace cable television.
Emmy Prayers: Answered
American Gods generated buzz among more than faithful fans and critics, earning Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Main Title Design and Outstanding Special Visual Effects. It also received two Saturn Award nominations for Best Fantasy Television Series, while Shadow Moon actor Ricky Whittle received a Saturn nomination for Best Actor on Television. Sadly, this excellent show didn’t take home any of those trophies, though it did win the Saturn Award for Best DVD or Blu-Ray Television Release.
As far as literary adaptations go, American Gods is quite solid, bringing Neil Gaiman’s imaginative cast of characters to life in powerful and provocative ways. It does veer off-course from the book at times, and it also borrows from Gaiman’s companion book Anansi Boys, which might upset purists hoping for a strict, chapter-by-chapter adaptation. Personally, I enjoyed how the show managed to surprise those who loved the original novel while remaining accessible to those who had never cracked the book at all.
Canceled Author, Canceled Show
Of course, the elephant in the room with this TV show is that it was unceremoniously canceled before it could finish adapting the original book, which may make some ask why they should bother watching American Gods if the show is just going to leave them hanging. Personally, I’d pose a different question to such cynics: isn’t it better to watch an incomplete, Emmy-winning adaptation of a Hugo-winning novel than to watch a crappier show that just happens to be complete? It may not come to a fully organic stop, but this show is a thrill ride that is worth the cost of admission.
Fortunately, admission is completely free: to experience American Gods for yourself, all you have to do is stream it on Tubi today. Unless it was misplaced by a trickster god (hey, it happens to the best of us), you just need to grab your remote and check out one of the most ambitious shows in television history. After you’re done, you might just join the rest of us in praying to the new media gods that we eventually get another literary adaptation even half as good as this one.
