Running the very peculiar and specific world of English author Neil Gaiman through the filter of visual storytelling has proven to be a tricky proposition over the years. I’ve just recently finished Gaiman’s “Anansi Boys” — a kind of supernatural screwball farce about two cursed brothers who discover they are actually the offspring of the African trickster God, Anansi — and I am consistently blown away by the author’s ability to ground fantastical plot developments in the utterly commonplace. He’s one of the only popular authors I could think of who could place a devastating breakup scene next to a hallucinatory sequence wherein the book’s villain is violently attacked by flamingos and somehow, miraculously, not have the two warring tones throw the whole enterprise drastically off course.
Gaiman’s books are filled with tricksters, demigods, witches, ogres and the like, but the stories he tells are more human than many of his contemporaries in the fantasy and horror genres. Beneath the exotic tenor of “Anansi Boys’s” Caribbean mysticism, not to mention the novel’s spare flourishes of gruesome violence and occult horror, Gaiman’s book is a very human story about a man who wishes to escape the drudgery of his life, and the insanity that ensues when he gets far more than he bargained for.
“American Gods” is unquestionably Gaiman’s best-known work, and probably his most evocative. It’s a dark, dreamlike fable that unfolds on the abandoned backroads of America. The lead character is a man, Shadow Moon, who, almost immediately after being released from prison (where he did time for a violent crime), learns of his wife’s death and is thus drawn into a war between the Old Gods and the New. Shadow’s descent into this bewitching world of enchantment and death comes at the hands of a cunning and malevolent disruptor named Mr. Wednesday. Wednesday, like many of the characters in Gaiman’s work, is a stand-in for another, more prominent mythological figure: in this case, the one-eyed Norse God Odin.
It is rare to see a storyteller in the popular sphere treat these allegorical characterizations, which run the risk of being outmoded, with the same poe-faced earnestness and remarkable imagination that Mr. Gaiman seems so effortlessly capable of. And yet, “American Gods” — which, apart from being a cracklingly effective tale from beyond the veil, is also a fable concerning the rituals and belief systems that washed upon our pagan shores so many centuries ago, eventually coming to be accepted as American ideologies — is an essential distillation of everything that makes Gaiman an artist for our times. He is one of the last remaining novelists who draws upon the traditions of both American and European folklore to create transfixing narratives about who we are as a species. His best works are ethereal tapestries of magical realism that are as gripping as they are impossible to categorize.
Now, there has already been a lot of great television in 2017, from the galvanic return of Damon Lindelof’s “The Leftovers” to the dramarama party that was Jean-Marc Vallee and David E. Kelley’s “Big Little Lies”. And yet the new television iteration of “American Gods,” at least on the basis of its batshit pilot episode, “The Bone Orchard,” is really something else. What showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green manage to do here is something that I had previously thought to be impossible: they translate Gaiman’s spooky and exacting vision to the screen, all with great fidelity and lucidity, while adding their own signature touches to the mix.
The author’s characteristic dark humor remains, and the book’s many impressionistic flourishes — Gaiman’s tendency to punctuate the narrative’s real-time action with flashbacks to early 19th-century America in the throes of an immigration crisis, or his general flaunting of logic and physics for the sake of pure sensation — are also intact. “American Gods” is a rococo, almost impossibly stylish funhouse of a show that’s so assuredly put together that you might not realize you’re slowly sinking into the slow-simmering cauldron of Neil Gaiman and Bryan Fuller’s shared nightmare. But when the ride itself is this much sick fun, who on earth would want to complain?
Bryan Fuller’s “Hannibal” is and was one of my favorite shows of the past two decades– so much so that I’ve almost forgotten about previous screen incarnations of the eponymous cannibal villain, which is not to take anything away from Anthony Hopkins’ and Brian Cox’s very fine respective turns in “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Manhunter”. It’s just that, at this point, Madds Mikkelsen officially owns the role for me. What Fuller brought to the Hannibal Lecter story was a sense of unhinged artfulness: murder scenes were elevated by kitsch and overkill to resemble hellaciously brilliant pop art installation pieces. Sex and death were painted in the same writhing, narcotic strokes, so as to seem like two sides of the same horrible coin.
Fuller’s penchant for hyper-formalism and phantasmagoria makes him an ideal translator for the world of “American Gods,” though I occasionally worried that the book’s bruised soul might get lost in whatever fresh visual madness the creators decide to cook up over the show’s eight-episode run. Having seen only “The Bone Orchard” so far, I can safely say that my initial fear was misplaced. Whereas the icy, blackly comic tone of “Hannibal” benefitted from a lack of traditional pathos, “American Gods” has a heart, though the show is so decked out with Gothic razzle-dazzle that you might have to spend some time looking for it. I have no idea what ordinary, undemanding audiences will make of “American Gods’” diabolical vision, but I know one thing for certain: I am glad to have the voice of Bryan Fuller back in my TV-watching life, and I am glad that someone, finally, has managed to do Neil Gaiman right.
When I read the book, I imagined Shadow as a kind of hulking, mostly mute monster-man: the kind of sullen antihero that used to populate the graphic novels of Frank Miller, for instance. Ricky Whittle, the handsome British actor who plays Shadow on “American Gods,” brings something to the character that I’m not totally sure was in the book. Whereas the Shadow of Gaiman’s novel seems to be an especially grim fellow, driven mostly by animalistic compulsion and forces beyond his comprehension, there’s a curious paradox at the heart of Fuller’s take on the Shadow character. What Whittle brings to the Shadow of “American Gods” the T.V. show is an unexpected sensitivity: the actor’s kind eyes betray his gruff line readings and prizefighter’s physique in a way that I found arresting.
“The Bone Orchard” follows Shadow as he leaves prison and wrestles with the death of his wife Laura Moon (Emily Browning from “Legend” and Alex Ross Perry’s upcoming “Golden Exits”). Laura appears to Shadow in disturbing visions and daydreams, offering director David Slade (who also directed the vampire film “30 Days of Night” and some of “Hannibal’s” best episodes) to light Browning in a way that accentuates her otherworldly kewpie doll features. While flying to and from her funeral, Shadow finds himself seated next to the one and only Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane, playing the role like an extended, ruthlessly liberated comic aria). After some initial conversation that ripples with Gaiman’s breathlessly clever and discernibly English prose, Wednesday offers the man a job. Not long after Wednesday makes his proposal, things in Shadow Moon’s otherwise humdrum post-prison life begin to get very strange indeed.
I’m not sure there’s another showrunner currently working who could have brought Gaiman’s fevered tale to life in quite the way that Bryan Fuller has, along with the assistance of veteran producer Michael Green. Like Gaiman, Fuller is seemingly allergic to schematic storytelling. He appears to regard the tepid A-to-B-to-C formula as a kind of last resort, and when he’s had his druthers, he’s managed to steer clear of it entirely. Like “Hannibal,” “American Gods” unfolds as a kind of hallucinatory, lucid nightmare: one that’s firmly steeped in the logic and language of the uncanny. The show opens with a 1800’s-set, blood-drenched Viking prologue that suggests “Game of Thrones” re-jiggered by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and there’s a mid-episode sequence in which an African manifestation of the Queen of Sheba literally swallows a human man through her… well, I suppose it’s better if you see that one for yourself, reader.
Naturally, McShane steals the show as Wednesday. How could he not? The motor-mouthed underworld con man is perhaps the most memorable character that Gaiman has ever written, and McShane seems to know he’s stepping into a very important role here. As such, he plays this God amongst Men with sinister aplomb, and if he maintains this quality of performance over the course of “American Gods’” entire first season, he could be looking at another character in the same iconic vein as his famous “Deadwood” bastard Al Swearengen. Whittle gives a more subdued, mournful turn as the grieving Shadow, but he matches McShane in many scenes, which is no easy feat. Whittle also manages to hold the camera with confidence without saying much dialogue, as he does beautifully in a ghoulish dream sequence where Shadow finds himself wandering, as if in a trance, through a garden of skulls and human remains (perhaps the “Bone Orchard” referenced in the episode’s title?).
There’s lots more to look forward to: the arrival of Anansi, manifested as a kind of unhinged Spider-God named Mr. Nancy (to be played by Orlando Jones), and the further misadventures of Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), a shit-talking tough-guy Leprechaun who only earns Shadow’s respect after he’s beaten him to a bloody pulp. And yet I suspect that, like “Hannibal,” “American Gods” might be one of those shows whose stylistic fireworks are more arresting than whatever is happening in the plot. I might be biased in this regard, since I’ve read most (not all) of Gaiman’s book and know a certain amount of what is to come in the remaining seven episodes. And yet, as always, the joy of a property like this is not exactly what happens, but how it happens. I haven’t seen anything with the same ghoulish, kinky kick as “American Gods” all year and if the rest of the season can uphold this level of excellence, we’re in for one of the best shows of 2017. Stay tuned.
I can’t say I was especially compelled by “13 Reasons Why,” a glossy new Y.A. melodrama set among a clique of gossiping teenagers at a high school in the Pacific Northwest. Oh, I can understand how the show is officially Netflix’s most popular property to date. It is never anything less than superficially entertaining, and episodes often end on a self-conscious cliffhanger that all but begs the viewer at home to click “Next Episode” on their Apple TV tablet. Brian Yorkey’s show would no doubt fancy itself a kind of bratty heir apparent of “Big Little Lies,” which went from being everyone’s favorite HBO guilty pleasure to a genuinely cutting and affecting look at abuse and toxic behavioral patterns amongst the white and well-heeled inhabitants of Monterey, California.
Like “Big Little Lies,” “13 Reasons” is big on melodrama and moments of charged tension between its cast. And yet it lacks that other show’s stylistic verve and its jagged moments of impressionism, much of which came from director Jean-Marc Vallee, not to mention the soul-baring performances given by its cast. In execution, “13 Reasons Why” is more akin to trashy, addictive 90’s teen weepies like “Dawson’s Creek” and “The O.C.” than anything in the current slate of prestige television. As an easily digestible throwback drama, “13 Reasons Why” is just fine. As an examination of bullying and sexual politics among high schoolers, it often falls woefully short.
This last notion wouldn’t be a problem if “13 Reasons Why” didn’t want to have it both ways. And yet Yorkey’s is not content to just be a guilty pleasure: it also wants to play your heartstrings. Sometimes, the show succeeds. For such a patently ridiculous work of fiction (the show takes its inspiration and source material from a similarly popular young adult novel by Jay Asher), “13 Reasons Why” is often acted with tremendous gravity by a cast of up-and-comers and relative unknowns. The presence of folks like “Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy (who helmed the first two episodes), “The Stanford Prison Experiment” director Kyle Patrick Alvarez and erstwhile indie bad boy Gregg Araki should tip viewers off that this isn’t some cheap, nostalgic cash-grab. The show’s brain trust clearly seem to think they’re doing something important, or at the very least saying something of substance.
While there are brief, teasing moments of power that flicker like dead electricity across the baggy stretch of the show’s first four episodes; the creator’s portrayal of high school life is often unconvincing. It works in the broadest manner imaginable, where every character — no matter how much nuance an individual actor might bring to their performance — can be reduced to the limitations of a stock type. As such, we get variations on the teen version of Gillian Flynn’s “Cool Girl” archetype, the mopey, sensitive kid who’s unimpeachably decent, the vain and douchey jock, and countless more teen movie clichés that were beginning to show their shelf life almost a decade ago. The result is a perfectly well made show that misses an opportunity to tell a more complex story by settling for entertaining but familiar melodramatic tropes.
The story’s central hook and device are intriguing. “13 Reasons Why” anchors its first season arc around the suicide of the 18-year old Hannah Baker, played by the appropriately luminous Katherine Langford. Hannah was a beautiful, bright girl who took her own life before she could graduate, and no one can figure out why. She was kind, even to strangers. Her countenance was never anything less than sunny. In spite of some sordid sexual rumors spread by a spurned classmate, Hannah’s life, to an outsider, would seem perfectly normal. One of Hannah’s only true friends is the show’s mopey kid du jour, Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette, who was quite good in Fede Alvarez’s “Get Out”), who stews in remorse over her passing in the present day.
One day, a mysterious package shows up at Clay’s door, containing a mess of tapes that Hannah apparently recorded before her death. When he begins to play them, he is shocked to hear Hannah’s sweet voice playing from his tape deck. Is the girl speaking to him from beyond the grave? The “13 Reasons” referenced in the show’s title allude to the many suspects who could potentially be to blame for the girl’s tragic passing. Could it be Jessica (the warm and funny Alisha Boe), Hannah’s former bestie who turned on her after a perceived slight involving a male classmate? Or perhaps Bryce Walker (Justin Prentice), the town’s resident meathead whose boorish alpha-male posturing conceals a surprisingly malicious streak?
With all these moving pieces in play, “13 Reasons” occasionally suggests a CW-approved take on “Clue,” or perhaps an Agatha Christie mystery acted by the cast of one of Kevin Smith’s recent movies (unlike many other shows and films set in high school, the principal cast of “13 Reasons” mostly look like they could pass for teenagers). The problem is that, while the show’s command of tone does improve after the wobbly pilot, the mystery that exists at the heart of “13 Reasons” isn’t all that interesting. Langford and Minnette admittedly have a charming, lived-in chemistry together, and their individual scenes often simmer with an authentic sense of the messiness of first love. And yet there’s only so much two actors can do to overcome the limitations of a boneheaded script that mistakes superficial topical focus for real drama.
Before I’m accused of gross insensitivity, let me just say that I am all for the idea of a show made for young people that grapples with themes of bullying, trauma and some of the other, shall we say, sensitive subjects that afflict adolescents. I’m just not sure “13 Reasons Why” is that show, and I think it kind of wants to be. Whereas “Big Little Lies” contained scathing insights into the codependency that is part and parcel of many abusive relationships, “13 Reason’s” observations on its principal subject feel noticeably more half-baked. The show is never anything more than a plot machine, with characters being shifted around in the story like checkers on a checkerboard. This cold, focused approach isn’t always a problem — say, if you’re Christopher Nolan and Rian Johnson and you’ve staked your claim on making heady puzzle-box thrillers whose plots unspool with the rigidity of Russian dolls. However, for a show that’s supposed to be about the tumultuous emotional highs and lows of a bunch of high school kids, this impersonal approach feels much more problematic.
The actors are mostly quite good. It’s not easy to convincingly portray a high school student if you’re well into your 20’s, and “13 Reasons Why” nails the Darwinian, often punishing rituals of academic life with a precision that stings of autobiography. But the romance at the show’s heart felt soggy to me: undernourished and out of place in the place of the larger themes the show purported to explore. Perhaps the show could pull this lame-brained device off if it as a subplot, but it’s not: it’s the focus of the entire show.
None of this matters, because “13 Reasons Why” is massively popular and I’m still writing about in a blog that maybe twelve people read regularly. I suspect the popularity may not be dissimilar to that of “Stranger Things,” that other Netflix show about youngsters that people are going gaga over. In the case of both programs, the fans are willing to overlook the flaws of each show because the overriding element of nostalgia — the idea that “Stranger Things” was a love letter to Spielberg and 80’s Amblin entertainment, as much as “13 Reasons Why” is a superficially topical update of “The O.C.” and other related teen soaps — was enough. Nostalgia is fun, and it sure does sell movie tickets (hello, “Jurassic World”) but in the case of shows like “13 Reasons Why” that buoy stilted dialogue underneath the banner of being a good-natured “throwback,” I’d argue that there’s some danger in looking too far into the past. “American Gods,” to me, felt like a terrifying and vital glimpse into the future. “13 Reasons Why,” meanwhile, felt like a painless but unremarkable step back in time.
Grades: American Gods, “The Bone Orchard,” A-. 13 Reasons Why, “Tape 1, Side A,” B-. “Tape 1, Side B,” B-. “Tape 2, Side A,” B. “Tape 2, Side B,” C.
