So far in American Gods, there has been very little deviation from the book, but this week the show took quite a few liberties with “Git Gone.”  While this tends to anger purists, they managed to pull it off well and illustrate how adapting a story to another medium can expand it.

The episode is a flashback told from Laura’s perspective, starting when she first met Shadow and bringing us right up to that cliffhanger from last week.  Instead of simply being introduced by friends (as in the book), the couple meet while Laura is dealing cards in a casino that Shadow is trying to rob.  She convinces him not to go through with it, but she is attracted to him since she sees him as her escape from a monotonous life.  We see their courtship, marriage, and eventually settling into their life together.  Her unease with a mundane life leads her to bring up the casino robbery again, and their unsuccessful attempt is what caused Shadow’s incarceration.

Laura was more developed in this one episode than she was in the entire book.  It is not that the book underdeveloped her, but she was a secondary character.  This episode gave her an arc of her own, where Shadow was the supporting character.

The episode was able to fill in some gaps—such as explaining Shadow’s mysterious liberation from the noose and why he was in prison.  On the other hand, there was one major gap opened by this story.  We saw all of the events leading up to the casino heist and the aftermath; however, the actual event was omitted.  My hope is that we will see it later and when that flashback happens, we will learn that not only was Mr. Wednesday there, but he was the cause for its failure.  While he did not actually appear in the episode, his two spies are seen, so it can be assumed that he is pulling the strings throughout it all.