Any fan of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods will tell you that the first episode of Starz’s adaptation, which aired last week, was very faithful to the first few chapters of the book. Perhaps to a fault. But this week’s episode, titled “The Secret of Spoon,” wastes no time in deviating fairly wildly from the book. And that’s a good thing. Orlando Jones’s character, the African trickster god Anansi (or “Mr. Nancy”), gets a fiery debut that’s almost entirely show-invented. Jones told Vanity Fair the surprising inspiration behind the racially-charged speech. Spoilers for Mr. Nancy’s TV debut below.

With a fiery, show-stopping speech, Anansi—clad in an anachronistically sharp plaid suit and occasionally morphing into his spider form—uses the full force of his charismatic power of persuasion to inspire an uprising among his followers on board an African slaving ship bound for American shores. Dipping in and out of various dialects and patois, Jones delivers a speech that is both incredibly socially relevant and one of the most memorable introductions a TV character has had in a long time.

In Gaiman’s novel, there are several “Coming to America” vignettes that exist separate from the plot and weave the tale of how over centuries of belief, immigrants have brought various gods to American shores. Mid-way through the novel, there is a sequence that deals with a slave ship. But the star of that tale is a different African trickster god— Elegba, or Papa Legba. Elegba doesn’t manifest on board, and he certainly doesn’t get anything approaching the incendiary speech Anansi gives in the show adaptation. In the book, Mr. Nancy gets a rather mellow and low-key introduction: