American Gods season 1, episode 3 recap: ‘Head Full of Snow’
By Corey Smith
The third episode of American Gods “Head Full of Snow” has landed, and we have the recap.
If last week’s episode, “The Secret of Spoons” was all about anger and insanity, this week’s episode of American Gods, “Head Full of Snow” took the opposite route and went full on hope and optimism. Not exactly, this is still American Gods after all.
The episode opens like always, with the introduction to an Old God, and this time around, it’s Anubis (Chris Obi). Anubis is the Egyptian god of the afterlife, so of course, he shows up after a very nice old lady dies.
Mrs. Fadil (Jacqueline Antaramian) perishes fetching some pickled vegetables from the top shelf, Anubis has arrived to judge her soul. It might sound menacing enough, but Obi plays Anubis in a surprisingly gentle manner. The duo ascends into the skies above, where Mrs. Fadil is judged worthy, and off she goes into the afterlife after a shove from her cat.
Photo Credit: Starz
It’s not the first time a stairway to heaven appears in the episode, as back in Chicago Shadow Moon awakens from his slumber (a rather peaceful sleep considering Shadow is set to die in the morning) and takes the fire escape to the building’s roof. There Shadow meets the third Zorya sister; Zorya Polunochnaya.
Zorya Polunochnaya is perhaps the strangest of the three, and the scene plays just off kilter enough for us to believe it might be one of Shadow’s dreams. Zorya Polunochnaya explains the three sisters role in preventing Armageddon; keeping a constant watch on a mythical dog chained among the stars. Should the dog ever break free, well, that’s the end of the world.
In exchange for a kiss, Zorya Polunochnaya offers Shadow a silver dollar coin, representing the moon plucked from the sky. The coin we are told, will grant Shadow protection, and replace the coin Shadow received from Mad Sweeney in the first episode. (Shadow dropped that one on his wife’s grave, but more on that later.)
Photo Credit: Starz
When Shadow awakens, he discovers there is no fire escape to the roof, yet he somehow possesses the silver dollar. And while Shadow has his encounter with Zorya Polunochnaya, Mr. Wednesday is busy flirting his tail off with the older sister, Zorya Vechernayaya (Cloris Leachman). It’s an odd scene, but likely was part of establishing Mr. Wednesday’s background. Small hints.
Back in the apartment, rather than simply accepting his fate at the hands of Czernobog, our hero has a plan. Goading Czernobog into a rematch, Shadow wagers a second blow from Czernobog’s hammer against the chain smoking Old God’s support for Mr. Wednesday’s plan. (Which we still aren’t told exactly what the plan is.) Shadow is victorious, though it basically amounts to an extension to his execution, as Czernobog agrees to accompany Wednesday, and will receive his blow after the war is over.
In each of the first two episodes, there was a scene everyone would be talking about. A water cooler moment. Sure, in the first two episodes it was essentially the same scene (Bilqus), but in this week’s episode, it was all about the salesman and the genie. Well, Ifrit to be exact.
Photo Credit: Starz
We jump over to New York City, where it looks both old (that office building) and new (the taxis) at the same time. We meet a failing salesman named Salim (Omid Abtahi) and an overworked taxi driver (Mousa Kraish). The taxi driver is the same Ifrit Shadow bumped into last week speaking with Mr. Wednesday. But that’s neither here nor there.
The duo strikes up a conversation during the cab ride, and then it’s up to Salim’s hotel room for that water cooler moment we mentioned. In a rather explicit, yet tender scene, the two men make love. The most jarring aspect of the scene, was when the point of view switches to the ifrit, and we are treated to some rather terrible CGI. Seriously, up the budget next season guys.
Back to Chicago, where Mr. Wednesday has concocted a plan for robbing a bank. We won’t give the plan away here, but it’s ingenious in its simplicity (having worked at a bank, I can assure you Wednesday’s plan would likely work). Before the robbery can go down, Mad Sweeney appears, realizing he accidentally gave Shadow his lucky coin and not a regular gold coin. As always, anytime Mad Sweeney is on screen is a treat.
Photo Credit: Starz
Shadow informs Sweeney of the coin’s location (his wife’s grave) and off Sweeney goes, crisscrossing America in the blink of an eye. Shadow and Wednesday pull off their “robbery” thanks to a rather sudden snow storm dreamed up by Shadow (hence the episode’s title). There might be more than meets the eye to Mr. Moon.
Sweeney makes it back to Laura Moon’s grave only to discover her coffin empty (though it was apparently buried once more). Laura is revealed to be waiting in Shadow’s hotel room, looking very much alive. And not covered in dirt. Considering vows are spoken “til death do us part,” is Laura still Shadow’s wife? Or is this like a Jon Snow/Night’s Watch sort of thing? Asking for a friend.
Photo Credit: Starz
All and all, a little more eventful of an episode, and certainly lighter in tone than the first two. Shadow’s admission that he does in fact, like marshmallows, was rather funny, as well as Sweeney’s typical tomfoolery. The New Gods are absent from this week’s episode, although Tech Boy might have been watching our heroes in the bank. We finally saw the arrival of Laura Moon on the show, something that happens early on in the book.
And speaking of the book, this episode did seem
to stick a little closer to the source material than last week’s episode. Sure, some things were out of order, but it was still a little truer to the source material, and that was a welcome change. Next week will mark the halfway point of the season, and by then we should have a good feel for how closely Starz will stick to the source material.