Shadow gets his life back (sort of) and Wednesday finds some much needed funding on American Gods. Meanwhile, Sweeney’s luck won’t be changing anytime soon. Here’s the recap for “Head Full of Snow” and preview for “Git Gone.”
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Somewhere in America
“Head Full of Snow” starts with another story focusing on a God in America. This time it’s Anubis.
The shot starts at the top of a building and flashes through each floor from the top down. It stops in the apartment of an older woman, who’s making dinner. She’s talking to her cat about how her children don’t visit her. She tastes what she’s cooking and decides it needs a little more seasoning, so she stands on a rickety stool to grab something on a tall shelf.
It looks like she’s going to fall, but she steps down and continues talking to the cat. A knock at the door startles her, and she begins talking loudly, telling them that they weren’t supposed be there yet.
It’s not her family at the door, though. It’s Anubis.
As it turns out, the old woman feel off the stool and died after all. It doesn’t take much convincing for the old woman to believe Anubis about her death and how her family will find her soon.
Since no one will be able to taste her dinner, she asks him to taste it. He does, smiling at her and telling her it’s perfect. They ascend the fire escape together, going back the way we just came.
When they reach the top, the scenery has changed to a desert. They reach a spot and sit down. Anubis pulls the woman’s heart out and balances it on a scale.
“I was using that.”
“We shall see if you were using it well.”
“I tried my best.”
“Your best is good.”
The scales are balanced, and Anubis tells her she can pick a door to enter. It’s at this moment she asks him to choose for her then she says that she’ll never see her family again. They’re Muslim and don’t believe in Egyptian Gods. She only remembered the stories of Anubis because they were told to her as a child.
He acknowledges that she won’t but doesn’t choose for her. She’s standing at a door, and the cat that had been in her apartment, nudges her through it.
*****
Shadow wakes up in Chicago and goes to the roof were the other Zorya sister is watching the stars. She tells him that the sisters watch the sky all day and night because of the monster that is chained up there. They make sure that the beast doesn’t escape.
She changes the topic and asks about his fortune, and Shadow backs away from her. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with seeing his future.
Zorya Polunochnaya tells him:
“You believe in nothing so you have nothing. You’d rather die than live in a world with a bear in the sky.”
She also knows that he lost his head to Czernobog and tells him that she’ll save his life, all he has to do is kiss her. She steals the kiss before he can get away, and in return, she pulls down the moon.
“Don’t lose it. Don’t give it away.”
I mean, if the sun never rises, Czernobog can’t kill him, right?
Shadow goes back to the apartment and challenges him to a new game of checkers. He tells Czernobog that he doesn’t think he can kill him with a single blow because he’s out of practice, so if he wins again, he’ll get an extra shot.
Since his strength as been questioned, he takes the bet.
Meanwhile, Wednesday is off with Zorya Vechernyaya. He tries to appeal to her vanity, telling her that the old world treated her better, and that everything will be better soon. We can assume he means after his war is over and he has won it.
Once he finishes his tea, he tells her that she’s never told him him fortune, so he gives her his cup, and in the tea leaves, we see the outline of a bear.
This is a direct nod to the monster they keep chained in the sky, so it seems like Wednesday wants to unleash something.
Zorya tells him that he’ll fail.
They go for a walk as the checker game continues in another room.
The scene is cut between the game and their walk.
Zorya Vechernyaya tells Wednesday once again that they’ll kill him this time (there was another time?) and he kisses her to “remind” her of something.
It begins to rain and Zorya Vechernyaya looks at the stars.
“I can taste you in the rain. What else can I taste?”
“War.”
Back in the apartment, Shadow wins the game and secures Czernobog’s help, but Czernobog tells Shadow that he’s going to kill him anyway.
When Shadow wakes up the next time, it’s daylight and Wednesday tells him that they’re going to rob a bank.
***
Sweeney wakes up in the bathroom of that bar with a shotgun pointed at him. The waitress tells him to leave, but he doesn’t, and he doesn’t think she’ll shoot.
Well, she sure does, and he catches a piece of glass in his cheek.
Once he’s outside and walking down the road, he gets picked up by a good samaritan. The guy is really so nice and trying to talk to Sweeney about how he used to be a drunk, too, and he can put that all behind him.
They make it less than a minute down the road when the truck in front of them loses a metal pole that comes crashing through the car’s windshield and straight through the man’s head.
It’s then that Sweeney realizes he gave away the wrong coin, and all his luck is gone.
****
In NYC, a man named Salim is waiting for an appointment with a businessman. He’s seems to have recently arrived in the country and he looks nervous.
As the day progresses, it becomes increasingly clear, that the man he was supposed to meet doesn’t want to meet with him. Finally, the secretary tells him that he won’t be seen today. When he asks to come back tomorrow, the lady tells him that he’ll have to call and make another appointment—they can only be made over the phone.
He leaves dejected and slips into a cab.
This is where he meets the Jinn.
As he’s driving, they share stories about where they’re from, and the Jinn tells him he’s from The City of Lost Towers. Salim is a smart man and seems to notice something different about his driver after that.
He tells him that he sells shit basically and the Jinn tells him that it’s funny that he can’t sell it because all they sell in this city is shit.
Salim touches his shoulder and his sun glasses slip down and we see the Jinn’s fire eyes. That’s when he breaks the pretense and says that his grandmother told him about the Jinn and asks if there are many in the city.
The rumor about the Jinn is addressed, too.
“If I could grant a wish, do you think I’d be driving a cab?”
He touches his shoulder again, and this time the Jinn touches him back.
They get to Salim’s hotel, and he invites the Jinn up to his room. Someone gets into his cab, but in the next scene we see them side-by-side in the elevator, holding hands.
The scene between them starts out as awkward and intimate. The Jinn has taken off his sunglasses and his eyes are flames.
There’s an air of self-consciousness at first, but as things progress, the men are laid bare to each other and it’s very honest.
“I wish you could see what I see.”
Salim tells the Jinn as he lowers himself to his knees before him.
One last time he tells Salim:
“I do not grant wishes.”
“But you do.”
The love scene between them has a very heavy connection. They’re transported to the desert and the flame that resides in the Jinn fills up Salim.
In the morning, the Jinn is gone, but his clothes and wallet are there.
Salim gets dressed and goes downstairs to the taxi that was left behind, and his new life.
It seems like the Jinn does grant wishes after all…
****
Wednesday and Shadow are outside the bank in Chicago and get into a bit of an argument.
“Fuck no.”
“Fuck yes. You’re my body guard. You’re supposed to be guarding my body.”
They enter the bank and Shadow makes eye contact with every security camera while Wednesday avoids them all and gets some deposit slips and leaves again.
Outside, he tells Shadow to write down the number of the pay phone across the street from the bank while he gets him some hot chocolate. When Wednesday gets back, he hands Shadow the drink and tells him to think about snow. Think about the clouds and what they look like.
Shadow focuses on snow while they hit up a printing shop for business cards. In the shop, they wait and have a conversation about the different incarnations of Jesus. There’s a white one and black one and a Mexican one. He says that one came here illegally.
It’s all so random and HUH? that I’m making Shadow’s facial expression by the end of it.
While Wednesday goes up to the desk, Shadow thinks about snow some more. Outside, we can see the snow start to come down, and finally Wednesday comes back and tells him that he needs to stop. He’s done enough.
A scene later, they’re in a diner and Shadow is trying to understand how he made snow. Wednesday tells him that he simply lacks imagination. He has such a hard time believing in unreal things.
About that time Sweeney shows up, demanding his lucky coin. He accidentally gave it to Shadow when he was showing off in the bar…
Shadow tells him that if he wants it, he’ll need to go to Eagle Point, Indiana because he threw it on his wife’s grave. Of course, Sweeney makes a joke about being on top of his wife before he leaves and makes Shadow mad.
The bank heist turns out to be pretty clever and not a guns and masks type affair.
Wednesday has Shadow wait by the pay phone, telling him to answer when it rings. Then he goes across the street to the bank and puts up a sign on the ATM saying it’s “OUT OF ORDER” then sits in a chair beside it.
He ends up taking down all these people’s bank account information and cops pull up. He gives them his newly printed business card and Shadow’s phone rings.
The cop has called and asks if he has a security guy at the bank to which Shadow tells him he does and then tells the cop to keep the card and if he needs work, they could use good cops like him.
It’s ridiculously easy for them to get away with it all.
After it’s all said and done, they’re driving away and Wednesday tells him that:
“This is the only country that wonders what they are.”
Wednesday tells him that other countries already have very established belief systems but the United States is very different. Their conversation is cut off when Shadow hits the brakes because he almost runs over a wolf in the middle of the road.
That’s when he asks Shadow a final time:
“Did I make it snow?”
“Did you make it snow? Well if you choose to believe you made it snow, you get to live the rest of your life believing you can do things that are impossible.”
Wednesday expands on the previous belief conversation by saying:
“Belief is the product of the company we keep and how easily we scare. And you do not scare easily.”
Shadow makes a crack about the company he’s keeping currently, and Wednesday tells him something that I think is the theme of the show in terms of the Old Gods:
“The only thing that scares me is being forgotten. I can handle many things but not that.”
Watch the incredible scene here…
****
Over in Eagle Point, Sweeney is digging up Laura’s grave. He gets down to the bottom of it and finds a coin-sized hole burned through the casket.
When he opens it up, he finds that it’s empty.
****
At that same moment, Shadow enters his motel room and finds Laura sitting the edge of his bed.
“Hello, puppy.”
****
“Git Gone” is the next episode of American Gods, and it looks like we can get ready for more of Laura’s backstory and just how she ended up where she did. I can’t wait to see more Anubis! Also, I freaking love Audrey. She’s my favorite. I’ll hear nothing else on the subject.
Take a look at the summary, clips and stills below and prepare yourself for more out of this world storytelling with episode four! Is it just me or does it look like Laura’s the one who saved Shadow based on those bloody stills?
Alternating between the past and the present, Laura’s life and death are explored—how she met Shadow, how she died, and how exactly she came to be sitting on the edge of his motel room bed.
American Gods airs Sundays on STARZ at 9/8c! Don’t miss live tweeting with us @WeSoNerdy on twitter!