American Gods – Head Full of Snow

By: Kelly Kearney

Belief can be a powerful tool. Some say that it along with faith can move mountains. This week’s episode of “American Gods” finds Shadow (Ricky Whittle) testing the limits of his own beliefs with some surprising and chilly results.

Living with bears in the sky

We begin episode Somewhere in America with Mrs. Fadil (Jacqueline Antaramian), a Muslim woman from Queens, preparing dinner for her family that is soon to arrive. There is a knock at her door and, at first, she assumes the man standing before her is a robber. The woman stays calm and the man enters assuring her he’s no robber, but he definitely has some bad news. While reaching for something to spice up her sauce, the woman tumbles off a stool and falls to her death. It seems the man is really grim reaper who’s really the God Anubis (Chris Obi) leads the woman up to her fire escape to what appears to be an Egyptian desert and rips her heart out to place it on a scale opposite a feather. According to the ancient Egyptians, if a person’s heart is lighter than a feather or equal to it they move on to the afterlife. Nervous, she rattles off the wrongs she might have committed as her heart bounces the scale up and down. Finally, she looks Anubis in the eye and admits she tried her best to be decent to everyone. The scale shows her best was good enough and she moves on through to the afterlife.

In Chicago, Shadow is trying to sleep with the knowledge that at sunrise Czernobog (Peter Stormare) is going to hammer his brains out. Moon falls asleep and finds himself walking up the Mrs. Fadil’s fire escape, only he doesn’t end up at the Scale of Truth. He ends up on a rooftop with the spirited Zorya sister because she only comes out at night to star gaze, her time she calls it. The woman is a force that slowly gets under the skin of the man who looks on in awe as she prophesizes over a great threat to the planet. The threat she says is a bear that lives in the stars and will one day leave the skies to wreak havoc on the earth. The conversation quickly turns to Shadow’s belief system and how he has none. The woman takes pity on him and offers her help to the hammer. She plucks the moon from the sky telling him it’s the key to surviving his bet. Before Shadow returns to reality Zorya questions what kind of man would rather die than live with the threat of bears in the sky.

Dodging the hammer

When Shadow returns from his sleep walk with Zorya, he’s more confident than ever. He convinces Czernobg to play another game of checkers and if Moon wins, Czernobog has to join Wednesday’s (Ian McShane) scheme. Shadow get in the man’s head and reluctantly he agrees only the butcher winds up losing the game. Shadow avoids the hammer and Wednesday has one more person in his corner.

With a win under his belt and dodging that final blow, Wednesday ruins his good mood when he tells Shadow they’re off to rob a bank. The robbery winds up being less about money and more about forcing Shadow to believe in himself and maybe his boss, too. Part One of this plan requires a snowstorm big enough to shut down Chicago. Wednesday tells Shadow he’s on Snow duty so start thinking storms. Obviously, Shadow is a rational man and knows you cannot make weather happen with your mind, it’s an impossibility. Sure enough after a few minutes of concentration the city is hit with a blinding blizzard, which makes it easy to pull off this scam. With the snow coming down, Wednesday pretends to be a security guard who collects deposits from people from the sky as we, the viewers, are poured into Shadows mind. His car flies over marshmallows, copier machines

A God for all seasons

After Shadow makes the impossible happen Wednesday gives him a clue into this world he’s found himself in. It seems that the power of the gods is closely related to the strength of their believers. Without them, the gods are nothing and when he says gods he means the plural. A god for every nation and a few dozen Jesuses because the people seem to really need him. Wednesday goes on to say that most beliefs are determined by the people you surround yourself with and how afraid you are. Shadow may not believe in what Wednesday’s telling him but every second he spends with the man opens his eyes to things he never dreamed were possible. Sooner or later, that belief is going to stick and Wednesday is banking on that since he’s preparing for a war of the gods.

Speaking of things that blow Moon’s mind, Mad Sweeney’s (Pablo Schreiber) luck took a swift downturn the minute he handed over his lucky coin to Shadow. Without that coin, darkness follows Mad and anyone who crosses his path. First, he gets shot by the bartender (Beth Grant) at his favorite watering hole, then a good samaritan takes a metal pole through the head when he offers to give the leprechaun a ride. He needs that coin back and when he finds out Shadow threw it on his wife Laura’s (Emily Browning) grave, he heads to the cemetery to get it back. Once there, he notices the coin has sucked through the dirt. He digs up Laura Moon’s grave and sees his lucky coin went straight through her coffin, which happens to be empty. Where is Laura and what kind of power does that coin possess?

Salim and Djinn

Much of the flurry around this episode was over a sex scene between two Middle Eastern men, Salim and The Jinn (Mousa Kraish). I firmly believe representation on television is a must when trying to change the minds of the the status quo and this scene certainly delivered. When cab driver Jinn makes a connection with his passenger Salim (Omid Abtahi), it was neither tawdry or salacious. The two men didn’t “hook up,” but rather had a loving encounter that ended in an otherworldly release. With his flaming member, The Jinn takes Salim to the height of passion. Flying over the desert with their bodies connected, The Jinn spills his fiery seed into Salim, tearing their flesh from their bones and leaving behind smooth black marble with the likeness of an angel. The scene was gentle, loving and full of visual stimuli that went beyond two men just having sex. The connection between the two characters was evident and at times mournful for the life they are forced to hide.

In the morning, Salim wakes a new man…literally. The loving encounter freed The Jinn from the shackles of his curse and born was a new Jinn to take his place. Salim leaves his hotel room and jumps in The Jinn’s cab ready to assume the responsibilities his lover was freed from.

Salim isn’t the only one who’s life changes from a single encounter as the episode ends with a shocking discovery. Shadow makes his way back to his hotel room only to find his dead wife Laura sitting on the bed and waiting for him. No, this isn’t like the other times he’s dreamt of her. She’s real and thanks to Mad Sweeney’s coin, it looks like she’s here to stay.