AMERICAN GODS EPISODE 3 REVIEW: HEAD FULL OF SNOW!

★★★★☆

Can you teach an old God new tricks? The central conceit of American Gods is the conflict between what was and what is. Specifically, the old gods squaring off against the new gods of the modern age. This episode was a lot more refreshing as it was nowhere near as confusing as the two that followed before.

Mr. Wednesday is scheming something, and from all the talk from both sides, that seems to be a war. The combatants seem to be picking sides, and Shadow Moon is stranded in the middle of the thing, pulled from all sides by various urges. He's got new gods beating him up, he's got old gods playing games where his life is at stake, and his only friend is a con artist who may get him thrown back in jail before he can get his head smashed in by a giant sledgehammer.

Wednesday's cons, as we've seen throughout the series, are relatively simple. He pretends to be a doddering old man. He sets up a pretty simple two-man con to “rob the bank” by pretending to be a security guard and having Shadow be the man on the other end of the phone. Amazingly, Wednesday is able to find a pay phone to make this work, when a cell phone would have worked just as well. But Wednesday, as we've seen, eschews modern technology in favor of things more his speed. This works in his favour; his cons all work, because they're evergreen.

However, the gods of his age aren't quite as adaptable as they might need to be, and that's where people like Shadow come in. The gods, apparently, have their limits. Certainly, someone like Wednesday can charm and cajole those around him. Even when he stretches the limits of patience, as he does with Shadow several times this episode, he does so much to keep that charm up that you can't help but still like him despite the way he can frustrate those around him. He's stuck in his ways, and that can both be a good thing (if a con works, don't stop doing it) and a bad thing (he's dependent on a copy shop and a payphone).

Czernobog has one task that he's good at, killing. As Shadow points out, it's a career that isn't in demand much these days, and it's been thirty years since he last got to swing his hammer in a killing blow. He's still killing at the slaughter house, because he can't adapt to a world that doesn't need his skills anymore. Wednesday's tricks are evergreen; Czernobog and the Zorya sisters have been left behind, reduced to selling lies and taking a bolt gun to the heads of animals.

Is it any surprise that Czernobog takes Shadow up on his offer for a second game? Czernobog doesn't get games often, and like anyone who has taken an extended break from an activity, he's worried about rust and the need for a second stroke. (It's also possible that he threw the game to have an excuse to go with Wednesday.) Zorya Vechernyaya also finds herself charmed by Wednesday, who not only seduces her (in a very sweet, real scene), but finds herself seduced more by the reminder of glories that she's long since attempted to learn to live without. Czernobog wants to kill; Vechernyaya wants to be worshiped, treated like the goddess she knows herself to be. They're surviving in the new world, but they haven't adapted to it. To paraphrase the song, they just weren't made for these times.

I can't say enough good things about Ian McShane this week. He's just so charming and so clever, and the scene where Wednesday and Zorya Verchernyaya go for a walk in the rain is just so wonderful to behold, thanks to McShane and the incredible Cloris Leachman. She's really a wonderful comic performer, but it's the expressions that she's able to give as Wednesday slowly talks Verchernyaya into going along with his crusade that really sell the scene. She's thinking about the good old days, and she's being seduced by that memory. That the two have a playful back-and-forth thanks to Bryan Fuller and Michael Green's deft script, that the two share a kiss, is almost secondary to the memories that Wednesday brings back to Verchernyaya's mind, and the promise that things will be good for her again (clever, clever guy).

Of course, as the Djinn (Mousa Kraish) makes perfectly clear to Salim (Omid Abtahi), wishes aren't granted so easily. Salim gets his anonymity and a respectable job as a cab driver after a night in the arms of the Ifrit, but unlike Salim, Czernobog, Verchernyaya, and Wednesday are going to have to earn their happy ending. Shadow's snowstorm—if it is his snowstorm—required a whole lot of effort on his part.

Everything in the world takes effort. Sometimes it's as simple as stretching for a jar on a high shelf. Sometimes it's grifting for extra money. Sometimes it's controlling the weather. Something must be given up so something else can be achieved, whether it's safety, security, identity, or sanity.