As has become a theme of its own, the opening teaser is once again unsettling and showstopping. An older woman is making food for her family. She gets up on a stool and reaches high above the cabinet to grab a jar. It looks as if she may take a tumble but the step stool holds and she gets her jar. There is a knock at the door and a tall black man stands before her. He is Anubis. She is dead. Yes she fell after all and her true body lies on the kitchen floor. He escorts her up endless stairs and to the scales for which he is famous. Her cat follows close behind as cats are a link to the afterlife.

It is a frightening way to start the episode but effective once again. After the credits, we rejoin Shadow Moon on the couch as he sleeps. Having lost his checkers game against Czernobog. While laying there, he is visited by the youngest sister, Zorya Polunochnaya. She takes him on a dream like journey, gives him the moon and teaches him a neat trick which I wont spoil. He then awakens with a silver dollar in his hand. So how does Shadow survive his morning blow from Czernobog? Simple. He goats him into another game. Double or nothing. I again won’t spoil the outcome but Czernobog agrees to go with Wednesday to Wisconsin and kill Shadow later.

In Chicago Shadow pulls off a nice con outside a bank and shows Shadow how he gets his money. There are a lot of other surprises but they have to be seen to be believed. What I will tell you is our friend Mad Sweeney returns and is…well…mad. There is a lot to swallow in this episode but it ends with Mad Sweeney at the cemetery digging up Shadow’s dead ex-wife except…her body is gone! Cut to Shadow walking to his room after the long day to find…his wife. Slam to black.

This was a great episode. The pieces are starting to fall together and the bigger picture is becoming clear. The show is so packed that it truly would take over three thousand words to do it justice. These are however the important cliff notes. Tune in because it is only gonna get better!