Laura and Mad Sweeney — two of the most messed - up reference on American Gods — drop some quality prison term together in the show ’s seventh episode , and we see how the big ol’ teeny person has done both admirable and terrible things over the last 300 years .
“ Prayer for Mad Sweeney ” open up at the funeral living room have by Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jacquel . Jacquel is making a drained man ’s body presentable for its last goodby , setting a upset jaw back in place and spackling putty into gouged skin . Ibis fusses over how late his spouse is work and Jacquel tells him that more deaths are come in , foretelling the overdoses of two women . Jacquel then refuses Ibis ’ offer to help , saying that he can secernate Ibis has a story to tell . “ I can see it in your fingers . ”
The narration Ibis scritches into his Christian Bible with fount playpen chance in 1721 . We glimpse Mad Sweeney flop at the starting line of Ibis ’ apprisal but the tale is center on on Essie McGowan . Ibis uses the story to undersell the “ hunky-dory fable ” of America being founded by bravehearted pilgrims in search of religious freedom . Essie was no such Pilgrim Father . She was an undesirable , a Irish thief and troublemaker shunted into indent servitude across the Atlantic . A flashback to puerility shows Essie learning stories of leprechauns as a child and keep up the same practice of leave out food and drink for the wee sept later as an grownup . Grown - up Essie is played by Emily Browning , the same actress meet Laura Moon . One of her scenes shows her tying a lock of hair around a slice of soda breadstuff being left for a leprechaun and placing a gilt coin on top of the offering .
In doing so , Essie is asking the fuel-air explosive folk music for a favour . It ’s clear that the design who walks up to the bit she just leave is Mad Sweeney . As for the favor , Essie wants to win the affection of Bartholomew , the man she works for . The two of them get naked and have sex but Essie moans about getting block for a beau monde lady friend . Bartholomew present her a family heirloom necklace and promise to marry her . When Bartholomew ’s mother incur out that Essie has that necklace , she inquire him — in front of Essie and other assembled house staff — if he gave it freely . The little shit shakes his head and Essie gets sentenced to hanging for stealing . Her sentence gets change over to seven old age transportation in the Carolinas and , despite a horrid journeying that study the lives of men , she keeps on leave food out for leprechauns . Essie successfully tempts the ship ’s skipper with her wiles and get him to ferry her back to London as his married woman . When he heads out on another journey , Essie rifles through his belongings and steals what she can . In the world of Mr. Ibis , “ her world branded Essie McGowan a thief , so a thief she became . ”
The scene shifts back to Salim ’s cab in the present day , where we see him , Sweeney , and Laura moving down the road . Laura still get word Shadow ’s gleam ahead on the celestial horizon . The three of them park at a farm where a purportedly consecrated white buffalo was born . When Laura take the memorial plaque that says the buffalo and farmer were both killed by lightning , Sweeney snarks , “ That ’s what you get for putting a god in a petting zoological garden . ” The leprechaun ’s annoyed that Salim ’s intercept so he can beg and , after he walk away to take a piss , Laura asks Salim if he have it off God or is in love with God . Salim says it ’s the former .
One of Wednesday ’s raven starts screech at Sweeney while he ’s watering some bushes and the leprechaun says he ’s lead to Wisconsin as per ” the arrangement . ” He gnarl about something unspecified that Wednesday does n’t like and tell the bird to tell Wednesday to have it away off . Given Wednesday ’s reaction to Laura last episode , it ’s a safe bet that he does n’t care the fact that she ’s Sweeney ’s travel partner .
After Sweeney ’s pee , Laura releases Salim from the deal that necessitate him to drive them around . She also tells Salim that the djinn , along with other celestial organism is heading to The House on the Rock in Wisconsin , a bit of revelation that pisses Sweeney off . Laura then walks over to a deoxyephedrine pick truck , yank the back - threshold handle off and severalize the meek young number one wood that she ’s stealing it . She offer up the content of Sweeney ’s air pocket as recompense , saying that he can order his boss he was robbed . Ice Cream Boy sound out that wo n’t go over if he does n’t have a Deutschmark on him , suggest that either Sweeney or Laura needs to punch . He desire it from her but Sweeney secernate him he really does n’t and punches Ice Cream Boy in the nose . Then Sweeney and Laura channelize off down the road .
Back in the eighteenth century , we see Essie McGowan continuing to take things that do n’t go to her , create a life where she does n’t need a humans to provide for her . Her success as a thief and femme fatale makes her forget to go away out bread and milk for leprechauns ; her portion sours and she gets caught stealing and live in London when she was supposed to be in America . She ’s sentenced to hang again with no apparent way out . When a bowl of food and a piece of bread get leave outside her electric cell , Sweeney ’s vocalization warns her not to eat what in the bowl . Turns out he ’s a prisoner in the electric cell next to her and the two of them claver about their spate in life and the shabbiness of the cosmos . Essie pronounce , “ In the Americas , anyone can be anything they insist upon . Modern name , new animation . ”
The man in the cell is gone the next good morning and Essie receive a sojourn from the prison warden that turn into a intimate showdown . The result gestation gets her another re-sentencing of transport and Essie winds up being indentured to a Virginia tobacco farmer . She hold his infant child along with hers and tells them the same wee - folk tales her gran told her . Meanwhile in the present , Sweeney ’s freeze his favorable charms off because Laura ’s cranked up the ice cream motortruck ’s refrigeration to stave off further chemical decomposition reaction . As they drive , he talks about a retiring moment in his centuries - long spirit where he had a forewarning of an apparently inevitable death on the field of battle . He suppose he owe a battle and that ’s why he ’s doing what Wednesday want . Then Laura suddenly swerves to forefend hitting a rabbit and the motortruck topples over and crash , rive her stitches overt and send the lucky gold coin fly out of her body .
Another scene shift kick the bucket back to Essie and we see her work her confidence game on the baccy farmer . He end her indenture , purpose to her , and they get married . As time passes , they have another child and the leprechaun tradition remain but her hubby dies . She becomes a grandmother and continue telling fib but stoppage when they daunt her grandchild . The old ways stay active in her eye and when it ’s her sentence , the familiar representative of Mad Sweeney awake her up from slumber on the porch .
In the present , Sweeney crawls out from the wreck and walks over to Laura ’s exanimate torso . He remain firm over the still cadaver , caught up in a reverie that flashes back to the stroke that caused Laura ’s first death . Sweeney ’s stand up over a dead Laura here , too , and talks to Wednesday ’s raven , saying the bird need to tell apart his master “ it ’s done . ” Back in the nowadays , Sweeney struggles with a mixture of guilt , rage , and shame . Screaming angrily in his ancient clapper and fold up a flap of hide back , he places the coin back onto Laura ’s chassis and it melts it way back inside . She punches him as before long as she wakes up , flip-flop the motortruck back to rights , and they push away .
The installment ’s last tantrum evince Sweeney talking to an aged Essie , explain how he is n’t what he was back home and that she ’s one of the few who still believes in his kind . This exchange happens …
Essie : You have done me many a good twist .
Sweeney : Good and ill , we ’re like the air current . We blow both ways .
… and Sweeney necessitate her handwriting to take her into the hereafter , marking the end of the episode .
Shadow and Wednesday ’s absence were profoundly felt in this episode , but “ Prayer for Mad Sweeney ” might be the sweetest episode of the show . It called on a familiar romanticism that Americans tend to envelop around the Old idea of Ireland and Britain and undersell them with harsh glimpses at the ugliness that was there as well . My biggest grip with this chapter of American Gods is with linking Essie McGowan to Laura Moon ; it’sa cute bit of castingbut is a vanity that feels too mismatched and heavily - handed . Essie did ethically compromised thing to make it and live the life she desire , while Laura had good options she never availed herself of .
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Sweeney ’s flying reference of how Mother Church turned the pagan folktales into stories of saints was one of my best-loved parts of this episode , because it ties into the cycle that Wednesday is push against . The fact that Sweeney ’s seen this song and dance before goes a long way to explaining why he does n’t want to be down with Wednesday ’s warfare but why he feels he has balance the scales . The flog leprechaun calls himself honorable and “ Prayer for Mad Sweeney ” shows how he define that : For every time that he ’s kick in a kindness , he pays one back . Even when he grabs a popsicle from the ice cream hand truck ’s freezer , he tosses a few Au coins on the side of the route . He may be a jerk at all possible times but he operates on principles of parity . He ca n’t take what ’s not give freely and it ’s the reason he would n’t force the coin from Laura two episodes back .
This instalment stimulate another mention of the King of America construct that ’s been browse up throughout this first season . Multiple character have talked about how America either does n’t have one or how a someone could scent up in that place . It ’s likely that this imaginary monarch statute title is the reason Shadow is so significant to Wednesday and what the new gods are fighting against .
Assorted Musings:
• I bonk the domestic partner vibration between Mr. Ibis and Jacquel in the early parts of this installment . They felt like a well - established bicycle-built-for-two working conversant rhythm method of birth control around each other , like an old married brace or vaudeville performers who ’ve toured for ages .
• The juxtaposition of 1950s doo - wop with the 18th sequence was great but I definitely winced when “ Daddy ’s domicile ” started playing when Essie and Farmer Henderson were consummating their marriage .
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