American Gods: A Prayer for Mad Sweeney

I loved this episode. Let me just start by saying that. It was funny, poignant, dark, sweet, and I was moved to tears by the ending. Back when I first read Gaiman's novel, I'd have thought you crazy if you'd said I would one day get choked up over the interactions between a walking corpse and a six-foot leprechaun.

(Insert obligatory "I can't believe he's Porntache!")

Granted, the episode is a strange choice for a season's penultimate episode, and it's a definite misstep to side-line Shadow and Wednesday this close to the finish line. It reminds me of Galavant's second season, which focused on King Richard at the expense of the actual protagonist.

It wasn't that Richard was a bad character, but you have to time these things. For instance, Avatar: The Last Airbender knew it had to wait until the second season before airing an episode that centred entirely on Zuko.

But when taken on its own merits, this is one of my favourite episodes – not just of American Gods, but of any show – period. There's something profoundly satisfying about stories that go "full circle". You see it in the final words of The Lord of the Rings ("I'm back") or when Jack closed his eyes for the last time in the finale of LOST.

It's a natural part of storytelling, providing balance and resolution, and this episode was all about the beauty of coming full circle with both characters and plot.

The story is also another departure from Gaiman's original text, though because it was at least based on one of his "coming to America" vignettes (and apparently the first one he penned) it doesn't have the random quality of Vulcan or the heavy handedness of the message he embodied (I'll admit not knowing much about America's gun culture, but I suspect it's a little more nuanced than people firing weapons into the air at a funeral.)

Instead the writers can take the bare bones of Gaiman's story and flesh it out, making it relevant to the present-day narrative and providing insight onto two of our main characters. The ingenious idea to cast Emily Browning as Essie McGowan not only sheds further light on Laura, but also Mad Sweeney and their strange love/hate relationship.  

We're introduced to Irish lass Essie McGowan: betrayed by her young lord, transported to America as an indentured servant, and making her living as a thief on the streets of London. Throughout it all, she (mostly) remains a faithful believer of the fey folk; ensuring to lay out milk and bread and other offerings. The recipient is kept in the shadows, but is obviously one Mad Sweeney.

Through this the origin of his lucky coin is revealed: it was an gift from Essie to her patron, one who will return both good and bad luck to her throughout her lifetime.

They cross paths in the flesh only once, and she never sees his face. It's while they occupy adjoining prison cells, and the exchange is Essie selling Sweeney the idea of the freedom America provides (one she'll later take advantage of herself) while he (or so it's implied) sends her a jail warden who offers her a chance of salvation from the noose in exchange for sex. It's a chance she takes.

As Ibis says of her as he records her story, Essie possessed: "a rare token of ambition," and it eventually leads her to a happy marriage in the new world, where her crops and children prosper. And then, at the end of her life, Mad Sweeney comes to escort her to her death. She brought him to America with her stories and her belief, and he's come to repay the favour – her coin still in his possession.

So how does this relate to Laura and Mad Sweeney's contentious road trip? And the theme of going full circle?

In a bid to get his lucky coin back from Laura's innards, Mad Sweeney arranges a car accident involving a white rabbit and a handful of gold coins – I'll go into that more in a bit. Laura swerves to miss the animal, goes flying out the windshield, and ends up dead on the side of the road. Again.

The coin rolls away from her corpse, and Mad Sweeney can freely claim it. He could walk away with his prized possession, his luck intact, and his orders from Wednesday fulfilled. He has everything he wants. No one would ever know what he'd done.

But of course – he can't go through with it. He returns the coin to Laura's body, gets promptly punched by her reanimated corpse, and joins her in the ice-cream van to resume their journey. It's a classic case of What You Are in the Dark: both his selfishness and his selflessness go unrecorded by anyone.

So why'd he change his mind? Three reasons come to mind:

First, there seems little point in having Emily Browning play Essie if she was not either meant to be an ancestor of Laura, or at least someone who reminds Mad Sweeney of her. In which case, the coin (in a sense) rightfully belongs to Laura. There's that full circle quality I was talking about: the coin was given to Sweeney by Essie, lost to Shadow, and then returned to an Essie-lookalike.

Second, there's his guilty conscience to consider. As he stands on the road near Laura's corpse, we get a flashback to the last car accident Laura was involved in. As was hinted earlier in the episode (when Sweeney converses with Wednesday's ravens) it was he who caused the accident that originally killed Laura. In his memory of the event he looks remorseful as he stands over her body in the darkness, and it's obvious that he can't bring himself to leave her dead a second time.

Finally, maybe those shippers that popped up last week were onto something. Last week gave us this shot of Laura/Sweeney:

And this week he's given the line: "I'm only taking this detour for you!" to which he quickly adds: "you and that coin in your belly."

And in the seconds before the rabbit rushes out onto the road, he opens up to her about his past and in return gets something vaguely resembling reassurance.

It all fits together beautifully, on so many levels. Fionnula Flanagan played Essie's grandmother, then Essie herself as an old woman – the old woman Laura will never become thanks to Sweeney. In contrast to the way he came to gently claim Essie at the end of her life, back when he wasn't a cynical asshole, it's a measure of how far he's fallen that he murdered her present-day doppelganger, who by a twist of fate is the recipient of the coin given to him by Essie herself.

Returning it to Laura's body is the first step on his road to redemption – and of course, he gets a punch in the face for his troubles. That's how you know you're doing the right thing: you don't get thanked and nobody is grateful.

Yet he doesn't seem that upset – was that a tiny smile on his face as he headed back to the van?

Whatever happens next, he's clearly not taking orders from Wednesday anymore. For better or worse, he's thrown in his lot with Laura.

***

So Mad Sweeney ushers one woman to her death, and reluctantly brings the other back to (undead) life. Essie gave him his lucky coin, Laura refuses to return it. The former loved him, the latter hates his guts, yet between the two women are as many similarities (each had love, each gave it up) as there are distinctions (Essie was a true believer, Laura believes in nothing).

The episode also opens up possibilities for the future. How is Laura going to respond when she finds out Sweeney killed her?

And if the "full circle" theme continues, how beautiful would it be if Sweeney escorts Laura to her eventual death? Or if Laura (who has never believed in anything) ends up with enough faith in Sweeney to give him an edge in the war to come? As Media said last week, all it takes is one.

Miscellaneous Observations:

This was very much a fairy tale, complete with broken promises, seven years of labour, offerings of food, and the fickle fey. As Mad Sweeney tells Essie: "we're like the wind – we blow both ways."

Tolkien would have approved of Sweeney's sad little monologue about how he was once a king, only for his people to devolve into birds and leprechauns and stories thanks to the passage of time and the church's teachings. Tolkien himself wrote a short story with a similar theme: Smith of Wootton Major.

So what was up with the white rabbit? Was it one of Sweeney's creatures (like Wednesday's ravens) or was it "on loan" from a certain goddess we're going to meet next week who has an affinity with animals of the spring? Also, was Sweeney throwing coins out the ice-cream truck payment for the ice-block he takes, or a bribe for the rabbit?

We also learn that he "owes a battle", having fled from one centuries ago after foreseeing his own death in the fire. This doesn't bode well when it comes to his future on the show, but if he has to go, hopefully he'll get to go out on a high. (And yes, I know all about his book fate).

Another sighting of a white buffalo, as originally glimpsed in Shadow's dream.

In her death Laura seems to be gaining a degree of humanity she never had in life: telling Salim to head to the House on the Rock (where the jinn might be waiting) is an act of kindness seemingly brought on by how touched she is at his devotion to God.

We also get a lovely little glimpse of day-to-day life in the Anubis/Ibis household. Whether they're a couple or just lifelong companions, the two of them know each other intimately: Anubis can tell that a story is brewing in Ibis's fingers – just as he knows when the bodies will arrive at his funeral parlour, he having escorted them to their afterlife earlier in the day!

There was one interesting moment in the framing scenes of Ibis telling Essie's story: he seems a little surprised to see Sweeney appear at its inception (approaching the porch and calling Essie by name). It would appear that Ibis doesn't write the stories so much as the stories use him to be written.

Also, was Anubis present when Laura died the second time around? It would seem not, as she wakes up without any sign of having realized she had re-died. I don't know why, but between Ibis glimpsing Sweeney in his story and Anubis being responsible for Laura's death, it feels as though the two of them knew that Laura wouldn't be needing their services that day...

I questioned the decision to have Laura/Emily Browning go obviously bra-less for the duration of this road-trip – but the reason why became clear after the ice-cream crash. Had she been wearing a bra, they couldn't have managed the visual of her chest lying open, her innards exposed.

That also explains her rather stupid decision not to wear a seatbelt. You'd think she would have learned that lesson the hard way.

Apparently Mad Sweeney's Gaelic rant in the middle of the road translated (roughly) to: "Why does this shit happen to me? Have I not suffered enough? I'm not evil! I'm not!" Ow, my heart. But it also makes Laura's ignorance of his emotional plight all the more hilarious given she missed such an outpouring of grief in the moments prior to her resurrection. No wonder he looked so shell-shocked at her indifference.

At first I wasn't sure about the modern music that played over Essie's life story (and there's no way Daddy's Home by Cliff Richards playing over the consummation of Essie's marriage wasn't chosen for maximum squick) but in the end I think it worked well, especially since they switched to traditional Irish music for the three most important parts of her life: her childhood, her discussion with Sweeney in prison, and her death.  

Finally, I can't have been the only one getting a little teary when Sweeney goes to Essie in her old age. The God and the Believer seeing each other face-to-face at last: their discussion on how time has passed them by, their mutual gratefulness for long-ago favours, their need and love for each other. I have no idea what's in store for Sweeney and Laura, but it'll always be marked by this interaction between interdependent equals.