Every God has a story of how they came to America. This is Mad Sweeney’s. Here’s our recap of “Prayer for Mad Sweeney” and a preview for the season finale, “Come to Jesus”!
{Rated 92% on Rotten Tomatoes}
“Prayer for Mad Sweeney” opens with Anubis and Mr. Ibis in their funeral home. Anubis is preparing a body for viewing and Mr. Ibis is itching to write. They briefly discuss how few lover’s quarrels they get now-a-days before the phone rings, letting Anubis know about two bodies that will be sent his way, even though he already told Ibis they’d be busy tomorrow…probably because he went and collected them earlier?
He sends Mr. Ibis away to write, and this is where we get Mad Sweeney’s Coming to America story. It doesn’t begin in America, though, or even with Sweeney. The story begins in Ireland in 1721 with a young lady named Essie MacGowan.
Essie a young maid in an English household in Ireland. She grew up with her grandmother, watching the sea for her father to return. Her grandmother is the one who passed down the stories of the fairies and leprechauns to her, and she was the one who kept the stories when everyone else forgot them.
As an adult, she would still leave out something for the fairy folk to eat at night, and she told the children of the house the stories her grandmother told her.
Of course, Essie is a beautiful girl and she catches the eye of young man of the house, Bartholomew. Their relationship is brief and puts Essie on a broken path. Bartholomew gives her a family necklace to prove his affection and intentions, but when it comes out that Essie has it, he denies he gave it to her. This causes Essie to be thrown in jail and sentenced to transportation for her crimes.
She survives the journey to America and makes close friends with the Captain of the ship. He keeps her on board and takes her back to London, marries her, and unfortunately has to leave about eight weeks after the wedding to sail back to America.
Essie doesn’t let that get her down, though. She promptly takes all the things she can sell and gets out of there. She doesn’t want to depend on any man.
Over time, Essie stops leaving food for the fairy folk, too.
“The more abundant the blessings. The more we forget to pray.”
She has become a very accomplished thief, but she finally gets caught. When they figure out that she had been sentenced to transportation but she returned without serving it, she knows she’ll be sentenced to death.
Essie meets a very curious person in Newgate prison that offers some good advice about not eating the food, and because of their conversation, she lays bread on the windowsill, an offering for the fairy folk.
The next day, the warden arrives with her last meal and propositions her. She can’t be sentenced to death if she’s pregnant. So, Essie allows the warden to have sex with her, get her pregnant, and in exchange, she’s sentenced again to transportation. This time she makes it across the sea and doesn’t turn around. Essie needs a new life for herself and her child, who seems to have been born on the voyage of shortly after.
In America, she’s sent to serve a man, John Richardson, whose wife died in childbirth. He needs a maid and wet-nurse, and since Essie has a child, too, she fits the bill. Essie takes care of her child and the master’s and tells the children the stories of her homeland…tales of leprechauns.
When John makes advances toward Essie, she tells him that she can’t do that with him because she’s an indentured servant and servants can’t marry. She adopts this persona as a “widow” with morals, and John Richardson buys into it and marries Essie.
The marriage is one of convenience for her, but she does love John in a way, and when he dies ten years into their marriage, she runs the farm as best she can, and she always leaves an offering for the fairy folk.
In her old age, she tells her grandchildren the stories of the fairies and leprechauns.
When she dies, Sweeney is there to take her home.
“If you are who I think you are, I have no quarrel with you.”
‘Nor I with you. although it was you that brought me here. You and a few others like you. Into this land with no time for magic. No place for fairies and such folk.”
“You have done me many a good turn.”
“Good and ill. We’re like the wind–we blow both ways.”
In this touching scene, Sweeney reiterates something Wednesday has said before. The Old Gods took care of their people. They received things, sure, but they gave back to their believers. Essie’s story is often a tragic one, but ultimately, it’s her unwavering faith in the magic of her homeland that saves her…and brings Sweeney to America.
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Meanwhile, in present time…
Wednesday and Shadow are on their way to Kentucky with Laura, Sweeney and Salim on their trail. They stop so that Salim can pray at the birthplace of a white buffalo that was considered sacred by the Lakota. The owner and the buffalo died a year to the day of its birth when they were both struck by lightening.
Sweeney says, “That’s what you get for putting a God in a petting zoo.”
Was the lightening Wednesday? I have to ask because I wouldn’t put it past him.
While Salim prays, Sweeney goes to pee across the road. It’s there that ravens chirp at him and he tells them that he’s going to Wisconsin. He just has to do something first.
Back across the road, Laura asks Salim if he loves God or if he’s in love with God, and Salim tells her that he’s never thought of it like that, but he does love God.
She leaves him to finish praying and tells Sweeney that she thinks they should let Salim go. They’re close enough to finish on their own. Sweeney doesn’t want to let him go because he has to get somewhere after he gets Laura all resurrected.
Sweeney lets it slip that House on the Rock, Wisconsin is where he’s headed, and she runs with it, telling Salim that he’s released from their bargain.
“Fuck off. Go find your man. Your God. Your Jinn.”
Sweeney’s pissed and Laura decides they’ll steal an ice cream truck, because WHY NOT? After punching the guy who’s running the truck, they load up and start on their way.
On the drive, Sweeney’s super cold in their drivable icebox but eats a popsicle anyway. Laura turns one down when offered and says that maybe she’ll have one after his resurrection person does their job. Sweeney tells her that he can and will…for a favor. Not for gold. When she asks where he gets the gold, he tells her that he used to be a King. She doesn’t really believe him.
Sweeney then digs a little deeper and admits that a long time ago he was supposed to go to battle. Except, the night before, he looked into the fire in camp and saw his death, so he didn’t show up. This makes him indebted to Wednesday.
“I owe a battle.”
“You’re following Wednesday so that you can fight in his war and die and for that you run his errands?”
“I done worse than that.”
Then a cute little bunny runs across the road, and Laura swerves to avoid hitting it…
After the truck flips, Sweeney gets out and sees Laura laid out on the pavement. This time she’s really dead because the coin is out on road beside her. Sweeney picks it up and as he starts to walk away, he changes his mind.
We’re flashbacked to the night Laura was killed in the car crash with Robbie. Sweeney is there to collect her and ravens squak in the trees above her dead body. He looks up at them and says:
“Tell him. Tell him it’s done.”
Now we know that Sweeney must have been working under Wednesday’s orders, but why kill Laura?
Back in the present, Sweeney yells Gaelic into the air before he sits the coin on Laura’s chest. Her body absorbs the coin once more and she’s alive…for now.
Once she’s up, she flips up the ice cream truck and they get in and on their way again.
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The finale of American Gods is Sunday, and we’ll see Wednesday and Shadow reach out to another Old God that may help them against the New Gods as war looms on the horizon. Take a look at “Come to Jesus”.
On the eve of war, Mr. Wednesday must recruit one more Old God: Ostara, né Easter, Goddess of the Dawn But winning her over will require making a good impression, and that is where Mr. Nancy comes in. {Via STARZ}
We’re so excited for the season finale of American Gods. Check out the clips from the episode and stills below to prepare yourself for “Come to Jesus”!
American Gods airs Sundays at 9/8c on STARZ! Be sure to live tweet with us @WeSoNerdy!