American Gods continues the season with episode 7, “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney”, which seemed a little like a standalone episode, but a good one nonetheless.

“The American colonies were as much as a dumping ground as they were an escape”. It is like this that we begin a new chapter of Ibis’ “Coming to America” story. America was in fact the land of dreams, but for some to be living the dream, others would have to work for both themselves and for the dreamers, and that was not forgotten in this episode of American Gods.

In this very peculiar chapter, we meet Essie McGowan and a comparison between her and Laura is inevitable, since they were portrayed by the same actress: they both struggle for the life they think they deserve, neither one of them forgets what matters to them (at least they rarely do), and both of them always seem to want more, no matter how much they have. Something that is also inevitable to compare is their beliefs: Essie seems to fully believe in a lot of things, but mostly leprechauns; while Laura doesn’t believe in anything (at least she didn’t use to, but that is probably different now).

What I enjoyed most about Essie’s character was her belief. As I just said, she believes in a lot of things, but, unlike a lot of people, she doesn’t believe as a hobby. Every day (sometimes maybe more than once a day) she would spare some food, put it on a plate and serve to the leprechauns. Of course this was definitely not a very big deal when she had lots of food to eat, but she didn’t always, and she would still remember them. There were in fact a few occasions in which she forgot this, but not because she kept all the food for herself, but because she was busy. It is probably because of Essie that a certain Irish leprechaun found himself in America. Leprechauns have been nothing but a myth for a long long time and so they would have to follow the believers wherever they went. I also even wonder if the coin that Mad Sweeney says to be his lucky coin (the one that is now inside Laura) isn’t the one that Essie gave him. That would be interesting.

But though there were a lot of scenes from the past, the present was not forgotten. We continued to see the trip that Laura, Salim and Mad Sweeney share. But Salim didn’t stay long in this episode because he was given what he wanted sooner than he expected: the location of the Jinn in House of the Rock. I am not yet sure what this is, but we will probably see it next season. I was told this is an amazing part of the story, so I am looking forward to it.

With Salim gone, Laura and Sweeney continued their journey in an ice cream truck, which was probably great for Laura because her body is rotting really fast. But most journeys have detours and this was no different: because of a little bunny (which means they are close to their destination), the truck crashed. Sweeny was fine, but the same can’t be said for Laura, because her body was opened and the coin jumped out of her. Our favorite leprechaun picked it up and was definitely thinking of just going away, when he looks back and starts thinking of what he should do. And this is the moment we find out that he was actually the one who killed Laura in the first place, by Wednesday’s command. That’s right! Even though Wednesday wasn’t physically in this episode, he will always be the one pulling the strings of the other characters.

It was nice seeing the interaction between Laura and Sweeney, both in the present and past. Both actors do in amazing job (all cast does an amazing job in this show actually). It was curious that the writers made this episode to be the penultimate, because those are usually more shocking episodes that set up the season finale. But Americans Gods is now expected to the unexpected, so we shouldn’t really be shocked about something like this. Of course that I don’t have to say that Wednesday and Shadow were both missed. As much as I like Laura and Mad Sweeny’s interactions, I love Wednesday and Shadow’s relationship more.

This was a good episode, but a bad one by comparison. Even among the greatest of the greats there is one which comes as the worst, and that is the case of “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney”. I am giving it a 7.4/10.

Episode 8, “Come to Jesus”, is the season finale and a new battle between old Gods and new will take place, so don’t miss my next review.