"A Prayer for Mad Sweeney" lets the audience travel to a time and place with people that believe in leprechauns, fairies and mermaids, thus, the story of Mad Sweeney is told by the soft and poetic prose of Mr Ibis as the narrator.
This tale, probably as old as time as others we know, revolves around the life of an Irish country girl, Essie, one that since childhood was told stories of fantastic beings helping humans if humans helped them. But as the child grows magic can't save her and she's blame to be a thief, although innocent at first she becomes the label society put on her, and after years of getting away with her mischief, always trusting in the leprechauns, when she forgets about them she falls in despair again. She gets saved one last time by one that we know well, Mad Sweeney, and then lives her life until she's old and it seems that believing in leprechauns dies with her. As the story is told, Laura Moon or rather Emily Browning, becomes the face of Essie. It's poetic considering Laura is the one alive because a leprechaun's coin gives her power.
In the current time line, Laura is travelling along Mad Sweeney after stealing an ice cream truck and letting Salim go away. What would be considered small talk let the viewer know that Sweeney is Mr Wednesday errand boy, but before more secrets are spilled a rabbit runs across the road and they have an accident. Laura loses control and ends up dead, again. The coin rolls away and when Sweeney has the chance to go away with what he was trying to gain back all this time, he chooses to give it back to her and bring Laura back to life, a second time.
This episode pace is the slowest up to date, the backstory or this tale Mr Ibis narrates might be what we need to see to understand that last moment of compassion Sweeney shows, but spending more than half of an episode in a character that is not as important as the gods doesn't answer the questions that are being asked after the first 6 episode. There's only one episode left before the season ends, and this road trip through The States, following this mythical beings, needs to find a spot to get together, stop and find a new point to move forward with the war Mr Wednesday is carrying on.
Probably next week will answer some questions and leave us with more until the second season airs.
7.5/10
