Titled: ‘A Prayer for Mad Sweeney’
The episode begins in Ibis and Jacquel’s funeral parlor, where Jacquel is preparing a corpse for burial and Ibis once again takes up his pen to record yet another Coming to America story. This time, he turns to 1721 and introduces the British concept of “transportation.” Many of the previous Coming to America segments have depicted slaves or hopeful immigrants, but if you were convicted in the British courts system, you could avoid prison or even death by choosing to be transported, taking a ship to the Americas, where you could work off your social debt as an indentured servant.
One such indentured servant was Essie McGowan, a young Irish girl who grew up believing all the tales of fairies and pixies and, of course, leprechauns. (In Neil Gaiman’s novel, she’s Essie Tregowan, and she’s Cornish, not Irish.) As Ibis and Jacquel’s ‘60s pop songs play in the background, Ibis recounts the fascinating and strange tale of Essie — who is played, like Laura Moon, by Emily Browning.
The show never makes the connection between Essie and Laura explicitly clear. Perhaps Laura is a direct descendant of Essie. Perhaps it’s just a way for the show to draw parallels between the two women’s stories; after all, Laura and Essie are both ambitious, frequently manipulative young women who aren’t afraid to take advantage of the people around them to get what they want. As Ibis put its: “Malice draped in pretty can get away with murder.”
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