The Link Between Essie and Laura

Published July 15, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys,

Great podcast again this week. Only one episode left!

This episode tied so many things together and I finally fully appreciated the attention to detail they have put in; the recurring lucky 7’s with Laura and Essie, the very subtle nods to history, and what a lovely way to tie Sweeney and Laura together. I do agree that there has been an inconsistency in style all the way through the show. Perhaps what they’re going for is to make each story unique, but I find it a bit distracting.

I have some comments, I have some theories. I have a lot this week.

You guys talked about the link between Essie and Laura and whether she is a descendent or reincarnation. I agree that it’s not really either. The showrunners said that the wanted to show a spark of the same soul. We know that Laura didn’t believe in anything, but she does seem to believe in luck. She shares lots of Essie’s qualities, like a fickleness towards men for example. We even see young Essie paying he loves me, he loves me not. Anyways, Sweeney sees that sparkle in Laura.

When Sweeney is yelling at the sky, he seems to say that she his kin, or more precisely our kin, not the enemy.

Sweeney was given 3 tasks:

Kill Laura. Not actually kill, but to change her luck.
Pick a fight with Shadow
Get to House on the Rock in Wisconsin, where he will stand with Wednesday

So he did the first, he thought. He did the second and lost his coin. The coin brings Laura back and messes up the first thing.

Easter probably thought she was doing him a favour by getting him his coin back. It finally finishes his first task, the minor screw-up from the second is resolved, and he can get on with getting to HotR. Wednesday probably didn’t like the little FU that Sweeney gave him earlier and convinced Easter that intervention was in everyone’s best interest.

But then there’s that damn saxophone again. I have a theory

Because, said Thor, when something goes wrong, the first thing I always think is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time. (Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology)

OK, you are allowed to groan.

It’s clear by now that Wednesday is Odin. Odin’s blood brother and primary nemesis is Loki.

Loki and his children will be there for Ragnarok, the end of everything, and it will not be on the side of the gods of Asgard that they will fight.

We’ve seen a hint of Loki in Shadow’s cellmate, Low Key Lyesmith (Loki lie smith), but then he is conspicuously absent while Odin gathers his troops. Loki was not only there at Ragnarok, he was the cause of it. Seems odd that we’ve only had a whisper of him so far.

Loki walks in the sky with shoes that fly, and he can transform his shape so he looks like other people, or change into animal form, but his real weapon is his mind. He is more cunning, subtler, trickier than any god or giant. Not even Odin is as cunning as Loki. (Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology)

The fly is always around Laura when she seems get a crazy idea: free-base bug spray, rob a casino, and release Salim (conveniently saving him from the crash). The thing about Loki is that his M.O. is planting ideas in people’s heads to manipulate them, that’s what he was doing for 3 years in prison with Shadow, after all.

Back to the sax

The first time we hear that wonky sound is when Shadow and Wednesday have just escaped the police station and are walking down the road, just before Shadow tells Wednesday that Laura’s back. This one really sounds like a fly buzzing.
The next time is during the ice cream truck accident.

It’s possible that the wonky sax is the music for Loki, just as Czernobog has the obo and Sweeney has the lounge-lizard jazz.

So Fly=Loki=Sax?. No more, I promise.

Easter eggs:

Essie’s coin

I traced it back to a 1666 half guinea coin. Essie’s coin may be a slightly later date (c. 1719). Oddly, it has elements of both (possibly a counterfeit coin?)

Significant because this is the first series of coins to ever be machine-milled in England leading to 3 primary outcomes:

The cost of hand-hammering and associated levies were eliminated, implicitly increasing the value
Consistency meant that the coins could be assigned a standard value
Hand-hammered coins were taken out of circulation over the next 40 years

In the book, Shadow makes a comment to Sweeney that his coins are useless because they can’t be converted to cash

White Buffalo

Tatanka Ska is a real thing. The spirit of the land, believed in by the Sioux tribes.

So as the real story goes, there was a white buffalo born on a ranch in Wisconsin that was killed by lightning in 2006. The white buffalo in the real story was a descendant of Miracle Moon, who was the first white buffalo in this line. This particular white buffalo was a male where to this point all white buffalos born had been female. He was also the third white buffalo born on this farm, an extremely auspicious sign from the gods that this was a sign from God. It was named Miracle’s Second Chanceand its birth attracted thousands of Sioux Indians in pilgrimage to the farm. Sadly it was struck by lightning when it was three months old.

Seriously, though…. Miracle, Moon, Second Chance. What are the odds?

This is so crazy that I’m beginning to think the showrunners have pulled a Blair Witch on us and planted some bizarre stories around the web

Isaac Newton

This may be pure rabbit-hole stuff, but I thought there were Newtonian references peppered throughout.

1666 was also the year of Newton’s apple-induced epiphany that is credited with decoupling science from magic and starting the industrial revolution
During Essie’s time, Newton was the Warden and Master of the Royal Mint. He was responsible for moving England to the gold standard and the re-coinage to remove all hand-made coins from circulation
Around the same time Essie and Sweeney were in Newgate prison, Isaac Newton had another man, William Chaloner, charged with coin scamming, counterfeiting, and general conman stuff. Chaloner also sold dildos, just FYI.
And the apples.

Pocahontas
- Essie mention meeting an Indian woman named Susan in the Carolinas.
- Pocahontas is associated with the colonization and settlement of Jamestown, Virginia.
- She married a tobacco farmer name John Rolfe and took the Christian name Rebecca

Finally, I have a question for you and the listeners. Did anyone notice who it was that caught Essie stealing at the market?

I couldn’t place him as one of the other characters we have seen; not the judge, the warden, the sea captain. I also cannot, for the life of me, figure out what he is carrying. It looks like a femur made into a walking stick.

My hopes for the finale are simple. I want to see House on the Rock and even just a glimpse all of the old Gods, including Loki. However, I don’t think that will happen. I think likely what we will get is a build up to it, putting out the glassware and such.

I predict we will see Anansi again and meet Easter, Odin will finesse his sales pitch the new gods will be having their own little huddle somewhere, and Sweeney and Laura will go toward the light. Probably the big reveal will just be to hammer home the fact that Wednesday is Odin.

I also really have my fingers crossed that the credits will roll on Immigrant Song.

My final prediction is that you guys are going to get a crap load of emails this week reacting to Gene’s complete and total lack of emotion.

Lots of love from London,

Jez.

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