‘A Prayer For Mad Sweeney’ Is My Favorite Episode

Published July 15, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi all,

Thanks for the podcast, which I listen to religiously after watching each episode. It’s really fun to listen to three guys who hardly agree on anything and finding oneself agreeing with points from all of them.

That said, on to Mad Sweeney. I have to say, that this is probably my favorite episode so far, which may come as a surprise to some. Granted, Emily Browning doesn’t bother me at all, and the accents didn’t irk me much, possibly helped by the fact that I’m not a native speaker of english. But mostly it’s my favorite because I felt that at last they managed to do what the series has promised.

I’ve been a bit ambivalent towards this series, always waiting for it to get going. And unlike many, the pilot episode left me a bit lukewarm. Mostly it had to do with the viking scenes and the prison scenes, that I felt were lazily done, full of cliches and bad acting. I understand that skinheads in wifebeaters standing in a group with a constipated mean face is a comfortable shorthand for the hard life in prison Shadow had to deal with, but it’s also an extremely corny and lazy cliche that drags the quality down. It wasn’t until Ian McShane appeared that things got going. Another thing that bothered me with the pilot, and also in subsequent episodes, was that the stylistic flourishes didn’t always feel natural to the story, but sometimes felt tacked on and I at least felt like the filmmakers didn’t entirely trust the story or their audience. Which is never a good thing. Still, there was something compelling there that kept me watching. Subsequent episodes showed glimpses: good storytelling in parts, but meandering in places. The stylistic flourishes toned down a bit, but never meshed entirely with the storytelling. And that’s the reason why I liked this episode so much: Gaimans strength as a writer lies in the stories he spins, he is always careful not to let the style get in the way of a good yarn. and not to let the story wither away due to a lack of style. And for the first time, I felt that in this episode the storytelling and the style meshed almost completely as a whole. Sure there were some bits and pieces one can criticize, like the overabundance of red hair (again, lazy shorthand…), but overall they managed to tell a good story with flair. They tried it as well in the Laura episode, but the story there just wasn’t as compelling. I doubt next episode will be more of the same, we will probably return to the style of prior Shadow/Wednesday-episodes, and I’m at least hoping for a good ending.

So, these are my five cents.

Sincerely,
Guðmundur
(good luck with the pronounciation, it’s icelandic…) 😉

Subscribe Now