Sleepy Hollow S02E07 – “Deliverance”
Babies bring such joy into the world…
Sleepy Hollow “Deliverance”
Written by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves
Directed by Nick Copus
Fist bump for being back on track!
Every science fiction series seems to do a demon baby episode, to the point where it’s more interesting when the pregnancies produce normal babies with no real problems. On that note, Sleepy Hollow‘s demon baby episode was surprisingly sound, because it was less about the demon baby and more about everything else. With the End of Days/Book of Revelation texts that Sleepy Hollow is cribbing off of already featuring birth sections, it’s only natural that one of the ways the demon Molloch would try to enter into the world would be out of a woman’s vagina. But Molloch must learn the way of the modern day society, which is a woman’s body is her business, and no demon who mysteriously has the same opinion as conservative Republicans has the right to intrude on anyone’s uterus.
Aside from the demon baby story, Deliverance follows the threads from prior episodes of Ichabod and Katrina having relationship issues because her entire life is one gigantic lie of things she hasn’t informed Ichabod of. There’s the dealing with the new Sheriff and her dislike for Abbie, and we find out exactly what the mysterious jincan poison is being used for. Though despite Ichabod’s declaration just last week that he’s not going to give up on his son (it’s even included in the recap!), he still needs further pushing by Katrina.
I can read that stone tablet, it’s got an additional 5 Commandments!
But enough of that plot stuff, it’s time for the fun! We start out with Ichabod delivering a hilarious rant about the abysmal voting rates, followed by Abbie owning him by pointing out that as a Black woman, it took two Constitutional Amendments for her to be able to vote. Ichabod also concedes that since she doesn’t own large tracts of land, she’d be turned away for that back in colonial times. And there’s a hilarious “Shush!”ing of Ichabod as he tries to give Abbie suggestions on what to vote for inside the polling place.
Katrina opens by dreaming of being in bed with Ichabod just before he left for war the last time. They speak of what their children will be like, sort of ironic because soon after she has Jeremy, who becomes Henry Parrish, Horseman of the Apocalypse. And she’ll get preggers in this episode, with demon baby Molloch, though not by any natural means. Her dream becomes a spider-spitting face-ripping-off nightmare before she awakens.
This week the vital clues were rendered in ink instead of pencil, what a twist!
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Sleepy Hollow S02E05 – “The Weeping Lady”
BP strikes again!
Sleepy Hollow “The Weeping Lady”
Written by M. Raven Metzner
Directed by Larry Teng
I’m not crazy, and I’ll eat the liver of anyone who disagrees!
Sleepy Hollow has seen all manner of monsters run around in the small town, every single one of which somehow has roots to the Revolutionary War and Ichabod Crane. Once again that happens, as the angry wet haired Japanese ghost gets a colonial makeover and causes trouble for Abbie, Ichabod, and Katrina.
While the monster gives Abbie and Ichabod something new to fight this week, the reasoning for the monsters appearance cause some unneeded cracks into existing relationships that feel so obviously forced that they are distracting. The ghost lady killing people is an old acquaintance of Ichabod’s, particularly she was his betrothed back in England, though he canceled the engagement upon journeying to America. Mary Wells followed him there, popping up while he was chatting with Katrina (back when she was still engaged to Abraham Van Brunt, Ichabod’s best friend and eventual Headless Horseman), and goes immediately crazy with jealously and throws out stalker vibes. She disappeared the next day, Ichabod thinking she returned to England thanks to a note. But that turns out to be a lie, Mary Wells actually accidentally died in a scuffle with Katrina, and became a vengeful ghost of legend called the Weeping Lady, who has haunted Sleepy Hollow for 230 years.
She is brought back by Henry Parrish and specifically targets any woman around Ichabod, first attacking Miss Caroline – the Colonial fanlady that makes Ichabod’s clothes (and also wants to jump his Colonial bones!), who turns up in the river. Abbie declares that Miss Caroline “had a case of Crane on the brain”, giving a name to the obsession of many Tumblr fans. The Weeping Lady next attacks Abbie, because Abbie is always next to Ichabod and it looks a little weird (even Miss Caroline thinks Abbie was his girlfriend!) Though Nick Hawley is also in the library, because of course he is, and he knows mouth to mouth so can save Abbie, because of course he does. Hawley is basically the guy you get assigned to your group in school who is too cool to do the actual work, but smart enough to already know everything and his lack of helping is more frustrating that if he was just a dolt who tried but knew nothing.
Sexual tension!
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Derek Mears, John Noble, Katia Winter, Larry Teng, Laura Spencer, Lyndie Greenwood, M. Raven Metzner, Matt Barr, Neil Jackson, Nicole Beharie, Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison
Sleepy Hollow S02E02 – “The Kindred”
Headless Horseman, He-Man, I’ll defeat them all!
Sleepy Hollow “The Kindred”
Written by Mark Goffman and Albert Kim
Directed by Paul Edwards
When horses get LASIK!
Sleepy Hollow both returns to bringing us monsters while continuing the Apocalypse storyline and tying up some of the loose ends that still dangled after the season premiere. We get introductions to new characters and begin the plot lines that will take us through the rest of the year.
The most important thing that happens in this episode is the monster, which seems not to be the case, but it is. The monster, called The Kindred, is created from parts of dead soldiers from the Revolutionary War. It was originally build by Ben Franklin (Timothy Busfield reprises the role, though with clothes this time!) but never finished. Abbie and Ichabod manage to finish the monster using the head of the Headless Horseman. The Kindred is said to be the match of the Horsemen of Death, and is seen fighting the Headless Horseman to a standstill. But as there are two Horsemen of the Apocalypse running around, the Kindred is outmatched, though Abbie helps a bit during the fight. What is interesting is the Kindred also helps Abbie, and seems to know the plan of the heroes, and most importantly, does not die at the end of the episode. In fact, the Kindred escapes into the unknown, so there is a random unknown monster running around.
This show put 2/3rds of its black characters in jail in this episode!
The Kindred is important for several reasons. His origin as the result of a Frankenstein creation of dead body parts parallels Sleepy Hollow being the creation of a bunch of goofy science fiction and fantasy tropes that somehow work together into making an awesome monster of crazy. The Kindred grins and hisses at his friends, and knows their plans, helping them achieving it will providing an equal to the might of the supernatural Horsemen. Thus, I’m predicting random Kindred appearances throughout the series when the plot dictates that the main characters have to overcome something that should kill them. It’s also important that this is the first monster who isn’t killed or defeated in some manner. He escapes on his own terms after accomplishing his goals. Perhaps the writers realized that killing off all their monsters of the week was bad, because you can’t use them again. It shows how the monsters have grown to be a bigger part of Sleepy Hollow and are becoming entrenched in the mythology of the series.
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Sleepy Hollow S02E01 – “This Is War”
Hey, bring that sword a bit closer, I got some s’mores to make!
Sleepy Hollow “This Is War”
Written by Mark Goffman
Directed by Ken Olin
I’m hunting vampires now?
Sleepy Hollow is back! Huzzah and all that Ren Faire stuff! When last we left Ichabod, Abbie, Captain Irving, Katrina, Jenny, and the rest of the crew, we had a whole bajillion cliffhangers and bad endings for everyone involved. In fact, there are so many lingering plot threads that the season premiere doesn’t even resolve them all! But it resolves some, and does so with both guns blasting away, ramping up the crazy yet again.
Sleepy Hollow was by far my favorite new show of last year, and I’m going to continue the weekly recap/reviews, because I like them and I like the show. That’s pretty much why we do anything here at TarsTarkas.NET. I’m just going to assume you know who all the major characters are by now, as this is season 2, and there is a whole season of things to refresh your mind on if you need a recharge. As so much stuff happened, this will be more recappy than I hope to do for the season. But be aware that things start off crazy and then get nuts, so it’s all awesome and Sleepy Hollow is still going strong!
Last time, Ichabod and Katrina’s unknown son Jeremy Crane was revealed to be still alive and really occasional helper character, Sin-Eater Henry Parrish. Also, Parrish is evil and is the Second Horseman of the Apocalypse, War. And he trapped Ichabod in a coffin and buried him underground. Abbie is trapped in Purgatory, which you can’t leave unless someone takes your place. She stayed because they saved Ichabod’s wife, Katrina, who is now given to the Headless Horseman as a prize. Jenny Mills was last seen unmoving and bloody under a car wreck, fate unknown. And Captain Irving had confessed to murder to protect his daughter (who was possessed at the time) because the dumbest police detectives in the world were going to build a case that a tiny girl in a wheelchair somehow snapped the neck of a full grown man based on her DNA being on the body. Basically, there is doom and gloom for everyone, especially since Henry Parrish opens the Second Seal and brings the End of Days that much closer to happening.
Now we know why he’s on the 100 dollar bill, wowza!
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Derek Mears, John Cho, John Noble, Katia Winter, Ken Olin, Lyndie Greenwood, Mark Goffman, Neil Jackson, Nicole Beharie, Timothy Busfield, Tom Mison
