Sleepy Hollow S02E12 – “Paradise Lost”
Ohhhh, he’s an angel. Because I didn’t get that.
Sleepy Hollow “Paradise Lost”
Written by M. Raven Metzner
Directed by Russell Fine
Hey, we only have room for ONE headless guy in this series, bub!
Sleepy Hollow jumps ship from it’s plotlines and starts a new thread, in a neat mid-season reboot of everything that causes characters to reflect on their life while still showing the scattered remains of a cancelled Apocalypse. The switch up is rather refreshing, both because it was so unexpected and because the end of the world danger was moving too fast to begin with. We were still down two Horsemen and five years before things are supposed to transpire. So even though I don’t trust this reboot, that’s long enough to have several other reboots that get the End of Days back on track.
Ichabod, Abbie, Jenny, and Katrina awaken by the four white trees to find Moloch’s head lying in a pile of ash, no sign of Henry, and the end of the world postponed for now. Six weeks later, things are still quite, though Ichabod and Abbie are still looking for any clue they can possibly find to show evil is still present in the city. It’s enough that Ichabod takes the slightest clue of a rotten fruit as evidence of occult activity, though in this case it shows there is strange goings on at a farm.
Mystery Ferret!
A Doomsday Cult run by actual demons (called the Devoli), who are searching for their master, Moloch. Ichabod and Abbie’s interruption of their activities are also interrupted by a random Angel named Orion, who slays one of the demons. He claims to have been trapped in Purgatory since the Revolutionary Times, where he was slain by the Headless Horseman back when he had a head, and only just now escaped Purgatory along with a lot of other people and things, including the Devoli. Orion claims to be the only one of the angels who goes to directly fight evil, and admires that the two Witnesses (Abbie and Ichabod) did more than just witness the end, but actively fought it. Of course, we all know this angel is going to be more than he appears, and it turns out he’s a rather single-minded destroyer of evil who has gone too far, and wants to steal the powers of the Horseman of Death for his own to purge mankind of wickedness.
This better be the real non-GMO organic or I’ll cut you!
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Jennifer, Katia Winter, Lyndie Greenwood, M. Raven Metzner, Matt Barr, Max Brown, Neil Jackson, Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones, Russell Fine, Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison
Sleepy Hollow S02E11 – “The Akeda”
Frank Irving needs a glowing sword in every episode!
Sleepy Hollow “The Akeda”
Written by Mark Goffman
Directed by Dwight Little
90% of this show is people hiding behind trees
At times Sleepy Hollow defies expectations. So when the seven year long prophecy that has become the founding mythology of the show gets tossed on its ear, the fun is only about to begin. “The Akeda” will have consequences that flow into the rest of the series. The episode’s fundamental changes to the series are lessened by one twist being telegraphed too far in advance, and another being far less of a twist than advertised. Still, things get tore up, and our intrepid band of heroes face a daunting trial as the End of Days begins. And yet, they still spend an awful long time dawdling while supposedly on a time crunch. With this mid-season finale coming in at episode 11, it appears either the arc got squished a bit or dragged out some. Regardless, this episode was full of fun (and sorrow), becoming a kicking rad endpoint that is only the end of the beginning.
It’s Apocalypse Now! Molloch has risen, while Abbie and Ichabod rush with Methuselah’s Sword to strike Molloch down. But lightning takes out their car, and the phone that would call a cab. Darn that lightning! Luckily, motorcycles are now immune to lightning, but unluckily where they think Molloch is being risen, he ain’t. They do find and rescue Katrina, and at the same time capturing the Headless Horseman thanks to Methuselah’s Sword. The only problem is, the Headless Horseman reveals that if they use the sword to kill, the bearer of the sword will also die.
Thus begins one of several delays as they spend time making sure the sword will really do that, coming up with a plan to deal with that fact. The solution comes in the form of former Captain Frank Irving, who has already lost his soul and thus can’t sacrifice his soul and life via the sword. They also delay getting more weapons from Nick Hawley, and Ichabod and Katrina have some more wedding bickering as their relationship is still in rough seas. Katrina giving praises to the captive Headless Horseman Abraham van Brunt is also not well received.
Okay, okay, this is the last 50 Shades of Grey joke, I swear!
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Dwight Little, John Noble, Katia Winter, Lyndie Greenwood, Mark Goffman, Matt Barr, Neil Jackson, Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones, Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison
Sleepy Hollow S02E09 – “Mama”
Fake! This is faker than that “Moon landing” footage the government released!
Sleepy Hollow “Mama”
Written by Damian Kindler
Directed by Wendey Stanzler
Just wait until we find out our dad is also a ghost!
Sleepy Hollow raises the bar this season with a disturbingly great episode that features some frank depictions of mental illness and suicide, in addition to having demons and ghosts running around. Somehow the balancing act works just fine, and the added heart-string tugs of Abbie and Jenny’s mom being one of the ghosts leads to some great bonding and background information about the Mills sisters.
What we do know of Abbie and Jenny’s mom before this episode wasn’t much. We know she has issues and was eventually committed to an asylum (the responding officer has become the new Sheriff), and Abbie and Jenny were then dumped into the foster system, leading to their rift. We know she had died, I can’t remember if it was specifically stated that she killed herself, but I think so. And because of all the strange and spooky stuff that has happened on the series, it is understood if not specifically stated that she might have been less crazy than it seemed. That turns out to be true, and we get to see a whole lot more of Lori Mills, including interactions with her daughters as they grew up as well as the spectral version running around the asylum.
My favorite part of this episode is them instantly recognizing what this random jumble means!
Patient bodies are piling up at Tarrytown, the psychiatric hospital that Frank Irving is currently staying at and Jenny Mills and Lori Mills are former patients of. Three bodies in three days, all of which are suicides. Abbie is specifically assigned by Sheriff Reyes because of her knowledge of dealing with weird events, as demonstrated by the doomsday cult she helped bring in. Her family connection to the place is also a plus, and it means Jenny will be along to help, as she’s familiar with the location.
Ichabod is MIA because he has a cold, which leads to some cute character moments and him mentioning that he fought at Saratoga while having dysentery. But he’s no match for being sneakily drugged by Nick Hawley, who tags along. A view of the video of the latest suicide shows the room wasn’t empty when he died, there was someone in the corner. Thanks to the magic of the cameras having a night view mode (Enhance! ENHANCE!) we see the ghost of Lori Mills chanting in the corner!
Why did mom want us to watch this video of a cat playing a keyboard???
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Sleepy Hollow S02E06 – “And the Abyss Gazes Back”
Best screenshot of the season!
Sleepy Hollow “And the Abyss Gazes Back”
Written by Heather V. Regnier
Directed by Doug Aarniokoski
Help the deer are fighting back!
With the sixth episode of the season, Sleepy Hollow manages to give us some good crazy as well as character development and even ensures the yet another additional character they introduced won’t be in every episode to take time away from the actual stars. Plus, it brought back the phrase “double jugs”, and if Sleepy Hollow is cancelled tomorrow, it can reflect on a job well done based on that alone! As a bonus, we get Ichabod not only doing yoga, but also playing video games!
And the Abyss Gazes Back brings some focus on a character who is often mentioned but never seen on Sleepy Hollow, Sheriff Corbin. Partially because he was killed in the pilot. But Corbin has remained a presence on the show regardless, as his hobby of collecting weird stories and artifacts has given the heroes a treasure trove of information that has aided their fight. He also mentored a young Abbie Mills, putting her on the straight and narrow path that led to her becoming a police officer. And he used Jenny Mills to acquire artifacts by more black book dirty methods, which is part of the reason she’s a badass. Despite that Corbin himself has barely appeared on the show, and we really know nothing about the man. Now we learn that he has a son named Joe Corbin. A son old enough to have signed up for the marines and gotten stationed in Afghanistan. A son that doesn’t particularly care for his father, feeling he spent too little attention on him and too much attention on Abbie Mills. As Abbie used to babysit for Joe, his resentment against her is a new development she has to now deal with.
Once again important monster information is conveyed in hand drawn form…
The monster of the week is everyone’s favorite American Indian skinwalker legend, the Wendigo! Which if you haven’t figured out by now will be Joe Corbin, then you haven’t been paying attention that much. It becomes very clear very fast after the first attack that he’s the monster, as he’s the only survivor and is ranting catatonically. The Wendigo is depicted as a monstrous man beast with big antlers, making it look like this week’s Sleepy Hollow would be right at home as an episode of Hannibal!
Wait, this isn’t an incantation, some high school student is calling his teacher a perv!
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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 S02E04 – “Go Where I Send Thee…”
Yes, Ichabod, contaminate the bone evidence of murder with your DNA!
Sleepy Hollow “Go Where I Send Thee…”
Written by Damian Kindler
Directed by Doug Aarniokoski
Frank Irving is trapped in a generic movie poster!
If there is one thing Sleepy Hollow is good for, it’s providing completely crazy monster scenarios. This weeks episode, “Go Where I Send Thee…”, is a prime example, thanks to a demonic Pied Piper who dates back to the Revolutionary War. How often do you see demonic Pied Pipers on your television screen? And yet, Sleepy Hollow does so brazenly, and it fits right in with their on-going mythos, to the point where no one is batting an eye!
The Pied Piper is the monster of the week, and he’s kidnapping a young girl as part of a family curse that has been happening for generations. Like all the prior family curses on Sleepy Hollow, it all dates back to the Revolutionary War period. Fake Revolutionary Daniel Forbes Lancaster (who Ichabod explains joined the rebellion only after it was apparent the Colonials would win) had a British detachment of troops staying in his house, which got a little too grabby with his daughters. So he hired a local demonic Pied Piper assassin to kill them. I guess back in the 1700s, you could just hire demonic fairy tale assassins with relative ease. In any event, after the Pied Piper slayed all the troops (in super fast cool knife fighting moves!), Daniel Lancaster has the demonic Pied Piper shot with arrows and dumped in a lake. This betrayal doesn’t end well, because demonic powered assassins tend to not stay dead, and he returns every generation to abduct a female member of the Lancaster family on her 10th birthday.
First of all, why would you betray a demon-powered assassin? That’s just looking for trouble. Secondly, why would you betray one with a Pied Piper theme, since the town’s betrayal of the Pied Piper in the original tale ended badly? It’s like he’s too stupid and arrogant to learn the morals of these fairy tales. And the Lancaster family now has trouble for generations. Good going, moron!
Look, there are a thousand variations of “Abbie gives Ichabod a bone” jokes I could make, or I could go so meta I’m beyond the joke while still making it. I choose the latter!
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Damian Kindler, Doug Aarniokoski, Francie Swift, John Noble, Matt Barr, Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones, Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison
