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 S02E10 – “Magnum Opus”
Time for some new slash fanfic!
Sleepy Hollow “Magnum Opus”
Written by Donald Todd
Directed by Doug Aarniokoski
Hey, it’s glowing, that means orcs are nearby!
Abbie and Ichabod are playing an iPhone party game of Who Am I? because FBI profilers do it when stuck on cases. They’ve been relentlessly going over her ancestor’s journal for clues about what will kill Molloch, but are still stuck.
“George Washington? He was our liar in chief!” – Ichabod rants when he finds out the Washington tale of never telling a lie.
Katrina calls the pair by mirror to say she didn’t kill Molloch and he’ll be big enough to take over the planet in like two days, so they need to hurry. Then she has to go. She provides enough of a distraction to Ichabod he can now figure out the obscure clues to determine the goal is Enoch’s Sword, which Henry overhears as he’s spying via the same mirror Katrina used. Sleepy Hollow not only is a nexus for every Revolutionary War and Apocalyptic artifact, but it also has a river that is the exact same shape as the “Join or Die” snake from Franklin’s famous cartoon, a river that hasn’t changed shape in 250 years, and reveals the cartoon is a treasure map to the sword, with the sword being located at the mouth.
Yes, things have gotten that convoluted and wacky, which is why Sleepy Hollow packs in the fun. This episode packs in two extra things that help out a lot: A crazy monster, and the Headless Horseman becoming threatening once again.
Oh, it all makes perfect sense….HUH??????
It’s true this season the Headless Horseman has become the Chump Horseman, spending half his time being tossed around and dismissed by Henry, the rest being played by Katrina. Giving him a head outside of special events was a disappointment, Abraham Van Brunt is too whiny outside of action scenes compared to his Headless Horseman alter ego. When the Headless Horseman was the Headless Horseman, he was a silent threatening figure that you know wanted to kill you. Abraham’s head appearing should only be happening in episodes like this one, where he gets a head due to magic in a cave, allowing him and Ichabod to spar with words as well as sword/axes.
He shouldn’t have worn his smoking jacket! Ha! I kill me! **Special guest caption by ALF**
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Donald Todd, Doug Aarniokoski, John Noble, Katia Winter, Lyndie Greenwood, Neil Jackson, Nicole Beharie, Orlando Jones, Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison
Sleepy Hollow S02E08 – “Heartless”
The truth about Smuckers!
Sleepy Hollow “Heartless”
Written by Albert Kim
Directed by David Boyd
I just want to be like that scene from Temple of Doom!
Sleepy Hollow takes steps forward and steps backwards in an episode that seems like it is on a way to make things cool again, and then tosses it all away with some ridiculous stuff that puts the awful Ichabod and Katrina are having relationship issues thing back on track. Also there is an evil baby, but that’s not the focus this week, it’s a Succubus, who is running around chomping on people who have hidden desires, in order to feed souls to the evil baby. Souls are florescent pink, btw, which means they are probably strawberry flavored. Yummy!
We start with things all cool, with Ichabod and Katrina watching a Bachelor ripoff and arguing about love and who is the guy’s real favorite. They also mention rebuilding their trust. But Henry Parrish is up to no good again, this time using a heart in a jar to summon a nude lady! No, Fox hasn’t yet fulfilled the prophecy from The Simpsons and become a hardcore porn station, Henry just summoned a succubus. She goes out and quickly finds a nerdy victim at a club, easily seducing him to the back of his car for some soul-sucking. And I don’t mean sex.
So the Horseman of War’s defense was that kid’s Halloween game where you stick your hand in a jar of peeled grapes?
Damn, the Succubus is going to wipe out all the tech workers from Sleepy Hollow, preventing the city from cashing in on the Web 3.0 economy and reduce the annual tax revenue by 0.7%! Diabolical!
Oh, wait, she’s just killing dudes and sucking out their souls, which she later barfs into a jar. No problems here, kill away!
The Succubus is played by Caroline Ford, who does a good job considering she has to become a different person each time she seduces someone, to become their heart’s desire of the perfect woman. She also goes full heavy metal demon babe at a few points, complete with giant horns.
Oh, yeah, that hits the spot!
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Categories: Television Reviews Tags: Albert Kim, Caroline Ford, David Boyd, John Noble, Katia Winter, Neil Jackson, Nicole Beharie, Sleepy Hollow, Tom Mison
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
