Why can’t the horse be headless too?
Sleepy Hollow “For the Triumph of Evil…”
Story by Phillip Iscove
Teleplay by Jose Molina
Directed by John F. Showalter
I hate it when I get dirt in my contacts…
“For the Triumph of Evil…” expands the universe of Sleepy Hollow while still giving a mostly contained story. Side characters and back stories are introduced and expanded, and a creepy nightmare villain haunts Abbie Mills. We get more of Abbie’s sister Jenny, who has been in and out of mental institutions thanks to the encounter both girls had as children. Abbie’s lies over the experience literally come back to haunt her.
Overall, this episode was sufficiently creepy, with a dream villain who did disturbing stuff while looking like he stepped out of a Guillermo del Toro film. Ichabod is starting to get some good lines while still getting his required culture shock of the episode. Did I mention people had their eyes turned into exploding sand??? Because that was some freakasaurus rex material right there! Don’t worry, Abbie and Ichabod teaming up with an American Indian used car salesman to go all Dream Warrior on the Sandman is like a low rent Inception.
Just when you think I’m going full Sarah Conner, I’m only in one scene!
The largest strengths is on Abbie’s regret over betraying her sister all those years ago, of covering up that she saw a blurry demon in the woods and letting Jenny be taken away by the men in white suits. Abbie lets slip that they were foster kids that finally had a good home, and it is not hard to realize that after all Abbie went through, she did not want to risk losing her new family, even if it meant losing her sister.
Now, is this a cool thing to do? Heck no, it’s downright terrible. At the very least she should have told her sister to deny deny deny. Or maybe said something like being groggy when they woke up so maybe they were seeing things and Jenny isn’t crazy. Though Jenny gets hauled away very quickly by creepy guys, almost like they were waiting for any excuse to throw a kid in an asylum. The repeated shots of Jenny pleading with her sister to agree with her statement was harrowing, and having that as a memory of a loved one pleading with you would be disturbing. It being on repeat thanks to a dream revenge monster is a nightmare I’m glad I don’t have to live with. Because I betrayed all my siblings while I was in a separate room. Ha ha, suckers! No nightmares for Tars!
From the writers who created those racist Transformers, huh?